#they would REALLY fuck around and find out Becuase they claim to be doing all of this for Elon musk??

[mugiwara-lucy]

I remember when MAGA used to bitch about Shitbreak being “witch hunted” and having a “weaponized DOJ after him”:

This sure smells like ACTUAL weaponization of the DOJ to me. And I love how they’re going after the NON WHITE women yet ignore Bernie Sanders even though he’s been JUST AS INFLUENTIAL.

If they fuck with AOC and Jasmine Crockett I have a feeling it would backfire HARD because people from other countries have said they’d fire back at them because charms how much they hate Donald Trump and ESPECIALLY Elon Musk.

[thegnomelord]

Shark

- 🦈

(Brainrot time! Blame dougielovelove for their new work. Had a bit of a bad day and i usually dont write spicy things

This one can be set in monster au. Readers a captain of a whole different task force meant for oceanic endevours. Im talkin the readers a shark hybird (biased) their lieutenant a whale hybird, sergent an orca or a pufferfish, their newest recurits a fuckin salmon, the works.

They're close knit, heck even poly if you want. Price and the Reader meet through connections with Laswell. They find out they hav the same target, price is stubborn and wont drop the mission, despite how most of his team is not suited for water.

Reader respects it and they work really well together. A bit too well, even to the point theyre considering merging the teams.

Completely honest, Price is starting to fall for their fellow captain. I mean how can you not, they've swooped in and saved them countless times, preventing the oceans waters from completely swallowing them in the dark abyss.

Not to mention his sergents and lieutenant are just the cutest, so eager to do well and work together with his own. Just protective instincts, hit him to the point hes pickin everyone up and scentin them. They're his hoard now.

Reader and Price are settleing paper work in his office. Readers busy writing down important information and signing off reports, but price cant help but stare. How swift his hands move as each words is made and written, how tight his claws grip the pen with every small minisucle flick of the pen.

He hiccups a small flame when their fellow captain decided to extravagantly spin his pen when he trys to recall the missing info. How smooth it moves between his blackened fingers, swirling and turning flipping all between nimble and flexible rough- and hes hard.

Reader realizes Price is distracted, before he can call out their name, he glances down just to see whats got him so wrapped up in his mind.

Now all i can think about is Reader forcing Price to focus and finish his paperwork while hes got both his assets shoved up his ass. Price is just a mess, making his paperwork a completely unusable. Yet, the reader still wants him to finish, becuase if he dosent Price definitely wont.

Or they decide to have some fun, release the pent up desire the poor dragons been keeping buried. A soilder be it 141 or be from the readers own team, walks in. Can't help but love how the stoic draconic captain looks so small and pathetic under his co-leader. Joining in on the fun just to see how wrecked this great leader can get.)

Okay, this is cool and my horny is up but I made a few changes as I like characters to be more mythological and just animal hybrids, though those are cool too

CW:NSFW, quick and rough, subbot Price, Gaz, Oc sergeant, domtop reader

Price loves you. But you are one cruel bastard.

Those big rough hands of yours trace his taught belly, webbed fingers making a shiver crawl up his spine and stealing what little thoughts are left in his head as one of your hands trails down the smooth scales of his tail. "Come on dear captain, just a few more pages to go." You purr, chest rumbling against his back like the thrum of an engine, your lips tickling his pointy earlobe.

Price swears he's going to die; pants around his ankles and legs spread, stretched so wide on both of your shafts he can feel your heartbeat by the way your cocks twitch against his walls, each labored breath making his hole clench down desperately, his own hard cocks left hard and unattended.

It would be one thing if you claimed him like he wants you to, pushed him flat on the desk and fucked into him like he's nothing but a bitch to pump full of your cum.

But you don't. You just sitting inside him, hard and throbbing and still despite how much he tries to tempt you by clenching down. Price finds himself cursing the amount of patience you have.

"Sweetheart," He groans, voice too light and whiny for his own ears, head thrown back to give you a heatless glare. "C'mon, don't tease me." Price tries to grind his hips down but you hold him firm.

"Not until you finish those reports." You grunt, authoritative, and Price is stuck between wanting to bite you in revenge and trying to stifle a pathetic whine. "Go on, you only have a few pages left."

Those damn reports. Price can barely read his own handwriting, a light tremor in his fingers from the way your cocks press against his prostate. "Cruel bastard." He growls, sucking in a breath and clenching around you.

His chest flares with pride the second your claws dig into his body, not even your mind able to hold back the animalistic need to buck into the tight willing heat surrounding you. But it's a double edged sword — a hiccup of flame sparks from his mouth, your cockheads bumping his prostate and making a bead of precum spurt from his cocks.

"As if you're any better." You growl in his ear, your hair tickling his skin as you roughly nip at his though hide, pleasure and pain loosing their borders in his mind.

He doesn't notice the nicking on the door, but Price is ready for hell to swallow up when he finally registers the door open, his blue eyes rising to meet Sullivan — your hippocampus sergeant — who looks just as mortified to walk in on you like that as Price.

Sullivan's dark horse ears flicker back, the iridescent scales along his cheeks turning from ocean green to a vibrant embarrassed pink, "I- is this, this a- I can leave if, if, if- this looks like a-" The poor man stumbles over his words, eyes bouncing between Price's debauched form and your amused face.

It gets worse when Gaz pokes his head in behind Sullivan, "Hey captains are you-" His jaw falls, pupils dilating like he's a crow that just saw a shinny penny. "-oh."

You just chuckle, rough voice putting Sullivan at ease. "At ease boys," You snort, don't even attempt to hide anything, one hand sliding down to stroke his cock, so slick with his precum that his shaft slides through your hand just from you squeezing it. "Need something boys?"

Even from here Price can see the way Sullivan's eyes darken as well at the deep moan that tumbles out of Price's throat and Price has to bite his lip to keep the noises in check.

"I-" Sullivan sucks in a breath, scales slowly turning to the shade of an overcooked lobster. "I. . . I forgot."

"Can we join?" Gaz asks, chuckling at Sullivan's wide-eyed look. "What? As you weren't thinking it." He shrugs and places a kiss on his cheek when Sully nods meekly.

"I don't know." You hum, letting go of Price's cock to tilt his head to you, meeting his eyes. "Do you want your boys to help you keep focused?"

Price swallows, knows that all that awaits him should he accept would be pleasurable torture, but his bones burn with the need to have his hoard close to him, taking care of him for a change. "Yeah," He growls, less whiny and more demanding.

You hum and roll the chair back to create space for the two men beneath the table, "On your knees." You don't miss the way the authority in your voice makes both men shiver.

"You heard him," Gaz grins and pulls Sullivan towards you two by the hand, reminding you more of a puppy than any harpy as he happily gets on his knees.

Your gaze skirts to Sullivan as he tentatively settles on Gaz's right, pitch black eyes hidden behind that fringe you keep telling him to cut. "You alright with this Sully?" You ask, knowing the man's sexual experience is limited to one girlfriend and your team, and even then he's shy about many acts. "You don't need to do something you're unsure about. No one is going to be mad."

"I, yes. I want this." He swallows, looking back at you. "I, uh. . . I got some pointers." He says shily.

Gaz just snickers and throws his arm over Sullivan's shoulder. "I helped," He says proudly, wing spreading out to wrap around Sully's back.

"Rubbing off on my sergeant already huh?" You snort, your attention turning to Price when he growls, capturing his lips in a kiss to placate his demanding draconic side while your hand lets go of his cocks — an open offering to the two sergeants.

"Only in a good way." Gaz grins and leans in, opening his mouth and pink little tongue lolling out to lick at one leaking cock like he knows Price likes, lips wrapping around the tapered head and sucking on it, amusement bubbling in his chest when you hold Price's hips firm so he can't buck up.

Sullivan follows suit, less confident but still willing, holding the other cock in his smooth scalled hand and tentatively giving the crown a kiss, dark eyes watching both of your reactions as he slowly trails kisses around the cumhole, growing bolder with every small whimper until he's gently suckling on the tip like Gaz had done.

"You're doing good Sully," You praise, even your voice is hoarse from the way Price squeezes down on you now that the two sergeants are servicing his cocks. "You too Gaz." You reach down to gently pet his hair so Kyle doesn't feel left out, "Both of you, so good for me and Price."

Price, for his sake, may as well be a mindless animal from the way his brain is steadily melting out of his cocks like a lit candle, moaning low in his throat, his eyes closed to just feel the pleasure that's assaulting him on both ends. He can tell the difference between Gaz's and Sullivan's mouths, the duality of firm swipes of the tongue across his shaft and the kitten licks on his most sensitive parts making his head swim, hips trying uselessly to fuck into the hot mouths and your own cocks.

He whines when you grip his hips firmly. "No," You snort, both arms keeping his hips still so he can do nothing but endure. "You're not getting off until the job's finished."

Price shivers, "Bastard." He growls weakly, his eyesight blurry as he tries to focus on the document.

"Pot, kettle." You grin against his skin, helping guide his arm towards the documents where he left off. "C'mon, it's just a few pages, then your sergeants will be able to reward you fully."

[tinyboxxtink]

"Black Magic" *Part 11*

Ooops I MAY have lied before....

More angst comin 'atcha babes.

I'm sorry. We're getting there, I promise. I just love watching you cryyyyy!!!

I'm just kidding I love you all please don't stop reading my stuff.

(fun fact these are Raul's actual hands! It's from a LOF promo. THE FINGIES THO)

Tag List

@bookishfanfic

@stars-in-the-skies-world

@omgsuperstarg

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@gibbs274

@milkshqke

@wanniiieeee

@word-scribbless

@objection-argumentative

@aprildecker-blog

@lolliepopsicle

@madamsnape921

@stars-trash-18

@sassyada

So weird note here it won't let me edit this post on my computer for some reason to add the link to the new chapter and it looks stupid in the app but whatever....I hate this place sometimes. 🤨

You went the next day straight to Rafael’s office, but when you walked into the DA’s building, it was empty. What the hell was happening? Has the whole world gone nuts?

Before you turned to leave, one of the other assistant’s came out of the public bathroom.

“Hey YN, didn’t you get fired?”

“No-- Yes-- It’s a long story,”

“Well either way, I thought for sure you'd be the first one over to the church,” She chuckled.

“I'm sorry, what?” You felt your heart stop.

“The church? Where your subject of obsession is getting married?”

“I'm sorry, WHAT?”

“People talk, Y/N. Word is you’re obsessed with Barba, screaming at him and his fiancée like an unhinged psycho,” She tried not to laugh at you.

“I…” You began to have another panic attack.

“He can't ..how did she...he CAN'T….” You started hyperventilating.

“Ooookay I'm gonna leave you here for your mental breakdown. She scoffed and walked out. You immediately bolted out behind her, dialing Maria’s number, thanking God she gave it to you the other day.

“Hola?”

"Maria he's….he's getting married,” You gasped for air.

“Y/N? What are you talking about?”

“Rafael….he’s getting…” You tried to breathe. “He’s getting married, RIGHT NOW.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Raffi would never rush into something so--”

“You said it yourself Maria, that’s NOT Rafael,”

“You’re right. Well if there’s any trace of my Raffi, there’s only one church he’d get married at. I’ll text you the address and meet you there.”

“Okay…” You started to cry as you caught your breath.

“Hey, mija don’t give up yet, it’s not over!” Maria assured you.

“Okay…” You breathed, and hung up the phone.

-----

At the church you and Maria dashed around to find the groomsman room. You found it and Maria guarded the door.

You busted in without knocking to see Rafael straightening his tie, his tuxedo jacket hung on the mirror. He turned and stared at you in confusion.

“I...I’m sorry sweetie, are you lost?” He had concerns in his eyes. Concern for a ‘stranger’. You hoped it was because he knew you deep down, but you also knew Rafael was just a wonderful man who cared for all.

“You can't marry her Rafael” You said breathlessly, tired from running around the church.

“I’m sorry, what?” He half laughed, grabbing his jacket to put it on. You put a hand up to stop him.

“Because you don't love her,”

“I don't? Really?” He gave you an amused smile.

“No! She's using some kind of spell on you.” You cried.

“...Okay, is this some kind of prank? Is this Carisi’s idea of a joke?” Rafael continued to laugh, looking down the hall to see if Carisi was waiting to yell “GOTCHA COUNSELOR!”

“No, look you have to believe me. She’s been giving you an elixir that makes you think you’re in love with her.”

“...Um, okay seriously, this isn’t funny anymore sweetie,” He stopped laughing.

“I’m not kidding!” You stomped your foot,

“Look honey I’m-- I’m sorry, you must be confused. Did you come here with someone or--?” He put on a patronizing voice.

“I’m not some mental patient Rafael, l'm Y/N! Don’t you remember me? Look at me!” You stepped in front of the mirror.

“....No, I can’t say that I do. Really sweetie you need to--”

“STOP calling me sweetie. STOP patronizing me, and fucking LISTEN to me!!!!”

“...Okay, fine. Then I’m sorry you crazy person, but get the hell out of my dressing room,” He turned serious.

“No! Look listen to me Rafael, you don’t love Liv. She has you under some kind of bat crap crazy concoction of spells to keep you under her control!”

“Okay you’re ACTUALLY insane, how the hell did you get in here?”

“I came with Maria,”

“Maria? How do you know Maria? Oh did MARIA put you up to this?! God I know she was pissed I told her not to come, but to send a mental patient--”

“I’m not a fucking mental patient!” You yelled.

“And I’M not under some kind of bizarre spell,” He yelled back.

“Ok then….why do you think you feel stronger and stronger about Olivia every day?” You asked.

“Are you kidding me? Um sweetheart that's what you call being in love. You fall more and more everyday.” he scoffed.

“Not like that and you know it.” You challenged. “It doesn’t feel like that, I know it doesn’t. I KNOW you find it weird,”

“You don’t know anything about me. I love Liv and--”

“Then why are you doing this SO fast?” You cut him off.

“Excuse me?”

“You barely proposed to her a few days ago-- which by the way, NOT your idea,” You rolled your eyes.

“Wow...you are really...are you stalking me or something?” He narrowed his eyes.

“No, but I know you. You wouldn’t just rush into something like this,” You told him.

“It’s not rushing, honey. We’ve known each other for YEARS,” He scoffed with a laugh.

“Then why? Why now? Why is it SO urgent that you get married RIGHT now?!” You stomped your foot.

“BECUASE I LOVE HER YOU FUCKING PSYCHO!!” He screamed in your face angrily.

“No, you don’t! You didn’t take her to Maria, you didn’t take her to your special place. But you took me,” You didn't back down, you matched his volume as tears lined your eyes.

“And why would I do that? Because I was in love with you? Did I just forget an entire relationship with someone I’ve never met?” He was still yelling.

“No I--” You looked down in shame.

“You what?” He crossed his arms.

“.....I used it first,” You said softly.

“Excuse me?“

“I used it first, okay?” You said tears in your eyes. “I used an enhancement spell on you that made you fall in love with me for a day,”

“Ohhhh I SEE,” he chuckled mockingly. “So what you’re really saying is Olivia is playing your game, just better?”

“NO!” You screamed. “No, the stuff I used only enhanced stuff you already felt. Hers FABRICATED them. And I only used them for ONE DAY, because I love you enough to not want to keep you for myself if it’s not real,”

“But you just claimed it was real,” he pointed out.

“I didn’t know that at the time-- LOOK,” You grabbed his hands. “The only thing that matters is that Olivia is trapping you,”

“With magic.” He looked at you again with amusement.

“Yeah…” You didn’t like this.

“That I assume she got from you?” He nodded at you.

“No she used black magic, I used good magic,”

“Oh right right, the good magic that manipulates feelings. Of course,” He nodded sarcastically.

“Dammit Rafael I’m telling you the truth! I know the real you is there, deep down somewhere. I know he is and I know how he feels about me.

“Right...look you need to let this insane crush of yours go, lady. I don’t know how you know who I am, but I have zero clue who you are,”

“That's not true. I know that's not true,”

“Oh really?” He laughed sarcastically.

“You look like a penguin,” You simply said.

“I'm sorry, what?” He continued to laugh mockingly.

“You look like a penguin,” You looked into his eyes, trying to distract him so you could pour the vial you had in your bra into his coffee next to the mirror.

So now you're just resulting to insulting me? Look you--- Oh my god what the FUCK are you doing?!” He grabbed your hand before you reached the cup. He held it and stared wide eyed at the pink vial.

“What the FUCK is wrong with you? Did...Did some criminals send you? The Diablos have pretty girls doing their dirty work for them?”

“What? No--”

“Ohhh wait,” He became sarcastic again. “So you try and counteract ‘Evil’ Olivia’s ‘magic’ with your own ‘good’ magic, is that it?”

“...I mean--”

“Alright I was tolerating you before, but if you don’t leave RIGHT now, I’m going to call security.” He swiped the vial from you and smashed it on the ground.

“NO!!!!” You dropped to your knees in devastation. That was the one thing-- the ONE thing, besides--- Well, there was no fucking way you were getting anywhere near his lips at this point. You racked your brain, trying to think of something, anything.

“....Your middle name is Eduardo,” You said softly, still on your knees.

“...What did you just say?” Rafael’s face went from amused to shock.

“Your middle name is Eduardo. You tell everybody that it's Antonio but really it's Eduardo. You don't want anybody to know your real middle name because it’s your father’s name,”

“How did you--” He tried to ask but you weren’t done.

“Eduardo used to beat you and because of that you hate him and you don't want anything to be associated with him.” You stood up, not breaking eye contact.

“....How the hell… “ He looked at you. “...You DID use magic didn’t you?” Rafael gasped.

“Yes but I--”

“You used magic to read my mind didn’t you? You used it to manipulate me and try and use my deepest secret into trying to make me think I loved you." He looked at you in disgust.

"No, it's not--" You tried to explain, but Rafael wouldn't stop.

"...That we had this perfect day together, that-- that what I bared my soul to you because I was so safe with you? So IN LOVE with you?" He spat.

"You ARE!!!!" You were crying now.

“Alright that’s it I’m calling security….” He muttered angrily.

“No! Wait, Rafael please...just….just look into my eyes,” you begged. Maybe if he stared at you, he’d remember that day when you held him and planted that memory. You went to grab his hands but he pushed you away from him.

“Get the hell away from me you psycho! SECURITY!” He moved past you and opened the door. “SECURITY!”

“No! Rafael! Please, oh god please, please PLEASE you have to remember. Remember I told you about my Broadway dream, just like yours” He was looking down the hall for a security guard, you were still yelling at him.

“Stop it.” He tried ignoring your words while looking both ways down the halls.

“...And and I told you about how my parents died and you said that you used to play and dance and sing at your abuela’s house because it was the only place you felt safe--”

“STOP IT!” He threw his hands over his ears.

“And then you told me that it wasn't until you met me that you felt that safe again. With ME!!!!” You were sobbing now, trying to get him to remember.

“SHUT UP!!!!!” He screamed, his eyes flashed a bright neon purple. Suddenly two men grabbed either of your arms and started dragging you away.

“Look, Rafael--” You fought the security guards.

"What?" Rafael held up his hand for the guards to stop and let you talk.

"Just answer me this: Even if, EVEN IF you think that I-- I used some mind control and 'took' that memory from you-- have you told Liv?"

"Told Liv what?"

"That story, that memory. Your real middle name!" You felt fresh tears falling, and you swear you saw the purple fade for a moment in Rafael's eyes.

"...Of course I have--" He shook his head with a sarcastic laugh.

"No you haven't. I know you haven't, because I straight up ASKED her what your middle name was, and she said it was Antonio," You smirked at him.

"Well, that's because I haven't had a chance to tell her--"

"You can lie to me all you want Rafael, but you need to really ask yourself why haven't you told her? In the YEARS that you've been 'in love'? Why have you never felt safe enough with her to tell her your deepest darkest shame? Does that sound like 'true love' to you? Does that even compute with what you THINK you feel about her?"

Rafael eyes darted back and forth, purple and blue swirled around violently as he took in your words. But he fought them, and shook it out of his head.

"Whatever, stop trying to play mind games with me you witch," He waved his hands for the guards to take you away, but you added one last thing:

“I’m going to go to your favorite spot in the city, the one place you go to when you’ve had a really long day or a bad day in court. If you go there, and I’m there-- you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

“Yeah, OKAY. He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be busy getting married, psychopath,” He nodded for the men to drag you out but you broke free and walked out yourself, at least you’d have dignity.

You walked out of the church and broke down in tears. Both Maria and Chloe were waiting for you, they ran to hug you as you fell down sobbing.

“Aw honey, oh baby--” Maria held you while you cried.

“We--We have to go,” You tried to get yourself under control.

“Go? Go Where?” Chloe looked at you confused.

“Central Park,” You simply said.

You had to believe in your love now. That’s all you had left.

[gallavictorious]

I really wish people would stop excusing their favorite character's actions with convoluted theories instead of just accepting that their faves aren't perfect. Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop. Especially not to Mickey's face, when Mickey is in the middle of trying to deal with the complicated feelings he has about the father that raped him by proxy and tried to actually murder him. It's ok to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here" and not make it into a shitty father competition.

And I really wish people would refrain from making groundless assumptions and recognize that trying to understand a character's motivation for doing something does not equal taking a stance on whether or not the action discussed is morally sound but alas, nonnie, we live in an imperfect world.

For those just turning in, this ask was received in response to my addition to this post.

Now, nonnie, if I understand you correctly, you disapprove of what I wrote because you see it as 1, an attempt to excuse Ian's behavior because 2, he's my favourite character and 3, therefore I can't stand to have him do something wrong. You also think that, no matter his motivations, Ian shouldn't be comparing Frank to Terry. Below, I'll quickly refutate points 2 and 3, as well as detail the difference between explanations and excuses and – hopefully – demonstrate why you can't with any sort of certainty claim that the offending post is an example of the latter. I will not really engage with the question of whether or not Ian was wrong for saying what he did, because (as we shall return to forthwith) that was not the issue originally discussed, it doesn't actually interest me, and as you do not offer any sort of reasoning for your moral judgment there really isn't anything for me to work with there anyway.

Strap in, kids; it's another long one.

Let's start with your claim that Ian is my favourite. I'm not actually going to spell it out there, but instead direct you to paragraphs 3-7 of this post. A little lazy, perhaps, but I'm sure you can appreciate why I have limited time to point out the same basic flaws twice in a fairly short period of time. (Should I pin a pic of me holding up a little sign reading ”Actually, Mickey is my favourite, even though I love Ian too” to the top of my blog? Would that be helpful?)

Moving on to point 3, I do agree with the general notion that it's fine to accept that the characters we love (no matter who that character is) are flawed and make mistakes! If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on Ian and Mickey – or if you had, you know, just asked – instead of jumping to completely unsubstantiated conclusions based on a single post, you might even have realized that them being fucked up and making fucked up choices from time to time is one of the things I find most compelling about them. They are messy and complicated and human, and I love that. I neither think nor want either of them to perfect, because perfection is unrealistic is static is boring.

With that out of the way, let's get to excuses versus explanations. If one confuses the two, any attempt to discuss or explain a persons behavior will be construed as an attempt to excuse it, but to understand something and to condone it are actually two different things.

For instance, I can explain and understand why Mickey acted the way he did in 3x09, but still think kicking Ian in the face was wrong. I can explain and understand why Ian called Mickey a coward and a pussy in 4x11 but still think he was wrong for doing so. Do you see? Understanding – or trying to understand – why someone did something is not the same as saying that what they did was okay. Understanding the reasons for someone's actions might lessen the severity of our condemnation (for instance, stealing is generally considered wrong, but most of use would agree that stealing bread to feed your kid is less wrong than stealing bread because you're too stingy to pay for it) or might remove condemnation entirely (hitting someone because you are angry with them is wrong, hitting someone as part of consensual BDSM sex is fine), but understanding an action does not automatically lead to declaring said action morally correct. In short, ”why did X do Y” and ”was X right or wrong do to Y” are two different questions, and the fact that our answer to the second question often is at least partly dependent on our understanding of the first does not change that.

So explanations and excuses are not the same. And yet, sometimes the reasons for doing something (or failing to do something) are offered up as an excuse; as a reason why someone should not be held responsible for their actions, or why they were correct in performing/not performing them in the first place. That neatly leads us to the question of whether or not that's what's actually happening in the post you took exception to. And the answer to that is... you can't know. What boys-night and I discuss in the post is what Ian is actually doing (is he trying to compare trauma och convince Mickey he had it worse) and why he is doing it; that is, we are trying to understand and explain his behavior. Neither of us make any sort of statement on whether or not he was right or wrong for saying or doing what he did: that's just not the topic of conversation. Now, maybe I do think his motivations means that he's morally justified in what he said; maybe I don't. My point is that you can't know that just from what you've read in the post. You might draw some tentative conclusions, and they may be correct, but you don't know, and the reasonable and responsible way to go from there is to seek clarification by asking (polite) questions, not aggressively throwing around accusations about others grasping for straws in a despertae attempt to exonerate their favorites from wrongdoing.

(And just to remind you, even if I were making excuses for Ian, it wouldn't be because he's my favourite or becuase I can't bear to have him do wrong.)

You are perfectly free to disagree with any of the points made in the post, by the way, but you need to recognize that what we're disagreeing on then is motivation, not morality.

And, oh, of course it would have been okay to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here", but that's not what Ian did. Now, if you are happy to go ”ah, Ian fucked up, he's not perfect” and move on, that's fine. You do you, nonnie, and if analysis and discussion of character motivations isn't your jam then it isn't and I'm sure no one is going to force you to engage in it. (And if they try to, you can simply say ”I don't care” and walk away.) However, to be perfectly honest I am a bit perplexed that you should be so indignant over other fans trying to make sense of his actions. Do you still feel that way now that you – hopefully – understand that trying to explain a characters' behavior doesn't necessarily mean trying to excuse it? I mean, surely you are aware of the fact that people usually have reasons for acting the way they do, even if the way they act is shitty or misguided? (Note that I'm not saying that Ian's actions were shitty and misguided. That is not the discussion we're having.) I am rather curious, actually, as to what you think Ian's motivations were? Do you imagine he was deliberatedly diminishing Mickey's trauma? Why, if so? Do you perhaps think that he is obsessed with being The Most Victim and thus takes every opportunity to list all the ways Frank sucked? Or maybe that his mouth just moves without any thought or reason and the words just randomly happened?

To be fair, it seems that Ian's motivations is not something you consider relevant: you write that ”Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop.” And that's absolutely a moral stance you can take, albeit certainly not the only one. Maybe Ian shouldn't have said what he said Had you given any reasons for this verdict, I might even have agreed with you because I can think of several reasons why it might be better if Ian refrained from comparing Terry and Frank, no matter his motivations. (And I might not, because I can also think of several reasons why such a comparision might be justified, even though Terry is clearly the more evil of the two.) However, we shall never know, because you fail to back up your claim. I guess that's because you deem it self-evident? It is not, and until you provide any sort of reasoning for your grand proclamation, I won't engage with the question. Not going to shadow-box with you, nonnie, or do your work for you; if you want a discussion, make your case properly. Though maybe make it elsewhere – as previously noted, passing judgement on the characters is not my primary interest when discussing them. I am much more intrigued by trying to understand why characters do and say what they do and say.

Phew. Okay, that's me done, I think. I realize that you might not be very impressed with this answer, nonnie, but I hope it may to some degree reassure you that no sneaky attempt to excuse my favourite character's actions with convoluted theories was made by this humble blogger. Not this time, at least.

[currentfandomkick]

Bio! Dad Strange Part 5

Some paris update again with more Rogue shenanigans. Heads up, this is more a ‘i decided everyone can be complex and get along somewhat so im altering character dynamics from cannon to my prefrence’

When Marinette and Max and Nino ended up in Chloe’s class the trio made a simple pack on sight—aviod her at all costs.

Why?

Max is fairly certain Marinette is some type of meta. Fairly. She’s still the only person on his level close to his age, so he isnt saying anything.

Nino doesnt share this suspicion, but she’s close with Sabrina, who’s dad keeps checking in on him and Marinette’s family way more than the other stidents at Dupont. Nino doesnt like this, and by proxy, Chloe is horrible.

Marinette thinks Chloe and Sabrina could out her and aviods them to prevent this.

Their teacher sees this and decides to ignore the mandate to keep Max and Marinette And Chloe and Sabrina as science partners in every situation by switching things up.

Max hates working with Chloe—she keeps foddling and talking about fashion when its chemistry class. Focus on the lesson you heathen

Marinette works well with Sabrina (both organized) but she is extremely uncomfortabke with this as Raincomprix starts asking her for help on cases out in the open. Woth science and she has to fake not knowing about them. He takes forever to catch on that her mom doesnt know, and would be pissed if she knew.

Raincomprix then uses his daughter as an inbetween for his and marinette’s joint ‘solve the coldcase’ game. Sabrina gets involved to practice english and science, and finds out she’s good at finding overlooked clues.

As you can guess, this leads to Sabrina and Chloe joining the group.

Marinette and chloe talk fashion sometimes, Chloe critics her color pallettes and stitches. Also her choice to use rogues as inspiration becuase “arent they bad guys?”

“Eh? I think theyre just bad at getting the help they need.”

“Didnt joker kill people?”

“That was mostly mr. J. Easy mistake.”

“...okay...”

This curbs a decent amount of Chloe’s bullyign early on. Chloe is not borderline meta in this, just fixated on fashion to an insane degree—she knows everything about all aspects of the industry but cant design from scratch. Her mom looks down on her for this.

Chloe is also how the group know of ‘adrikins’ who is her prince and will marry her someday or be her forever family, uncertain which.

Alix gets along well with chloe as she needs someone to be salty with when Kim is being an idiot and Marinette is too nice and it goes over Max’s head and Nino is... there is some doubt if he’s scared of Kim or just really respects him.

Sabrina and Max cannot be left alone under any circumstances though. They will try to outsmart each other. Sabrina via legal things, Max via facts and trivia. Marinette is used as their buffer, much to her frustration as she does have designing to do guys!

Kim is showing signs of a crush. Marinette has not noticed as has a secret identity to keep, rogue family to manage from another country, other people’s secret identites to keep (she blames Tim.) so many languages to learn and practice and to top it off, friends to keep from killing each other during school. She has a lot on her plate, ok?

So that summer was more rogue sheneigans and dodging heroes while being herself and forcing her Father to cook with her—mostly Great Uncle Wang’s recipes.

“I am being bossed around by a child. In my own kitchen.”

“You were the one that claimed me as yours. I demand compensation in bonding time.”

“Uh, Mr. Smith was it? My neice suggested a aimple soup seeing as you are a... novice.”

This lead to an oddity for the Science Rogues—Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Strange and Riddler—getting into cooking wars. Only the RKC knew how and Not one of them would spill, only looking at Marinette who was smiling as she said “my great uncle did that!”

This also left the four with less plotting to destroy gotham time. It worked out for the most part.

If she got bored (and she does) she visits Ivy and helps out in the greenhouse or her the wayne’s gardens. Rose now has her own plants sprawling about gotham (marinette dropped fast grow seeds) so she can escape the Greenhouse and move about Gotham without mama bear Ivy trying to take over the city while looking for her teen-appearing child.

Frost was busy with college and so was Ghoul, so she hung out more with Puzzles due to proximity. Puzzles got it in his head to prank Hero Stalker and Batman. Marinette tried to talk him out of it, she did.

It failed. And somehow it was a night with Batgirl and Nightwing/old Robin trying to help Batman with his grief over the last robin who died. The new robin had yet to be revealed, but she noticed hero stalker was more motivated lately. She knew she couldnt stop him—he’s a year older than her and probably rich. (And she’s not supposed to exist...)

So Puzzles pretends to be Riddler and lures them into an old tv set. They were not expecting it to be a hideout for a gang.

And if Marinette was in an old Harley Quinn outfit with a hammer her size to match, well... disguise?

Harley realized what was happening when she checked the groupchat and no one knew where they pair was until Rose was pestered for a bit to have her plants check.

They went into a drug den and the batfam was with them. Fuck.

Puzzles and her get out of there when the realize what’s up. Why? Guns and not being invulnerable.

Marinette is worried though and hides and may hit one of the armed men hard enough to fly across the room.

Puzzles stares at her. She flies to tackle him and grumbles about sunlight messing with her meds again.

Nightwing caught that, realizes who knock off harley is, and guns for the kids. Only there are more goons now and—shit. Where did the kids go?

Batfam took down the gang.

Harley is seen in her car a few blocks away with... are those kids? It trends on social media that Harley has a daughter who’s grounded for messing amwith gangs.

The Council meets to scold Marinette and try to get the story straight.

Dent snorts when he finds out they were just going to silly string the batfam and slime them on camera. The camera was busted in the fight though...

Hero stalker freaks out about the whole thing and tells the pair off. “You almost died!”

“He said my dad was dumb! It was a matter of honor!”

Hero stalker is Done with Puzzles and tries to talk sense into Marinette, who says its her job to keep him from dying, ok?

Hero Stalker/Tim is upset but kind of gets it from watching Batman. Sometimes your partner does dumb things and you have to keep them safe y going along with the dumb thing.

Riddler puts them in a puzzle maze for a week. Marinette figures it out and goes in and out of it to make it look like she’s still trapped.

Strange rolls his eyes as yes, this is his daughter. Yes, she is smarter than Riddler.

Ed Nygma the other hand is keeping Puzzles grounded for another week. He lets Marinette visit to check up on his and Riddler’s states since they share a body and all.

Harley is still lecturing Marinette and gets her to agree shell at least tell Rose when something is up from then on.

Rose puts a plant on marinette. I am not joking, she puts a vine on marinette’s arm to keep her safe and make her take her meds since “you cant fly otherwise nets. And put in your earplugs!”

At somepoint there may be a case of music master making an appearance, but idk if it should be marinette is immune due to earplugs or marinette gets dragged into being seen by the league AND rogues at once and they bith try to grab a very freaked out Marinette who flies back to france where Max is mid-panic since she needs someone to talk to and uh, she figures he knows most of it so, help. She needs logic and hers is shot at the moment.

Next time we get more of a quick fic on marinette’s training with Zsasz as a kid.

[m4delin]

Well, what will Illinois do if Yancy decides to be around him anyways, even though he hates him? Something just draws him to Illinois and he doesn’t know what. Illinois getting paranoid when he sees the first stages of a crush on him from Yancy

I don’t think it would happen, but let’s go with this anyway becuase this is such delicious angst and I love exploring all routes for stories.

.

It would begin sometime after quite some fights Illinois and Yancy had. Yancy are so angry and frustrated at Illinois. When he first saw Illinois, he thought that he was a decent guy, and then he turned out to be an asshole? Yancy are very rarely wrong in his judgement of people.

And then he sees the other egos being friends with Illinois. Well, more of a cautious and careful friendship, but some of them clearly jokes around and are good friends with him.

It’s only with Yancy Illinois picks fights with. Yancy doesn’t understand why and when he asks the other egos, they shrug and claim that they don’t know. He knows that they are lying but he can’t press them for any information. Yancy did corner Host about it, but Host looked at him as blood started to appear on his bandages and he asked Yancy if that knowledge was really worth it.

Yancy didn’t understand but something told him that he didn’t want to know. So he didn’t ask about it anymore.

But he find himself catching Illinois at times where Illinois haven’t noticed him yet. The smiles and laughs, no matter how rare they are, convinces Yancy that Illinois aren’t who he first appeared to be. He wants to know the real Illinois and within time, finds himself with a crush on the strange adventurer.

Illinois tries not to chase Yancy away from the Manor, so he has to cool it down and ignore Yancy when they are in the same room when others are there. Beside a few passing comments here and there. But he doesn’t understand when Yancy starts walking into the same room when Illinois are alone.

Illinois tries to chase him away, but it gets harder and harder and one day Illinois fell asleep on the couch. When he Wakes up, Yancy are standing over him, just finished tucking him in. Illinois smiles softly at him and mumbles a sleepy but loving “hey” to him. When Yancy’s eyes widens and a blush rapidly appears on his cheeks, Illinois knows he has fucked up.

He sits up, pushes past Yancy and runs to his room. And panics. It gets worse when he hears a knock on his door and Yancy’s voice “Illinois?”. So he forces himself up on his feet and slams his hands against the closed door and threatens to kill Yancy if he doesn’t step away from the door. Yancy does what he’s told.

Later, Illinois asks Host if he can take away Yancy’s feelings towards him.

[fuck-miniladd]

This post is a few days late since I already wrote it out but then lost all of it and I didn’t really feel like writing the entire essay again, but I feel obligated as someone who has a “Mini Ladd” hate blog, so here it is.

Three days ago, some drama went down in the BBS fandom, primaliry between MiniLadd AKA Craig and TheGamingTerroriser AKA Brian. What I’m going to do in the post is present all the posts and explain in depth why Craig is the worst.

It all started when Craig tweeted this:  

Before I start saying anything, let’s just make it clear that there was no reason to “clear” any air at all. The rumor Craig mentioned hasn’t been something that people were spreading a lot or even mentioning to be honest. As someone who went out of their way to try to find information about why Craig left, I feel it’s safe to say that not many people blamed anyone for anything and that it wasn’t even on anyones mind. It’s old news. No one really even cared about it anymore. He randomly brought up old drama for seemingly no reason at all. Moving on, there’s a lot to unpack in this tweet so I’ll be dividing the note he sent into bits and explain my point of view of things with the help of Brian’s side (which he tweeted later). You can find Brian’s full response here. It’s important you read this before coming to any conclusions, I will be using information from it (but I will also explain it so no need to read it before reading this).

So let’s take a look at Craig’s firs tweet, here is how it starts off:

This first line alone already sits uncomfortably and seems to have an ulterior motive. As I said before, it’s something really random to even bring up. Other than that, the way he phrased the rumor, “I hate everyone I used to play with”, frames it in a way where this story only has one side. If the rumor is only that Craig hates other people, all he has to do is explain/prove that he doesn’t hate them. This leaves no place for any other point of views. This would be fine if that’s all there was to this, and if he didn’t blame Brian for everything. The rumor is more “MiniLadd isn’t friends with some of the members of the group anymore” and less “MiniLadd hates them”, which seems like a minor difference, but in reality, it both manages to eliminate other peoples’ point of view and paint himself as the victim. Also notice how he says “everyone I used to play with” and not “the old group” or something along those lines, which if you know Craig well, you know he’s always had an issue with calling the group “a group”, mostly because he felt like he was under Vanoss AKA Evan’s shadow (you can search MiniLadd’s twitter for key words “Vanoss” or “group” and you’ll see tweets regarding this point) which is just another shitty personality trait he has.

Now Craig begins explaining himself, and holy shit do I have things to say about this:

Craig claims that the main clash is between himself and Brian (true) and that it happened over a year ago at E3 when Brian made fun of Craig by saying, and here’s a “near quote”: “it’s so sad you’re too fucked up to take a joke anymore”. Of course that if this was true, then Craig has every right to not want to talk to Brian anymore, but since I’ve been following both of them for a while now, I can say that this doesn’t sound accurate or like Brian at all. Brian also retweeted Craig’s tweet and said that the quote he put is “pure slander” and that he’d never make fun of anyone’s mental health.

Of course, up to here we have no way of really knowing the truth, but if you read Brian’s point of view, things start to make more sense. Let’s start with the fact that this is exactly around the time Brian’s dad passed away. This information isn’t hidden and you can see the dates add up by checking when E3 was and by checking Brian’s old twitter posts where he talks about it. Now I find it extremley hard to believe Brian said what Craig claims he said in the first place, but if you add the fact that Brian himself wasn’t in his best mental state, it makes even less sense for him to make a comment like that. Why would someone who he himself is having a hard time mentally and knows how it feels make fun of someone else at the same time? Brian also explains the whole story (from his point of view) which seems to make sense and explain a lot. I will try to present Brian’s story shortly right now.

According to Brian, he bumped into Craig at at the E3 Monstercat party. After the party, he took an Uber with Craig and Wildcat AKA Tyler to someone’s house. In the Uber, Tyler made some joke about Craig’s ferrari (yes he owns a ferrari... and you want it say he isn’t a dick?) to which Brian joined, because you know, friends make fun of each other all the time. Fast forward, they reach their destination. Brian says that a lot of people needed to use the bathroom, so he made a joke saying he’ll pee in the pool and pulled down his pants and pretended to pee in it. So far sounds a lot like how I’d expect an after party of a bunch of 20 somethings to go. Brian says that later, Craig went up to his girlfriend who was alone in her room, and when he came back down he made it seem that Brian and his girlfriend (Lanai) were unwelcome, so they left. Brian claims that he believed everything was fine and maybe he just misinterpeted what was going on. Moving on to the next day, apparently the group wanted to have a dinner together becuase they rarely all meet up together. Craig took it upon himself to make the reservation, where he invited everyone but Brian and his girlfriend. Brian only found out about the dinner three hours before when BasicallyIDoWrk AKA Marcel found out that he wasn’t invited and brought it to his attention. When Marcel asked Craig why he left Brian out, Craig said he’d tell him over dinner (which confirms that he did it on purpose and didn’t have any intent on adding him). During dinner, Craig explained that the night before Brian was making everything awkward for everyone else with the Ferrai joke and pool joke specifically. After dinner, Brian and his girlfriend went to a party that all his friends attended, including Mini. In the party, Mini approached him with a half-hearted “Hi”, which upset Brian because it made it clear to him Craig wasn’t aware of how upset Brian was over the way Mini handled things up to this point. Brian explained to Mini that if he did anything that upset him, he should’ve just told him and he would’ve stopped and even apologized. Brian had no way of really knowing that his jokes made Craig feel awkward or uncomfortable, and since they’re friends, he’d expect Craig to tell him that. Since they’re friends, again, not inviting him to a dinner with all his friends that happens maybe every 4 years instead of just talking about it normally was just extremely immature, selfish and straight up cruel (my words, not Brian’s). Craig interjected with “I have so much in my mind right now” to which Brian replied with “We all have things going on in our life”. (Get ready for this next part because it literally shook me) then, Craig said “but Brian, my dog just died” to which Brian replied with “Craig, my dad just died but that doesn’t give me the right to take my frustrations out on everyone else because of my own personal grievances and use that as a reasonable excuse for my actions. I can’t tell what’s going on in your brain, no one can. Unless you tell me about your personal issues, how can I tell that you’re sensitive to jokes we are making that we think are all in good fun but unaware to me, it’s upsetting you? You can’t hold that against me as if I am attacking you and being a dick on purpose because I don’t lnow what’s going on inside your brain.” Let’s make it clear that I don’t believe this is exactly what was said, but I do believe this is much closer to the truth than “it’s so sad you’re too fucked up to take a joke anymore”. It’s a realisitic response to a realistic story that’s backed up by facts we can easily check. I would also like to add the fact Brian mentioned specifically Tyler and especially Marcel in the story. Marcel’s role in Brian’s story is crucial, and I doubt Brian would lie that he was part of it. If that part of the story didn’t happen, Marcel can just call Brian out for it (I don’t expect him to join in on the drama, but if something like that didn’t really happen I’d expect at least Mini to call it out and ask Marcel for back up). It’s also important to note that Marcel is still playing a lot with Brian and seems to still be good friends with him, while he doesn’t seem to really be in contact with Mini and Mini also didn’t mention him in his dumb rant about how he still has friends (more on that later), which leads me to the solid conclusion that if he were to take a side, it would be Brian’s, and that what Brian said was true. Moving on, Brian said he ended the conversation and not Mini like he claimed he did. This one point is something that I won’t say much about because it doesn’t really have much importance to the story overall, but I would like to say that Craig saying he is the one who stopped the conversation because he “couldn’t take this”, wether it’s true or not (it’s not), is another way he paints himself as the victim and righteous one. Craig then says he told Brian if he wants to apologize to him he can come to him. Brian says that Craig passed this message onto him through Marcel, which again adding Marcel into the mix makes Brian’s story more believable. That last line was also used by Craig to make himself seem like a good guy. Then Craig says he reached out to Brian when he was at Tyler’s house to which Brian didn’t reply. Brian explained he chose to ignore it because it didn’t feel sincere, which it probably wasn’t: Tyler and everyone else who was at Tyler’s probably encouraged Craig to send Brian a message because they obviously don’t want their friends in a feud. After reading Brian’s post, things seem to make more sense. Brian’s side is more believable in every single possible way, so by now I’m convinced that that’s almost exactly what happened.

Finally I can move on to the next paragraph Craig wrote:

He says Brian has made it seem like Craig hates everyone on his streams. Are you serious Craig? Brian replied to this claim with video proof (notice it’s not in chronological order. If anyone has any questions about this point DM me) of what really happened. I already made a seperate post (linked later) about this, but to summarise it shortly, Craig brought the subject up in one of his streams first in a rude way that was pretty insulting to the group (he also made it seem himself that he wasn’t really their friend anymore by saying “they still play Gmod?”. A friend would know something like that...). There’s a lot more to say about that video but as I already said I already made a post about that so you can go check that out. Anyways, after this happend, Brian commented on the feud in one of his livestreams because the chat kept spamming about it. Brian only mentioned the things Craig mentioned, so it’s obvious he didn’t even want to talk about it and he only did because Craig already “revealed” some information about it. Now Craig talks about how he still meets up with some of the guys which is boring and dumb. He also mentions Evan and says they’re good friends which is funny considering this post and how he was always, and probably still is, extremley jealous of Evan (check Craig’s twitter for “Vanoss” or “group”).

The next paragraph is the continuation of the previous one:

Ok ya you still have friends whatever. Then he blames Brian again that he spread the rumor by saying Mini “ditched everyone”. If you look at the streams Brian (and I) linked you can see exactly what was said, and that if anyone started a rumor it was Mini himself. Then he once again pretends to be the good guy in this whole scenario by wishing Brian all the best and what not.

Now comes my favorite part:

Craig says he wanted to let the world know, which is just hilarious because he later claims he wanted it to be private but couldn’t because Brian wasn’t answering, so he completly contardicted himself in the span of an hour or two (also known as lying, in this case, to look good). To make this even better, he only said he wanted it to be private when Nogla AKA David mentioned it here:

For context, this is what Craig commented on Brian’s post (as in Brian’s retweet of Craig’s first tweet. It’s the fourth screenshot I shared). Also here’s Brian’s reply to it because it’s solid:

Going back to David’s reply, Craig replied to him by saying that Brian’s side of the story is on Youtube while his isn’t anywhere. David then asked Craig to send a link as proof. I personally tried to look for any video presenting Brian’s side and surprise surprise, found nothing at all, which is really funny considering the fact Craig claims there are “a lot of vidoes floating around of his (Brian’s) side of the story”:

Later, Craig tweeted another dumb tweet that paints himself as the victim, to which David replied with: "Why didn’t you reply to my tweet to you?” (I can’t add anymore images. If anyone is interested of seeing screenshots of the rest, DM me)

(Regarding the tweet where he asked for video proof). Craig hasn’t answered yet, and doesn’t seem like he’s planning on answering him, which I get because he straight up lied and doesn’t have any proof to back up what he said.

We finally reached Craig’s last tweet: “The last thing i’m going to tweet on this. Dont pick sides. Dont sent hate anyones way, this is not the intent. The intent was to clear the air after a lot of peoples suspicions and after things were said about me. Let’s all move on together. Much love <3″

At least the first sentence here isn’t a lie! That’s a first for Mini! Other than that, it’s very interesting how he tells people not to pick sides after what he said about Brian. If you only read Mini’s side, it really seems like Brian is a complete ass who honestly doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. He just knows Brian will reply to him, so he’s already defending himself and ending the discussion before Brian gets a chance. He once again manages to erase Brian’s point of view before he even gets a chance to say it by telling people not to pick sides. If there are no sides to be picked, there is no reason to read the other side. He then once again pretends to be an angel by saying there’s no need to send hate, explaining this was just to put a rumor to rest (even though there was really no need to do that Craig) and asking everyone to move on... from something that no one really even cared about until he brought it up. A final point to conclude all of Mini’s tweets is how much his version of the story victimizes himself and makes Brian seem really evil. It’s true that if you only read Brian’s side you’re more likely to be on Brian’s side, but Brian’s is much more objective than Mini’s. Brian truly tells it how it is, and honeslty, until Craig doesn’t invite him to the dinner, you also feel for Craig in Brian’s story.

A couple hours later, Brian tweets this: Sorry for the drama today guys. This isn’t fair on you and that’s why I wanted this to stay private <3″

To me this seems pretty genuine since all he says is that he wanted this “feud” to stay private, which is backed up by the fact that, ya know, he never mentioned it until Mini did (even before with the streams). Also notice how Brian spells correctly and Mini doesn’t lol. The next day, Brian finally tweets his reply which in comparison to Craig’s is detailed, realisitic, has proof, is well worded, didn’t come out of nowhere just to start drama, and is just genuine in every single way (link in the beginning).

So in conclusion, I think the entire twitter thread was made for me because it just showed all of Craig’s ugly sides: selfish, immature, idiot, heartless, shit friend, shit person, irrational, crybaby and self-centered. If you weren’t sure if you like Craig or not, this thread should easily sway you to the “fuck MiniLadd” side. I hope no one sends Brian any sort of hate because of the lies Craig wrote. I’m happy for him he ended his relationship with such a toxic friend and hope the rest of the crew see it soon too.

[multiverseofmiracleshq]

Following the attack against the United Nations the Island of Krakoa and the Avengers knew that they could no longer wait to confront Osborn once and for all. Arriving at a press conference at Citi Field, Osborn’s true colors were revealed before he was subdued once and for all. Just becuase that fight ended, however, doesn’t mean that the war is over.

THIS IS THE OFFICIAL COMPLETE CHAT LOG COVERAGE OF THE IC

OSBORN: ”Please-- please.” Norman raised both of his hands to the crowd gathered around to quiet down the overlapping questions being thrown at him. Plastered across his face was an easily faked solemn look, the corners of his mouth pinched down just slightly to give off the idea that he was troubled by the events of late. He let a few seconds pass, and then slowly let his arms fall to his side. “Tonight, I will answer your questions to the best of my ability and with all of the facts we have so far. What happened at the UN was a tragedy-- one that I am finding quite difficult to process. The attack lead to a huge loss of life, and I want the nation of Krakoa to know that despite our disagreements, the President is saddened by the losses. I still have hope for a future where we can work together, and during this time of grief I want that to be as clear as ever.”

EMMA: To put it in simple words Emma Grace Frost was fucking livid. Her anger had been boiling under her skin ever since she had come to with a broken nose because Kate had no choice but to literally sock her back into her right mind. Before it was embarrassment that had settled over in an unsettling restless buzz. The humiliation had been shoved to the back of her mind now by debris and broken glass. They had killed her daughters. Three blonde beautiful ( albeit bitchy ) telepaths who had already known death too well felled in one burst. They had killed Kate. Kate. Her Katherine, the prodigy she hadn’t meant to take but loved fiercely all the same. Kate hadn’t been her first choice for the Red Throne, if she was being honest. After being turned down by Ororo and her daughters she had taken a chance and it had worked better than anyone could imagine. She had sat with burning eyes in front of the three remaining Five, two of which she and Scott had resurrected to Nation-X and the other her former student. The children had shook, wracked with the sorrow over their missing friends and those they had lost. They had seen Emma upset before but this was different. She was different. Hands had quivered as she had unearthed the black fabric from the back of her closet. A simple request had been for Scott to leave her be as she prepared for the confrontation they had planned. Dead eyes had stared in the mirror for far too long, her mind knowing that the she had worn black before and it was time to once more. They had made hushed plans with the Avengers with quieted voices under wary eyes. They were tired. Bone fucking wary. Another day, another war. As the various groups began to arrive on the field the glowing light from one of Illyana’s discs revealed a group of mutants. Although it was humid out diamond failed to bend to any temperature and there was an icy detachedness that allowed Emma to step first from the light and onto the field where heels sank into the grass. Her armor had always been made of her own skin, of her own determination. When she kicked Norman’s teeth in it would be a Versace clad platform that did the damage. “Saddened by the losses.” Emma was unable to keep the drollness from her scoff. “There’s quite a few of us who are sad, Norman, and I doubt you’re one of them. I know we’ve been having a lovely little song and dance but I hope you know that your game ends tonight.” As she spoke she had made her way closer to the platform, black clad arms crossing over an exposed diamond chest. “I’m prone to believe that you don’t deserve a last word, but I’ll allow you one anyway. You have sixty seconds.”

OSBORN: "Miss Frost." Norman's tone shifted. He kept his body still for the reporters, but his face hardened as the telepath approached. "Did you not just hear me say that someday, I still hope to see us work together? It's what I've wanted since the beginning, but you make it far more difficult than it needs to be." From behind his podium, he glanced over Emma and the others with her before allowing himself a short smirk. "I am the President. I believe that means I have as much time as I'd like. You and your friends will have to wait."

STEVE: “Show’s over Norman, we’ve got the proof we need to show everyone who you really are.” Steve stepped forward, stopping a few feet away. “You brought people back just to use them as inside men and then triggered the explosion that killed a handful of mutants just to hide the truth behind you really are. That ends today, whether you like it or not.”

SCOTT: Death was something he was tired of knowing. Scott followed behind in Emma’s wake, his shoulder’s square and his back straight despite the heavy feeling in his chest. He wanted to sit down —- he wanted to escape to his home on the moon and sit in his chair and stare out of the window at the Earth. The burning hot rage of revenge was mild at best, a small candle wick instead of an inferno. Sure, he wanted to make Osborn pay for his role in the bombing, but his grief had become so overwhelming that it had simmered into a quiet numbness. Still, he hadn’t let Emma or the other mutants handle this affair alone and he would do his part to remind Osborn that he was playing with something more dangerous than fire. Stopping a few feet behind her, he swung his gaze up to meet Osborn’s dead stare and he remembered the blast he sent towards Nathan that hit Osborn instead. He had to admit, he wished it would have been more intentional then.

RAHNE: Rahne was furious. Anger bubbled in her chest and her vision became tinged red the more everyone spoke. Her friends were dead - and it was all Osborn’s fault - but now was not the time to act. She had to wait, hope things could somehow be worked out diplomatically, despite how much she knew that was not possible. Clawed fingertips dug into the palms of her hands as she focused on remaining in her half shifted form despite the rush of frustration and anger clouding her judgement.

SAM: Okay, so they were doing it. The scene was nothing like when they had first been resurrected and came to the battlefield against Thanos, the sparks from the sorcerers portals snapping against the dust and debris. This time there was no wry on your left or charged moment when Mjölnir connected with Steve’s hand. It was Sam who had the shield strapped to him this time as his wings folded as boots hit the ground. Emma was handling the showboating but that was fine. It wasn’t Sam’s thing anyway. Osborn had crossed way too many lines way too long ago but they had kept pushing without shoving hard enough to do something. Now he had lost a teammate, children their mother and a mother her children. Steve spoke and Sam watched, just like he had done so many times before. A part of his mind reminded that he was Captain America now. He needed to say something on behalf on everyone that couldn’t because of the smug looking bastard in front of them. “You happy now, Osborn? You’ve arrested us, manipulated us and murdered us. I can’t stand here and call myself Captain America if you’re the one in front of this country. How hard you going to make this?”

OSBORN: Norman's immediate reaction to Steve's accusations was a scoff, and then he leaned forward at his podium to grip both sides of it as his glanced moved to Scott and then Sam. "Happy? No, not quite. Things haven't exactly gone to plan. And now my heartfelt press conference has been interrupted by so-called heroes who claim that I have some.. sinister motive. I wouldn't expect anyone to be happy when being threatened like this. Especially after an attempted assassination." He shot another look to Scott before moving out from behind the podium. "This is nothing but a stunt. All of you-- the X-Men, Avengers, all the little teams you like to tote around-- you have a tendency to act dramatically when it is not required. I suggest that you all pack up and leave before you say anything you regret."

ILLYANA: She was feeling like a traveling party bus at this point with how often she was moving people, but Illyana couldn’t complain. Her invitation to the bloodbath had been unresponded to. If she hadn’t been busy being a Combat Captain of Krakoa in its ridiculously titled glory she would have been at the U.N. and a subsequent pile of ash. Instead she was leaning on the Soulsword as the tip dug into the overly expensive astroturf of the field. She had never been to an American ball game. Sam ( Guthrie ) had wanted to go with the group but it seemed incredibly stupid. Now he was dead and she debated feeling bad but decided not to.“Bad news,” the corners of her lips tugged down at Osborn’s suggestion. “I’m their ride and I think we should all stay. Sorry.”

CAROL: What a complete and utter disaster. As Carol touched down, she was just as angry as the rest of them, her emotions manifesting as a barely visible glow that surrounded her body. It took everything to stay by Sam and not land directly on that stage to end this now and boy -- it was a hard impulse to suppress. When Osborn responded, Carol bit her tongue, and not in response to his warning. She truly just wanted to spit fire. "We should end this here." She said in Sam's direction, even though she had a sneaking suspicion what he'd say. "Green light and I'll take the heat."

PIETRO: Pietro had been through a lot. The death of his parents, excruciating experiments at the hands of Nazi’s he didn’t know were at the head of them, and then he died. Yet, by far, the worst thing to date, was the death of his twin, someone who he’d not even existed without in the womb, yet alone life. The telepathic message she inserted into his brain at the moment of her death—he felt it in the very root of his being, as if the very breath in his lungs had been ripped from him. He suddenly chucked the bottle of asgardian ale in his hand at Norman, and through blurred vision, he yelled “Go to hell—you’ve played your little game for long enough. You deserve to rot.”

SAM: There was a small nod in Carol’s direction and a hint of relief he hoped she could pick up on. He wanted to be one who jumped the gun but if there was one thing being a Black man in modern day America had taught him it was that you had to stop, assess and move smartly. Maybe that made him a shitty superhero. Sam hadn’t really learned to balance his various identities yet but he was working on it. Then the Maximoff kid was yelling - Sam had smelled the liquor and made the mistake of ignoring it out of respect for his grief - and it looked like things were going to take a turn. It was inevitable but sooner than he had thought. “Not yet.” He spoke in low tones under his breath to Carol. “Not yet.”

OSBORN: Carol and Sam were whispering-- Norman made a note of that. Then a split second later he was dodging a flying bottle of alcohol. It missed him, but when it hit the ground next to him the remaining drink splashed up onto his pant leg. He groaned in annoyance, then straightened his spine and pulled down on his suit to rid it of wrinkles. "Per usual-- a dramatic outburst." Something was going to happen, and soon. He was ready. But he was content to avoid the confrontation for as long as possible. Playing the part had become fun, and he wasn't quite ready to drop the act. "Anyone else have something to say? Hm?"

CAROL: Carol swung a glance at him, her gaze narrowed and frustrated. Balling her fists, she kept her feet planted. Sam was her stop and go, someone she respected in such a high regard that when he called the shots, Carol would take a step back and listen. Drawing in a breath, Carol met Osborn's gaze. "How many more is he going to kill before we take his head off his shoulders?"

CRYSTALIA: Somehow Crystalia had gotten stuck with evacuation duty. Maybe it had something to do with her teleporting dog, and while she hated the stupid humans touching Lockjaw and ogling him she also knew that it would be rude to let them stay in the stadium when a fight was inevitable. After the last round was removed, both Inhuman and Inhuman dog materialized in the field to see the bottle being thrown. “That’s how this is starting? Her gaze moved from the white haired speedster to the smirking asshole in the suit. “We’re throwing things at one another?”

EMMA: “His head can stay on his shoulders.” Emma’s voice was quiet. “See, death isn’t scary anymore. We don’t fear death because it was conquered. What people like you deserve is far worse.” With lips pursed together, the blonde let the diamond slowly recede until it slipped down her skin and revealed pale flesh. It was only now that she registered the dampness of the air even if it didn’t bother her. She had carried the Phoenix Force on her back, after all. This heat was nothing in comparison. “I’m afraid your sixty seconds are far past up and there’s some people you’ve recently hurt that would like to have a word with you. Scott, darling, would you like to begin?”

SCOTT: They'd discussed this privately before they'd arrived with the rest of the mutants. They'd debated the consequences and discussed other options. But Scott had heard the pain in her voice and he was sure his was just as heavy. Scott was tired of letting weak men pretend they were strong and put on a show and murder their people and so, when his name filtered through the frustration and reached his ears, Scott didn't hesitate. He depressed the lock and his visor lifted and this time, the blast was deliberate and aimed right for Osborn.

PIETRO: Despite his inebriated state, Scott’s blast still fired slowly. Pietro watched it and thought—what a great time to hit him. Frankly, he wished he’d thought of it sooner. Bolting forward, he accelerated to a solid mach 5 speed and swung right for Osborns face. At this point consequences no longer mattered to him.

RIPLEY: With the shit that Osborn had pulled it seemed like it was a no brainer that the Avengers would roll in to square up at his next appearance. Had they been smart they could have used it as a trap, but instead some of his Avengers and X-Men were waiting in the vicinity to see what happened. When they started attacked she had slowly lowered herself to the stage to watch the events in mild amusement. Carol would come from her ass later and while Ripley was really ready to actually kill her tonight she wanted to play the game for a little bit. In all honesty Ripley may have been able to do something to help Norman but she just let him get wrecked.

OSBORN: Scott moved-- Norman's eyes flicked over to him as the mutant's hand raised and that's when the persona was dropped. He barely had the thought to lift his arm and prepare to block the blast before he felt a fist meet with his jaw. Since it was from Pietro, there was no way he had seen that coming and instead of being in the line of fire he was pushed a few feet to the side. As he stumbled down, feeling the punch resonate, Norman caught himself with one hand and watched as Scott's blast flew past him. From his crouched position, Norm lifted his free hand and traced his thumb along his jawline where it was pulsing from the hit. He glanced to his thumb after he lifted it away and noticed the traces of makeup left behind. "Interesting." After pushing himself to his feet, Norman took in a deep breath and slicked back the hair that had been knocked loose and turned back to the crowd of Avengers and mutants. "I don't think you'll be needing that proof anymore." His true face was peeking out from underneath the makeup along the bottom of his face-- just enough to be seen. "I am exactly who you say I am. And you know what.. I have been itching for this fight for a long time now." The smirk stretched wider across his face, and then the sound of metal pieces clattering together could be heard as he lifted a hand and aimed a newly formed repulser at the crowd. "I'll let my Avengers take care of you--" The comment was directed at the drunk speedster to the side of him. "Because I've got better things to do." And then he fired a blast, not aiming for anyone specific.

PIETRO: To be honest, he hadn’t expected that. He glanced down at his fist and then back at Norman, whose ugly face was more so than usual. The green peeked out from beneath the smeared flesh tone and whatever was left covered his knuckles. Was he really that drunk or was that real?

VALKYRIE: She had brought the pegasus merely because she could. Val was tempted to leave the Midgardian's to their infighting but it was likely that Loki would be there as well so her absence seemed negligent. Royal duties and such, after all. As soon as the hooves connected with the ground the Valkyrie slipped off the steed and promptly lurched to the side to avoid the blast as the pegasus flew away.

YOUNG JEAN: They had killed her. Or, at least, her future self she had diverged from. With Betsy and Jean gone they were short telepaths and the Cuckoos were who knows here. Emma couldn’t use her telepathy while in diamond form but seemed reluctant to drop it. Even though she was an adult the younger ( and now only ) Jean still found herself looking around for either  Scott or Logan. Osborn had a telepath on the premise but she couldn’t place him.

ERIK: Both he and his son were mourning their loss in.. different ways. Showing up to this confrontation drunk was certainly not how Erik wanted to present himself-- but he could at least relate to the impulse of punching Osborn in the face. Once Norman aimed to the crowd, Erik lifted himself off the ground and flew over to his son. To his frustration, the tech on the President's arm couldn't be manipulated with his powers. Erik had hoped Stark's material hadn't gotten into his hands, but he wasn't that lucky.  "Pietro." Once he landed again, he walked over to him. "I would applaud your decisiveness if you weren't being foolish."

YOUNG SCOTT: The repulser went straight into the crowd and despite the rallying cry they were all there to make, Scott didn't want to replicate the sorrow on his older self's face. Grabbing for Jean, he pulled her towards him, away from the chaos that ensued. "We shouldn't stay here." It wasn't like him to abandon a fight right when it began, but he had a primary concern and that was not to start a war with Osborn.

PIETRO: The disappointment in his voice triggered a deep rooted memory of the man who raised him, one that he’d considered his real father until a few weeks ago. For a flash of a second he felt guilty, and then the part of his mind that recalled his disdain for Erik quite clearly, straightened his spine. He lifted his chin to eye him. “Too bad I don’t care what you think.” he said. “You’re welcome by the way—“ he motioned to the bastard that was Osborn “Now the world knows he’s as a madman just as we have.”

YOUNG JEAN: “He killed her, Scott.” One hand clung to Scott’s arm as the two moved in tandem back a few steps. “I have to be here.” Even though they no longer shared their telepathic connection a few thoughts still passed from one mind to the other as Jean shook her head. “It’s our fight. They put me in a freaking freezer for a month and that’s nowhere near the  worst of it. I can’t leave.”

YOUNG SCOTT: Scott's gaze went between Jean and the stage and he squeezed her arm tightly, but he didn't urge her back any more. "Exactly. He killed her, he killed a bunch of us and it was easy for him. He won't stop there." He knew by the serious tone in her voice that there was no getting Jean to safety. They would stay, wouldn't they? "You can't die on me again."

NORMAN: That was the goal-- start the chaos, let it ripple out through the crowd. Everyone he was facing would have to be wary of reporters fleeing the scene and make sure they didn't get hurt. Not that he cared, but they did. After sending out another random blast, Norman let out a cackle and reached for a few of his pumpkin bombs-- because what was the use of holding back now?

EMMA: It probably had to do with her close proximity to the so called president that put Emma near his assault. Someone had to get smacked by his blast but she had enough time to return to her diamond before it hit her. Although it knocked her over it didn’t hurt and for that Emma was glad. Or, she would have been if her mind wasn’t laser focused in her desire to wipe Norman out. Still, the attack meant that flesh was exposed for a moment as Emma picked herself up and wiped grass from her knees. Erik was in discussion with his spawn and her cape snapped as she stormed over to the two. “Wanda’s dead. That’s terribly sad. I feel for you both, truly. But this is not the time for family matters. Erik,” Emma angled her body so that Pietro was slightly blocked out. “I know you are upset about Lorna, but I also lost a daughter. Three, but that’s not the point. You and I agreed he should die but I think we may have to settle with bringing him into custody. Can I count on you for more than a few half ass attempts right now?”

ERIK: Erik wanted to be annoyed-- scratch that, he was a bit annoyed. Out of all his children, Pietro was the one he butted heads with the most. But right now wasn't the time or place for a meaningless argument. "Wanda wouldn't want you to get yourself killed going after a madman while intoxicated. Have you thought of that?" He replied, then turned to look as Osborn shot another blast. It hit dangerously close to Emma, but there was no surprise on his face as she got up without a scratch and made her way over to them. Taking in a sharp breath, Erik's face twisted at Emma's suggestion. Silence hung in the air between them as he struggled to come to terms with it-- but Emma was right. As much as he wanted Osborn to be put down for good, there was always a logical choice that had to be made. He gave her a nod. "You know you can."

YOUNG JEAN: “You and I have a strict no dying on each other policy, remember?” Her head snapped up to see the sky fill with circular objects and there was a telekinetic shove before they were sent flying in the other direction. Maybe she could have used better precision but there  was a lot going on and there was no way two Jeans were going to blow up within three days of each other. “We need to help. I bet Erik and Emma can tell us how.”

EMMA: Looking at Erik, Emma had to resist the urge to block off her telepathy. Her diamond form had its perks but it was also too easy to misuse it. She had been in Erik’s head. Emma knew her way around but she had gained respect for the man that she hadn’t always possessed. “We will make this right.” Her words were a promise. “He doesn’t get to take them from us. But for now,” her shoulders rotated to once again allow Pietro to join in. “You need to get your shit together and come sit at the adult table. Our best chance at taking down this egotistical joke is together.”

YOUNG SCOTT: Scott just stared at her for a minute, the hesitation clear in the lines of his face. And then finally. "You're right. I just don't want Osborn to be the reason I lose you too." Too, as in Scott losing Jean. It almost felt like they were doomed to dance like this forever. "I just wish there was another way." But yeah, she was right. What would running from this do other than leave their friends to fight alone?

ILLYANA: Illyana had mostly been moving around the perimeter of the field as they all began to fight. If you could call it a fight, that was. Mostly it seemed like it consisted of Pietro being drunk and acting out while everyone else stood around debating doing something instead of actually doing anything. As Emma spoke to Erik the telepath sent a discreet message to the younger blonde mutant. One disc later and she was hopping to suck a few mutants into her pull and deposit them into a section of the field. “You’re all being useless,” her gaze trailed over the likes of Laura, Remy, Quentin and some of the original X-Men. “And the best way to get over being sad is toppling dictators. So, get on it.”

ERIK: His jaw was tight as he listened to Emma and focused on the President, watching his movements carefully. He saw Jean and Scott and various mutants scattered about. And then Norman turned his attention towards them-- an unsurprising move, considering the lot of them were just standing around at the moment.

OSBORN: Easy targets. The drunk mutant was surrounded by a few others now, and they didn't seem very invested-- so Norman decided to change that. Lifting his blaster again, he waited for the short high pitched hum to finish as it charged before firing it directly at them. "Get your heads in the game, friends! It's never wise to be caught standing around!"

YOUNG JEAN: He was being cute but there was no way in hell that Jean was going to back down and they both knew it. “Have a little bit of faith here. I can participate in a major fight without dying along the way.” She wanted to quip that even if she did die she could be brought back, but with the Five broken up it there was a sobering possibility that it may not be possible. The idea that Jean and the others were actually gone wasn’t a reality that Jean wanted to face so she just traced the lines of  Scott’s face instead. “There isn’t.” Her voice was firm. “I love you, Slim. Let’s stop talking now and get this over with.”

REMY: He hadn’t accepted the original invitation — not that he’d gotten one, and he wouldn’t have anyway. As much as he wished to confront the child napping, mutant killing monster that was ~their president, Remy had stayed behind with Dawn, watching the small child go through the motions, completely and blissfully unaware of what happened to her mother. He’d stayed on the couch, keeping an eye on Dawn who’d been smashing toys together at her place on the floor, and he hadn’t really moved. Not unless needed. It was a cold state to exist in, and it was one that had only grown since he’d learned the news. And found out that resurrection was impossible. It was the aid of Lorna’s aunt and Illyana’s lack of behest ( it truly was a dull motivation ) that finally got Remy to his feet, where he put one foot in front of the other and felt as hard stone turned to too soft grass. As the sun hit his eyes, he had the staggering thought that he didn’t want to be here. In the chaos, in the fight. It was loud and cumbersome and it immediately drowned out his thoughts of Lorna, filling his mind with necessary but unwanted cues from the field around him. Sucks when your body didn’t want to die, but your mind didn’t care. “T’is is the B team?” he laughed, though the sound was dull. “Glad t’ see we finally made it.”

LAURA: With less people readily available they all had a shift in responsibility. Laura had heard what Emma was planning but she had been waiting on a call to see if they needed to try and storm C.R.A.D.L.E. again. When Illyana came she didn’t have much choice in the matter though and as they were more or less dumped at the scene light eyes looked over Remy’s ragged form. He looked rough but she would’t comment on it. “Or the reserves.” Her claws popped out as Laura flexed her fingers. Before she could say anything else there was a sound that grated against her senses and she lunged forward to smash her body into Remy’s to send them both flying to the side and away from the blast.

EMMA: The plan was simple. They’d beat Norman Osborn into submission and Emma would smash his brain into a billion pieces so they could take him into custody where he’d spend eternity drooling on himself. That being said, simple plans always had complications. One moment they were discussing about how to move and the next there was a hot flash as an attack smashed into the group, sending them all toppling. Had she had any indication or warning Emma would have encased herself in diamond but instead her body got tangled up in Scott’s and she hit the ground hard, head cracking into the turf.

CAROL: The blast was loud and immediate, slamming into the core ground with such force it dispersed them in odd directions and shoved them hard into the ground. Carol’s helmet came down to cover her face and just before her features were obscured, she gave Sam a knowing look. It was time. With a one track mind, Carol pushed off into the air and did what she did best — she sent continuous blasts straight for Osborn while also flying straight towards him. If she had to, she was going to tackle that man and slingshot him into the moon.

SAM: The second the mutants went down Sam was airborne. His wings unfurled before he launched himself upwards. The metal tightened around his body so he could do a barrel turn and fling the shield towards Norman’s head. “Consider this the green light, Cap.” He spoke over to his com to Carol even though they were both in the sky. The shield ricocheted back and he managed to keep it in his grasp even though the shockwave reverberated up his forearm. “Give me some kind of confirmation that you guys on the ground are okay and able to rally right now.”

TONY: Tony wasn’t able to get a shield up in time to block it completely, but he tried to get it out in front of both him and Nat. He was wearing a suit-- a real Iron Man suit-- and was getting real annoyed at the tech Osborn was wearing on his arm. After being knocked back a bit, but still able to get up, he groaned. “I know it’s rude to ask someone to give a gift back, but that guy is driving me crazy.” He felt guilty enough that he had unwillingly let the President have a custom made suit-- now it was in their face.

SCOTT: The ringing in his ears was deafening, drowning out all other sound around him. Picking his head up, Scott was careful opening his eyes. At the moment, he couldn’t feel much, especially not if he were still wearing his visor. When the grass tinged red, Scott let his eyes fully open and immediately, the world began to spin. He couldn’t tell where he was in time and space, just that he was still in the field, though he couldn’t tell when, either. Were they still fighting Osborn? There was a weight on his chest and he tried to look down to distinguish it, but when he picked his head up, he got hit by a wave of nausea that flattened him again. Finally, he resigned himself to looking at the red tinged sky and after what felt like centuries, he finally managed to see the tangle of limbs that were spread around him. And that Emma was the weight on his chest. Gripping her shoulder, he said her name though he couldn’t hear it through the muffle in his ears. He just knew she was unresponsive and another weight dipped in his chest. Pushing himself into a sitting position, Scott caught Emma in his arms and looked to find the other mutants who had been taken out by the blast. “Emma come on,” he could finally hear himself say. “We need you.”

NATASHA: There was an unshakable feeling that this was her fault. Even though she was just one piece in the puzzle Natasha thought of Wanda going up in flames and her stomach turned. Natasha had died to save the world and been resurrected to help get her friends murdered. She had been on the sidelines watching Steve and Sam but her body instinctively snapped to fold against Tony’s. She stumbled alongside him before flicking her Widow’s Bites on and pulling her batons from her back. “I feel like common rules of courtesy don’t apply here. I have a lot of things to say and none of them are nice.”

ILLYANA: Being knocked on her ass was never something Illyana enjoyed. Her teeth were bared as she pulled herself to her knees and looked at those around her. “Do I need to move her out of here?” She asked Scott before focusing on Erik, Nate and the others. “I get you close enough and you end this. Can you do that?”

OSBORN: There was always a trick up his sleeve. When the blast knocked everyone back, Norman had a chance to get his glider out. He moved to block Sam's shield, sending it back to him. Carol started shooting at him and he was able to dodge the first few, but as he moved there was shot that landed at the worst angle when he tried to block it. It hit his glider and knocked him straight off of it-- Norman landed with a harsh thud into the grass. He flipped onto his back as Carol got closer, aiming his blaster at her even though his vision was a bit blurred from his impact against the ground.

CAROL: Seeing Norman crash land had Carol reigning her powers in, her body going into a nose dive to reach him faster. Just as she’d anticipated, Osborn fired a blast at her and Carol instinctively fired one back, the clash of energy sending a shockwave in both directions. It immediately knocked her off course and she was back on the ground before she could readjust long enough to stay in the air. But she was close to Osborn. Only a couple of feet away. She walked towards him. “It’s over.” she raised her fist, charging up another blast. “Surrender now.”

RIPLEY: Everything was falling apart. Ripley had kind of expected it but knew she couldn’t stick around. As Carol approached Norman it seemed like a perfect getaway. There was no air kiss goodbye or snide comment. Star just turned and flew away. It wasn’t being a coward. It was waiting for a better opportunity.

LAURA: Her skin was already regrowing from where the blast had burned it off after taking a direct hit to ensure Remy didn’t. As Scott clutched Emma her head hilted to the side, trying to listen to the breathing and heartbeat. “Not dead.”

ILLYANA: “Slap her.” Illyana suggested with a one shouldered shrug. Why were all of their telepaths unable to keep it together? “Think fast, Scott.” She tilted her head towards where the Avengers seemed to have Norman against the rails. “We’re running out of time.”

TONY: “Yeah, alright-- I’m sick of this.” Now was the perfect time-- Carol had Osborn well distracted and well covered, but that blaster on his hand could still do some damage. He shot Nat a quick point before moving over to her. “Here, take this--” He handed her a small gadget, then pointed at Osborn. “Once I get that blaster pointed away from Carol, shoot his tech. That should disable it-- will disable it.” Yeah, it will. It will work. Before waiting for much of a response from Nat, Tony flew a bit closer and shot a blast close to Norm’s head. It caused the President to turn in surprise, moving his repulser away from Carol and giving Nat the window to fire.

ERIK: Erik took the opportunity to use his powers to grab various metal scraps from around the field and the seats and send them over to Norman once his tech was turned off. He bent then around the President’s arms in multiple places and then dug them into the turf, pinning the man in place so he couldn’t get up.

NATASHA: In the day since their mind control had been exposed Natasha and Tony had sat together with heads bowed. It was violating. It was wrong. She ached to fire off a few rounds and stretch her legs at the barre, but instead she had listened to Tony go over the schematics of a machine he had created at a breakneck speed. He had built the latest model of Osborn’s suit and he could take it down. The tiny device was fashioned above the Widow’s Bite on her arm and as Tony and the others got Norman properly subdued Nat began to fire it up. She waited until the moment a signal was given and then there was a buzz and a slight tingling sensation in her arm as it activated. Norman’s suit fell apart then, the lights flickering and dying out. As the machinery locked, Nat looked up to give Tony a nod of affirmation. “Looks like it worked to me.”

OSBORN: Norman had his arm pointed straight up and over at Carol, matching her glowing fist. He was still in a bad position, back flat against the ground. But he could still fire. He debated it. But before he made a decision, a strange shock of energy shot up the arm covered in tech and he felt it grow heavy and lose power. His ears were still ringing with the sound of static as he felt his arms being pinned down. It was a futile attempt, but Norman struggled against it.  “Shit.”

SCOTT: Scott gave Illyana a look before refocusing on Emma. “Come on,” his tone was urgent. “You’re really going to let Osborn take you down, come on.” When Emma didn’t stir, he almost had to take Illyana up on her offer, though it wouldn’t have been him. But hey, it was that or a bucket of water, wasn’t it? “You’ve got ten seconds to open your eyes before someone ends up ruining that.” he brushed her hair out of her face, periodically looking put to make sure the Avengers had Osborn occupied. “Or someone ends up breaking your nose again.” it was a light joke — a very, very, light joke.

EMMA: Gods, did her head hurt. Thoughts were pulsing around her in synch with her headache and at Scott’s comment one eye fluttered open and then the other. “I will lobotomize you, Summers.” She rasped out before blinking a few times against the fog. Roused from what would later be diagnosed as a bad concussion, Emma took a second to center herself and look at Scott’s face, hidden by his hood and visor. A plan. They had a plan. Osborn was somehow on the ground and it seemed like Erik had done his part so it was only fitting that Emma would do hers. She was unsteady as she rose to her feet and used Scott for stabilization as she teetered on high heels towards Norman was pinned down. Crouching so that blonde hair nearly brushed his face, Emma resisted the urge to vomit and hoped instead she looked as intimidating and badass as she knew she was. “I hope you realize now that I am a woman of my word who holds true to her promise. Enjoy your new normal, Normie.” One finger tapped against his forehead then, a telepathic blast obliterating all clear thought. She wouldn’t kill him. He was a proud man, someone too full of himself. Even Emma thought that and she loved her reflection like  Narcissus did his. This little mental prison would be agony for one like him. Her own head throbbed but as his eyes glazed over and his mouth went slack Emma had a moment of satisfaction before she tumbled backwards out of her crouch. “I win.”

SCOTT: Scott was there, supporting her at a distance while she worked on Norman. He could tell that she’d been just as rattled by that blast as he, except now she was using her abilities and that would just further drain her. When she was done with him, Scott caught her against him and eased them back, away from the Avengers that were circling. “You did enough.” he said, a hidden thank you underneath. “It’s time to go home.” Home, whatever that meant for them.

ILLYANA: “I hope he likes wearing diapers.” Illyana snorted as Emma finished. She waited until Scott had the telepath in his arms before she moved forward and raised her sword. “Home is anywhere but here.” Her hair was getting frizzy and her shorts were sticking. Russia lacked humidity, thankfully, and even though Illyana had bounced from there to hell to the states she refused to acknowledge this climate as her own. “Yes, you won. You can put your tits away now.” The words were said with love but coupled with an eye roll. As her portal lit up Illyana, Scott, Emma and the few other mutants in the vicinity vanished from view.

SAM: They had gotten there. It was decidedly a rocky path but Sam reminded himself to be happy about the end goal. Osborn was no longer an immediate threat and somehow - surprisingly - he hadn’t been murdered. They had done it the right way. One day they could try and reverse Emma’s work so he could stand trial but in that moment Sam was content with shifting some of the metal bindings Magneto had fastened and hauling Osborn upright even though he immediately slumped over. Glancing over at Erik, Sam tipped his head in thanks. “Tell Emma we appreciate it. We appreciate all of you. We couldn’t have done this if we weren’t working together. And about your people... we’ll have everyone look for Hope and Eva. Wanda’s --- she’s a friend.” Teammate. Had been for years. “I’m takin’ him to the Raft. You need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

ERIK: Erik stopped a few paces back as Sam gathered Osborn. He was tense as he watched, still slightly hung up on the fact that the now former President was still alive and Erik allowed him to be. But Emma's words had gotten to him. Perhaps being around people like the Avengers had started to get to him as well. Or maybe it was starting to grow closer to his daughters, then watching them die. Whatever it was, it made him feel strange. But when he offered a thankful nod to Sam in return, he felt oddly proud that a conversation between the two of them could happen. Things were different. But that was good. "Thank you." His words were soft but sincere. "And I will, once she's in her right mind again." Then he turned to gather and leave with the rest of the mutants.

SAM: There wasn’t much left to say. Calling H.A.M.M.E.R. agents wasn’t an option but there were still some good S.H.I.E.L.D. agents he had on speed dial. They arrived shortly after Magneto left, tying Osborn down before carting him off even though he was obviously incapacitated. As his vacant twisted face rolled out of view Sam tried to shrug off the image of the green. They still had a lot to do. C.R.A.D.L.E. needed to be instantly dismantled and H.A.M.M.E.R. wiped out. There was also the issue of the murdered mutants. But when Sam tried to think about it all his head spun. He needed war and rest. More rest than his five hours he was getting. Once the agents began to clear the field Sam lifted up in the air with the weight of the shield on his back along with the stress of what was to come.

[realfuurikuuri]

For Fox Sake

MMHOPH Missing Arm! AU fic Chapter 2

WC: 2,888

AN: Again, made using the MissingArm!AU created by @spookylovesboba And it’s now on Ao3 if any of y’alls want so read it there. I reccomend you do becuase chapter 1 had some editing issues that were fixed. Writing this chapter was fun. I like Rufus and Reggie. They force things to be less about fights and more about words. A song rec for this chapter would be Won’t Get Fooled Again - The Who (the cultured among you will notice that it’s also the theme song to CSI: Miami). Will tamble in tags some more. AO3 Link

Mao Mao sat on a bench, nursing a cup of coffee that had started to become tepid. Adorabat and Badgerclops were there with him. They weren’t doing much either. They tapped away on their games without a care in the world. He thinks it was called Mini-mons, or something. Mao Mao would have reminded them that they were on patrol if the day wasn’t so slow. The only thing he did was give Pigguns another driving ticket, which he does every day, so it wasn’t anything but routine at this point.

In his boredom, Mao Mao’s mind began to wander. The first of which being Jǐngtì. He probably went back to meet up with Tanya. Hopefully, she could give the kid the talk Mao Mao couldn’t. The next thought that passed his mind was the valley itself. It was a strange place. He knew that it was guarded by the Ruby Pure Heart. Did the thing have to do with the sweetipies? They were strange creatures. Despite their age, they all seemed like children. Destructive, naive, gullible, children. Even the ones who he assumed were older were still flagrantly immature. Snugglemane and Camille being prime examples.

“Hey, Badgerclops,” he said.

“What do you want Daddy Issues I’m doing -Oh C’mon not Dirtmon,” he said, tapping buttons on the game even harder.

“You think the Ruby Pure Heart has something to do with the sweetipies?”

“Elaborate.”

“I mean do you think it has to do with why they’re all so… immature… and feral?”

“Nah, dude I think that was just the barrier thingy. No problems; no need to learn, right?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“You need to find something to do. You always get so questiony when you’re antsy.”

“I would if there was something to do.”

“Play Mini-mons with us?”

“No.”

“Then go find some sweetiepies or something. All they do is commit crimes, to be honest. Shouldn’t Puggin’s be speeding around now?”

He couldn’t say Badgerclops was wrong about that. Mao Mao got up and threw away his coffee. “No he gets his daily ticket at 4:00, but you have a point. I’ll see you around.”

“Okay dude I’ll be… losing to this child. Get me a pie if you’re going to the bakery.”

Mao Mao almost told him to go get it himself when he sighed and decided to go along with it.

* * *

Rufus could barely believe his luck. He sat at the table watching Muffin stack all sorts of valuables on the table. Golden coins, priceless gems, paintings, and a menagerie of riches that would fit a king. He was eyeing a golden watch on this ugly little mouse’s wrist, searching his head for a con, when the thing walked up to him. He was eyeing a golden watch on this ugly little mouse’s wrist, searching his head for a con, when the thing walked up to him. Somehow Reggie managed to pull a scam out of nowhere that the creature actually believed.

Just an hour ago he was looking for yet another town to go to where his face was unknown to run another scam, only to find a surprise kingdom that wasn’t on any maps. Even better than that was that everyone here was dumb as bricks! Rufus kicked back to watch more savings be put on the table when a strange cat walked in. To be fair, the black cat only looked strange relative to the technicolor weirdos.

“Can I get another Everyberry...” The cat’s voice died out as it caught sight of Rufus Regg and the stack of treasures.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed,” Muffins, what are you doing?”

“Well, I was making some pies when these two nice gentlemen come in. They looked like the wanted to talk to me, so I go up to them and it turns out their distant relatives who are looking to set up a branch of the company here. They just need some investment to set up shop, and well you don’t say no to family,” Muffin said.

“You're savings,” he did a double-take looking at the stack of treasures before shaking it off,” that… comes later. Muffin, right now you need to stop giving them their money.”

Rufus began to wonder if things were starting to sour.

“Why not help family?”

“Muffins you are a yellow mouse. That is a raccoon and fox.”

“And?”

The cat looked like he was about to strangle the mouse when he took a deep breath,” listen, they aren’t your family. They’re scam artists taking your money.”

“A preposterous claim, under what authority do you have to make those allegations,” Rufus asked with all the feigned bravado he could muster.

“The crown’s.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m the sheriff.”

* * *

Mao Mao watched the fox’s eyes go wide as he forced himself to wear a smile. “Ahhh, I see. Well, you must be a busy person, as are we, so you must understand if we have to cut this engagement short. We have places to be you know.”

“You’re both under arrest.”

“Run!”

Rufus quickly grabbed his companion and bolted out the door.

Mao Mao checked his watch. It was 3:50. If he did this quick he should be able to give Pigguns his ticket. After giving them a fair head start before he crashed through the storefront to give chase. It was pretty disappointing, to be honest. The grifters weren’t particularly fast or smart. They made the horrible choice to run right to the kingdom gates. Mao Mao knew twenty different shortcuts that could have put him ahead of them, but he didn’t need to use any of them. He checked his watch; It was 3:58. Mao Mao picked up the pace, closing in on them at blinding speed.

He drew his sword and leaped forward. He screeched to a halt at the last intersection. Instead of giving chase, he rested his arm on Geraldine, and began to write on his notepad.

“Ha-Ha! Yes! We did it Regg. We’re free! We’re-”

Rufus learned why the sheriff stopped when Slim-Pigguns careened down the road. Mao Mao calmy stuck yet another ticket onto Pigguns’ car as it zoomed by, and waited. When the smoke cleared the fox was kneeling next to his roadkill companion. Unfortunate that it didn’t hit both.

What a great day! He captured the scammers and gave Pigguns his ticket all at once. Whoever said a “ bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”could go get fucked. For once in his life, Mao Mao was feeling proud of himself. That and his little joke must’ve been why he laughed. He laughed, and he did it quite loudly.

Slowly, Sweetipies began to crowd around, murmuring amongst themselves.

The sweetipies pushed past Mao Mao, crowding around the raccoon. “Poor thing, who did this to you?”

A wicked glint ignited in the foxe’s eye,” it was the sheriff. He did this.”

“Oh my god, you think anyone is actually going to believe... that.”

The mob turned to face Mao Mao, moving like a single angry creature.

“What a monster,” a sweetiepie said

“I knew he’d lose it eventually,” said another.

“Oh, come on! You can’t actually believe him!”

“What a horrid man.”

The crowd began to close in on Mao Mao.

“That’s preposterous. I would never do something like that… without reason, at least. Either way, you can’t just believe a couple of strangers right?”

“I knew we shouldn’t have made him sheriff.”

“Woah, woah, woah, that’s enough,” Badgerclops said over is police siren hand to get through the crowd.

“What on earth happened here?”

“The sheriff attacked this innocent man.”

He and Adorabat looked over to the Reggie then back to Mao Mao.

“You seriously can’t believe them,” he said.

Adorabat sucked air in through her teeth,” Badgerclops, should I tell him?”

“Now. Now let’s not make assumptions,” Badgerclops said before immediately huddling down and speaking in a whisper. “What the fuck, dude? I know I already have bags packed, but geez.”

“I didn't do it! It was Slim Pigguns who did this!”

“Can you prove it,” the fox choked out.

“Prove it?” Mao Mao marched through the crowd, grabbing, shoving and tossing Sweetipies out of the way, grabbing the fox by the collar. “Of course, I can prove it. Its what happened!”

“Could you prove it in a court of law?”

“Sure!”

“Then we will. I sue the Pure Heart Valley Sheriff’s Department.”

“What,” Mao Mao, Badgerclops and Adorabat screamed in unison.

“No. In fact, we’ll sue the Pure Heart Valley itself. We’ll sure for everything it owns.”

Mao Mao and the three of them quickly formed a team-planning hug. “He can’t actually sue the entire valley for everything it owns, can he,” Adorabat asked.

“Don’t ask me. Ask Mao Mao.”

“Well… they might. The article that relates to suits against the kingdom doesn’t exactly put a limit on what can be demanded.”

“Don’t worry Daddy Issues. I already got our bags packed and-”

“We are not running!”

“Why not, I don’t really wanna be here when you lose the case.”

“I won’t lose the case because I didn’t hurt him.”

“You sure,” they asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. He got run over by Slim Pigguns. I didn't hurt him. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because that would be ridiculously on-brand for you. It's not an ‘if’ but ‘when’. I already have bags packed for when it happens.”

“You have what now?”

“Nothing. Anyways, if you want to challenge them then we go to court,” Badgerclops said.

“I’ll handle the case and you... try not to be yourself. Or at least don’t be yourself in front of the sweetipies.”

“What?”

“Oh! Oh! Oh! What do I do,” Adorabat asked.

“You’ll be his PR,” Badgerclops explained.

“Yay!”

Mao Mao began to consider if it was time to use those emergency packs.

* * *

Mao Mao didn’t know if the sweetipies had any foresight or common sense. Rufus could literally sue the valley for everything it owns, and for some reason, the sweetipies were taking Rufus’ side. The fact that Snugglemane was in control of the proceedings was the shit icing on top of the shit cake. Mao Mao tapped his fingers against the table. The court was taking too long to start. The jury was seated and the spectators mumbled amongst themselves. Snugglemane fiddled with the white wig he was wearing over his usual one. Rufus and Reggie weren’t here yet. Badgerclops wasn’t present either. Only Adorabat was here, which wouldn’t be much help since she’s his “PR” and a child.

Everyone turned when the doors opened. Rufus rolled his friend in on a stretcher. Despite the obvious greed in his eyes, Mao Mao could see genuine concern for his friend. Granted, that didn't stop him from wanting to see the fox on a stretcher as well.

“Oh good, the prosecution is finally here. Let's get this thing started,” the king said banging his gavel.

“But my defense isn’t here yet,” Mao Mao objected.

Adorabat took the stage. “Don’t worry,” she said,” I got this.”

“Aren’t you like... Six?”

“Seven, actually.”

Snugglemane considered it for a moment before banging his gavel. “Good enough for me. The Prosecution has the stand.”

Rufus stepped up. Mao Mao thought it was weird for Rufus to be speaking for himself, then again it's not like the valley has any lawyers.

Rufus cleared his throat, speaking in a pained voice,” Thank you, your… Honor? Majesty?”

“Call me both.”

“Alright, you're Honorific Majesty.”

The king giggled; the sheriff rolled his eyes.

“As you all know,” he began,” I had come to the Pure Heart Valley to visit a relative. Muffin, a distant cousin of mine-”

“Oh, c’mon. You are a fox. Muffin is literally a yellow mouse,” Mao Mao interrupted.

“Silence,” the king demanded with his gavel. “The prosecution has the floor.”

“As I was saying. I came to the valley because I’d come across some financial troubles. I’ve been trying to start a business of mine. A newspaper in fact. Everything was going smoothly till that brigand appeared.”

The crowd hissed and booed at Mao Mao. The king didn’t bother to stop that interruption.

“This foul creature chased me all the way through town. When he finally caught up with me. He proceeded to do… this to my friend.”

The crowd winced and ooed in sympathy for that awful fox.

“A heartbreaking tale,” the King sniffled. “Does the defense have anything they want to say?”

“Yes,” Adorabat said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Then speak your piece.”

“Um.. line?”

Mao Mao pinched the bridge of his nose.

* * *

Mao Mao did not expect much from a defense set up by a seven-year-old, but by god, it was somehow worse. Adorabat was naive and easy to manipulate. Rufus found it easy to set up leading questions.

“Do you think the sheriff is responsible for his actions?”

“Ehm… yes?”

“Is he one of those hateful people willing to attack others?”

“I suppose.”

“Does his tendency to attack first without asking questions often bring others to harm?”

“King, I object,” Mao Mao interrupted.

“Say the full titles.”

Mao Mao swallowed his fury. “I object to his questions, your Honorific Majesty.”

“On what grounds?”

“Well, the fact that they’re all loaded questions and Adorabat actually being a seven-year-old toddler.”

“That’s no grounds for an objection. You elected her to be your defense of your own accord. It conflicts with no rules or laws.”

“Laws here make no sense, though. The fact that you’re suing an entire county for everything it owns is proof enough.”

Rufus and Mao Mao began to argue more and more. Snugglemane pounded his gavel demanding order, but no one listened. Things just got louder and louder, wilder and wilder until Rufus and Mao Mao were grappling on the floor of the courtroom.

“I’ll tear your eye out you armless bastard,” Rufus yelled.

“I’d like to see a corpse try,” he responded.

They only calmed down when the guards pried them apart When the guards finally pried them apart they were both left beaten and bloody. Mao Mao punched Rufus in the stomach; Rufus bashed him in the nose, along with the countless bumps and bruises they shared. Although, Rufus was definitely worse for wear. His left arm was twisted in all the wrong ways. Mao Mao couldn’t even feel proud of that. His head was throbbing and there was this awful hum.

No the hum wasn’t in his head. More heads began to turn when the noise got louder and louder. It was a hum, that grew into a rumble; a rumble so loud he courtroom began to shake. It sounded like a car… no, it was a car. Mao Mao quickly shook himself free of the guards, grabbing Adorabat as the wall caved in with a mighty crash.

Mao Mao waved the smoke away, clutching Adorabat to his chest. “You alright,” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she coughed out.

Despite the damage, no one seemed to be hurt. Pinky was laughing maniacally, so the sweetipies were fine, the king peeked his head from behind the podium, and unfortunately, the grifters were still alive. Despite the car belonging to Slim Pigguns Badgerclops stepped out first. He took a few tentative steps before he threw up his lunch. Slim Pigguns stepped out more concerned for his car than anything else.

“What is the meaning of this,” the king growled.

“Well… god damn… that was horrifying,” Badgerclops heaved in between breaths,” I have proof that… Mao Mao didn’t… do it.”

“What’s the proof?”

“Witness... testimony. I call to the stand… Slim Pigguns!”

The fox’s eyes went wide.

“Hm?” Pigguns poked his head up, not even paying attention to the court.

“Mr.Pigguns, could you tell us what happened when you ran over the raccoon?”

“Yeah. I was going for my daily drive, when I got near the gate I felt a bump.”

“And you didn’t stop?”

Pigguns just shrugged,” it happens.”

“This is just testimony! Can you prove he was even there,” Rufus objected.

“I still have the sticker Mao Mao gave me.”

“That’s a speeding ticket,” Mao Mao added from the back.

Rufus began to sweat. Nm “Do you have any physical evidence?”

“Does the fender with your face still dented into it count?”

“I’ve been meaning to buff that out,” Pigguns mumbled.

Everyone turned to face Rufus. He pulled at his collar. His calm, collected demeanor beginning to give way to panic.

“Does the prosecution have anything to say,” the king asked.

Rufus balled his hands into fist before sinking low,”... no, your honor.”

“Say it right.”

“Just give us the verdict, already.”

“So rude,” the King banged his gavel,” I deem the defendants not guilty of assault and declare that the prosecution be jailed upon charges false accusations and wasting the courts time. The defendant's punishment shall be to clean up this mess.”

“What, why?”

“Because you’re all rude. So very rude.”

“Could you at least take me to jail first,” Rufus asked.

“I’m not going to put you in jail,” Mao Mao said.

“What?”

“I am, however, going to put you in the hospital.”

Mao Mao pounced at him when Bagderclops grabbed him out the air,” as I said. It's not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’.”

[one-of-us-must-be-crazy]

I love the fics that have Ripley and Samuels as these perfect soul-mates but wouldn't they have to have problems at some time?

They can and they do, and I want to get into it eventually once I have them “settled” (no longer going into fight or flight at the sound of the elevator stalling, at someone shouting outside; finally being able to sleep with out the vents sealed off). 

Most of their issues will come from the fact that no matter how aware that Christopher is that he’s welcome to have his own thoughts and opinions, Amanda will still have to ask him to tell or show her what he thinks/wants. 

I’d imagine it will go something like this.

*hastily written ficlet under the cut*

It only started with a ‘Do you want to watch a movie with me?’ Nights in were less expensive on wallets and emotions, and the privacy gave them much-needed time to be close. Outside they’re still afraid of being noticed, still worried about everyone’s reactions--about the company finding out. Even though they legally have nothing they can do or say, there’s still the nagging fear that something could come between them if they’re found out.

But nights in and guards down left it open for a plethora of problems beyond simply being seen.

“For once just tell me, it’s not that hard--” 

“I genuinely would prefer whichever one you’d like.”

“And I don’t have an opinion!” Amanda’s at the end of her rope; tired of his self-sacrificial habits, tired of his shying away and backing down, of letting her cut him off in conversation, of not even voicing a preference for which side of a recently-colder bed he’d like. She’s wondered more than once if this was a ridiculous mistake, not just for what he is, but even if he was...Real? A human? Don’t I tell him that he is exactly that? Do I believe it?...she still would have the same--or at least similar--reservations. They never exactly dated. They had their short friendship on the Torrens, and ended up anchored safely to reality again in the other’s arms after what they’d been through. 

Not including cryo, she has known him for a total of 34 waking days before she invited him to say with her, and it terrifies her.

“I know that you don’t like the older dramas, so if you want to see something else and it would make you happier then--”

“But you like the older dramas. Why can’t you ever just take what you want? Do something on your own?”

“It is, quite literally, hard wired into me to prefer whatever pleases you more.”

“Then fucking rewrite it becuase I don’t want you falling over trying to--Jesus, what is this?” It’s been infuriating, not once in this exchange has he raised his voice at all, and it only made her louder until she was nearly screaming.

“You have assured me so many times that you understand and accept that I’m not a person and I am...endlessly grateful for it but you don’t seem to understand it as well as you claim to. My purpose and design is to make your life easier--”

“And you’re not doing that right now.”

“If you know which of the films I’d rather be watching and it upsets you this much to see your choice of them, then choose the other instead.”

“But it isn’t just the damn movies, it’s everything. For God’s sake we argued over making tea or coffee yesterday. We could have had both. And you...Write over whatever coding is telling you that you’re so inferior and--”

“I am your inferior. In so many ways, and I wish you saw your own value.” 

This circle would keep going; one part of her knows that he’s right, knows that she doesn’t give herself enough credit as a person, as someone that exists. The other part of her curls up in a back corner of her brain, sobbing uncontrollably over every awful and unforgivable thing she’s ever done, and that her housemate was ever more deserving than she was of anything. Maybe it’s over, she wonders, as nice as it’s been, as great as he was for the past few months as their true selves start to show they’ll probably fall apart. It always happens this way. It’s why she told herself no more live-in lovers. 

“Turn on your movie, I’m going across the street for beers. Do you want anything?”

“You shouldn’t be drinking with your medications.”

“I don’t give a fuck; I’m having a bottle of beer.”

“Amanda--”

“Have you actually ever consented to anything we’ve done with your own words? Or have you just been saying what your calculator brain tells you I want to hear” So long as we’re having an uncomfortable argument I might as well get that out.

“‘Consent’?” he pauses, not that he really needs that much time to think, but mimicking  her breaks in speech feels better, it gives weight and meaning to the words that follow more than they would have if he just continued. “You’re referring to...intimacy.”

“I’m not, but--yes, I am, I mean everything. Have you ever said anything that you’ve meant? Would you mean it if you didn’t know it was what I wanted? Could you?”

“I-I don’t know.” He feels small around her most of the time, but even more when she’s upset; it’s usually his fault or else something he cannot help her with, and being useless for anything goes directly against his instincts, his basic coding, and causes logic misreads in his head that blur his surroundings. “I know that I cared about you before I met you. I had the...sentience needed to love you before I knew that you would even want to approach me for companionship let alone... But since then? I don’t know. I feel as if I’ve enjoyed everything we have.” 

“I don’t know if that’s enough.”

“Can this wait until tomorrow?” she’s still standing close enough to him that he can slightly reach out to her, tuck a few strands of hair that have escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “We’ve already missed a good bit of both films and...” if we’re over I want one more evening to hold onto you. 

“...I’m going to get the beer, and I’ll be back. Do you want anything?”

it’s strange, they both think it: he can request things when she asks this, he can get himself something if he’d want it, but when it involves another person, a human, he has no idea of what if any of his actions are ones he’d want if she didn’t. Still it’s all so abstract; he loves her, he feels like he means what he says, and for now it’s enough for him even if it isn’t for her.

“I’m alright, thank you. Is there anything I can do?”

“No...I just....We need work or a programmer or something.” Playing house with him has felt more normal than anything she’s ever done and simultaneously so dreamlike she reaches out to be sure he’s there every morning when she wakes up. 

“We’ll think of something,” he offers her a slight smile, and she accepts it with a brief, tight hug before heading towards the door.

“I really hope we do.”

[ninjagoat]

Note on Supergirl 4x02

This week, on the Metaphor For Xenophobia And Racism For White People:

- We return to the themes of episode 3x05, specifically how unfair it is when very, very powerful people have to face consequences for their actions.

- Seriously, it is so TOTALLY unfair how Olivia Marsdin has to resign just because she *checks notes* committed a massive criminal conspiracy to illegally win a presidential election.

- ON TOP OF THIS, it's also a mindshatteringly bad take on the Obama birther conspiracy. The birther story was not racist because it was "unfair" that people from Kenya couldn't be President. The birther story was racist because it assumed that President Obama's election HAD to be the result of a massive criminal conspiracy and not a genuine win MERELY BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK.

- Kara thinks Olivia can say something to get out of this; becasue Kara, being a seasoned journalist that now mentors other journalists, has no idea how laws work. Olivia schools her, which is noble; but it's still skating around the fact that she INTENTIONALLY BROKE THE LAW.

- All of that being said, I've always liked Ms. Carter's performance as Olivia. She's folksy, but tough. If she'd been an alien that had been born on Earth, I'd be fighting for her to stay as well.

- "Ugly is as ugly does; that makes you the ugly one!" This protest scene was written by fucking MILHOUSE.

- And then a fight break out. Because as we all know, security and crowd control are pretty lax on *checks notes* PENNYSYLVANIA AVENUE.

- The DEO interview process is clearly lacking something, because Agent White Dude has some serious prejudices that aren't suitable for the job; and the dude he's arguing with has Kara's level of understanding of the Constitution. Where's Pam when you need her?

- James - having spent the last two years publishing his onw love-letters to a local superhero, who is also himself - suddenly has a big stick up his arse about objectivity in news reporting.

- I maintain that the guy playing Otis is doing Ned Beatty but *serious*, and for that, he has my gratitude.

- I'm sorry? The DEO poisoned the atmosphere with lead? THE DEO? Not Lena Luthor, executing a plan from Lillian Luthor, using an original design by Lex Luthor; in the full knowledge it would likely murder her very recently betrothed and probably really upset her best friend? THAT'S WHAT WE'RE GOING WITH? (I realise this is just exposition, but it's pretty bad) At least Otis recognises the inherent viciousness of the plan, becuase no-one else has ever mentioned it.

- I would like to note that this is probably the most credit Winn has ever gotten from someone from his own time.

- Apparently, you can just... *buy* black-market Kryptonite? Arguably, the most powerful substances on Earth? The one that's so rare the show tied itself in knots justifying Lena's personally developed synthesis cache of it? ...kay.

- Lena's been working through meal-times. This is usually your five epsiode warning to evacuate the city.

- "Sales for the image inducers have been skyrocketing since the revelation that the President is an alien." This does not actually explain anything, because: a) it's not like Lena builds them herself; that'll be outsourced to China, at a location with safety netting around the roof to stop the workers killing themselves; and b) IT WAS YESTERDAY. WE KNOW WHAT YOU WERE DOING YESTERDAY. IT WAS THE PREVIOUS EPISODE.

- I get the sense that I'm going to spend time this season complaining about time-scales.

- At least they're keeping Lena's libetarianism consistent. Let's credit them with that. And of course, she's not immediately concerned with the potential collapse of democracy because MONEY.

- I will never cease to be confounded about the complete lack of coffee in the Catco building. I work for a relatively small company, and we have a Starbucks in our canteen.

- Weirder still is how increasingly hard it is to find. We've gone from Noonan's, to a little cart, and now to a *pizza place*. How hard is to find an *actual* coffee place?

- And now it's another Lena Sob Story; because this episode isn't just about the ideological battle between hope and fear, it's also a Lena vs. The World story - not so much an actual story, as a plot mechanism that will result in Lena stating where her character's at right now. It's completely incongruent with the rest of the episode, but never mind.

- Anyway, Mercy was like a big sister to her, but then Mercy and Lex broke up, and Lena never called her. Lena blames Lex for the break-up, but Mercy for the abandonment. So far, typical Lena. Oh, and they agree on some really fucked-up shit.

- "Why can't humans be as powerful as aliens?" Lena is, I'm guessing from this, planning to make metahumans on purpose. I'm certain Lena has read Mary Shelly; but, like many nerds, has completely missed the point.

- Why is Brainy on the L-Corp image inducer network? He built it himself, and did it two episodes before Lena even met him. Did he give her the design? Why is it networked anyway? Why is the hack affecting Brainy first? What is this plan?

- It doesn't fucking matter; this whole thing is so Brainy can be victim to a hate crime as part of the Metaphor For Xenophobia And Racism For White People, and then Nia can step in to help Solve Racism.

- I'm not going to claim to be an expert on women, but I'm pretty sure encouraging total strangers to investigate their personal information is... rare.

- "I'm putting a lockdown on the cloud so no-one can access the system through a computer." This is not how cloud computing works.

- It's at this point we stop the narrative so Nia can explain to one of the most powerful and influential black men that's ever lived that he does, in fact, have a lot of power and influence to make social change. She's Solving Racism!

- "You have another chance to fight for justice now," she says. Back when I was posting on the AV Club forums during season 2, the fact that James DIDN'T KNOW HE COULD DO THIS IN HIS JOB was one of the reasons we were so fucking tired of him already. He's not improved since then.

- We are back on the 'mirror' analogy that first appeared in 3x15, and it's actually quite good. I am, however, reminded of the image of Lena looking at herself in fractured glass at the start of 3x17. Lena's image of who she is has been broken, and cannot simply be repaired.

- I digress. James is worried if he does an editorial, he will seem biased. *sigh* Okay, this is gonna get ranty. Deep breaths, everyone...

- YOU ARE JIMMY OLSEN, SUPERMAN'S PAL. AN ALIEN SAVED YOUR LIFE. AN ALIEN MADE YOUR ENTIRE CAREER. AN ALIEN GAVE YOU A SIGNAL WATCH SO HE COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE SEVERAL MORE TIMES. YOU BECAME SUCH GOOD FRIENDS WITH AN ALIEN YOUR GIRLFRIEND JOKED HE WAS YOUR BOYFRIEND. YOU DEVOTED SO MUCH TIME TO ALIENS YOUR GIRLFRIEND BROKE UP WITH YOU. *TWICE*. MANY OF YOUR CURRENT FRIENDS ARE ALIENS. YOUR BEST HUMAN FRIEND - who is 'currently' busy cleaning up the mess made by one of your alien friends, helping another one of your alien friends - BRIEFLY FELL IN LOVE WITH AN ALIEN, WHO YOU HUNG OUT WITH. YOU GO TO AN ALIEN BAR SO MUCH YOU'VE FUCKING GENTRIFIED IT.    THE SHIP HAS SAILED ON YOU BEING PRO-ALIEN, JIMMY. STOP BEING A MASSIVE WANKER.

- Apparently, the only way to access the Image Inducer network is through the L-Corp mainframe, which is: a) definitely not how cloud-computing works; and b) contradicted by the fact the image inducers are STILL WORKING.

- Mercy designed all of L-Corp's security. Even though they only moved to National City two years ago. Right.

- "This is more innovative and imaginative than even I expected." IT'S AN OFFICE BUILDING WITH BUILT-IN SKYPE. Real imagination would have been REPLACING THE FUCKING SECURITY SYSTEM.

- Why does EVERYTHING have to turn into the Glorification of Lena Luthor?

- Miss Teschmacher getting the doors to close through quick thinking has easily made her the most likeable character on the whole damn show.

- "Reporter's Honour." Okay, Kara; firstly, it's called 'off the record', and the fact that Lena doesn't really feel worried about getting that status from you is pretty much why being such close friends with her is *completely unprofessional*.

- Lena built the Lexosuit. Huh.

- ...

- What?

- She built a suit... described as an "exquisite intrument of death"... with the potential for fighting Superman... as a hobby project? Is that what happened? Or are we just going to gloss over it, like- oh, okay, we are doing that.

- "It's about doing good for the world and clearing the Luthor name." You can't clear the Luthor name, sweetie. They actually did those things. And as far as doing good for the world: that's not a plan; that a GOAL. You really need to give details. Maybe a real journalist can ask you sometime.

- "He told me they were cute and I should make them in pink." One line of dialogue, and the potentially interesting Lena/Lex dynamic has been reduced to the most boring thing imaginable. FFS.

- "I know I'm the best." Oligarch, *please*. I guess it helps that Winn's in another century.

- "You've chosen a side. I'd never do that." WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Please, someone explain.

- No one tell Mercy about that time Lena purposefully overdosed her oldest friend with Kryptonite.

- "The Luthor name doesn't deserve Lena." Why the fuck not, Supergirl? Kryptonite, Lexosuit, thinks you're full of shit; what exactly is the big thing here that separates her from them?

- Also, have you just... *forgotten* about the Kryptonite thing, or...?

- The sheer petty-minded simplicity of the wood-chips in the cup is lending weight to my 'written by Milhouse' theory.

- Huzzah! James has decided to stop being a massive wanker for a bit!

- "It is our duty as journalists to expose the truth." For long-time readers of these posts, THIS SHOW IS TROLLING ME.

- Brainy and Alex get a nice scene as part of the Metaphor For Xenophobia And Racism For White People, but I'm just left wishing we could have had more scenes like this between her and Winn. Where was *nice* Big Sister Alex when he was here?

- Supergirl's speech is lovingly earnest, and *totally unengaged* with any actual issue beyond being nice to each other, and certainly not the one where Olivia INTENTIONALLY BROKE THE LAW. This was a total failure of our institutions, not least of which, THE PRESS, for not vetting her thoroughly enough. The potential for whataboutery is high.

- Okay, for some reason, I thought they'd cast Brent Spiner in this role, not Bruce Boxleitner. Anyway, this casting is a nice bit of nerd symmetry; and makes it almost certain that President Baker is going to be revealed as a wrong'un.

- I've not talked about J'onn much, mainly because he's spent most of the episode walking around aimlessly before he can show up at the Sons of Liberty meeting.

- Agent Liberty has been described in press releases as being almost supernaturally persuasive. The actual execution of this idea is... he's actually engaged with the issue. That's it. The government *was* taken over by aliens. National City *was* attacked by aliens. The press - and I know I did a big rant in favour of this above - *is* pro-alien; and these people know it, regardless of how unbiased James was hoping to appear. It's messy, and Supergirl talking about hope is not going to cut it. It's not going to get these people jobs. It's not going to stop their nightmares.    I've seen people compare how he speaks with Trump. This - this scene, at least -  is not Trump. Trump isn't engaged with the issues. Trump is the end result of forty years of this shit, long after the tribal boundaries have been set in place. It's never even really mattered what Trump says. They like Trump, because Trump is *their* guy. The definitions of 'Us' and 'Them' have been around since at least the 90s, if not earlier; and Trump just made himself more 'Us' than anyone else did.    And Agent Liberty is not doing that. There's an attempt, but the mask keeps him separate from his audience. Mostly, he's just recirculating the fears that they already have - that they have a *right* to have - and then pushing them towards his terrible conclusions.      This isn't magic. This is basic oratory. This is the big challenge our heroes face.

- Our heroes are *so screwed*.

[moved-to-in-love-and-liberty]

EXR Week Day 2

or how to not follow the prompt at all

link to ao3 

The café Musain served many uses. A meeting place, a cafe, a bar. It had hosted business meetings, and the beginnings of a new novel. The open front room, with wide windows looking out on the bustling street was the perfect place to sit and enjoy a conversation with a good friend. The darker back room was perfect for planning, quotes from famous inventors, politicians, and writers covering the wall, a small R scrawled by the door stop.

One of its most utilized purposes was for first dates. The front room provided open views and a quick escape for a first meeting, and the darkened corners of the back room held the perfect room for two bodies, provided they sat close. 

Most of the Amis had used the Musain for a first date. The first time Joly and Bossuet met in person after years of online dating, was at the Musain. It was also where they met Musichetta, although that was not planned. Courfeyrac could look at any table in the building and tell a story about a date that had taken place there, successful or not. Bahorel claimed to have met his girlfriend in the back room, although no one could verify seeing as she had never returned.

It was an established fact that if two people were seen huddled over the small tables, heads bent close, that they were on a date.

Enjolras and Grantaire were the exceptions.

The first time they were seen huddled together in the back room, it was by Jehan. They walked into the back room, then walked back out, rushing up to the counter to where Eponine was standing, cup of coffee clutched in her hands and began to practically gush “How long had that been happening!?”

“Hmm?” Eponine had been working for the Musain for longer than the rest of the Amis had known about it, and while she loved Jehan, sometimes they could be a bit...much for a Tuesday morning shift. Still, she lifted her eyes to meet theirs, trying not to wince at the bowtie and neck scarf they were wearing. “How long has what been happening? The new cups?”

“What? No! You know…. Those two getting their shit together!” Jehan was practically vibrating with excitement- They had watched and written about Enjolras and Grantaire, forever separated by their own inability to be honest with each other.

They had seen Enjolras watch R clutch a bottle close after an argument, seen the longing and regret. They had seen R sketch until his hand was raw, drawn to Enjolras like it was the only thing keeping him tethered some days, drawing his attention in any way, even when it left him despondent.

“Who got their shit together?” Eponine had watched the different couples form and break within the Amis, and knew that it could refer to any of them, Courfeyrac and Combeferre, Bahorel and his girl, Joly Bossuet and Musichetta, or hell, some random couple Jehan had seen “tragic potential in”. She was much less invested in the patrons of the Musain than they had the tendency to be.

“Enjolras and R! They’re having a date! They look so cute, huddled together! How long have they been in the back room?” 

Almost as soon as the words had left their mouth, the curtain to the back room was flung open.Grantaire stormed out almost shouting, “If you insist on hating everything about me, at least be honest about it!” 

“R-wait- just-- I was just-” Enjolras was quick on his heels, spouting an explanation, but Grantaire was already gone, the door banging shut behind him. Not seeing Jehan or Eponine, he started after Grantaire for a long moment, before turning back to the back room. Moments later he appeared with his bag, leaving without sparing the rest of the cafe a glance, hands clenching and unclenching as he threw the door open and stormed out onto the street.

“Well, at least they figured out that they wouldn’t work well?” Eponine offered fidgeting with the tip jar. Not that it fooled Jehan- she wanted Enjolras and Grantaire to work out as much as the rest of the Amis. They had all watched them circle each other for much too long to hope for anything short of a fairytale ending.

“I just wish- I wish-” Jehan tried to articulate, but could find quite what they wished. That R was more confident, that Enjolras was kinder, that they could pull their heads out of their asses.

Later that night they sent Enjolras a text.

Hey I’m sorry you’re date didn’t work out.

What date?

You and R? Alone? At the Musain?

Was it supposed to be a secret?

Sorry

No, Je that wasn’t a date, it was a meeting

Well it looked like a date.

If you asked it to be a date R would say yes

Good Night Je

 Night Enjolras

 --

Courfeyrac was perhaps the most obvious. In his defense, it was about two AM when he caught them smoking together, alone, behind the dumpsters at the Musain. It was 2 AM and he had had a shots competition with Eponine at midnight. So he staggered up to the two, standing close to share a light, and leered “Is this a post-sex smoke?”

 Well.No one can say he was in full control of himself.

 And that was what it looked like! Everyone knew it. They would spend hours together at the Musain just talking, about politics, or art, or the sky or the fucking color purple. They were dating, they went on dates, but they couldn’t admit it.

 He just wants them to be happy. Enjolras was so anxious and irritable all the time- he had never really dealt with a crush before and Courfeyrac would be so much more sympathetic, he had done his fair amount of pinning, except there was no need. Grantaire was head over heels for Enjolras but refused to do anything about it and Enjolras still turned red at the mention of sex so he wasn’t going to do anything. Sometimes a relationship needs a little jumpstart and Courfeyrac wasn't afraid to be that jumpstart.

 Or the rum rushing around his body wasn’t.

 Enjolras jumped away from Grantaire, and Courfeyrac could see the flinch he caused clear across the alley. This might have not been a good idea because now Enjolras looked mad and confused, he was never one for moving any faster or slower that he wanted to, and Grantaire looked like he didn’t quite know what was going on, until Courfeyrac saw him figure it out and-

 “COURF Wh- what the hell?” Grantaire turned on him, voice filled with sadness. Or anger. It was hard to tell sometimes with Grantaire.

 “Courfeyrac what are you thinking, I would never-,” Enjolras began to splutter, “Not in a million years!” And oh lord, Enjolras was too embarrassed, or too drunk, or too tired to hear what he was saying because hardly had the words left his mouth before Grantaire was looking at him, eyes filling with hurt.

 “Okay then” R whispered, already walking back into the club, most likely on his way to the closest bottle of booze.

 Enjolras tipped his head back against the alley wall. “Thanks Courf. Thanks so much.” He pushed his way off the wall, looking very, very, tired. “I'm going home. See you in class.”

 Corfu

Thanks becase now i know he donst like me adn never will so i dnot have to try anymor

Hed never in a billion yeras

I lovr him so so much

Adn tonigh wasnt wat it llooked like

Becuase he woudl never touvh me

And i knw it now

I love tou

And i love him

 Courfeyrac was in half the mind to send it to Enjolras but he had clearly done enough. Hopefully he just hadn’t set them back to much.

 Have some water dude. I love you too.

--

 Joly, although sometimes tending towards the anxious, was pragmatic at his core. He was done with watching the two of them carefully pretend to not be interested. And sometimes a direct and gentle but not crude method was best.

 And sometimes you just need to yell to get your friends to pull their shit together.

 “IF YOU MEET SOMEONE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN AT THE MUSAIN- IT'S A DATE. WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?”

 “Joly what are you talking about?” Grantaire was blushing, but his tone was startling even. He and Enjolras were sitting next to each other in the window seat in the front room of the cafe, looking more cuddly than the actual couple at the table next to them.

 Enjolras looked less composed. “That's not true. You and Combeferre met here just this morning, and that wasn’t a date. Me and R are just friends.” Enjolras looking at him like he wanted to kill him. Probably because Joly was interrupting his one-on-one time with Grantaire.

 His regular, one-on-one meeting with someone who he was romantically interested in were they talked about common interests. And bought each other coffee. But they were so afraid to communicate it was ��a meeting, not a date”.

 Sometimes Joly thinks the only way Enjolras was the leader was his hair. If anyone saw how hopeless he was with interpersonal communication they’d never let him speak at another rally ever again.

 “Yeah Joly, me and Enjolras just ran into each other, this wasn’t planned. We figured that if we went through the talking points for tonight's meeting then he might actually be able to think up counter points once I destroy he had planned.

 “Hm- that’s funny, I thought we were getting your obligatory shit talking aout of the way so we don’t waste our friends time tonight.”

“Really- because my shit talking doesn’t end. That's all I am. One day I’ll shit talk so much that I'll just disappear- my essence all used up.” They were grinning at each other, looking like they wouldn’t even notice if the rest of the world disappeared.

 It was sickening. And Joly studied sickening. They didn’t even deny that they were interested in each other.

 “-and when you think about it it could provide an interesting perspective on queer relationships. If it looks like a date, but it's between two people of the same gender, people will assume it's not romantic- but if a man and a woman are remotely close to each other people assume it's a date because it just ‘looks like a date’.”

 “Sure apollo, but you’re taking it too far, if someone saw two girls sitting holding hands, they’d assume it was a date- that's how street harassment happens. Literally yesterday you were arguing about how there needs to be more support for queer couples in public, you can’t turn around and say that they aren’t acknowledged in any way-”

 Joly snapped his fingers.

 “-I mean both happen, just because i’m focusing on one-”

 He waved his hands.

 “-You are not ‘focusing on one issue at a time’ yesterday you said it was oppression that all queer couples face each time they go out and not today you just said the same thing even though they directly contradict-”

 Un-fucking-believable.

 JEHAN

I’m so sick of it

Its making me sick

When i see them i start to get a migraine. And chills

Is stupidity contagious?

 They’ll figure it out.

They’re so close.

They hardly ever fight anymore. I think they need to figure it out on their own

 --

 R

 why are you texting me at 7 in the morning

i was texting you at 3 in the morning. you should know im be asleep

 I’m texting you at 7 in the morning so you will know not to text me at 3 in the morning anymore

Anyway.

If I were to ask you out, would you say yes

 what

are you serious

wait don't answer that

yes.

if you are serious

fuck you if you arent

fuck you if this is courf

why arent you answering

 Sorry

I had to put my phone down

I was doing a victory dance and didn’t want to drop it

 youre a dork holy shit

im going on a date with a dork

i assume we’ll go to the musain?

 And let all our friends see us?

 good point

i know a good creperie four stops away from any of our friends apartments

 Perfect.

[janzz]

day 3: its 3:47am on day 4 and i forgot to write my daily post

really really really trying hard to make this a habit (just for april)

so fail but lol

here’s my post for today

i went to a yoga class tonight in santa clara and it was the yogi’s first time and she was so good omg!

not quite as good as my fave instructor of all time (the bae lauren at moxie yoga in sf)

but yeah kimberly at corepower santa clara square might make me a regular!

(which honestly is super great because i went to class with norma and it was awful LOL)  (she played like hardcore edm at a chill class??) (to be fair it was also a level 2 class and i was struggling a little and kimberly’s class was a level 1....)

(oh i went to whole foods in the same plaza right after and ngl im starting to really enjoy just physically being in those fancy ass supermarkets.  i went to a new to me nob hill after orangetheory surprisingly also in santa clara ----theyre just nice and clean and beautiful.  however spending $45 to get way less stuff than a 99 ranch or something still feels way wrong.  i got bananas cashew milk chia seed refill 18 brown eggs (anthony likes the brown ones idk) natural deodorant (cause native has been sucking hard) ginger tofu mushrooms orange juice fancy sprouted bread shredded cheese actually ok when i list that all out its a decent amount for whole foods.  the stuff is just smaller yknow like the presliced white mushrooms were $1 for easily like 3 or so oz less)

anyway i find this funny because when i started dating anthony in 2015 he would go to nob hill markets and always claim it was his favorite market (because the chicken he would buy from there would never go bad etc).  i thought he was like idk rich af -- to be fair he went to stanford 2x and has his masters and is 2 years older so yeah he is definitely more privileged than me.  like i didnt have a preference for cage free brown eggs like i never had the money to spend the extra $1 or 2 on that shit when i was slaving at starbucks AND a second office job.

its really weird how money changes your life.  its 2019 and i finally hit the 100k 6 figure mark.  it’s honestly been a STRUGGLE to get here, but i’ve learned a lot along the way -- primarily that you HAVE to negotiate and generally just get paid more to improve your life.  anyway yeah money doesn’t solve problems but it generally reduces  your mental calories and makes things way more convenient.

before when i was poorer, i would have to go out of my way to make sure i was getting the cheapest shell gasoline in the area (still gotta have standards and not give into that arco bullshit).  i would never go into whole foods or places like that because my dollar had to stretch further.  whenever i would go out with friends before i’d have to be SUPER mindful of what i ordered and i would be EXTRA annoyed when you go out in a group and when splitting venmo people wouldnt pay the extra gratuity and i’d factor in me covering it because as a barista and server its bs when ppl dont tip well

now -- idgaf if i go out to eat a lot or splurge when im out w friends.  dropping $50-$100 randomly cause something is on clearance at lululemon is not a big deal.  im not anal about my boyfriend and i splitting everything exactly 5050 down the middle cause meh whatever i dont need to be given money back for like the minimal difference.  if whole foods is convenient for me to go to after a workout ill go in without batting an eyelash.  

it is weird tho being poor and then having money -- like ill go to lululemon but absolutely CANNOT buy anything full price.  i still like watching movies but 99% of the time go on discount days cause spending $20 when i could spend $9 feels wrong.  whenever i do basic things with my boyfriend, like going to the grocery store or mall, i’m most definitely the most cost conscious -- checking against the value per oz, whereas he just picks whatever and gives no thoughts to it (i think he makes like 240k a year thereabouts, definitely more than double but i dont know the specifics).  i drive a 2015 toyota corolla le he drives a nicer but still affordable more luxury sedan hyundai sonata souped up with seat warmers navigation and he’s installed a dash cam and stuff.  my car is definitely a commuter car that’s just one level up from the s basic model.  when i htink about buying a new car i dont know if i could buy a lexus but yet i sometimes think about getting a tesla instead of a prius

another weird one is getting mad at myself for leaving reusable grocery bags LITERALLY in the trunk and then having to pay the $0.10 per bag.  I’ve easily spent at least $15 on bags prob.  Before i would be kicking myself hard cause i’d need to pinch pennies.  another thing that ive noticed makes me feel “rich” is i can sustain my craft coffee/boba habit just fine and not give a fuck.  before i got more mindful of it i htink my my coffee boba budget was like $100 a month.  ive always loved craft coffee, but it has to be RIGHT if i was gonna spend $6.  when i was living w my parents in san diego going to a new coffee shop and driving up to encinitas or whatever was like THE trip. now i get philz off my mobile app whenever i head out of class or if im feeling like it and its not that special

but yeah, im not rich by any means but it was huge to go from like $16 an hour at my office job/$15.70?? w/ benefits I think that was my starbucks shift supervisor rate/annual salaries of 20k ish to $39k at a law firm in downtown sac (grossly underpaid but at least rent was only $300 at a family friends) back to the law firm job up to $70k.  there i got a raise at the same job from 70 to 80k and then 80k to 86.

THEN cause i was privileged enough to have been able to save money making more when i hated my job i just up and quit (i think i had like no more than 5k in savings at the time --it wouldve been more but i spent 3k on prk/lasik).  anyway yeah i was lucky af and got a new job in a month -- and the offer for this job was 100k base, 10k bonus, some amount of stock (i still suck at this stuff) and a stupid amount of perks like $1000 gym reimbursement and basically free health insurance -- if i annualize all my pay+perks, assuming i get my full bonus, its prob like 120k.

so i have like 5x ed my income in 4 years since graduating from college.

the crazy part is people that were more privileged than me STARTED at 100k as new grads, including 401ks and what not.  im lucky becuase i started mine back when i was 18 at starbucks.

income inequality and access to knowledge/resources has become something ive become more aware about and passionate about over time.  me and my boyfriend clashed a lot earlier i think because we literally were in different planes of our lives and income levels.  we’ve been together 3 years, but have known each other for 4.  we broke up for 1 year in between -- and yeah ngl had i never improved myself or actually reached my income/earning potential we likely would not have gotten back together.  additionally him supporting me when we got back together raised me out of not the poverty level but yeah we met and i made 39k.  i took the plunge and moved out to sf for myself and lets be real for him too and made 70k which was a huge jump.  and in a short 15 months or so i jumped again to 100k base.

im never gonna make as much as he does (men/women blah we can get into that) but yeah even having access to money adjacently is so powerful.  anthony never outright gave me money and im too much of a hardass independent person that ive NEVER borrowed money from him, never intend to.  i really vehemently despise the idea of free loading but because of him just being around yeah my life has been improved.  

when we met in 2015 in our young 20s we were in our have fun phase.  i was too poor to have gone to thiings like coachella or out to a concert.  he got me into music and made it easy for me to experience because he’d buy the ticket, drinks, pick me up and pay for sf parking.  i would likely get dinner ahead of time or something small and generally we would switch so if he got tickets one time i’d get them next.  but he ALWAYS paid for drinks and lets be real the occasional not drinks :P he had introduced me to music in such a way that i was willing to drop $800 or so on coachella + car camping + take pto days even when we were broken up 10ish months or whatever it was the first time we dated but if you think about it he likely dropped at least 1k on me during those 10 months without batting an eye lash.  i made 39k at the time working in downtown sacramento and he made 90k base (maybe 115k total comp) living in SF.

despite just basic things like me being immature for 23 -- a big reason i think we broke up at the time was the income level inequality.  it was both our first jobs out of school (first job out of stanford grad for him, he immediately got his masters out of undergrad).  i did a round of uc davis, community, uc davis.  

he told me he was breaking up with me because when we met i had originally wanted to be a lawyer and then didnt end up pursuing that path and he saw it as a lack of ambition/drive.  what he didnt see was general growing up and not having access to lawyers as i grew up, just me working at this really top tier A+ law firm and feeling out of place as an asian woman working with rich WASPs.  me wearing pencil skirts and having major impostor syndrome.  what he did end up seeing was an insecure version of myself in our relationship with me bending over backwards to make him happy.

when i moved to sf and made 70k it definitely was a huge ego boost to make that additional 30k, but to be real, here in sf and paying more rent than i was in sac and SD/just general living being expensive 70k wasnt that much.  what it did for my confidence though was priceless (i was an ea to a ceo at a tech startup).  i really grew into myself and was more confident in my abilities -- and honestly a lot of that was just getting older and knowing that i was good at things, bad at certain things and i wasnt going through my quarterlife/post grad crisis anymore.  

then those raises to 80k and 86k made me more ballsy.  these things were obvi practiced with anthony as i had a partner to discuss and practice with/an educated thought partner.  at this time anthony was making $150k base or so (after realizing he had been grossly underpaid as a PM for the 90k initial salary)

all of this set me up to basically make my position what it is now AND for it to be 100k.  tbh im a glorified low level coordinator at a big company.  i honest to goodness for the first three months probably worked a total of 2ish hours a day? this role should probably max out at 90k.  and by max out i mean this role likely shouldve started at 75k with incremental raises to get to 90 in like 3 years.  i STARTED at 100 and can likely if i play my cards right be promoted to a program manager in a year (or less).  that’ll prob bump me to a base of 120 or so if i’m aggressive.

i always shitted on sf when i moved here because i hate the tech bros, the elitist ppl, the vcs who think theyre out here changing the world but seriously being surrounded by people that went to ivy leagues or the UC’s that were better than mine have honestly, like my boyfriend, just uplifted my status.  something as small as casual lunch time conversation being more intellectual makes a huge difference for me re: how stimulated i feel and how much more energized ive become because of ppl around me.  i def still have impostor syndrome all the time but its been so much growth from 23 to 27.

30s should be great because ill be well into my career by then and making even more and closing the gap even more w my boyfriend.  its funny too cause hes 29 now AND FINALLY getting that postgrad quarter life crisis.  his privilege was able to offset him to have this crisis later on in life where he made more money and could make smarter choices.  privilege really is the thing that keeps on giving and im grateful to have started poor and really appreciate it.  as i make more money i also care more and more to give back.  if i ever do run for office in my 50s or whatever im gonna push for more access to education and arts.  i had an interest in this as an undergrad but couldnt pursue it because itd be a lifetime of poverty, but yeah who knows.

dang this went long but it is really interesting when i think about money and how much its effected me.  im lucky i was able to raise myself out of the level my immigrant parents brought me and my sister to.  them moving out of the philippines was the best thing that ever happened to me.  the second is them fronting the bill for my university education.  the privilege i have is extremely special and important and i want to honor their sacrifices because im sitting on a 100k because of decades of hard work and frugality on their ends.

im fucking lucky.

we gotta pass on the resources and uplift those around us if we are fortunate.  

...another rant altogether but i wish the leadership in the United States thought the same way. 

(end: 4:36am, why do i do this to myself)

[nameless-stick]

Fun lil moments with the boi I luv :3 I also have no one to talk to about this so yeah :/ but I’ve got a comic coming so yeah lol

-I’ve gone to two campout with him, the rest of his and mines friends at scouts didn’t show up so we were basically forced to hang out with one another or it was all the lil kids and you can probably tell which one we both chose. and during their two camp outs we grew less awkward around one another with him attempting to strike up conversation ever now and then and playful picking on me, calling me Gordon when I was in charge of making a side dish for dinner and such and with me making fun of him for not being able to float in water and such. To anyone this would seem like Norman human behavior but everyone at scouts has noticed him starting to change-normal he’s lifeless and doesn’t make jokes or anything but these two campout she’s changed-A lot-

.

This guy eats a lot and doesn’t like sharing his food but one morning he ended up getting some food form a fellow scout who didn’t want it and I-jokingly-aksed him for one and with hesitation he gave it to me, no eye roll, no trading no nothing he just gave it to me-if anyone else was to do ask him for something food wise he’d make you trade him for it.

.

One night me and lil brother we’re heading back from swimming and me and him and another SPL had radios and mines was acting up so I decided to radio in and explain that A-me and my brother were heading back to camp and B-that when someone wnated to talk through the raido I wasn’t able to hear them and by luck some guy(he normal he has his radio off) had his Radio was on and he replied back(I believe he may have had misunderstood the second part) that he could hear me, I was surprised I was able to hear him and repeated the first half of what I said and he said ok, know his tone for the messages were flat and monotone like always so when we had a lil girls voice pop up through the radio it denfitally scared ten shit out of me(mind you we were in the woods and there was no moon out that night) and my and my brother looked at each other thinking that there was a lil girl on the line watching us becuase the voice said “I’m watching you” and then like 10 seconds later the guy pops out of the woods scaring the living day lights out of me making me yell and jump while my brother just jumped-the second he scared me was after and SPL meeting and me and him were leaving our camp after dropping some things off and changing out of our bathing suits (This was DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE PHCKIN DAY) and I ended up having a bit of a panic attack becuase I kept on being treated like dirt so yeah I got done crying and radio him hoping he’d had his radio on which he did so when I asked him were he went he said he was over at the dining hall and I was annoyed and radio him back saying I was on my way so 2 mintues go by and I’m mumbling to myself when last second I saw it-bright red basket ball shorts and a bright blue t shirt jump out form behind a pine tree, I didn’t scream or yell(thankfull) But I did jump yet again and start throughout pine cones at him yelling and cursing him out becuase IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FRIGGING DAY-I forget what I did but he told me know that when he’s going to scare me again he’s not giving me a warning(last two times he has) and like I gave this boi my ice cream and food in order for him to at least give me a earring and all he’s said was “hmmmmm...I’ll think about it” :/ come to our last night before we head home and me and the rest of my girl troop are heading out back to our campsite and I grabbed my bag side glanced over to him and readily hummed “you know, you still need to scare me” the look on his face was priceless with the realization that I was right he still had yet to scare me :3

.

. Following the last story my and like 2 other girls form my troop need to head back to our scout master campsite becuase my scout master and two other girls went off to look for a possible missing kid so we’re all chilling out talking and resting our heads agsint the tables when I was told that I still need to sign(wood burn) my name into the shelf so I went off and did that while one of the assistant scoutmaster’s was handing out food and he ended up forgetting that I was there so he was handing out food all while I working and I didn’t mind until he just gave the entire bag of snack to the guy I like(Aaron, I should have probably told ya’ll his name :P) and once I got done the assistant remember I was there and apologized I said it was fine, Aaron allowed for you to get some more snacks but you had to ask him and then he’d hand out the amount so when I got down talking to the assistant I turned around to face Aaron walked up to him and grabbed a handful of snack fully expecting him to like yank the bag away and such but he did nothing and just let me-when some other kid tried to do the same he yanked the bag form them and then I got up a second time and did the same thing and yet he still did nothing :3 idunni wether it was becuase I didn’t get any or what but I didn’t notice it until I wrote about the food one.

.there be times when I was treated like dirt that I was just go silent and stop talking and since I’m a very talkative person this is way diffrent form me and think one of the first signs I’ve ever gotten form him was when I was told to “shit the hell up” becuase i wa starting to stop one kid form bullying another(it’s stupid once I think about it but I tend to be pushed around easily) and I was sulking over my food just yelling at myself when I looked up becuase someone pointed out they Aaron was squeezing a carrot between his fingers(lemme explain) Aaron is a lifelsss and calm guy he didn’t show a lot of emotions espiaclly anger so when I looked up he had a angry face slowly starting to peer out of his normal stiff face and you know when you get angry and such and you start clenching your first together that what he was doing he just had a boiled carrot in his hand at the time-he someone pointed it out he stopped doing it and look at the slightly embarrassed and annoyed-I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bring a smirk to my face, he’d cared in some way about me and it made me happy.

.

.when ever I got pushed around or told off he’d try and cheer me up, wether it was by him talking in his high pitch voice or him just generally making funny comments- complaining that he was getting ripped off becuase his first class a was made out of 100% cotton while his other class a(long sleeve I think) was made out of 67% cotton, him and another Scout in really close with start playing and making me laugh after I got told to “fuck off” and “you need to shut up” becuase i was trying to stop a fight.

.

.Wesday night we had free time at the pool and so ofc I went swimming but you need partners to go swimming and so when I arrived with some of the other kids who also wnated to go swimming they all picked out who was with who leaving me and Aaron to be partners and Aaron wanted to go jump off the diving board(mind you this was the first one ever for me) so he asked me if we wnated to be parneters and I said yes wanting to swim really badly but we didn’t get to because the pool ended up shutting down for like 15 minutes to do whatever they were doing and so we decided to go play volleyball, just Me and him, cf others started joing I’m with like half of my troop being on one side I joined them becuase we stick together and that was fun :3 soon the pool opened up again and we went off, Heading to the diving board-I told him a couple of times I was terrified and that this was my first time(get your head out of the gutter) and such and I failed the first time I went and he jokingly told me off becuase I need to jump once not just walk off and so when I went the second time I jumped and I got a round of applause from the other guys there, I forget what his reaction was becuase I was to busy laughing and smiling-we ended up having to leave early becuase some guy broke the second step to the board and we went to the reagula pool to just swim around, come to find out dis boi can’t float and he claims it all muscle(boi is 6’3 and does westiling at school :/) and that was really fun just swimming around with each other and trying to advoid the splash war going on.

.

.dis was sort of the top post but I felt like it need its own lil thing becuase OH MY GOD. So I likeing diving to the floor and how I do it is by jumping like a dolphin, arms incident of my and then swing them to my sides, so I jump but apparently I’m closer to Aaron then I think I am and ended up grabbing the inside of his thigh and also touch his...you know what... realizing what I did I was expecting for him to jump back and do all the things that would normally happen when you touch someone and so I blast of out the water and turned to him red faced and all waiting for him to like yell at me but he didn’t say anything and at the moment I though he must of not felt it but looking back at it know anyone would have felt it, I literally grabbed the inside of his thigh and yet he said nothing :3 yyyyyeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh......is starting to think that he may or may not have...nvm.

.

.on the topic of that last thing, you will not believe how many times I saw that boi shirtless, like seriously you won’t-so I had a swimming class for 2d period and he had the mile swim 1st period and I always got dissmied eary firmteht class so by the time I got to the pool area I got to watch him hop out of the water...shirtless, I think he may have caught me staring like once becuase on Friday(the day we skipped that SPL meeting) he spent like 15 PHCKIN MINTUES WALKING AROUND SHIRTLESS WITH HIS SHIRT IN HIS HAND AND BOI I WAS ABOUT TO HAVE A NOSE BLEED

.do even get me started on communications class, it was the best class in the world asides for the talking but everything else with just so funny-like wise for our first ‘project’ we had to sell an item and me and him being not wanting to go up forst kinda just stuck to the back and we didn’t talk to each other becuase we weren’t tang close at the moment(it was awkward) and so when it was my turn I sold my sketch book and yhad yhad yhad and then he went up and sold a R.V and yhad yhad yhad and then for our second ‘project’ we had to teach and skill and since me and him both had radios I decided to teach how to use a radio with Aaron to help and this was the start of him talking in his high voice-so I get up then and I’m all like “imma teach ya’ll how to use a radio” and I start showing off the buttons and such(we switched lines so that way out scout master couldn’t hear us) and I’m telling them what the buttons did all the while Aaron was pressing the static buttun and making come through my line and talking away I ended up yelling at him like 5 times to stop it before another counselor came stroking over and told us to shut up and thus my skill was over and I sat back down, before hand I ended up teasing Aaron about me going up there and teaching them his skill because he’s didn’t want to go unless he was told to which was fun to watching him get all annoyed at me for getting ready to stand up and asking the teacher if ‘tying a show was a skill’ and so he gets up there and showing off his skill all the while I’m trying not to stare at him and such and then for our 3rd and final ‘project’ was an interview and the teacher was assing Partners and she look back to me and Aaron and-mind you we didn’t say anything about wanting to partners and such we were just talking-she said we’d be okay for partners and such so the day of our interview I had like a list of 10+ Lilly questions and Aaron was like ‘imma wing it’ so we get up there and I go fist asking him questions and such and then my time is up and then it’s his turn and he starts off my asking the normal question ‘what troop’ and such and then he runs out and what does this boi start doing? He starts asking me what my favorite numbers were at first I didn’t quite get it and then he got to ‘what’s your 3rd favorite number’ and I was all like ‘really?’ And he got up to 6 before a fellow class mate caught on and he wa spike ‘hold up-‘(the entire class was busy talking to one another not paying any attention to us which was perfectly fine with me) ‘—can we take a moment and appreciate the fact that this guy is asking her what her 6th favorite number is?” And with that his time was up. Yeah communitcaions was really fun :3

.

Something by troop does is go to the beach like evey other meeting during the summer and this week we finally had the chance to go to the beach, with campouts and the after of those we weren’t able to for a little while—so we’re getting ready to leave and head to the beach and my mom is chosen to drive since like half of the troop decided to come and my lil brother told Aaron that he’d be riding with us and he was like ‘ok’ and then in a turn of events all the little kids ended up riding with out scout master and all the teens(me and 3 others) ended up riding with my mom including one of the lil kids becgase the ran out of room for him and so me the other two teens are chatting away since Aaron end up sitting in the front seat and we’re all having a good time talking about alcohol and such(don’t ask y) and then Landan(one of the two) starts pickin fun on Aaron and he’s about to give him a rating and I decided to but in and imitate what he’s about to say and just by my luck everyone stops talking when I speak and I gave out my truthful rating for him which was a 9 out of 10(honestly a 10/10) and I spent like 5 minutes trying to save my ass and I can only think of Aaron’s reaction when I said it :3 and then we get to the bitch everyone’s getting into the suits and such and we head for the water(I’m freaking out becuase b here was ok her period...and I live in FL....sharks....) and we all are having a good time ducking around and then we decide to go chicken(mind you this was my first time to) so it took like 5 minutes of conniving me to let Landon hey on my shoulders and when he does I about drown but after 2 attempts I got the kid on my should and Aaron already has the other teen Balke on his shoulder sand we go at it but since Aaron has more strength he last longer then me and I end up falling over and about drown again :/ and then Aaron’s starting to pick everyone up for Chicken with Landon and Balke being the opposers and I nervously say I would like to go and says okay after he does short kid(I’m like 160 and 5’9 and the kids like 140 and 4’11-5’2) so he gets done with the kid and now it’s my turn...he gets underwater and I get on top of him and he come shooting up out of the water and is holding onto my legs like he’s done with everyone else and I’m internally and externally freaking out holding on to his head for dear life and then we go and ofc we win and I get down and I’m just laughing becuase it was so much fun and then we notice that we are to far away from out court master and so we star swimming back and h goes under water and I stay above it and we’re swimming about the same pass and he come up for air and I read him saying ‘wow you’re really slow’ and he looks at me then just blast off above water and I follow and once we get back into a reasonable range he stops looks at me and says ‘wow you’re really slow’ to which I say ‘Shut up’ and then the car ride back was fun to with us agreeing on the fact that Mac and Cheese is a meal and that Dinsor chicken nuggets and smile face fires are the best and then we all decided to try on Blake’s glasses and BOI WHEN HE PUT THEM ON DID HE LOOK SO FIRGGING CUTE AND THEM I FUCKED UP becuase I ended up still sticking with what I said about him and those 5 MINTUES spent trying to save my ass was wasted as I said he’d look about half as hot (4.5 out of 10) and But boi on the cute scale he was a 100/10.

.

.

(There’s a lot more of good moments but this is getting long :3)