#they've been on the mind a lot actually......

[momotonescreaming]

A quick thing for @hellion-child , thank you for joining me on my Sal Deluca/ Josh Russo rarepair bullshit 💜

"Is he always like this?" The probie — Hayden — asks, brows furrowed underneath his helmet as his gaze flicks between his fellow firefighters and their Captain — Captain Deluca, smirking as he speaks into the radio strapped to his chest.

"Thanks for the assist there, dollface," their Captain says, flirts, to the dispatcher on the other end of the radio. He's smirking, looking all smug about it, but Hayden can't quite tell if it's mean spirited or not yet.

When his friends from the Academy heard he got assigned to Captain Sal Deluca from the 122 — they winced. He's got a reputation of being a bit of an asshole, apparently, who scares the shit out of all the probies. High turnover rate. When he got to the actual station, however, the other firefighters said he really wasn't that bad. He just pushes them because he knows that they can do better. Some people just can't handle his leadership style — weak people — someone joked. Hayden can't tell if it's a style meant for him yet, but he's being put through his paces at least. And isn't that what being a probie is all about?

This however, in front of him, doesn't match up to the Captain Deluca in his head. The Captain Deluca he's been told about.

"Assist?" The very male voice of their dispatcher crackles though the radio, smile in their voice evident. "You'd be lost without me, and you know it."

It's like they don't even care that everyone can hear them.

"He didn't use to be," one of their paramedics — nicknamed Barbie, on account of her being a tall blonde — says with a casual shrug. "But he is now, and only with Josh."

"Josh?"

"The dispatcher," Barbie nods, looking over at their Captain, flirting through the radio waves. "We know him by name now."

Hayden — admittedly — hasn't been on very many calls yet, but on all the other's he's only heard Cap refer to them as dispatch. Maybe thanking them by name at the end, once they've rescued their person and done their job. But today, it's been 'what've you got for me Josh' and 'how's our caller doing, Josh' and 'give me good news Sunshine'.

"Cap's always been a bit of a charming asshole," the other paramedic — Riley — chimes in, where he's starting to pack their gear back into the ambulance. Thankfully, they didn't end up needing most of it. "Good at getting people to calm down and listen to him, y'know?"

"But the flirting," Barbie parrots back, smarmy smile on her face as she flips her long blonde hair over her shoulder. Hayden kind of gets the nickname a lot more now. "Is an 'only in the past few months' sort of thing. A new development, shall we say."

It's so weird, to hear these two paramedics, these two seasoned professionals — openly gossip about their boss flirting at work. Their fucking boss, who's stern and tough and pushes Hayden because he knows he's got the skill so why isn't he fucking using it. A real man's man, all bulky muscles and a sharp jaw. Talking to the others about basketball and how he's been helping a friend of his restore an old hotrod. Who can command a scene like nothing else, and then, right at the end, when everything is wrapped up and everyone's safe — flirt with the man on the other end of the radio like no one else can hear them.

Hayden's gaze flicks back over to his Captain, the macho asshole, smiling and laughing as Josh the dispatcher threatens to send all the interesting calls to the 118.

"Oh sweetheart, you wouldn't fucking dare," Sal retorts, slowing walking back to the truck and the ambulance Hayden is leaning on. His heart speeds up — traitorously — as his Captain approaches him not doing anything to help them wrap up the scene. But it turns out he needn't have bothered. "As if they don't get all of the wack shit already."

Sal nods at the three of them — Hayden, Barbie, and Riley — and continues on to the truck proper. They can all hear Josh huff a laugh down the line.

"Am I losing my mind?" Hayden says, brows continuing to furrow, an incredulous smile starting to creep onto his face.

"Best get used to it probie," Riley laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. "We've been placing bets on when they'll actually start dating."

[merlyn-bane]

WIP Tag Game Fill

I was tagged for some Sunday sentences by @lttrsfrmlnrrgby and a Last Line Challenge by @bluemaskedkarma, so y'all can have,,,,many sentences lmao. These are from my @codywanfirstkissbingo fill for the making out square, also known as the omegaverse wedding fic 😌😌

"Dude, are you checking fucking rugby scores on your phone right now?" Rex hisses under his breath, quietly enough not to draw attention to themselves. Cody glances sidelong at his brother and shrugs, unashamed. This wedding has been dull as shit so far, and they'd only had to attend the reception. The speeches had all been incredibly scripted and unremarkable, without even any real teasing or embarrassing anecdotes for entertainment (and Cody can hazard a few guesses why, considering the stern-looking old man that seems to be lording over the whole event and stared down anyone that happened to be holding the microphone at any given moment), and the food is…well. Cody's sure it was expensive. Their family takes up most of one table just by themselves, thankfully—he can't even imagine the sort of mind-numbing bullshit most of the guests here are willing to talk about—but even his brothers aren't enough to change the fact that he feels like he's watching paint dry. Especially when they've all been threatened into "good behavior". "If I get any more bored," he mutters back, "I might actually let Buir set me up with an alpha just for something to do." Rex scowls, his entire face screwing up with disgust. "Gross, man," he grumbles. He peers over at Cody's phone where Cody's holding it half-hidden under the table. "Who's winning?"

Hang in there Cody, don't worry, this wedding is about to get a whole lot more interesting and a whole lot more fun for you 😏😏

No pressure tags (for either Sunday sentences or last lines, whichever you wanna do) to @happybean17, @loverboy-havocboy, @snowywinterevenings, @raphaerolo, and @smoosey <3

[noxxuniverse]

Don't drag me into shit.

I was debating on making this post because honestly like nothing is happening but I'm seriously pissed off and I just want to get it off my chest, idgaf if I get a response or not and idgaf if I get backlash for this, because you dragged me into this, ima give my opinion no matter who is lying and who isn't.

Before I get into this, I want to quickly say, this isn't like my usual posts, this is going to be rather serious and probably really long so please bare with me. If you'd rather see my other posts, then ignore this one and just enjoy the content I put on here.

I never expected to be pulled into some random ass drama. I didn't want to give it attention but I can't just like sit back and watch this shit happen anymore because I'm seriousslyyy pissed off with all of this drama and how people have been reacting to it. I have every right to say my piece seeing as I've been pulled into it for no reason whatsoever.

So, I randomly decided to come online and I noticed I had been tagged in a post by @/voidmysteries and naturally, I was confused and curious so I clicked it. It was a post basically saying that someone (@/fairykittz8) was claiming to know @/luvmanifesting and that they were trying to... Harm their reputation? Now, before I go into anything. I find it unbelievably funny how so many people immediately jump onto a person who has had void success stories and claimed they're lying, which is what I've seen happen to @/fairykittz8. It's honestly disrespectful, no one owes you proof they've manifested things in the void, or in any way for that matter.

I'm not on anyone's side here, even if I may sound biased. The reason why, is because neither side has proof. I can't say "this person is lying about their post" because how tf should I know? However, I'm going based on half of the shit that's gone on tumblr and shit that's been said and done.

I went on @/voidmysteries' account and I saw the post they reposted before they made their original post, and saw how originally people were claiming that Kaylee (@/fairykittz8) was actually @/luvmanifesting. Do you know how disrespectful it is to basically say both of these people are lying with 0 proof + saying they're the same person, just because you want to actually see fucking proof of a manifestation for your own validation and because you don't want to believe that people are fucking limitless. I get people can be skeptical, but fucking hell, mind your own damn business? Like I said, no one owes you anything. Yes, people lie, unfortunately it comes with any community, but it isn't your job, to dig into it. If you believe someone is lying, and you ACTUALLY have proof, then sure. Go ahead, call them out in a respectful and mature way. But just because two people may have had the same name, or the same similar desires, does NOT mean they are the same fucking person. Grow up.

On the post that was reposted, Kaylee did respond and both creators left it on some what "good" terms, basically just saying no one was going for anyone, which is completely fair. However, @/voidmysteries, then made their post. I was rather confused because they were saying Kaylee has done this before and has ruined multiple creators reputations by claiming that they know them? I don't get how someone lying and claiming to know someone can harm another's reputation but obviously I haven't seen anything like that. Therefore, despite my opinion on it, I can't say much. A lot of this shit that is going on has little to no proof. They also claimed to be a big creator who was a victim of something like this with Kaylee, however decided to keep themselves anonymous due to the fact they de-activated their account. The thing I find rather convenient is that all of these bloggers who have allegedly had their reputation destroyed by Kaylee, have deleted their accounts?? Surely if there are so many harmed by this person, you'd remember at least one of them.

Secondly, they said how Kaylee is doing this for fame? If you go on their account, they barely have any notes whatsoever apart from their void success story. No, they did not get their fame from saying they know @/luvmanifesting. They got their fame most likely from their void success story. You have to understand, most people don't actually really care about who is mutuals with who on here, it's all about "how did you get into the void?" And shit like that. So, immediately claiming Kaylee has done this for fame is just a little off in my opinion.

This is where I come in. @/voidmysteries basically @'d my account and said that I, along with some other rather popular and more relevant accounts as of recently, are at risk of Kaylee if we choose to leave? Why are we specifically the accounts that are at risk? It's a little weird that we've randomly been chosen like we've been put in a fucking sorting hat like how do you know WE are the ones at risk? Also, at risk of what? Like what, we go off our accounts and then someone claims to know us, what the fuck is that going to actually do to us? It doesn't change the advice and shit we've put on here.

If Kaylee is lying about knowing @/luvmanifesting and other creators, then they're lying. Simple. There's not really much to it. Yet at the end of the day, it's all he said she said. You have no proof that Kaylee is lying, Kaylee has no proof that she actually knows Ayami. You say that they're trying to ruin people's reputation but what's to say you aren't doing the same thing?

All of this was incredibly random. I also don't get why people keep making these god damn burner blogs for shitty drama like this. You can always tell too because they never change their profile picture from the original tumblr pic. They keep it the same way, post things for like 2 days and then leave as if nothing happened.

Something that swung me the wrong way for everyone in this situation is that everyone's comments are off. I get why Kaylee might have done it due to the harassment that has come her way (which I'll speak about in a moment) but for @/voidmysteries and the person I'm about to speak about, it makes little to no sense. I just found that rather weird on all of their sides so I wanted to mention that.

Finally, I went on Kaylee's blog and I noticed someone was literally harrassing her aka @/therealphynx. It is so fucking disgusting, no matter what the fuck someone has done, to make insults like they did is fucking horrific. Even if Kaylee was lying, it does NOT justify your actions at all. Making fun of r*pe victims and disabled people is completely out of line and genuinely disgusting. Even after she blocked you, you still went on and on, being desperate for her to unblock you so you could continue to harrass her. Are you fucking serious? You don't need to believe in what other people have manifested, but harrassing them in such a way like this is a new fucking low and I hope to god you fucking read this part of the post. You are disgusting and need serious help. All of that just because you didn't get proof of what someone else manifested? Get a fucking grip.

I seriously hope this community can actually fucking grow from this shit because I'm getting so sick and tired of all of this he said she said bullshit. I know a lot of people have lied, but even with the posts they've lied in, people have still gotten motivation to go and manifest the shit they want. So doing all of this, with no proof, is pathetic. + I know I have no proof Kaylee is telling the truth and I ain't backing Kaylee in any way shape or form whether they're lying or not. Once again, I have no proof for either side here, but why don't you lot just handle shit maturely rather than creating posts to get fame off of and portraying them as "awareness."

The last thing I'm going to say, is leave me out of shit like this unless I'm genuinely going to be affected by something or someone has said some fake bullshit about me and my account. I don't give a fuck if someone lies about knowing me if I leave. It doesn't affect me in any way at all.

[riflesniper]

spent enough time cooking up this guy behind the scenes and now i feel like i can toss him out here now. this big boy is aegis :3 a sapient mech that ran from his makers to a resistance militia, who plopped a gay little pilot (green) into his hands. more details below the cut

patreon | commissions

his storyline takes place a few centuries in the future, where a small-scale war has kicked up between a newly socialist canada and a dystopian oligarchical US. aegis comes from a particularly powerful corporation called valkyrie machines, who definitely pioneered sapient AI tech some hundred years prior and definitely didn't just steal the tech from somewhere else before stealthily bribing the actual inventors into a silence or death deal

on the other side of the border is the canadian shield alliance, though most people just call it the alliance or the shield. they've played a lot of roles since their inception that was also some hundred years prior, notably aid programs, disaster assistance, fighting for land back/secure human rights/immigrant protections, scaring corporations into NOT being shitty, better economic policies, etc.

unfortunately the US did NOT like any of that. when canada's economic system is officially changed from mixed to socialist, the oligarchs of the states kick off a race to try and see who can annex it the fastest. fortunately, the shield doesn't give them an inch.

aegis is one of valkyrie's newer warden models; nimble, fleet-footed mechs with sapient AI cores to enhance battle prowess. valkyrie is Very strict about what their mechs and pilots do and don't know, and are not above both executing pilots who try to rebel and wiping AIs whose thoughts stray too far. aegis and his last pilot were able to keep sneaky about their plans to escape, but said pilot was disposed of before it could be carried out, aegis made a break for it on his own, racing from the montana base he was stationed at to the albertan border.

despite broadcasting a plea for the shield to find him, he didn't get out unharmed; valkyrie's air fighters were eventually able to catch up to him before he scaled the wall. they plucked at him for a couple hundred kliks until the shield managed to find him near a small town. a skirmish broke out to claim him, ending with one shield mech being non-fatally damaged and all of the valkyrie fighters being shot down.

aegis, battered from the run, was hoisted to a shield base near calgary for major repairs before being shipped to the edmonton for external repairs and retrofitting. it's here that he's assigned a new pilot; green reinhart, a skilled, kind man with a underlying justice-driven rage to match the heart on his sleeve. a man who would not be killed so easily, not with the transhuman tech that's available. it's here that aegis would actually get his name, and so much more that he never would have had back in the states.

the world was opening up to him now. his pilot wasn't the only one talking to him like he was a person anymore. green gets him a proxy frame to explore with. the two of them spend hours together, on and off the field; perhaps this is the best thing that's could've happened for either of them.

(first image is when they've already been partners for a long while; green's organic body does eventually get killed in a battle, and his transhuman body is activated. im still kinda fleshing out the details, unsure if i'll get much deeper into the socio-political-economic shitshow behind the worldbuilding, since i originally made this guy to just have a gay mech/pilot thing w/ green, but its kinda feeding off the current shitshow of the US wanting to annex canada in this day and age. i gotta focus more of that energy on makin characters WAUGH

if anyones got suggestions for like. videos or audiobooks that Could help add onto the worldbuilding though, im all ears. just keep in mind that i struggle with text only stuff, so audiovisual is heavily preferred)

[inseparabiles]

No please don't ever think I'll be annoyed by this. I love how similarly our minds work re: this concept and I'm just like. Lying here on the floor crying because wow. Comrades in excitement

I'm just. I'm also SO amused by the like. You put together Lucilla and Acacius, two idealistic politicians with a firm view of what they want for their country and their people, and they naturally breed rebellion. Take Macrinus out of the picture and let them actually go hog wild with the concept, and...... they end up parents of three actual adult men somehow naturally over the course of this whole thing??? I'm not even forcing this. At no point have I had to ask myself, so how can I break things so that this will make sense in the narrative. At no point has any character ever had to drop agenda or make choices against their established personalities or goals to make this happen.

Lucilla has NOT been happy about anything that's happened, but she is, at her heart, someone who is not cruel or vengeful. She's very righteous and just and those can be hard traits, but she's never stepped outside of the boundaries of necessity, even in her plans, and she's always led by conscience and heart first. She's really there to embody her father's ideals - to be the example of what a good ruler would be, if it wasn't for sexism and greed. Thanks, sexism. We could have had it all but no. But all of that means that she'll never make a choice out of pure cruelty or hatred, and will put up with a LOT of suffering and injustice for her own ends to benefit others.

And Acacius just. He's basically got all he's ever wanted right now, seating himself at the end of the one most central and influential strategic map table beside Lucilla to overhaul the functions of the Roman military to divert resources and manpower back where he thinks they belong (along with his friends), and he's the chillest he's ever been. Being chill has reduced his level of vengefulness back down to levels of "gods these two shits are annoying", with the modifier of "I don't have to defer to them for anything anymore" and the conclusion has more or less been "I'm in a near-absolute position of power over two young men who are desperately looking for a father figure, and I'm going to use this opportunity to tell them EXACTLY what I think about them, and there's nothing they can do about it." Putting Geta against the wall has proven to be extremely entertaining, because he takes the bait and argues back. Putting Caracalla against the wall is less entertaining, because the consequences are extremely predictable (he'll either try to bite or he'll try to hide, depending on the alignment of stars and time of day, and you can't really do anything with that. It's not intellectually stimulating lmfao).

But Acacius is so naturally a mentor, who by his career is a leader to young men - someone who feels responsible for his troops, their growth, their wellbeing, their safety, and their efficacy - that he's dug himself into a hole with Geta immediately just by the graces of allowing himself that banter. What they've ended up developing is a lot like, Geta's an inexperienced officer coming into the ranks with no merit but by blood, and he's not unwilling to learn, he's just arrogant and needs to be taken down a peg. And in that position, which to Acacius comes very naturally, he's just immediately finding him very easy to like for all the potential and challenge he provides. And Lucilla at the side like... I love you, but the boy you've chosen to start personally educating is the same kid who was driving us into extinction. Stupidity is not an excuse for blood on your hands. But, and I'm sorry because Acacius would never voluntarily admit this about Geta, the thing is that an inexperienced officer will always end up with blood on their hands. Being in a position to command armies but having no strategic or military education whatsoever makes that inevitable. Even the simplest bad choices get a LOT of people killed. And that's twisting his own sense of Geta's guilt there, which allows him to prioritise everything that's happened more as a matter of failed education and training than pure evil. And Geta's not giving him pure evil after being taken out of his position, he's giving him scared child.

AND UHHHH I WON'T SAY ANYTHING MUCH ABOUT Lucilla and Caracalla (we'll get there in another 50 000 words I think) but if it means something there's this bit waaay early on where Geta is reading Cara like a book, assuming either of them knows the alphabet anyway,

---

Caracalla looked at him, the way his head moved slow, his gaze too clear against the soft light of the lamp beside the bed.

“Do you think it’d be worth it?” he asked colourlessly, swaying.

Geta blinked at him. “Would what be worth what?”

“Doing what they want, for Lucilla’s approval.” Caracalla seemed to be talking to Geta’s ghost, someone who wasn’t really present in the room, or who had been, but hours ago. He tried to catch up again, but felt like he was playing chase with something that kept burrowing underground.

“Her word might be the only thing that keeps us alive,” Geta said slowly after the creature, who’d left him stranded like a stupid hunting dog on a field. “We should act accordingly, for now.”

“No,” Caracalla said, tilting his head the way one might chase off an irritating fly. “Really doing it. She might grow to like us. We asked her once, do you remember? To make us of her line. She might do it this way.”

“Are you -“ Geta began sharply, but in an instant his temper broke.

For some time, he only breathed, and breathed, and breathed, gaze empty against the sheets of the bed, the littering of letters and hands and limbs and pillows in front of him. Then, sighing out the last inhale, he let his shoulders down.

“She’s never going to love you,” he said dryly, “it doesn’t matter what we do to convince her. I will not bow to a traitor, and neither should you. She is not our mother. She’ll never be.”

Caracalla nodded, just as distant as his voice had been.

---

That's mean. :(

unhinged concept (I'm entering that stage): Lucilla actually does adopt Geta and Caracalla which ruins Acacius's life but also makes him their step-father and they finally get an actual father figure who teaches them how the fuck to hold swords and not be the worst people ever.

and we just cancel Macrinus entirely, which, I don't know what the hell happens to Lucius but that's someone else's unhinged concept to worry about.

And we put Caracalla on a leash because the boy cannot behave. That's no way to treat your mother

[himluv]

It's morning, and I'm still in bed, having pre-coffee thinky thoughts. Mainly about Veilguard lol.

I'm thinking about why I haven't talked about Solavellan in datv much yet. This blog has become an almost exclusively Lucanis Dellamorte blog these past few months 😂. But, I've been obsessed with Solavellan for 10 years. They are my otp. Soooo what's going on?

Under the cut because length and SPOILERS.

1. I genuinely haven't fully processed the Solavellan ending yet. I've done it twice and I sobbed both times and it hurts SO GOOD. But I still feel like I haven't let it get all the way in yet. I'm keeping it at arm's length just a little bit because... Ow.

2. I'm mad at Solas. We see him at his worst in datv. It's been a decade of solitude and desperation and he is wearing that Fen'Harel mask non-stop. He's lost sight of himself (if he ever had a good grip on the concept in modern times). And... I didn't really understand just how much I loved Varric until this game. Because, now I can't see fanart of him without tearing up. I can't play datv without crying over him. And while that also hurts SO GOOD (and I love tragedies), I also cannot forgive Solas for killing Varric and then LYING about it and USING Varric's memory against Rook. Like... I have a lot to unpack there but it feels unforgivable to me.

3. But, how I feel and how Riallan Lavellan feels are two different things. She loves him still, after everything. Not to say they won't have some very big serious talks in the Fade and that she isn't mad at him, but she ultimately does forgive him. And, so there's a gap between me and Ria at the moment that's going to take time for me to process before I can start writing them again (I very much want to write them again).

4. I love my Rook, Embria Aldwir. Like, so so much. And I LOVE Riallan, but she's much more removed from me and my personality than Embria is. When I play DA games for the very first time I usually play as/for myself, then make a second character to RP and actually establish my canon. But... in datv, Embria hit all the right boxes and notes. My first run felt like canon and I have latched onto this girly harder than ANY of my previous DA ocs. I can't wait to explore in fic how Embria and Riallan's paths cross and what their relationship becomes, but I'm not there yet. I'm still cooking.

4. My biggest reason for not yapping more about Solavellan is that... The fandom around Solas has become incredibly toxic and almost... Invasive. Like, I love him and love seeing gorgeous art of him and Lavellan, but also... The takes are frequently bad and the body swap mods are getting egregious (like c'mon, he would not do that and you know it). I know this is a personal squick, but for me, anything that feels that disingenuous to the character is a complete turn off. Seeing him do things he would. not. do. makes me wonder if people even actually like him? Or just some weird version they've cooked up in their mind these past 10 years. Idk, I'm just seeing a lot of stuff in Solavellan spaces that is actually making me like Solas less, because of how fans treat him AND other fans. Which... Sucks. So, I'm trying to preserve MY Solavellan, my beloved, tender, tragic otp, and to do that I can't really participate in fandom about them. At least, not right now when everything is fresh and feverish.

So, yeah. That's where my head is at re: Solavellan. I love them. I just have a lot of complicated feelings about them right now. So I'm gonna keep playing and learning with Lucanis and Embria. Don't be surprised if I come out of nowhere with a giant fic involving all of them in like, five years (I didn't start writing Solavellan until 2019, even though I shipped them right after DAI released).

And, if you made it this far and also enjoy tender, tragic Solavellan, I have a fic to give you:

Inevitable

It's complete, and follows Riallan and Solas from the very beginning, to just after Trespasser. Canon-compliant, in-between moments with eventual smut.

It is the fic of my heart. I spent the better part of four years writing it and sobbed when it was done. Please read it if it sounds like your jam.

And of course, it comes with a playlist. Enjoy!

[elephantshoetoo]

Hey there! Loved the recent YT video of yours. Um, Let's dive straight to the question.

First, I am a massive Byler believer. (all for the right reasons, I believe) But recently I keep seeing posts on "why Byler isn't happening" and the reason people usually drop is "the story is set on 80s, it was a difficult time to be gay"--- And I'm like, 1. well, it's mainly a fictional show. there isn't upside down or at least we have yet to find that to be true . so writers can do what they like. 2. just because 80s was a difficult time to express openly to others that they were gay doesn't mean people didn't fall in love and decided to love and live with each other for the rest of their lives. 3. am I really watching the same show with the rest of the world? am i overanalyzing it? or am I really gonna be kicked on the stomach when Season 5 releases (which I hope releases soon, every day of wait is killing me) What's your take on this? Hopefully you'd answer. I rarely open Tumbler but I will come back for your answer. Lots of Love, A Fellow ST Fan

Ooh, thank you for your question - this is my first real ask. I'm so excited 😊

Take heart, dear Byler shipper. This is a show for the underdogs, a show about fighting against forced conformity and righting the wrongs of the past.

I grew up in the 80's, and yes, gay people existed, though many of them were closeted out of fear or denial. I had gay friends and dated several gay guys, so I do understand why people might think it would be unrealistic for Byler to happen, but yeah, it's a sci-fi show, not a documentary. It's not about realism or showing how it was. It's about showing how it should be (in the end), so I don't think the time period is going to stop them.

In fact, I think the time period is significant. I think the monsters and the Upside Down are all symbolic of the horrors of growing up as a gay person in a place and time that was hostile towards them.

But also...

The first Pride celebration in Indiana happened in Indianapolis in 1987.

1987.

Why does that date sound familiar...? Oh, yes. That's when most of ST 5 takes place - the year of their first Pride celebration. Hmm... Coincidence?

And Byler can happen without them coming out to the whole town. They could keep it amongst their friends and family, the way Robin has only told Steve so far. Nobody doubts Rovickie happening, even though they are also gay in the 80's (making those arguments against Byler completely invalid). Vickie has far less queer coding than Mike Wheeler and is also in a straight relationship, but everyone sees it coming after only a few flirty scenes, because nobody knows or cares about Vickie's boyfriend or had any preconceived ideas about her character that they now have to adjust. People don't like adjusting their preconceived ideas. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them question the safety of their familiar little world and forces them to expand their minds. Growth is never easy.

But... if they don't already see the queer coding behind Mike and all the hints that Byler is on the horizon... adjusting their preconceived ideas would actually explain Mike's whole character arc, the "journey" he's been on and the weird behavior that makes no sense through any other lens. That airport "hug"? Pretending to ignore Will all day while furtively glancing at him and noticing every little thing he does? Classic crush behaviour. It's so obvious unless you're straight-up in denial. They've used so many of the traditional romantic tropes (love triangle, boy-next-door, "just friends" to lovers, Cyrano De Bergerac, etc...), yet people refuse to see it because Byler isn't a traditional couple.

So, yeah... It's a story. It can do whatever it wants. If it's a good story - which I believe it is - it will pick up all these breadcrumbs it's laid down and follow them to a satisfying conclusion. Otherwise, what would have been the point? Why have Will believe he's never going to fall in love? Why have him fall in love with Mike specifically, and leave a whole bunch of hints that Mike returns his feelings, making the audience root for them, if that's not where they're planning to take this? It would make no sense at all and be sloppy storytelling, imo.

Thank you so much for your question, and for watching our YouTube video! I hope this cures you of any Byler doubt.

Love,

Byler Mom

💙💛💚

[mightydyke]

The way that Paul Shapera presents love in The Puppetshade Chronicles, specifically the second album, is so fascinating to me.

You have Jes, who declares "love is perfect, love is all" before shooting the girl she loves at the end of the first album, claiming it's the only way to prevent Jenna suffering and betraying her. At the end of the second album, she kills Molly after finding out that she wasn't tortured into betraying her but actually wanted to abolish the monarchy of her own volition. Jes claims "now the girl I love is gone". To me, it seems like Jes has such an idealised view of love that anything that doesn't live up to her perfect expectations must be eradicated. It fits with her character, being a princess who's used to getting what she wants and views anything inconvenient to her as unacceptable. But before she kills Molly, she hesitates and changes her mind multiple times, almost like her view of love is shattering as she realises that it isn't perfect, that it doesn't guarante that there will be no conflict between people who love each other.

This is even more interesting compared to Paisley Piper's view of love. She thinks that love is painful and maddening. She says that love can be sweet, but ultimately it will entice you and drive you crazy. And yet at the end of the album she decides to go and rescue her love. Entirely the opposite to Jes, she acknowledges the pain caused by love and how it's far from perfect, but decides to help the person she loves.

Then you have Oki, who seems entirely dissilusioned with love (and every aspect of existence), saying that his friend Jeza said "love was just a fleeting treat, illusion to me now." He's clearly been caused a lot of pain by love and is definitely going through a sadistic phase, but seems to genuinely love the other Puppetshades.

And all this just makes me wonder how Jenna, L3X and Yery will think of love now. Jenna has been betrayed by a person who claimed to love her, L3X loves Jenna but her love makes him feel guilty, Yery has had the person he loved most killed. They've all seen people they love murdered. And then there's Cobalt Rose, who can almost be seen as a metaphor for how people who are loves live on in the memories of those who loved them. I think love is such a fascinating driving force and motivation behind this story and I can't wait to see how this theme develops.

[beholdthemem]

Chrissy insists on buying him a pastry while they talk shop. Eddie doesn't particularly want a pastry, but Chrissy seems to have an easier time talking if she has something else to focus on while she does.

"I haven't been back in a while," she confesses as they wait in line. "So I don't know if everything I tell you is still up to date. It's just, y'know-"

"Something to work from," Eddie supplies. Chrissy nods, and the line moves up.

"My parents' names are Phillip and Laura. Dad's a copyright lawyer, and Mom used to teach Sunday school- I don't know if she still does. Technically she was just there until they could find somebody else, but all the families really like her."

There's a touch of ruefulness to her voice. The line moves up again.

"They're kind of, um. Traditional? Old fashioned, maybe. Basically it shouldn't take much to shock them. They won't say anything about it to your face, but they're really going to be upset about your hair."

"Them and everybody else over the age of forty. How do they feel about tattoos?"

"Deeply judgmental."

"Perfect."

In front of them, a small elderly man examines the menu board with grave seriousness. The teenager manning the register drums her fingers on the counter with increasing impatience.

"They've got, ah... opinions... on how people are supposed to present themselves. What it means to be a responsible, worthwhile member of society, how you're supposed to do that as a guy, how you're supposed to do that as a girl..."

"Traditional," Eddie recalls.

"Right. Kind of, um. 1950s ideals of womanly and manly. They wouldn't put it that way, but that's sort of what it amounts to? They liked when things were... simpler."

There's a lot of subtext in that 'simpler'. Eddie pulls a face. "So, for dinner conversation I can just talk about how the country's gone to shit, and as soon as they get excited I follow it up with 'And anybody stupid enough to have voted for that maggot infested sack of clown cum demanding to buy Greenland over twitter-"

"They didn't- they didn't actually vote for him," Chrissy looks like she wants to laugh, but is restraining herself from doing so. "They felt like he was too extreme, but they couldn't stand the idea of voting for a Democrat, either, so they just. Didn't vote."

"Ohhh, I gotcha- cowards."

That actually does startle a laugh out of her. She looks both surprised and delighted, like the sound is unfamiliar.

The old man ahead of them trundles off without buying anything, putting them at the front of the line. The teenage employee, who Eddie knows had to have overheard the phrase 'maggot infested clown cum' by virtue of proximity, looks at both of them with an expression that suggests people who value their lives will not make her wait by deciding what to order.

"Oh-" Chrissy turns to Eddie a little sheepishly, either missing or somehow managing to ignore the counter girl's growing bloodlust. "Sorry, I should've asked earlier- which do you want?"

"Uh..." Eddie scans the board, and then selects the cheapest thing possible. She's already bought him coffee, after all. Chrissy may be generous, but he feels like there's gotta be a limit to how much you ask for.

The counter girl rings them up, and looks like she's trying to melt somebody's head with her mind the entire time she does.

"My ex still comes to visit them a lot," Chrissy continues conversationally as they return to their table. "And he's definitely gonna be there, so um. Just sort of warning you now."

"I- your what?" Eddie comes to a halt, squinting at her and trying to replay what he's pretty sure he just heard her casually toss out like it was nothing worth remarking on. That CAN'T be right. "Ex WHAT?"

"Boyfriend?" Chrissy gives him an uncomfortable smile. Eddie resists the urge to shake his head like a wet dog until his brain rattles into whatever position it's apparently been knocked out of to make him the only person here who finds that statement completely fucking bizarre. Boyfriend? Her ex boyfriend is coming to Thanksgiving dinner?

"...'kay?" he says slowly, purely for something to fill the sudden conversational void while he tries to work out how the fuck he's meant to respond to that.

"His name's Jason," Chrissy makes a show of brushing off her seat before she sits back down- possibly for something to do that'll let her avoid eye contact. Her words have sped up, like she's embarrassed and trying to power through it as swiftly as possible. "We, um. We dated for a while back in high school, but broke up before leaving for college. He is, ah..." She sighs. "Look, full disclosure- he's a big part of why I wanted to hire you."

"Sure, I get it," he's not entirely sure he does, but he's got a few ideas, and doesn't like any of them. He remembers the fear on her face earlier, when she thought she was going back home solo, and likes them even less.

"Are you..." He hazards, trying to feel this out as Chrissy takes a delicate sip of coffee. "Are you worried he's gonna try something?"

'Are you asking for a bodyguard,' is what he wants to know, because that is an entirely different set of duties than Fake Boyfriend. It's not a role he's ever played before. He can fight, if it comes down to it- but most of his experiences with that have come from dealing with drunks at work and irritating people until they respond with violence. He's learned how to take and throw a punch because if he's going to go through life being obnoxious (And he is, that's non-negotiable) being able to handle the consequences is a necessity. But it's only ever been HIS neck on the line. If he loses, he loses- he gets the shit kicked out of him, bitches about it to the guys until he heals up, and then moves on. He's never had anybody relying on him to win before.

But the girl across the table is small enough to make even Eddie seem tall, nice enough to leave behind a tip in the nearly empty jar on the counter when the cranky high schooler hadn't been looking, desperate enough for help to arrange a meeting with some weirdo online and not run away screaming when the weirdo in question turned out to be HIM.

She needs back up.

And if the only person available is him, well, then, he'll fucking figure it out.

"Try some...?" Chrissy repeats, frowning a little to herself before the penny drops. Her eyes go huge.

"No!" She squeaks, looking horrified. "Oh, God no, it's not like- he isn't- no. No, no, he wouldn't- he'd never- no, I didn't mean- no. No, that's not what- um- I'm so sorry. No, I wasn't, I wasn't asking- I don't need you to... to... no-"

Well, that's definitely a relief. It does however seem to indicate some motivations that Eddie dislikes for entirely different reasons.

"Okay," he raises a finger to stop Chrissy mid-torrent. "If this is a plot to win your ex back-"

"NO!" Chrissy yelps again, somehow managing to look even more horrified. "Oh, God, no, I want him to give up!"

"And your plan for that is showing up with the world's worst new boyfriend?" Eddie questions, going from exasperated to incredulous. Being used as a tool of jealousy is a hard no- one hospital visit was more than enough. Doing this is...

Well.

Once again- Chrissy's nice.

And loathe as he is to admit it, he'll do a lot of things for nice.

But that does not change the fact that what she's asking him to do makes no fucking sense at all.

"Like- not to criticize or anything, but I feel like showing the guy his replacement sucks shit is just gonna encourage him to try and win you back." It would certainly encourage HIM. Rekindled relationship aside, if Eddie were in this guy's shoes and had to watch an ex he held in even faint goodwill be openly mistreated, he'd go apeshit.

"I don't- I don't need you to be horrible," Chrissy twists the cardboard sleeve on her coffee cup around and around and around. "I just need you to be... different."

"Different like...?"

"Jason thinks he wants us to get back together. What he actually wants is the version of us that first started dating to get back together, and those people don't exist anymore. Sure, when we were 16, we had the same wants, and needs, and things we expected out of a relationship, but people don't always- just because 2 people start out really similar doesn't always mean they're going to stay that way, you know?"

"Sure," Eddie shrugs. In his experience, most people don't. Whether or not that ends up being a deal breaker is a whole other ball of wax.

"I'm not who I was in 10th grade. I can't give him the answers 10th grade Chrissy would've given 10th grade Jason, and... honestly, looking back, even if she HAD answered the way he's hoping for, it would've only been because she thought she didn't have other choices. Who I used to be was a stop on the way to moving on, and I'm okay with that, but he didn't... WANT to change."

And THERE'S where it ends up being a deal breaker.

"There is someone out there who can live a very happy life with Jace as he is, and with who he wants to be, but she's not me." Despite the nickname, there's a firmness to how Chrissy says this that indicates no amount of past affection will make it up for debate. "And he's not gonna believe that until he finally understands I've changed."

"That you're different," Eddie repeats. Now the picture's starting to come into focus. "Different mindset, different lifestyle... different taste in guys."

She colors. "I'm sorry-"

"No, I don't mind," Eddie assures quickly. He really doesn't. She looks almost ashamed of herself on his behalf, though, like using him as a visual aid instead of a demonstration of how far in life she's fallen is somehow just as bad. He finds himself simultaneously amused and endeared. "Seriously, this is the first time in my life I've ever been used as a good example."

It occurs to him, as the tension melts and she breaks into giggles again, that he's really starting to like her laugh.

"So how'd we meet?" He presses, trying to get as much mileage out of her returned calm as possible. "Drag show? Satanic ritual? Torching Jim Banks' lawn?"

"Maybe I went to see your band?"

"How'd you-" Eddie's aware he's staring a little, and probably messing up the flow of the conversation he'd just gotten back on track, but also what the hell?

"That's what you said in the ad, right?" Chrissy's turned a little self-conscious again, maybe worried she's made things weird. "You play guitar?"

"That I do. That I do," it helps, Eddie considers reflectively, that he has only the loosest possible connection between his mouth and his brain. That means that in times like these, when he has been thoroughly knocked off balance, he doesn't need to provide any real input to keep the words coming out and can instead focus on the fact that she'd bothered to remember the barely related line about his band he'd tossed in for flavor.

Baffling.

Absolutely baffling.

Nice is rare. Eddie's already willing to do a lot of things for nice. Chrissy's version of nice has unknowingly just lengthened the list of shit Eddie's willing to tolerate on her behalf quite a lot.

All the same: "Would they believe that?" It's bad to judge on appearances, but she really doesn't look the type.

"My parents might. Jason wouldn't want to believe it, but he would. My brother, though," For the first time since they started talking about her family, Chrissy looks fond. "He'd have some questions."

"Oh, you've got a brother? Do I need to worry about getting my ass kicked?" He's mostly kidding, but he is a bit curious. He's an only child, thank Christ, but he's pretty sure that protective siblingly ass kickings are a requirement.

"I doubt it." Chrissy shakes her head. "He's more of a..." She scrunches her nose, thinking to herself, then makes a vague gesture in the air. "He's not really the fight-y type. Never liked confrontation much, his policy is more 'Ignore it till you can't'."

"Yeah?" Eddie raises an eyebrow as he breaks off a piece of... scone? Oatmeal bar? Whatever it was that she bought for him, all he'd paid attention to was that it was under 3 dollars. "What happens when you can't?"

A corner of Chrissy's mouth twitches. "Well, um. Once when I was 12 and he was... maybe 8? There was this girl I used to do Girl Scouts with who kept making fun of me because we were in 6th grade, but I was still riding the Disney princess bike I got when I turned 10. It was honestly kind of small for me at that point, but my mom didn't want to waste money getting a new one when there was a perfectly good bike right there- anyway, we used to host a lot of scout meetings at our house, because Mom really likes to be active in community things. And I guess Jenny must've said something to me where PJ could hear���"

She puts her face in her hands. Yet again, Eddie gets the impression that she's amused, but feels like she really, really shouldn't be.

"And for 2 weeks, every time he saw her bike somewhere in town, he'd wait until she locked it up to go inside, and then he'd pop one of her tires."

Whatever the pastry is actually called, one of the main components seems to be sawdust, because swallowing it unexpectedly has leeched all the moisture out of Eddie's mouth. It makes it halfway down his throat before disintegrating, and is only marginally improved by the immediate chaser of what he can tell by taste is 2 day old coffee.

"2 weeks?" He manages at last. "In public? How in the shit did he do that, I wrecked someone's bike ONCE as a kid, and I had to wait until midnight to make sure no one saw me. And figure out where he lived! What is he, a ninja?"

"I don't know!" Her voice is muffled, but he can hear her trying not to laugh in spite of herself. "I didn't even find out it was him until years later, he never said anything. We all just thought Jenny was really unlucky because she kept rolling over screws and thorns and glass and stuff- her dad finally lost patience and took the bike away because he thought she was being too careless with her things, so she just had to walk everywhere. She was a junior counselor at some of PJ's after school things, so he must've had a lot of opportunities-"

"Oh my God."

"But it's like- he does stuff like THAT. It's not important for you to know he's the one doing it, or to understand why it's happening to you- it's enough that you're miserable."

"That's the scariest fuckin' thing I've ever heard. That's scarier than a straight up ass kicking, he just jumps straight to covert warfare-"

"That's not what that is!"

"That's exactly what that is! Forget the shovel talk, if we show up and this kid thinks I'm not good enough for you, I'm probably getting my tires slashed!"

"No, you're not," Chrissy insists, taking her face out of her hands to try and give him a stern look. The effect is spoiled somewhat by the way she's clearly stifling a smile, which only encourages Eddie more.

"Well, I guess if you're offering to protect me," he spreads his hands with theatrical magnanimity and pretends not to notice that he's accidentally sent crumbs flying everywhere. "Maybe PJ The Stealthy will be moved to spare my life and my non-existent car insurance. But I'm counting on you for this, I want it in writing that you'll shield me from his wrath."

"I won't NEED to shield you from his wrath, because I can't imagine you causing it," Chrissy says with remarkable confidence. "He doesn't do anything unless you provoke him, and that's hard to do. Even if you annoyed him, he'd probably just ignore you."

"I've been told I make that very hard." Eddie tells her solemnly. "Your brother's specialty may be covert warfare, but you can ask any teacher I've ever had- being in my presence is psychological warfare all its own!"

Right after he says it, he can see Chrissy's walls go back up. There's a split second where her body's at the table, but her eyes are a million miles away, and whatever it is she's seeing there isn't good. And then, as if nothing's happened, she snaps right back to the same polite, pleasant fake smile she had on when they first met.

Shit.

"I'm kidding," he says instantly. "Promise. Really. I'll be on my best behavior."

"I think that kinda defeats the point of this, doesn't it?" Chrissy asks with a chuckle, and fuck, Eddie hates that well mannered, trotted-out-for-polite-company noise now that he knows what her real laugh sounds like.

Clearly, that was a step too far. He just doesn't get why that was a step too far, and that's a problem. If he doesn't know exactly what the issue is, he doesn't know how to avoid doing it- and there's no way she's actually going to admit he's upset her, much less explain how. Telling someone they've screwed up is bad manners.

God, life would be so much simpler if everybody just gave up on the concept of manners.

"You can wage as much psychological war as you want," Chrissy says, and even though she's using his same joke, he doesn't feel like he can banter with her anymore. The version of Chrissy that's been treating his nonsense like it has enough logic to argue against or build upon has been swapped out with this charming, hollow girl again. "We've had years of practice with it."

"Right." Is THAT a joke? He genuinely can't tell.

"I, um..." The performance is fraying a little at the edges, like dropping it earlier has made it tricky to sink back in. "I'll just- I'll find a minute to get PJ alone and then explain. He wouldn't blow our cover on purpose, but I'd rather not risk him asking the wrong questions at a bad time."

"Sure." Eddie agrees simply. If he can't tell what skeeved her out, best to just be straightforward. No improvisation, no messing around, no trying to be funny- nothing that might make things worse. Predictability. It sucks that they're back to this after they'd been doing so well.

"Do you wanna exchange numbers?" Chrissy asks, returning to smooth professionalism. "I can give you mine in case anything comes up before Thanksgiving."

"Sure," Eddie says again, doing his best to stick to the script. He hopes that by the next time he sees her, he'll have figured out enough to know how to fix this- or even what he broke.

He digs out his phone, silently cursing yet more crumbs that insist on falling into his pockets, and comes back up just in time to see a flash of yellow dangling from Chrissy's hand.

"...do you have a cellphone charm?" He asks in disbelief, squinting at the small yellow flower swinging from her phone case. Chrissy blinks, thrown by the unexpected change of topic, then registers what he asked and gives a small huff of embarrassed amusement, like he's caught her doing something silly.

"How the fuck do you have a cellphone charm? I thought they quit adding holes for them in like- 2010," Eddie's reaching out to grab it before he can stop himself. To his surprise, Chrissy doesn't object, handing her phone over so he can get a better look.

The charm is flat, made of slightly sturdier plastic than he'd assumed at first glance. There's a few nicks at the edges- evidence of someone who moves around a lot, and takes her phone with her when she does- but apart from that, it's remarkably well cared for. The design of the flower is detailed enough that he can tell it's based off a real specimen, but he couldn't name the variety for any money.

"Well, they... the phones don't," Chrissy rubs her knuckles against the edge of the table, not quite looking at him as she does. "But the phonecases do? Sometimes? Or they can, anyway, if you're feeling, um... motivated."

It takes more than 1 afternoon to figure a person out. Eddie might be pretty good at it, but he's not arrogant enough to think he's got any real idea of what's going on in Chrissy's head after a single extended conversation. If he were to theorize, though- to take what little things he's noticed since this meeting began, to fill in the blanks with possibilities until he can turn them into might-be-answers tied together with metaphorical red string- he would say that Chrissy is like a turtle.

She has a pretty, painted shell that people talk to, thinking it's a real person, and rather than correct them she pulls herself inside to let them do it. Not out of shyness. Not really. More like... caution. Like she knows what people expect from the face outside, but she can't say for sure how they'd react to the creature that lives beneath it.

She came out of that shell today because she felt like she didn't have any other choice. Now that she's back inside, Eddie thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he can show her that it's safe, let her see that herself instead of trying to convince her...

...maybe this time she'll come out on her own.

"Swear to God, I haven't seen one of these since middle school," he continues, tucking that thought away for later, and he doesn't have to fake the grin on his face as he says it. The unexpected nostalgia and surprise at its source has him feeling genuinely charmed, and he's never unironically used that word in his life. "Serious blast from the past today- have you had this since then?"

"No," Eddie can see a face peeking out from within that turtle shell as Chrissy realizes that she's being invited to reminiscence rather than mocked. "It's... honestly, I think it was supposed to be for a keychain, but I kinda. Missed these? I know people joke about how tacky cell phone charms were, but, well."

"Tacky- now there's a fancy way of saying 'I'm allergic to fun'."

The smile Chrissy gives at this assessment crinkles her nose just a bit, like she can't quite help it.

"Did you have one too?"

"Me? Nah. I didn't get my first phone till almost 9th grade. What I DID have was a side business with my friend where we'd buy a shitload of keychains out of a catalog for really cheap, and then resell em at school as phone charms for way more."

"An entrepreneur," Chrissy says, followed by the same scrunch-nosed smile, and hot damn, he thinks he might've just heard her make her first honest-to-God joke today.

"That is NOT what the administration called us when we finally got caught."

"Wow, mean."

"Right? No respect for local businessmen. Children. Businesschildren-"

"Businesschildren?"

"Y'know what, we're sticking with entrepreneurs. Honestly, I think we could've kept it going for at least another semester if we hadn't gotten cocky and tried to expand into Disney characters. That's really what fucked us over; before then everything we were selling was juuuust crappy enough that we could believably say we made em as gifts for people. But when we suddenly started showing up with a grab bag of American Dragon and Kim Possible shit-"

"I had one of those!" Chrissy exclaims. "The- God, what was it- the Disney Channel Originals promotion-"

"That's the one! We flew too close to the sun there, but for one, glorious hour, we were making SO much money."

"I 100% would have fallen for that," Chrissy takes another drink of coffee, expression far off and fond. "My friend Heather bought me one for my 12th birthday. I guess it was sort of like an inside joke- my mother wouldn't let me watch Kim Possible at home, so I used to watch it at Heather's while she read magazines. I was way more into it than she was."

"That's cute," the word slips out before Eddie has time to figure out if he's taking too far a liberty with someone he's just met. It IS cute, and it's something he wouldn't hesitate to tease a friend for or mock an enemy with, but Chrissy's neither of those things yet- and if he's not careful, maybe ever. In a world of People-Whose-Boundaries-I-Understand and People-Whose-Boundaries-I-Don't-Give-A-Shit-About, Eddie has today met a candidate for that strange, seldom occupied third category: People-Whose-Boundaries-I-WANT-To-Understand.

It's not one he has much practice with, and that's making him… well, he wouldn't call it NERVOUS, per say, but… something somewhere on the edge of that.

Yeah.

Maybe.

He's not great at distinguishing intuition from impulse at the best of times, but today, just this once, it looks like it might not matter. Chrissy has a split second of bewilderment before her expression morphs into disbelief and delight, like no one's ever dared to tease her before. "It was NOT."

"It sounds pretty cute."

"It really wasn't! From the very beginning I liked it a lot more than she did, and by the time we were 10, half of our Saturdays started with her going 'Okay, are we actually going to do anything today, or are you just here for cartoons?"

"What ELSE are you gonna do at age 10? You can't drive, you can't drink, nobody'll sell you anything flammable no matter how much allowance you scrape together- the whole purpose of showing cartoons on a Saturday is to keep kids occupied because they have nothing else going on!"

"At 10, girls are supposed to switch to magazine quizzes, and it was very hard for Heather to do that for 2 people at the same time,” Chrissy glances down at her americano like she'd forgotten it was there, and takes a sip again. “Which she made sure to remind me of every time I visited. But even though she thought it was stupid… you know, I can’t remember her looking at the screen even once past 4th grade. She would rather have been doing literally anything else. And yet somehow, even though she couldn’t’ve cared less, she still paid enough attention to know who my favorite character was and get me a little Shego charm.”

“Shego…” Eddie internally scans through the two decades’ worth of passively accumulated cartoon lore clumped haphazardly in the section of his brain he thinks other people probably reserve for algebra. “She was… the…”

“Green one,” Chrissy fills in. "She was Dr. Drak- um- the main bad guy's sidekick. They had this running thing about how she was really a lot better at it than he was, she just didn't feel like putting in the effort to take his job. She was really snarky, and sarcastic, and-"

"The bisexual awakening of every kid born before 2001," The face is coming to him now, the chick with the black lipstick and fireballs. He hadn’t watched the show as a kid, but that particular character had been… memorable. "Right, the- JESUS!"

He skids backwards with an unpleasant screech of chair on linoleum as Chrissy coughs like she's trying to spit out a lung, the mouthful of terrible black coffee she'd been drinking now coating the table in front of her. Eddie spares a brief glare for the nosy fucks at the table nearest who have paused their discussion to gawk, then scoots forward again, gingerly attempting to mop up the mess with his remaining napkins.

"Shit," he half jokes, doing his best to make this less embarrassing for her. "You're spoiling me here, Chrissy- I know I'm funny, but you're the first audience I've ever had to properly appreciate it."

She doesn't respond.

"Seriously, a whole Thanksgiving of this and you're gonna ruin me for anybody else. I'll be texting you my lame ass jokes 24/7, not even gonna bother running em by my friends anymore. Who needs those fuckers when I've got a comedy connoisseur?"

Nothing.

"I've got a ton more where that came from," he's just running his mouth now, not even thinking about what he's saying as he tries to fill the silence and hopes he's not making it worse. She's giving him nothing to work with here, he's got no clue what direction to take this in, and he's wiping at the same spot on the table with a wad of napkins that have definitely absorbed all the coffee they can take so she can have a moment to collect herself before they make eye contact again.

There's no indication of whether that moment has begun, much less passed. Eddie finally bites the bullet and looks up, anyway.

Whatever remark he was planning to make dies on his tongue.

Chrissy has frozen into sharp, rigid lines, shoulders halfway to her ears and her face a horrible, chalky white that makes him think of cracked ice. She's got one hand clamped over her mouth, fingers clenched hard enough to bruise, and she's staring at him in a way that makes the back of his neck prickle- full of this awful, nameless thing behind her eyes that feels too primal to call fear. Something that echoes from her through him, just through that eye contact, and rattles sleeping instincts buried deep within his DNA. Some kind of ancestral memory from when fear was contagious, because the most important information to be passed through the troop was not what are we running from, just run.

She's looking at him like a cornered animal.

It's like everything she was afraid might happen if she left the shell has happened all at once.

"Chrissy?" His mouth has gone dry, and despite every effort to stop himself, he already knows the next words out of his dumb fucking mouth are gonna be- "You okay?"

The answer to that is a very obvious no, and he doesn't blame her for not dignifying it with a response. He's not even sure if she heard him, honestly, she hasn't blinked in way too long and if this turns out to be a medical thing- some sort of fugue state brought on by terror that he can't parse out- Eddie is so not qualified to help her.

"Chrissy?" He tries again, straining to keep himself sounding calm and trying to decide if he should touch her or if that's going to make whatever this is worse. She makes a small muffled noise through her hand, and he's torn between relief that she's responding and worry that this is the only response she's giving. She lowers her hand ever so slightly, movements mechanical, hunching down in her seat.

"I never…" it comes out in a thin little voice, just this side of a whisper. "I never- said it. To anyone."

Said what, Eddie wants to know, because he is well and truly at sea and still just on this side of panic, but he doesn't trust himself enough to ask what the fuck is going on with the delicacy he thinks would be needed to keep things… steady.

"I never told anybody," Chrissy continues, still barely audible, now bordering on despair. "Not even Heather."

The name sets something into motion in the back of Eddie's brain, like his subconscious already understands why that's significant but has to send internal machinery whirring into motion before it can translate it into something he can actually interpret. Things Chrissy mentioned earlier come tumbling back with no apparent rhyme or reason, flashing by at breakneck speed like images in a flip book.

Childhood friend. Childhood secret. Something she can't know. Something nobody can know. Already hiding stuff from parents, from a world of traditional, of old fashioned, of Sunday school1950swomanlymanlyRepublicanSIMPLER-

"Oh," Eddie says, clarity hitting him like a bolt of lightning. "Oh."

It feels so, so strange to be looking at the results of experiences he somehow lucked out enough to have only heard of rather than lived through. In all the ways that his life has been difficult, that particular one hasn't been a factor. Marianne might've had her problems- many, many, problems- but never once had Eddie felt like he'd needed to be afraid of her.

It hadn't necessarily been easy- while Eddie doesn't go out of his way to hide, he's not an idiot. The list of people he's actually trusted with the word 'bisexual' rather than left to draw their own conclusions is slim, and it's stayed that way for a reason. But one of the advantages to growing up as a gallery kid was that he'd known, from a very young age, that he'd had options.

He'd had examples. He'd had names. He'd had PROOF, living, breathing, talking, painting proof that people could be like him, could be different, and still live to grow old without changing jack shit about who they were.

What did it do to you, he wonders, as a still pale Chrissy shrinks into herself and looks like she's trying to decide whether or not to bolt, to grow up in a world with no evidence that that could ever happen?

"Well," Eddie finds his voice at last, a little more softly than he'd intended. "I guess I get to be the first to welcome you to the club."

He can see her eyes widen before she slowly looks up at him.

"Like I said in the ad, I can do a little acting, no problem," he smiles at her, trying to keep himself as open a book as possible, as transparent as he's ever been, to tell her in every way beyond words that she's okay here, and give her reason to believe it. "But most of what I'm offering comes from experience."

"Y-" her voice comes out cracked and a little bit raspy, staring at him like he's speaking in a language she's not quite sure she understands. "You…"

"Openly hit on other guests while you pretend you don't notice," Eddie quotes with the kind of word perfect recall that somehow never featured in his schoolwork. "I'll do any and all genders you choose, but I need advance warning if someone's likely to swing at me'-"

"Yes," Chrissy cuts him off sharply, leaning across the table towards him in her urgency. "Or- I don't know. I'm not sure what would happen if you- just- don't try. Please."

"Okay," he promises. Chrissy slowly eases back into her chair, visibly relieved.

She's less tense now. Still not totally relaxed- a little worn out, maybe, like the amount and variety of emotion she's just gone through in such a short span of time has left her tired physically, too- but she's not afraid anymore. She's looking down at her hands again, but every couple of seconds he catches her watching him wonderingly, whenever she thinks he's not paying attention. Eddie finishes off the last of his drink to provide her an opportunity.

"Was she yours?"

"Huh?" He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "...was who what?"

"You said…" Shyness is at war with curiosity. "We were talking about Shego, and you said she was everybody's… was she yours, too?"

Eddie can feel his ears heating up ever so slightly, and clears his throat, trying to pull off something appropriately dismissive and uninteresting. "Me? Nah. Wasn't really a Disney channel kid. You had good taste though, I'll give ya that-"

"Was it, um," he feels like he can see the years' worth of questions all jumbled together and fighting for the chance to get asked first pulsing away beneath Chrissy's temples, but she restricts herself to a single line of questioning. He kind of wishes she'd get a little more eclectic, because it would be so much easier to nudge her into a different, less embarrassing topic without her noticing if she did. "Was it a person, or another cartoon character?"

The deer-in-the-headlights thing he can feel himself doing must really be something, because Chrissy's lip is twitching while she tries to politely hide her amusement. HOW in the SHIT-

"Teen Titans?"

"I'm not a weeb," Eddie denies, drawing his dignity up and around him like an overpriced fur coat as he hydroplanes through this.

"That wouldn't make you a weeb, that's not anime."

"It was like anime training wheels. Everybody who grew up with a thing for a Teen Titans character went on to have a multi-year anime phase. There have been papers written on the subject, and I've only written most of them-"

"Batman?"

"It's such a tragically underfunded subject- you mean the PERSON, or the tv show? And which one? There are like, 5 different shows that've been called Batman, and they've all been the same thing with a little paint slapped on-"

"Avatar?" Eddie is not an easy person to read, so why does that determined glint in Chrissy's eye make him feel like it's only a matter of time before she figures out this and all his other secrets?

"I had a thing for Zuko like anyone else with eyes, sure."

"But he wasn't the first," Chrissy says that with a certainty that she definitely shouldn't have, despite- bafflingly- being right on the money. "So, then-"

"Y'know, we really don't have to do this-"

"Yes, we do," and she's got that same little not-so-secretly-amused lip twitch like she's teasing HIM now, which makes him feel as if he's been clotheslined.

"We do NOT,"

"We do."

"I don't even remember, it was years ago, and-"

"Danny Phantom?" Chrissy interrupts, one eyebrow raised.

"Goddammit," Eddie lets his head fall to the table in defeat.

Chrissy laughs, full and bright and the loudest he's heard her since they've met, and he decides he doesn't mind.

“I think I might be a terrible person,” Chrissy confesses to the lazily spinning ceiling fan.

“I think you might have heat exhaustion,” the stranger beside her says, not unkindly. 

“Mm,” Chrissy closes her eyes, still leaning back against the wall for support, and prays for the room to stop spinning. She’s going to regret sitting on the carpet of the student store later, when her head quits pounding and she can concentrate on responsibilities like laundry again, but right this second she doesn’t have enough focus to care. 

“Hey,” the stranger nudges her gently. “You drinking that water, man?“ 

"Uh…” Chrissy forces herself to process what he just said, and glances down at the half empty water bottle she’s holding in both hands. She’d forgotten about that, which is amazing considering how frantically she’d been chugging it a few minutes earlier.

(Was it only minutes?)

(She can’t tell how much time has passed.)

(God, her head hurts.)

Keep reading

[cat-b0t]

Thought of a CRAZY taiga x romeo idea....... ... Romeo... Cleaning... Taiga's face....because I know that guy is too lazy to do it himself.... Ggrhrrrr

[secret--history]

the whole 'there are not very many Great Causes worth fighting for these days' from Julian scanned as WAY more out of touch than the moon landing thing for me the first time i read tsh

[this-user-has-been-erased]

I really wish Nintendo would have had the courage to make Link an actual character in BotW/TotK. And no I don't mean have other characters TELL us about his personality or whatever. Allow him some facial expressions at least. I understand why he was so stoic in the memories in BotW but it would've been nice to have a memory that's just about Link himself. I'm still annoyed that the ONLY reason we know about Link's father being a knight is because Zelda mentioned it briefly in one memory. Not a SINGLE other mention of him.

I believe the reasoning for why Link has no personality in BotW/TotK is because he's supposed to be like a blank slate for the player to project onto, but.. in past games Link isn't a cardboard cutout, yet people project onto him just fine. For instance in WW, no one needs to tell you Link's personality, because it's SHOWN to you. The game does not have to tell you that he cares about saving his sister, because you can SEE it in his actions. Compared to TotK, it feels like Link doesn't really care at all about Zelda, especially after getting the final tear and he just stands there like... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know people like to bring up the in-game dialogue options that show Link's personality, and I agree that at the very least we have that. But a lot of that is skippable, and there are choices that the player (not Link) picks from. You could argue that his personality is different depending on who's playing the game, because ultimately people love to project onto him and pretend like that's his canon personality. Or his entire personality is just "I <3 Zelda."

I just want to know, what does Link HIMSELF think about having lost so many of his memories, his identity, and his friends and family? What does he think about his arm being destroyed and then replaced with Rauru's? What does he think about the MASTER SWORD being shattered???????????? Because you know it's HIS sword, that was literally CREATED to fight Ganon.

Anyway this just annoys me so much, that past LoZ games had fairly simple yet meaningful stories, and actually good, FUN characters, even if they weren't particularly fleshed out. And now apparently open-world games can't have decent stories or good characters. There's maybe a HANDFUL of characters from BotW/TotK that I actually like, and the rest are bland and boring. I really hope the next game does better.

[byanyan]

thinking about... byan making friends with all the pets of the foster families they've stayed with. them at a certain point finding more comfort in those friendships than any relationships they have with the family. ...thinking about at least one home where they were treated about as well as the dog, so when they ran away... they took the dog with them

[businesstycoon27]

we do research for our dating games? That sounds super fun XD

thank you! :D dating games have been rotting my brain since i was a child so i really wanted to make one at some point

the basic idea is mc moving into a haunted apartment and getting to know the ghosts from different time periods.

one of them is a byzantine nun from the 12th century who is really into romance stories. the other is from 18th century france who is involved in a postal service/letter writing/gambling (it's not so clear yet but those are the topics i wanted to explore within that period). the third one is from a hungarian fairy tale, where the character's special talent is throwing peas through keyholes (and gets into beef with the former king matthias corvinus) (this one is just personal vendetta).

it's a bit of a mess but i wanted to see how they would interact/what similarities/differences they have. at first i wanted them to be dateable but i think it's just a story about gals being pals. nothing warms my heart more.

the folder name just stayed bcs of the initial idea sorry is this clickbait? :D

[altruistic-meme]

reasons i should start to go to bed on time again: snapping shit at my mother for pestering me about things that i KNOW i need to be doing

[hardbass]

tale of asaliveaslenin dot tumblr dot com