#why would your solution be to put her back in said old school

[shimmerluna]

idk man i’ve just rewatched the scene and I think if someone has quote-unquote “done a lot for me” they should be ok with me not wanting to get severely bullied again??

[copperbadge]

Before I left for vacation I did my usual “tidy for the petsitter” routine, and there was some paperwork that I thought should probably get put away, so I stashed it in a storage bin I had out. Because I know me, I put a note in my to-do list for when I got back that said “There’s important stuff in the bin, remember to go get it.”

So I did, but I thought I should deal with the other stuff in the bin too, and I’ve just been popping the lid and dealing with one or two things every time I go past it. Most of it is paperwork, and I’ve just hit some records from high school that my mother recently gave to me without either of us going through them.

There’s a bunch of report cards, which are heartbreaking and hilarious. I graduated a semester early and my last semester was cleanup -- two classes to complete graduation requirements and one to maintain status as a “full time” student. Two were math-based which I was notoriously bad at, and sure enough at the midterm I was getting a D+ in one and a C- in the other. We’d just begun digital grade recording, so the teachers would keep their grades in a paper book and then log into an extremely basic database and enter the grades, which would spit out on our printed report cards. They could put in a grade plus three “codes” which would print next to our grades as status updates, stuff like “disruptive in class” or similar. 

My English course, in which I was getting an A, said “Exceeding expectations” which was kind of Mr. G because I remember him and his expectations were exceptionally high for me. 

The other two have the same catechism: Missing Assignments, Does Not Pay Attention In Class, and of course...Achievement Not Up To Ability. Guess now we know why. 

Reading through these old cards with the cushion of time, it’s fascinating to see my young brain at work. My math and (math-based) science grades tank so hard, at the same time I was getting As or Bs everywhere else -- history, civics, econ, english, spanish. There are documented questions about whether I’m going to pass enough math to graduate high school, dated the same semester as my perfect Verbal SAT score and my fives in AP Comp and Lit. The first semester after I was put into the Gifted program, I failed Remedial Algebra.  

I did say at the time, to my mother and my teachers, there’s something wrong here. My mother, in her defense, had her hands full with my brother; my teachers just didn’t know what to do with me. The school district was broke and didn’t have disability testing available. By the time I got to college I’d simply internalized the idea that I was a neurotypical kid who got stubborn when asked to do something I found pointless and boring, and that was a personality flaw to be corrected, not a symptom of something bigger. My therapist for my last few years of high school agreed, and thought I should probably learn more anger management techniques. Although it turns out you can’t breathing-exercise your way out of undiagnosed ADHD. 

In any case, here in 2023, there’s no solution or tidy resolution or anything to be done about it, it just is what it is: a sheaf of paper from the late 90s about a smart fuckup who could have used a hand. I’m here now, alive and employed and medicated and a homeowner, so it’s a bunch of numbers that don’t mean anything. I’ll scan them into my digital archive, then toss the paper and never look at the archive again, probably. 

Achievement not up to ability. Boy, no kidding. 

[heartfullofleeches]

I am politely asking for you to write about Erin cross dressing please

(Going off an old request I vaguely remember with Erin overhearing you like feminine guys)

"They're so cute- Hey, Y/n what do you like in a partner?"

Erin leans back in his seat away from the commotion at his table to eavesdrop on yours. You were surrounded by friends flapping their gums over someone one of them was interested in - put on the spot for not giving your two cents.

"Uh, I don't know- someone pretty I guess."

"You mean like those people you follow who wear nice makeup and skirts?"

Your coughing fit is enough of an answer for everyone listening in on the conversation. Erin returns to his group, subconsciously groping his features. He had some softer details thanks to his mother, but was he what others would call pretty? The tingle in his chest combated the nausea from eating school food at the thought of you praising his looks. He picks up a tater tot and chucks it at a girl across the table; it being the only way to get her attention otherwise.

She picks it out of her fruit cup. "What the hell, Erin?!"

"Shut up and give me your lip gloss, Bea."

"Why in the fuck would I do that?"

"I'll tell coach you're the one who stole her flask and replaced it with bleach for giving the lead spot in the parade to someone else."

Beatrix angrily shifts through her bag. "Here."

"Thank you." He tosses her his unopened cup as he gets up from the table and heads to the bathroom. He stops by the janitor's closet and jimmies the broken lock until it pops open, grabbing the out of order sign. He wants for everyone to come out of the restroom and sets the sign up as he enters.

Erin reevaluates himself in the mirror. His long hair did confuse the older crowd when they saw him from a distance. He tucks it all into a high ponytail using a spare bracket as a band. Next, he pulls out the cheerleader's makeup. This isn't his first time with the stuff. Both his mom and older sibling dressed him up in the past whenever he asked about their clothes and was interested in trying them. He let his mother put eye shadow on him whenever they went out as a family.

Erin dispenses some of the gloss on his finger, puckering his lips as he cakes them in the foundation. He smacks them together to even the coat out and looks at the results in the mirror.

It's a start. The gloss is barely noticeable outside bright light, but it adds a little more volume to his lips. He goes back in to work on other parts of himself, but the bell cuts his session short.

"Shit!"

Erin hurries out of the bathroom and down to the cafeteria; forgetting about the sign in his haste. The dining area is nearly empty by the time he gets back, and you didn't have the next period together. He looks back to see if you've already gone, the next person to walk by bumping straight into him.

"Sorry- Oh, hey Erin."

"Sup."

You look him up and down. Erin's teeth pick at his lips in anticipation.

"Not much. You look good. See you next period."

The light force of you walking by almost knocks Erin off his feet. You said something nice about him. He didn't think he'd get this far. Maybe a passing glance, but you completely acknowledge him. You thought he looked good. It was a high he never wanted to fall from. One he craved more of with only one possible solution.

-

Erin hisses in pain as the teeth of his skirt's zipper lodge into his skin. "Fucking damn it-"

He pulls the fabric away from his hip and zips it up; kicking an empty shipping box under his bed. It sticks out of the corner due to the other packages overcrowding the space, but he was too excited to take care of them now or throughout the week they all had arrived. The skirt was the final piece of his outfit which also took the most time to arrive. Erin hooks mini pearl earrings in his ears and pulls his shirt from inside the shirt before looking at himself in the full body mirror by his closet.

The outfit consisted of an off the shoulder light pink top and a black skirt that went down to his thighs. The rest of his legs were covered by white stockings and his ginger hair was yet again pulled back. He wore a more noticeable shade of gloss on his lips and his long eyelashes were extended with the use of a wand. His regular choker was switched with a red one with a heart shaped dog tag. He had muscle, but the skirt hugged his body in a way that showed off his curves. Staring at himself, Erin felt pretty. Time for the next phase.

Erin snaps a photo of him at the mirror. He then gets in his bed with his back against the headboard. He grabs a pillow and hugs it to his chest, tugging his shirt down a bit more as he gets into position. He makes sure that his stocking clad thighs are in frame as he takes another pic and pulls up his contact. He knew your number by heart from the various acquaintances he hustled it off of and when you gave it to himself yourself for a project, but what good boyfriend doesn't have their partner in their phone without a cute title?

Erin sends you the pictures without saying a word. He waits about five minutes to pick up his phone again, both happy and disappointed you haven't opened his text.

"Sorry for the pics. Lost a bet and sent them to the wrong number."

His heart leaps out of his chest as his phone chimes.

"No worries. Hope this is okay for me to say, but you look pretty."

It's more than okay. Erin stares at his phone for ages; eyes rolling over the message countless times yet his brain fails to retain it to memory. He'd probably explode if it did. He experiences a moment of clarity in wondering what your expression was when you saw him. Did you see him as desirable. Did you crave him as badly?

Luck worked in Erin's favor that night - for he may soon have an answer.

"Hey- actually, do you want to come over? I'm bored and thought we could hang out or something."

[pea-shooter-brain]

Friendly reminder that the stats show that at least 101 women were murdered in Australia in 2024. That is roughly one murder every three to four days. 2023 it was only 64. And it is so, so unbelievably tragic we have gotten to the point where 64 women, 64 living people with hopes and dreams, can be called “only.”

I live in Australia.

Sometime in November, the body of Isla bell, a nineteen year old girl who had been missing for weeks, was found. The killer is Marat Ganiev. A man named Eyal Yaffe assisted him, and is currently WALKING OUT ON BAIL.

I didn’t know her. But I will always know the way my mum broke down in tears. “They left her in a dump. They killed her and left her in a fucking dump.”

It could have been either of us. We only live a few suburbs away.

Sometime in November, maybe early December, I was left home alone while my family went to the shops so I could look after the dog. I was instructed to keep every door and window shut and locked. After they left, I went and collected every sharp or heavy object that could potentially be used as a weapon and put them all in the bottom drawer of the dishwasher.

Skewers, knives, scissors, metal coat hangers, forks, rolling pins, everything. I then filled a metal water bottle as much as I could while still being able to swing it. I then went and sat on my bed, with the dog, and tried to distract myself.

Why?

Because my mother’s unstable, mentally ill, estranged brother had sent his own damn child death threats, and mentioned us in them. He hit my mother, when they were younger. He told her to kill herself.

He got put into a ward in December. I heard my Nan say she told the doctors she would rather kill him herself then let him out.

I was standing in the kitchen eating banana cake at the time. It was Christmas.

I don’t speak to my dad anymore. He was controlling, narcissistic, he tore my self esteem to shreds whenever he thought he could get away with it. One day he said to me, “I love how your solution to every problem is to be a lazy turd.” I said, “and I love how your solution to every problem is to insult me.” He was bitter about it until I left for the week, and was still bitter when I came back next weekend.

He was dismissive of my mental health. He denied the existence of my disabilities and then complained about textbook symptoms. He treated me like an emotional punching bag and would shit talk me in front of my little brothers, who used to adore me.

I always dreaded the car ride to his house. I always got anxiety that I could feel deep in the pit of my stomach for the entirety of Friday. Because something always happened. There was always some fight, some argument, something that could only leave me guessing if he would blow up or turn a cold shoulder for the next three days.

He would call other drivers retards. I technically fall the umbrella of people who can say it and I still feel disgusting even typing it for educational purposes. He did it so often that I would get anxiety specifically about that happening, because I knew how gross it would make me feel to not say anything about it.

I remember when I was younger, somewhere between ten and thirteen, hearing him say it for the first time. He was on the phone with a friend from work, shit talking some other people from work. I asked him not to say it, because I got called it repeatedly and unceasingly in school. He said he would. He didn’t.

It’s been almost a year since I stopped talking to him. He’s only tried to reach out once, in august. He sent me an email to say happy birthday.

I ignored it.

Violence against women, aggression towards women, hatred of women, it’s all so very, very real. It is insidious, and it is inescapable.

I am sixteen years old, i have had strange boys yell at me to suck their dicks, I’ve cried on a neighbours porch because I thought I was being followed home, I have had such severe anxieties navigating public spaces in broad daylight that I still haven’t been going outside as much as I used to before the pandemic, four years later.

I am sixteen years old, I am too young to have this kind of fear, this kind of anger, this kind of sheer fucking exhaustion. But I do.

And I’ve decided that I refuse to be too young to talk about it.

[mayabellis]

Random Black family headcanons

The post will be edited

1. Birth mark

Every child from Black family has a "constellation" of moles at their body. That's where they have their names from. Actually only their parents, siblings and romantic partners are aware of this fact beacuse birthmarks are in not very visible places. Eg. Regulus has Leo's contellation at his hip. The reason why Narcissa doesn't have star's name is beacause she wasn't born with Black's birthmark but with Rosier's one (her mother is from Rosier family). It resembled narcissus flower

2. Matching necklaces

When Beallatrix had her first trip to Hogsmade she bought three necklaces with letter "B". She gave two of them to her sisters. Few years later when Andromeda married a muggleborn Bellatrix get rid of her nacklace. She didn't want to be reminded of the traitor. Narcissa stop wearing hers in official situations but she kept it and she was wearing it when she was home alone (or later only with baby Draco). Andromeda never stopped wearing hers. She was taking it of only when she was going to sleep and every next morning she was putting it.

3. Scarf

When Sirius was at his first year at Hogwarts Andromeda borrowed him her scarf. The day was cold, she met him at school grounds and he apparently had forgotten his scarf. Sirus forgot to give the scarf back and that was the year when Andie was ending school. Actually she never asked for return. That's why Sirius kept the scarf. And every time when he was upset he was keeping it close like a teddy bear to think about his favourite cousin. When he was taken to Azkaban and they tried to take the scarf away from him he bit them. Then he was sleeping with it every night. Around 1995 when he met Tonks he gave her old slytherin scarf saying "give it to your mom, tell her I miss her". Dora told him to keep the scarf but then asked Remus for it right after Sirius's death (Remus knew where his best friend (if you prefer boyfriend) used to keep souvenirs). Andromeda got her scarf back not long after she lost her cousin.

4. Hardest choice

Andromeda got pregnant before marriage, while she was still living with her family. When she realised she was expecting a baby she confessed to her mother. She even said that this is muggleborn's child. Her mother (after argument and calling her a slut) found a solution. She told her daughter to marry some pureblood beafore the pregnancy would be visible and raise a child like this man was it's father. That was the moment when Andie decided to run away from home. She couldn't take her baby away from it's real father just for externals. She couldn't raise her baby in a lie. She never wanted to leave Narcissa on her own but there was no other choice. It wasn't just about her anymore. It was about being mother

5. Aristocratic skills

Since pure blood families are equivalent of aristocracy in real world many poeple headcankn Blacks as french speakers. I've also seen headcanons about Black brothers (idk how does this work with Black sisters) playing instruments. And I love both of this tropes but I wanted to add something. First thing: I strongly believe that Blacks (especially girls) were also taught dancing. Second: I headcanon Andromeda and Narcissa teaching their children aristocratic skills. Of course Andie didn't heve to teach her "broken" child but she believed that skills were useful. And here's how did this work in my opinion:

Draco learned to dance and used to play instrument when he was little but when his started Hogwarts he didn't have enough time to practice so he never mastered playing instrument. He never liked to study languages so he didn't learn french and he really regretted it at his 4th year (Triwizard tournament)

Dora learned french, she always thought that was a funny language which made her enthusiastic about learning. She also learned dancing but always when she had a chance she prefered to just jump around the room with her dad to "The Beatles" records. However the skill of ball dancing turned out to be useful during wedding (she led, Monny just trusted like he used to with Padfoot before). Dora never learned to play instrument. She didn't have enough patience

6. Muggle music

Andromeda was the one who intodroduced Sirius to muggle music. When she started frindship with Ted Tonks (I headcanon them as friends to lovers like many people do) she quite fast became fan of "The Beatles". She showed one vinyl to Sirius. At first he wasn't into this music and he started listening to it just because it was muggle. But during the years he was digging deeper and deeper into muggle rock music. Then he found metal. And then with little Remus' help and companion he bacame punk. And many years later he returned favor. He intoduced Dora to muggle punk music (she was raised listening "The Beatels" and she became fan of "Weird sisters" but she didn't know muggle punk).

7. Drinking

Everybody from Black family had high tolerance for alcohol in my opinion. It doesn't mean that everybody drink a lot but they can drink a lot without being really drunk. Even Draco can hold his drink beacuse of his mum. Lucius never had a high tolerance.

8. Phobias

Evrybody from Black family had a fear that they traied to get rid of but finally they would always meet them.

Regulus was always afraid of water. Sirius would make fun of him for not learning swimming. He was too scared to try. He never learned swimming. He never stopped being afraid of water. He tried to fight with this fear just once. He had to acomplish his mission. When he entered the cave he remembered all of the times when Sirius was innocently laughing at him. He imagined his older brother teasing him. The urge to prove that "ghost" wrong was his final motovation. It didn't matter that the real, living Sirius would probably never know the truth. The imagined one had to know that his brother was not a coward. When he was pulled into the lake he closed his eyes trying to imagine Sirius' smile. He didn't want to see endless water at his last moment. He wanted to see his brother.

Sirius was always afraid of darkness. Since he was little he would sleep with a night lamp and then he would light his wand every night (with lumos) and sleep with it. He thought the fear disappeared after Azkaban. He hadn't had a wand there so he couldn't light it. He had to just get used to sleeping in the darkness. He was sure he did. But in fact that fear just got worse. He realized that first night after his runaway. He couldn't sleep whole night because it was too dark. In Azkaban the metaphorical "darkness" was much worse than the litteral one. He would sleep as much as he could just to avoid going crazy. When he run away, he was safe again. He could stop being afraid of craziness so his childhood fear came back to take that free space. Despite his fear of darkness he died falling into light.

Narcissa was always afraid of loud noise. Every time Andromeda would fight with their mother Cissy would cover her ears. She never wanted to fight just to don't be shouted on. When she became a mother she hated the noises made by the baby at first. She even regretted having a child somtimes. But with time she got used to noises made by the child. She even liked some of them, especially laugh. She was sure she got rid of her fear until her house became deatheaters meeting place. She cried in her pillow every night but she was doing everything not to let Lucius see. They were too loud, she never asked for it but she felt her fear was riddiculus. That wasn't the moment to be riddiculus. She had to be stronger than ever to protect her family. It turned out that she was stronger than she expexted when she survived the final battle.

Andromeda was always afraid of loneliness. She was very loud and social at school just too be sure that she would always have someone to spend time with but they were never close to her. So the school friendships ended at the moment she graduated. Then she run away from home. She lost her family and friends. She lost everyone except her husband. When she gave birth to Nymphadora her new family became her everything and she was happy even though she wasn't the popular girl anymore. Years later her daughter got married and fell pregnant. Everything was perfect until everything was lost. Andie was left with a baby and unlike 25 years before there was nobody to help her. She would unalive herself if she didn't have to raise her grandson. All by herself.

Bellatrix was always afraid of pain and blood. When she was about 18 she got fascinated by Dark Lord's ideology. Not long after she realised that asking questions means being tortured. She became perfect death eater not only because she believed in the ideology but also to avoid pain. She was using the most painful spells on her victims but not the ones which caused a lot of blood. She got used to blood enough to not be scared of it but she didn't like to look at it to the end. The point was, she had to. Lot of deatheaters enjoyed seeing blood. She, as a leading one was almost everywhere and everytime. She had to pretend proud, happy and insane during others were commiting crimes full of blood. She was insane indeed but she was laughing just to hide the fear and disgust. Luckily she was good at acting so everyone was sure that she loved watching blood. Ironicaly her death was fast, almost painless and there was no blood.

[sadsoftserve]

Just start talking and don't stop until I have a whole novel to read about your OC's ok?

Uhh, a novel? I can write a couple paragraphs.

You said just dump, so imma dump abt their lore and baskstories character by character.

Starting with Bonnie- She lives with her uncle after her mother passed, and her father wants nothing to do with her (rn that is) so Ramsey was the only other available family member she could live with. Now, the city didn't want her to live with him, for obvious reasons, but they didn't want a hooligan child in foster care. She's had a rough upbringing, so she's a fighter. She gets into a lot of fights, most of which she wins, and is currently on probation. Yes, probation. A 15 year old. So she was in the Sweet Jazz Student Correctional School, before she transferred to Sweet Jazz HS. So, as per her court mandated therapist said, she needed to join an extracurricular to keep her emotions in check and mind off of life. So she chose colorguard. (Because she gets a big flag to hit people with)

"Bonnie, you must be out of your damn mind." Ramsey sighed as he looked at her. The tension in the car was high, but he knew better than to raise his voice at a kid. Bonnie was sitting with her arms crossed and her face looking out the passenger side window.

"Look. I've tried to raise you the best I can. I know I'm not perfect. Hell I'm far from it." He rubbed his face as he spoke. He knew he was a terrible guardian. He was terrible with kids. He was terrible at being an adult.

"Am I a perfect parental figure? No."

"Do I know anything about children? No."

"Should I've picked up a book about parenting? Probably!" He said with exsauhstion as he sighed again. He looked at Bonnie, then to the ankle monitor she was wearing. "I just... want you to be safe. And not go down the same path I did." Looking at her ankle monitor brought up a lot of memories, he had pushed down. Memories he didn't want his niece to make. Bonnie looked up at him for a moment, then back in front of her.

"I'll try. No grauntee it'll work." She said softly. She wanted to change, but no matter how hard she tried it never worked.

"That's all you gotta do."

Sabrina- Her Epithet developed at age three, so for 12 years she hasn't been able to sleep. But for the most of her life, she found workarounds and remedies. But all those had stopped working. So, when Sylvie found out about the arsen amulet, she wanted it. She wanted to get rid or somehow aid her epithet into letting her sleep again. But the whole museum arc happened, and it was taken from her grasp. Her and Mera actually fought for the amulet, and Sabrina ended up breaking some of Meras bones in the process. Afterwards in the hospital, Sylvie for once apologized for everything, and Sabrina got to have a good cry.

"I'm sorry." Sylvie abruptly said, as he looked over to his younger sister who was currently fiddling with the light blue sheets of the hospital bed. "I should've known that they're were other people after it." He saw Sabrinas stiff shoulders and riggid breathing, she was crying.

She was so close to a solution, but it was just out of reach. She was going to be able to get what she had been craving for 12 years. But it was all in vain. She should've known better. None of this suffering would end. For once... She found herself sympathizing with the person who put her in this situation. She wanted the amulet for the same reason, but, that goal was unachievable. A sob came from her mouth.

"Sabrina?" Sylvie asked as he saw his younger sister cry. He couldn't help but feel bad, as if he could've done something different. But the only option right now, was to comfort her and tell her everything was okay. He walked over to her from his bed and climbed on hers, enveloping her in an embrace. One she hadn't had in what felt like forever.

Parker- Parker is Percys enteric and hyper niece. She has two perfectly alive and well parents. But then, why does she live with Percy? Well, Parkers parents don't know how to deal with her. She has ADHD and comes off as "too-hyper" or "an improper young lady". And Parkers aware of this. She knows her parents basically don't want her, but she doesn t mind. She loves living with her aunt. Percy is like her best friend, and she would call her mom more than her actual mom. Both are nerodivergent, and Parkers greatful for someone she can relate too. Though it still pains her that her parents gave her up to her aunt. Makes her feel like she doesn't belong anywhere she goes. Which is why she has trouble making friends.

Something was weighing on Parkers mind. For the last 4 years she's been living with her aunt, but she was never given ex explanation as to why. She never learned why her parents suddenly sent to to live with Percy, who was admittedly the black sheep of the family.

Percy noticed her nieces silence. It was unusual, especially for Parker. Percy looked at her, and noticed her sadder expression. "Parker." Percys monotone voice struck Parker like a lighting bolt. She looked up, giving Percy her attention. "What's wrong?" Percys monotone voice always made it hard for Parker to lie, her voice could be scary.

"Just thinking." Parker responded as she looked to her feet.

"About what?" Percy asked in response. She was going to get an answer out of her no matter what.

Parker stayed silent for a moment, trying to word what she was thinking. It was bad enough Percys monotone was freaking her out right now, but what if her question was shot down and ignored? Parker spoke with hesitance. "Why... was I sent to live with you? Did... did they not want me..?" Her voice was hurt, and insecure.

Percy looked at her niece, and gave a sympathetic smile. "No, that's not the reason." Percy put a reassuring hand on Parkers shoulder. "They didn't know how to take care of you." Percy paused as she analyzed Parkers facial expression. "They wanted you to live with somebody who knows how to care for you, and everything about you." Percy saw Parkers face look up then down again.

"Why didn't they tell me that then?" Parker asked, as she fiddled with the hem of her blue jacket.

"They didn't know how. And they didn't want you to think they didn't love you, because they do, they just don't know how to express it."

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Friction Friendship

Paranormal Preteens AU: Episode Fourteen

A JSE Fanfic

As promised, here’s the second fic part for the week. Don’t expect this to happen a lot XD But be prepared to see these two AUs a lot this week as I inevitably reblog them both. Anyway. Onto the summary. The boys (and Stacy) don’t know how to deal with the planetarium situation, but they discuss it anyway. Without any real solutions, the next few days pass as Chase deals with personal drama and the twins ask the others to a birthday party. And then guess which shadowy entity shows up? :)c It’s not a lot of action this chapter but a lot of character building! Hope you enjoy that XD

++++++++++++++++++++

It was October, and that meant two things: a lot of school, and more importantly, Halloween. Chase had always loved the holiday. Not as much as Christmas, of course, but it was his second favorite. He remembered being really disappointed when his family first moved here and he found out that they didn’t trick-or-treat here like back in America. But he was a bit too old for that now. At least Mom still put up decorations and went costume shopping with him.

This year was going to be a bit different. For a couple different reasons. One was Schneep. Apparently he’d never celebrated Halloween before. “What?!” Chase had gasped when Schneep told him that. “They don’t have it in Germany?!”

“I think they do?” Schneep said, confused. “But it is not a big celebration that is all over.”

“Do you at least wear costumes?”

“I never have.”

“I can’t believe this.” Chase shook his head. “Don’t worry, Schneep, we’re gonna have the best Halloween ever this year.”

Another reason was the twins. Their birthday was actually on October 31st: the spooky day itself. That was probably why the two of them were already super excited. They were basically wearing orange and black all the time. Marvin could be seen wearing a black witch’s hat at school (which he had to take off during class) and JJ was frequently doodling little pumpkins in the corners of his notebook.

On Monday, Chase’s mom had a meeting after work, and couldn’t pick him and Schneep up from school. She called Jackie and asked if he could get them after classes were out, and maybe do some babysitting for a couple hours. Jackie’s own classes ended earlier than theirs, so he agreed. Chase decided that meant today was a good day for a meeting. He texted Marvin and JJ to ask if they could come over after school. They could. And... for the first time, Chase asked someone else.

“You want me to go over to your house after school?” Stacy repeated what he’d said, surprised.

“Yeah, I mean... you’re kinda in this,” Chase said. “We sometimes all meet up and talk about the, uh, you-know-what stuff. So I thought... yeah.”

Stacy frowned. She glanced around their classroom. Mr. Bartley had stepped out for a moment so everyone was taking the moment to talk to their friends while he wasn’t there to quiet them down. Half the students were out of their desks, including Chase, who’d walked over to talk to her. No one was paying attention. “I can’t tell my parents I’m going to a boy’s house!” she whisper-shouted.

“Well don’t tell them, then,” Chase said. “Right, Schneep?”

Schneep’s desk was still right next to Stacy’s, so he could hear everything. “Yes,” he agreed. “It may be hard, but it is better than missing out on things.”

“Yeah. They won’t even have to pick you up, Jackie can drive everyone.” It would be a bit crowded in the car with Stacy there, but probably fine.

“I... guess I could tell them I was going to hang out with Heather and Kat,” Stacy said slowly. “But no one else can know I went over to your house, okay?! I don’t want anyone to think I like like you.”

“Got it!” Chase gave her a thumbs up and quickly hurried back to his desk. He could see Bartley moving around through the bubbled glass window in the door. No doubt about to walk back in. He’d have to wait until after class to text JJ and Marvin.

The twins could come over, too, no problem. So after class let out, the kids all met at the school’s front doors, where Jackie was going to pick them up. They all piled into Jackie’s car and drove all the way to Chase’s house.

“Why is your house so big?!” Stacy said the moment she walked inside. “There’s only three of you!”

“I dunno, I guess we got lucky?” Chase shrugged.

Stacy glanced back and forth between him and Schneep. “Do you two have to share a room?”

“No,” Schneep said.

“Luckyyyyy. I have to share with Roxy, and she goes to bed super early so I can’t hang out in there before I go to sleep.”

“Nice decorations, Chase,” Jackie said, tapping a paper bat taped to the wall. “Did you make them?”

“Yep!” Chase grinned. “Mom and I showed Schneep how to do it! Look at that spider he made, it’s so cool! And he made that bat, too, to look like that stuffed animal he has.”

The twins were also examining the Halloween decorations. They were currently picking up the fake jack o’lanterns on the staircase to see how they worked. Marvin found the switch for one, and amused himself by turning the light on and off. Chase, are you going to carve pumpkins? JJ asked excitedly.

“Oh yeah! Definitely! We just need to find them. Mom says there aren’t any pumpkin patches anywhere nearby so we need to get them from the grocery store.”

Marvin and I never get to carve pumpkins, JJ complained. We ask every year and Dad always says it’s a waste because we’re going to throw them away right after Halloween.

“Well, maybe if we did it earlier, then we would have them out for longer,” Marvin muttered. “But no, he and Mam always ‘forget’ until a couple days before.”

And then they say that same thing about getting the pumpkins from the shop, JJ added. And that they’ll all be bought by then.

Stacy watched the sign language with a slight frown, trying to figure out what JJ was saying. Chase had seen her carrying around a book on BSL recently. It looked like it came from the library. Maybe that was why she hadn’t brought it today; she might have had to return it. “Uh... so are we gonna talk about this greenlight stuff and the planetarium and everything?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, we haven’t really talked about the photos I took,” Jackie added. “They’re, uh... strange.”

“Alright, we can go sit down or something,” Chase said. “Uhhh let’s go.”

They all ended up in the living room, with Chase, Schneep, and Stacy on the sofa. Stacy was on the end next to Chase, sitting straight up and shifting awkwardly. The twins sat on the floor, leaning up against the TV stand, while Jackie took the armchair. His digital camera was in his hands, along with printed copies of the photos. He’d been prepared for this.

“So... Jameson and I still have not seen the planetarium basement,” Schneep said. “Was that crack there when you guys were?”

“Yeah! I got my foot stuck in it!” Stacy said.

“Oh shi—oh really?” Jackie asked. “Must not have been roped off at the time. Maybe that’s why they set up those barriers.” He looked down at the strangest photograph: the one that had been tinted green. “Did... while you guys were down there, did you feel like you were being watched?”

“I didn’t,” Chase said, and Stacy shook her head. “Uh... Marvin?”

Marvin was messing with the back of Chase’s TV remote. He looked up. “Huh? Oh, uh, no. Not until we heard those guys in the stairwell.”

We still don’t know anything about this mystery group, JJ mused. It’s been over two weeks. Nobody’s found anything out?

“If we did find something out, we would’ve talked together a lot sooner,” Chase said.

“We have been busy with homework and everything,” Schneep agreed. “But even if we were not, how? How are we supposed to learn anything about this group? We cannot spy on everyone in town, and we cannot go to the planetarium all the time. The group would notice us.”

“Y’know, I kept asking Mincy stuff about the planetarium staff,” Jackie said. “She says that all the senior employees are acting really weird. They’re being really hard on the other employees. A lot of people have quit because of that. She says she might soon, too. Maybe that’s what they want. They want everyone who doesn’t know about the basement to quit so they’re in total control.”

Are we going to DO anything about the basement, by the way? JJ asked.

“I mean... what?” Chase asked. “It’s not something we can fight. It’s a room. How do you defeat a room?”

“Take out the support pillars?” Marvin suggested.

“What?! Then the whole building might collapse!” Stacy gasped.

“Perhaps that crack in the floor has something to do with it,” Schneep said. “Jackie, can you show everyone the pictures?”

“Yeah, sure.” Jackie handed them to him, and Schneep began passing them out.

“We all notice the weird stripes in the carpet, yes?” Schneep asked, pointing them out on his own photo. “They all go to the crack in the floor eventually. Maybe if we seal up the crack then all the weird things will stop.”

“Okay, but how?” Marvin asked.

Cement? JJ suggested.

“How the fuck are we gonna get cement, JJ?”

JJ shrugged.

Marvin sighed. He looked down at the picture in his hands. “...wait a minute.” He stared at it. Schneep had handed him one of the crack in the ground. “I think... I’ve seen this before.”

“Yeah, when we were down there and I got my foot stuck,” Stacy said.

“No, before that. Jackie, can I see the weird green picture?”

“Uh... yeah.” Jackie handed it to him. “What’re you thinking, dude?”

Marvin brought the photo real close to his face. Then he held it out at arm’s length. He squinted, narrowing his eyes until his vision went a little blurry. “This was under the pool!” he gasped.

“Was?!” Schneep cried.

“Wait, really?!” Chase shouted.

“Yeah, I saw it when Jackie and I went down to fight the water monster. Its weird-ass body was sitting on top of a crack in the bottom of the pool, so I only saw it when the monster moved. But it was all black inside like this!”

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait.” Jackie’s eyes widened. “The pool—the water monster, it—did it cause the crack?”

Maybe! JJ said. Did anyone notice weird cracks anywhere else?

Everyone else shook their heads and muttered “no”s. “There has to be a connection,” Schneep said quietly. “Maybe, if we saw something else with this greenlight stuff... Has anyone heard of anything weird?”

“Ohhh there are weird things everywhere,” Marvin muttered. JJ looked at him, confused and concerned.

“A few months agoI you guys mentioned hearing stuff about the hospital and the secondary school,” Jackie recalled. “Maybe we should focus on those places. It shouldn’t be hard to poke around the school, since we’re there all the time.”

“Hey, are you guys coming to our birthday?” Marvin suddenly asked.

“Uh...” Chase blinked. “I don’t think you’ve mentioned it before. Are you guys having a party?”

“We’re having cake and presents on Halloween,” Marvin said. “But Mam always wants us to have a big party with lots of people. But we don’t really know anyone we’d want to invite before this, so we’ve never done it before, it’s always been our parents and our grandma. It’d be fine if you guys are busy or something, cause it’s Halloween, but I think you should come over to our house.” JJ stared at Marvin, even more speechless than usual, still with that expression of confused concern.

“Uhhh I don’t think we were gonna do much,” Chase said slowly. “I mean, I promised Schneep we’d have the best Halloween ever, cause he’d never celebrated it before. But a party sounds like it’s part of the best Halloween. So sure.”

Schneep nodded eagerly. “Yes! I have never been to someone else’s house before! Well, we went to Jackie’s for his birthday, and I have been to many relatives’ houses, but I mean for other children. Other kids. I want to see!”

“If you guys are including me in that, I’d love to go,” Jackie said. “My friends and I were planning on doing Halloween and Fawkes stuff on the first, anyway.”

Stacy looked nervous, chewing on her lip. “A boys’ party? What do boys do at parties?”

“I dunno,” Marvin said. “When we had Schneep’s party we just opened presents and had cake and did video games.”

“Well... sure. I-I’ll see if I can go,” Stacy said slowly. “But my parents might not let me. They might want to do family stuff together.”

“That’s fine,” Marvin said. “You’re fine.”

Silence fell. It lasted for a few seconds, but it felt much longer. “Well, uh, glad we’re doing that!” Chase said quickly. “Mom’s not gonna be home for a while! So, uh, what now?”

Jackie sighed. He put his camera in his hoodie pocket. “I don’t think we’ll get very far with the planetarium or mystery group stuff. Unless someone can figure out how to fight a basement or seal up a weird crack in the floor. But I don’t think we have any ideas.”

But speaking of birthdays, JJ said. Something happened Friday night. Hang on, this will be too much sign language for Stacy to understand. He pulled his notebook out of his shoulder bag and quickly wrote down what happened, explaining the brief encounter he and Marvin had with Anti. Then he handed the notebook to Stacy, who read it and then passed it around.

“I don’t like that,” Jackie muttered as he read what JJ wrote. 

“Why would this Anti... person... wanna do that?” Stacy asked. “Is that something he normally does?”

“No, we don’t really see him that much,” Chase said. “I dunno why he’d show up to you guys if he wanted a happy birthday. Which is... weird. Cause like... does he have a birthday?”

“Everything has a birthday, because everything is created one day,” Schneep figured.

“Well... yeah, but... it’s still weird.” Chase shook his head. “I dunno. What are we supposed to do about this?”

“It’s hard to know what to do about Anti,” Jackie agreed. “He doesn’t show up that much. I’ve never even seen him. Can you, like, punch him or something?”

“Ha!” Marvin grinned. “I don’t think we’ve tried, but next time I see him, I’ll fucking deck him.”

Everyone smiled. “Anyway, uh... I think that’s everything we wanted to talk about,” Chase said. “D’you guys want to play something?”

“That’s not fair, I’ve never played a video game before!” Stacy protested. “Why do you guys get to do something but I can’t?”

“Wait... never?” Chase asked. Stacy shook her head. “Well we have to play something now so you can try. I mean, you don’t have to, cause Schneep never plays, but at least watch. What’s something easy?”

The next couple hours passed with Chase and the other guys showing Stacy some of their favorite games. She wasn’t all that good, but she was clearly enjoying herself. Chase’s mom arrived home soon, causing the hangout to break up as Stacy, Jackie, and the twins headed out, leaving Jack and Schneep alone to do their homework.

But Chase couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t stop thinking about everything they had brought up. Anti, the mystery group, the planetarium, the cracks in the ground, the greenlight... What did it all mean?

++++++++++++++++++++

Chase was still distracted in school the next day. He didn’t pay attention at all during the first class. In fact, when the bell rang he couldn’t remember a single thing that just happened.

“Chase?” Schneep poked his shoulder. “Is everything alright?”

“Huh?” Chase shook his head. “Yeah, I was just... thinking about stuff.”

“What stuff?” Stacy asked, standing behind Schneep. “Like... the secret stuff?” she whispered.

He was, but he didn’t want to talk about that right now. “No, I was thinking about—about Chad,” Chase said. “Uh, he’s my friend.”

“That tall kid with curly brown hair?” Stacy asked. “You were hanging out with him a lot last year. But I haven’t seen him around you this year. Is that what you’re thinking about? What happened?”

“Uh... I don’t know,” Chase said honestly. “He just... hasn’t talked to me. At all. This year.”

Schneep’s brows furrowed. “That is rude.”

“I guess, but like, maybe he’s busy,” Chase defended. “I mean, it is bothering me. I want to know what happened or if I did something wrong or something.”

“Can’t you ask him about that?” Stacy asked.

Chase blinked. “What d’you mean?”

Stacy rolled her eyes. “Just ask him why he’s not talking to you.”

“But... he won’t talk to me in the first place,” Chase explained. He glanced at Schneep to see if he was seeing the obvious problem. But Schneep looked thoughtful. “Right? I can’t ask him if he won’t listen.”

“Well, then, Schneep and I will go with you,” Stacy said. “He can’t ignore you if there are people watching.”

“Ah! Yes, that is a great idea.” Schneep nodded eagerly. “We all have a lunch period together, so you can talk to Chad then.”

“But—but he won’t talk to me!” Chase repeated. Why didn’t either of them get it?

“But it’s better to try than not, right?” Stacy said.

“Yes, talking has always helped,” Schneep agreed.

Chase looked back and forth between the two of them. Then he sighed. They clearly weren’t going to leave this alone. “Alright. Fine. If we can find Chad at lunch we can talk to him.”

“You can talk to him,” Stacy repeated. “We’ll be there for support and nothing more.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

And so, that day in the cafeteria, Schneep dragged Chase over to the corner table where Stacy said she would meet them. She was already there, clutching a pink lunch box and waiting for them to approach. “Ready?”

“Yeah, sure,” Chase mumbled. He idly scanned the cafeteria. Every available spot was packed with round tables, and every available table was already packed with kids. “Uhhhh I don’t see Chad anywhere.”

“He usually sits near the middle, ja?” Schneep prompted.

He did, and Chase knew that, but he was trying to find an excuse to avoid this. Sure, he wanted to know why Chad hadn’t talked to him once in months, but he didn’t want to actually ask him about that. What if he didn’t like the reason? What if Chad didn’t want to be friends anymore? As long as Chase didn’t bring it up, he could pretend that nothing had changed and Chad was just being weird about it. But the moment he found out...

Stacy climbed onto the bench attached to the table, using it as a stool to see over the heads of the other students. “I see him,” she announced, and climbed back down. “C’mon.” She started weaving in between the tables. Chase hesitated. Then Schneep nudged him, and he had no choice but to follow Stacy.

Chad was sitting at a table with a bunch of other guys. Keith, Terry, Alex, Miguel—Chase recognized them all. They’d already gotten their lunches and were all laughing at something. Chase stopped walking. “Chase, for the sake of god,” Schneep muttered, just barely loud enough to be heard through cafeteria chatter.

“I can’t do this in front of a whole group of guys, Schneep,” Chase muttered back at the same volume.

“Well it looks like Stacy will not let you do it some other way,” Schneep pointed out. Stacy had noticed that Chase stopped and was now staring at him as she stood right next to Chad’s table. All the guys had noticed her and stopped laughing. They looked like they weren’t sure what to do about it.

Chase sighed. “God... dang it,” he whispered. He adjusted his blazer, took a deep breath, and kept walking. As he got close, he put a grin on his face and tried to relax. “Hey, Stacy,” he said as he got closer to her, as if he’d just met her randomly.

“Hi, Chase,” Stacy said, not smiling. Her eyes darted back to the group of guys.

“Oh hey, Chad,” Chase said. He managed to keep a casual tone despite the way his heart was pounding with nerves. Schneep walked up next to him, staying slightly behind.

“Hey, Chase!” Chad gasped. “Bro! I haven’t seen you since I got back from camp! I don’t think we have any classes together, that’s crazy. How’ve you been?”

Chase laughed. “Uh, yeah, I’ve been good, bro. I’ve, uh, been wanting to talk to you for a while.” He noticed the way Stacy stepped back but didn’t actually leave. Her eyes drilled holes into the side of his head.

“Oh shoot really?” Chad looked over at the rest of the guys. The four of them had started eating lunch, but they were paying attention. Chase knew because they were quiet. They would have started talking about something else if they really didn’t care. “About what?”

“I mean, uh...” Chase swallowed a lump in his throat. How was he supposed to phrase this? “I’ve, uh, seen you a couple of times in the hallway and stuff, and here at lunch, and you like... haven’t said anything. And I have your phone number, I called you a couple times. So I was just wondering... is there, like, something going on, or...?”

“Oh. Uh...” Chad stopped smiling. He leaned back, but didn’t stand up. “I mean... I dunno.”

“Right.” Chase nodded. “I mean... I just want to know. Cause like... if I did something wrong, I want to know... so I can stop doing the thing.”

“Yeah, uh... that makes sense.” Chad stopped talking. The silence stretched between them, somehow louder than the surrounding chatter. “I, uh, I’d love to hang out sometime,” Chad finally said. “If you’re, like... not busy.”

“I’m not that busy,” Chase said. True, he and the others had stuff to deal with. Like Anti and the planetarium and the mystery group. And school. But he’d drop all that if Chad wanted to do something. “I dunno if you thought I was, but I’m not busy.”

“No, I didn’t think that. I just wasn’t sure if...” Chad hesitated. “If you were gonna keep being all...”

“All... what?” Chase prompted.

“You know, like... being a bummer and stuff.” Chad looked embarrassed. It wasn’t clear if that was because he didn’t want to say it to Chase, or because he didn’t want to say it in front of other people.

Chase blinked. “What? What’re you talking about?”

“You know, like, all last term,” Chad continued. “You never wanted to do anything or talk about anything. And when we did stuff you just kinda... sat there. We went to the park to skate once and you just stayed on the bench the whole time. And if we got snacks you never ate what you got. Like, why’d you get it in the first place? It just... wasn’t all that fun.”

Chase could only stare at him. “My dad left.” His voice was completely flat.

“You talk to him on the phone and stuff, right?” Chad said. “And you still get presents for your birthday. It’s kinda like you get two parties, hah. And he can come back whenever he wants. It’s not like he’s gone forever.”

The silence continued to stretch. Chase continued to stare. This... couldn’t be real, could it? It had to be some sort of dream. It was too unbelievable. This wasn’t a real conversation. This wasn’t really Chad. It couldn’t be.

Someone coughed behind him. “Chase, we still need to get lunch,” Schneep said, grabbing Chase’s hand. “We should go right now.”

“Oh hey, you’re the new kid!” Chad said, eagerly changing the subject. “What’s your name again?”

“Henrik. I am Chase’s cousin.” Schneep’s voice was cold. Businesslike.

“Oh cool! I don’t think he’s ever mentioned you. But I’ve seen you around. You guys hang out with the Jacksons together, right?”

“Yes.” Schneep took a step back, pulling Chase’s arm. “Come on, Chase.”

“Yeah, we have stuff to do after you get your lunches,” Stacy jumped in. “C’mon.”

“...yeah.” Chase nodded. He took a step back. “Bye, Chad.”

“Uh... bye.” Chad looked a bit confused. But as Chase, Schneep, and Stacy walked away, he turned back to the other guys at the table and started talking again, the confusion instantly vanishing.

The three of them didn’t go to the line to get lunch. Instead, Schneep pulled Chase around the tables, out of the cafeteria, and a little way down the hall. It was empty out here. Most students were inside the cafeteria, and the ones skipping lunch were gone by now. The three of them were completely alone. “Is everything okay, Chase?” Schneep asked gently.

“I-I don’t know.” Chase’s voice was quiet. He couldn’t make himself talk louder.

“What a jerk!” Stacy put her hands on her hips.

“He’s not a jerk, he just doesn’t get it.” Chase stared absentmindedly at the lockers across the hall, not really seeing them.

“Well, he should want to get it, and he didn’t!” Stacy huffed. “I know you don’t like Heather, but at least she would try to understand! I mean, I don’t think she’d really... do anything about it...” She trailed off for a moment. Then shook her head and returned to righteous anger. “But this isn’t about Heather! It’s about that guy, and that guy’s a jerk!”

“Who would—who would say that to—to someone who looked—” Schneep struggled with the words. He suddenly cried out and shouted something in very angry German. Then kicked the base of a nearby locker.

That got a smile out of Chase. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so mad.”

“You deserve to be mad over!” Schneep shouted. “I should be mad when the bad things happen to you! And you should be mad, too!”

“It’s fine.” Chase let out a breath and leaned his head back against the wall. It hit a locker with a gentle thunk. “At least I know what it was all about now.”

“Yeah.” Stacy nodded sharply. “Now you can forget about him and move on.”

“Sure.” Chase didn’t think he would forget. But maybe he could move on. “I can’t believe the Jackson twins were better at... what they said when I told them about Dad...” he mumbled.

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Stacy narrowed her eyes.

“I dunno. I just...”

“Is it because they’re magic weirdos?” Stacy asked in a weirdly demanding tone.

“Bro, don’t call them that,” Chase said defensively.

“Omg, you called them that first!” Stacy gasped.

“I what? When?”

“When we were walking up that staircase from the weird basement beneath the planetarium! You said you hung out with magic weirdos!”

“Oh!” Chase suddenly remembered. “No, I didn’t mean it like that, I meant it like that’s what other people would say.”

“Yeah, and you said you didn’t want other people to say that about you! That you didn’t want to be called a weirdo, too!”

“Well I don’t.”

“Chase!” Schneep gaped at him.

“That came out mean, I didn’t mean that,” Chase said, turning to him. “Look, no one wants to be called names or insulted or anything.”

“You’re right, no one does!” Schneep agreed. “I don’t want to be! And yet, I have heard what other kids have said. You know, Chase, I am also a weirdo to them, because I am short, or I talk different, or I am too smart. Anyone will be a weirdo! It means nothing! I do not care what other kids say. You should not care either! Especially when you know that someone is not weird!”

“I... the twins are weird, though,” Chase whispered.

“And so?” Schneep challenged. “Have you not fought monsters with them? Are they not your friends?”

“N-no, of course they are, I just...” Chase trailed off. Shame heated his face. He looked away from Schneep and Stacy. “I know I shouldn’t care,” he muttered. “But I do, and I don’t know how to not care about it the way Marvin and JJ do.”

“Are you sure they don’t care about people calling them weird?” Stacy prompted.

“I... I was sure, up until you said that.” Weird people didn’t care that others thought they were strange. If they did, they would have stopped being weird a long time ago. Right? That’s how Chase would have reacted. Was he doing it wrong?

“O... m... g.” Stacy stared at him. “Of course they care! Didn’t you notice how Marvin reacted when you called him a magic weirdo?!”

“...No?” Chase squirmed. “Am... am I a bad friend?”

Stacy sighed. “No. You’re not. That Chad guy is a bad friend. You’re just dumb. Just say you’re sorry the next time you see them.”

Schneep nodded. “These sort of, ah... mistakes seem to be common with you. I think Marvin will understand.”

“Right.” Chase nodded.

“Great.” Stacy grinned. “Now we have to eat before lunch period is over. You guys should go get your lunches.”

“Uh...” Chase glanced back towards the open cafeteria doors. “I kinda don’t want to go back in there...”

“Is fine, Chase,” Schneep assured him. “Stacy and I can get food and take it out here for you. That is allowed, ja?”

“I think so.”

“I have to go through the lunch line? Ugh.” Stacy shook her head. “I hate that. It’s crowded.”

“Is that why you always bring your own lunch?” Schneep asked, pointing at her lunch bag.

Stacy shrugged. “My parents don’t like the school food. But anyway, I gotta get your lunch before they stop serving food. C’mon, Schneep.” And she headed back inside.

Schneep patted Chase on the arm. “We will be right back,” he said quietly. “You... be... take, ah, care of yourself.” And with that awkward but heartfelt wish, Schneep followed Stacy inside.

Chase would later learn that students were not, in fact, allowed to take food out of the cafeteria. But for this lunch, the three of them sat on the floor of the hallway together, silently eating. And even though it was a bit uncomfortable, Chase was much happier sitting here than he would have been sitting with Chad.

++++++++++++++++++++

“Chase, do you still have homework?” Mom asked in the car after school.

“Uh... yeeahh,” Chase admitted, squirming in his seat.

Mom sighed. “You have to keep on top of it this year, you know,” she said gently.

“I know, I know.” Chase nodded. “Why don’t you ever ask Henrik if he has homework?”

“I do not have homework,” Schneep offered from the back seat. “If you need help, Chase, I can help.”

Mom chuckled. “I don’t ask Henrik because he always tells me. Which I really appreciate, Henrik, but you don’t have to worry about it so much. Chase, however, might have to worry about his grades.”

“I’ll do it right when we get home, I promise,” Chase said.

And indeed, the moment he got home he took his backpack right up to his bedroom, Schneep following him up the stairs. “I did mean it when I said I can help,” he said. “I do not mind.”

“Nah, bro, you don’t have to. Go have fun reading or whatever.” Chase reached his bedroom and pulled open the door. “I can handle some—”

There was a person in his room.

Chase stared. Schneep gasped. Anti, sitting on Chase’s bed, smiled and waved. “Hi,” he said quietly.

“Wh...” Chase glanced over his shoulder. Mom was still downstairs, but if he shouted, she would definitely hear it. Should he? He looked at Schneep, who was pale; he reached out and gripped Chase’s arm tightly, but didn’t run from Anti. Chase took a deep breath and turned back. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing? What are you doing?” Anti asked.

“Uh... h-homework?”

Anti stood up. His shadowy body was a bit less translucent than Chase remembered. “Why?”

“Because... it’s... important?” Chase said, confused.

“You have more important things to do,” Anti insisted. “The planetarium. Do you remember the planetarium? Did you forget?”

“Um, no, but... but what do you mean?” Chase asked. He noticed Schneep moving slightly in the corner of his vision, but didn’t dare look away from Anti.

“You haven’t done anything about the greenlight in the planetarium,” Anti said in a low voice. “Why? You’ve done something about all the other greenlight things you’ve found. Take care of this one!”

Chase took a step backwards. “Do something? Like what?”

“I don’t care. Just something.” Anti tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Like you’re supposed to. You’re ruining everything by just waiting.”

“W-well, we...” Chase’s eyes flicked to the side. Schneep had entirely disappeared from his field of vision, and was now crouching down close to the ground. “We don’t know what to do yet. It’s a big empty room, not a monster.”

“You’re all smart, aren’t you?” Anti took a step forward. “You should have a plan by now.”

“Maybe we just haven’t had enough time!” Chase protested. “I mean—i-it took us all summer to catch that monster dog, right? And we didn’t have school and homework and stuff taking up all day.”

Anti seemed to consider that. His posture relaxed slightly. “School, hmm? Making you busy?” He giggled. “That’s funny. What’s the word? It’s ironed.”

“...Ironic?” Chase asked hesitantly.

“Ironic. It’s ironic that the school is keeping you from the greenlight.” Anti grinned. “Maybe it’s not as far away as you thi—”

Suddenly, Schneep stood up straight and moved his arm. He threw something! Chase’s baseball had been lying by the bedroom door. He’d grabbed it and thrown it right at Anti. But the ball went right through Anti’s shadowy chest and bounced against the glass of the window behind him.

Anti’s smile vanished. “I was talk͠ing̢,” he growled. His voice sounded strange. Crackly, like an untuned car radio.

Schneep stiffened, white as a ghost. “Es tut mir Leid,” he whispered.

Chase stepped in front of him. He could feel Schneep trembling slightly, his grip on his arm squeezing tighter. “Our mom is right downstairs,” he announced. “If we scream she’s gonna hear it and come running.”

Anti’s green eyes stared into his. The lightbulb in the overhead light flickered on, then off. “That’s nice,” he said in a flat voice. And then without another word, he disappeared.

The two boys waited for a few seconds to see if he would reappear. When he didn’t, Chase immediately whirled around to look at Schneep. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Ja—yes.” Schneep nodded. He’d stopped shaking and was regaining some color. “I thought—I-I wanted to see if he could be touched—and then I—I did not like... the way he said that.”

“Yeah,” Chase said. “But you’re okay. He left.”

“He did.” Schneep nodded again. “Ah... thank you. That was very brave, stepping in front.”

“Well what’s he gonna do? He’s like a ghost. You just proved he can’t touch anything.” Chase looked at the spot where Anti had been and stuck out his tongue. “He’s just a jerk.”

Schneep laughed. “H-he is.” A moment passed. “You... said ‘our’ mom.”

“I did?” Chase blinked. “I didn’t even realize. But, uh, are you okay with that?”

“I... do not know,” Schneep said slowly. “I like ‘our.’ But... things are complicated.”

“Alright. I’ll try not to do it again, then.” Chase paused. “Y’know, actually, can you help me with homework? I’m having trouble with some chemistry equations.”

Schneep nodded. “Yes! Of course! I have those in my memory.”

“Already?” Chase laughed. “Okay. In that case, you can sit in my beanbag and quiz me.”

As the two of them settled in, neither of them noticed the strange shadow outside the open window. Neither of them realized it watched them for a couple minutes before finally leaving.

++++++++++++++++++++

“Hey Jackie, did you hear?”

Jackie jumped slightly. He’d been staring absentmindedly into his locker, still thinking about the meeting he’d had with the kids at Chase’s house the day before yesterday. Anti appearing in JJ and Marvin’s room had really worried him. So had everything about the mystery group. But he put that out of his mind for now. “Hey, Syl,” he said, turning to look at Sylvester, who’d walked up next to him. “Hear about what?”

“The planetarium collapsed last night!” Sylvester said.

“What?!”

“Yeah, crazy, right?! Mincy told me everything in Math this morning.”

“That’s—what?” Jackie repeated. “How?”

Sylvester shrugged. “No one knows. Maybe it was built on a sinkhole or something. Or maybe something happened with the structure, like it was weak or something.”

A sinkhole wasn’t very likely, but... there was a big, wide-open space below the planetarium. That strange basement. If something happened down there, could the whole building have collapsed into it? “Was anyone inside?”

“Uh, some of the senior staff members were, so that sucks.”

“...yeah.” Jackie nodded. He turned back to his locker and grabbed the textbook he was looking for. “Yeah, that... really sucks.”

As he closed the locker, he could have sworn it was darker inside than normal. As if there was an extra shadow there.

He left too quickly to notice the faint laughter.

[bluegalaxygirl]

Hello again 😁!!

I don’t know if this is okay to ask, but would you be comfortable to share something about yourself? I could be anything as long as your comfortable with sharing it and it’s also okay if you don’t feel like answering this. I’d just like to get to know you a bit better since you seems to be such a beautiful person. 😊

Thank you for all your great One Piece stories!! They always make my day and help me get through them. ❤️

Thank you so much for all the love and support you and everyone else have been giving me, i'm happy to talk a bit about myself and I'll put a Trigger warning down bellow when i talk about some stuff. I don't mind talking about it since it was a long time ago and i hope it shows that others aren't alone. Also this is way longer than i thought it would be.

So first off i'm a very creative person i used to write a lot when i was in high school mainly because i have dyslexia (BTW why do they have to make it hard to spell) and it helped me a lot to understand words and spell. I remember when i was 13 i had the reading age of a 5-year old but thanks to one lady, i got up to my own age in reading in two years (Something my primary school refused to do). I do a lot of other creative stuff too like art, cross stitching, card making (I'm currently making Christmas cards for my family this year, its snow globe themed), jewelry making, sticker making and i'm trying to paint figures again. I

I also like to write how i want to be treated or how people should be treated while in a relationship, with love, respect, kindness and understanding. I wasn't treated like that in my past relationships, nothing bad happened and i wasn't abused but there were times when i would have to "Remind" them of my boundaries. That's also a big thing for me plus communication, if there's a problem or something is bothering you then it should be talked about so you can both understand and maybe figure out a solution. I find it funny how i love writing romance and stuff but i can't stand romance movies, i 1000% hate them, i just find them so annoying.

I love making people happy and i believe that if you are kind to others then they will be kind back but i'm also no longer a push over. If i don't like you then i won't talk to you. Family is very important to me but unfortunately there are members of my family that i can't stand for one reason or another and i won't talk to them as much but if i'm in a room with them i'm happy to be kind unless their not.

My favorite flowers are Sunflowers, there just so big and happy and come in different color's and shades. I love anime and playing video games, my favorite is watch dogs 2 but i also love the south park games. I love anything to do with autumn/fall, pumpkins (I love to help my mum make pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie), horror, maple leaves, cozy jumpers and socks, it's also the perfect time to start drinking hot chocolate. :)

TRIGGER WARNING AREA

You don't have to read through this part, its just explaining what iv been through and why i'm ok about writing stuff.

I was bullied all through primary school and all through high school, calling it hell would be an understatement, it didn't matter how nice i was or if i told a teacher it would still continue. I was spat at, called every name under the book, had my hair pulled, got kicked and pushed around and yet the teachers wouldn't do anything. When i was in primary school one of my bullies pushed me off a climbing set and i broke my wrist, she said it was an accident and the teachers believed her. My parents were constantly fighting the school, but they had an excuse for everything and i couldn't be moved form that school since it was way better than any of the others around (I would have gotten treated worse in any other school). In high school i was heavily sexualized by the boys, after years of bullying and getting no where with anyone you end up just shutting down and not saying anything, i went years without telling my parents anything or complaining to a teacher because it would go no where. My parents new something was going on but without me saying anything or any kind of evidence they couldn't confront the school.

When i was 14 i was sexually assaulted by a boy on school grounds (I found out when i was in collage my bullies told him to do it and one of them would sleep with him, and they did), I started talking to my parents again after that, and we got the police involved unfortunately it was my word against his because the bullies who where the only ones around said they didn't say anything (Even though they said to my face that they did and laughed about it) and the cameras in the area didn't work, i still don't know if that was the truth or not. I ended up getting yelled at by the headmistress for getting the police involved and then told me and the boy should sit down and talk about it. My parents went off on her after that and i feel so stupid because when they said they were moving me to another school i told them no. I wish i moved schools but the school i went too was the only one going Photography GCSE's and i wanted to be a photographer and my parents didn't fight me on it. Luckily things got better after that i think my bullies were to focused on getting a good grade than me but it didn't completely stop.

I worked hard though and passed all except one and got into collage where i did Photography for 2 years, i loved it so much and am so proud of myself for getting a very high grade despite falling very ill in the second year and hardly being able to attend classes but the teachers and staff there were amazing and gave me everything i needed. The first year i had some problems, me and the boy who assaulted me went to the same collage and lived in the same town, so we would get the same train i did, i tried to avoid him but i noticed he started sitting or standing close to me on and off the train. The first time i realized he was basically stalking me is when i got to the station and deliberately missed the train i was supposed to get, and he didn't get on when usually he would. The next time i got on the train and then got back off once he was on, and he left the train too. We got the railway police involved, but they said because he hasn't touched me there's nothing they could do, but they did give him a warning. That warning made everything worse though, he started following me to class even when i was with friends, he would stand right in front of me or right behind me if i was standing on the train, he even started to follow me home. Finally, the railway police gave him a restraining order and it all stopped thank gods.

I was too shy back then but after a lot of therapy and learning self defense i became more confident and able to stand up for myself, i still have my moments of going into my shell but i try to fight back with words if i can.

[machihunnicutt]

30, 37 for fic ask meme!!

TY LIVV :) !

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

i have a hard time with this and i think the solution is just to write it as quickly as possible and try not to think too much! fanfic is fun bc it gives you a starting point to expand on and explore…i think you just have to go for it and embrace the vulnerability of writing something out of the box :) i’ve been experimenting with writing more explicit scenes, that’s never been my strong suit but like…fic is a space for play and for discovery. i’m working on like, not counting myself out i guess? and trusting the process! and putting shame in its place!

this is a very vague answer i’m sorry. i think i just mean “write it scared” !

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

SURE !!! it’s this one. i don’t write a lot of rare pairs but rin/machi really speaks to me and i think i was really ambitious with the the plot while maintaining good pacing (another allison-ism is constantly worrying about pacing whoops). also i wrote it for me, y’know? i did not expect wide readership. all the stuff i wrote for fruits basket is really special to me bc it’s a series i loved in middle school (and read fic for back then!) and then returned to as an adult with a new understanding of and connection to. and i mean…like machi is tattooed on my arm, obviously I’m deeply committed to her (even if fb was not lmao). here’s a snippet:

It was a dark room, not depicted overhead as the last map, but as if the viewer were sitting with their back against the wall. There were no windows, and everything was bathed in purple and blue shadow, like a bruise. It was a claustrophobic painting. It was a haunting painting. It reminded Machi of broken and bloody things.

“I suppose you don’t want to talk about this one either?” Machi said.

“It speaks for itself,” Rin said, half-snarl, half crack in her voice.

“I think it’s powerful,” Machi said.

Rin hesitated. “I keep getting drawn back. No matter how far I get from that place and those people. And it’s not all bad. Haru…well, it’s not important. Sometimes I feel like I’m the last person left who wants to talk about the way it was,” she said.

Machi caught her breath.

She thought of the first nights alone in her old apartment. Every sound in the building spooked her and she didn’t talk to anyone. She bought all her food at stores with self-checkouts and mumbled when she was called on in class. She didn’t realize how lonely it all was until her vocal chords were constricting. That’s what Rin’s art reminded her of: someplace where loneliness was heavy like a blanket, and so encompassing you forgot it was there.

“Why did you want to go to art school?” Machi said. It was her most daring question of the night, and sounded almost mean.

“Why did you want to move in here?” Rin said.

“I thought it would be good for me,” Machi said.

Rin gestured down to the canvases.

“Yeah,” she said. “I thought this would be good for me too.”

[occult-roommates]

A scandal in the spellcasting world

One day, late in the evening, the Rossinis cousins were watching a movie on a channel which airs comedy classic. However, nothing made them feel older than the fact the movie currently airing was "Don't Mess with the Zohan". Then, Dawud joined in, and he got so close to Matteo he clipped into him, and Daniele had to pretend he's fine with that. Please someone come put an end to his misery...

Rudi: DANIELE TURN ON THE TV! PUT ON THE NEWS YOU'RE NOT GONNA BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED DOWNTOWN!! Daniele: WHAT??

Stressed out, he grabbed the remote control and turned on to SMN24 (San Myshuno News 24), only to see a woman he had never heard of in his life make a speech.

Rudi: Listen listen! Daniele: Rud, this cannot be the right news report for the level of urgency in your voice. Rudi: I had to make it crystal clear in order for your autistic ass to understand how much I wanted you to see this. Daniele: Stop saying I'm autistic! Matteo: You're not?! Dawud: Ok but like, never do it like that again. Like...last time someone said with this tone of voice to turn on the news cause something big happened in the San Myshuno downtown, it was the worst terrorist attack in history.

Because none of them were listening, Rudi rewinded until the beginning of the news report. There, a reporter explained only a few days before the upcoming Magic Realm Summit, a human woman had made a revelation that was shocking the spellcasting world at its very core. It then cut to the woman making a speech, what was being shown when they originally changed channel. It was written below "Delfina Baradoz - History teacher".

Delfina: Welcome everyone, my name is Delfina Baradoz. However, nobody but a few people knows me under this name. The name I used to be known as is quite similar. I am better known as Delphine Lorgnez, the so-called dead daughter of Gwenaelle Lorgnez and Giuseppe Paradisi. According to most, I passed away at only five years old, and yet here I am, turning 53 today.

Daniele felt confused. Why would they even lie about their daughter being dead? Surely, this woman had to be doing it for attention. However, he could not deny how much she look like a perfect blend of Gwenn and Giuseppe.

Daniele: But why? Rudi: Back when my dad was alive he had this friend who was obsessed with faking his death...Well, maybe not obsessed, but he brought it up often enough it was sus, especially whenever he was going through stuff. He'd even suggest it to other people. Dawud: I mean, faking your own death is a bit messed up already for your loved one, but forcing someone, a child even, to fake theirs seems even worse. Daniele: Shut up! I'm trying to listen...

Delfina explained she had remained in hiding her entire life. Her parents had found a human couple in Brittany willing to raise her in secret, and she had spent her childhood under the name Christine Cabioch. Once she turned 18, she wanted to change it back to her original name, but realized she actually quite enjoyed being out of the public eyes, unlike her biological parents, and instead picked one that was a nod to her true identity.

Since then, she had a pretty average life, she got married in her early 20s to a human, found a job in Nantes as a high school history teacher, had three kids with no magical abilities and is actually on her way to become a grandma in three months, has a house and a dog, nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody knows who she really is, even her own husband found that out in the last month in preparation for this speech.

Delfina: But why? Why would they do that? As I said, I enjoyed being out of the spotlight, but it is sadly not the reason why they hid me. If that were the case, there were easier solution. No, as you might have noticed, my life has been very human-centric, and the reason is obvious. I am a human...sort of. The older of you might remember a time when my parents were constantly boasting about me, how happy they were to have a daughter, and how much of a powerful spellcastress I was going to be. Then, tragedy struck and my powers were not developping. I was brought to a doctor, who tested me and found out I never will developed any. I was born with a genetic disorder which prevent my body from processing magic properly.

Embarrassed of having a human daughter after constantly claiming his seed (ew) made the most powerful spellcasters, Giuseppe took...a decision. He decided he will fake his daughter's death and hide her. Delfina is not quite sure how he convinced Gwenn to go along with his plan, but he eventually did. One day, they came out claiming their daughter had died in her sleep of a seizure from undiagnosed epilepsy. In order to make sure nobody will ever speak up, they did erase the memories of Delfina and her new parents.

However, Gwenn was never really out of her life and would often come to visit, on top of Delfina constantly hearing about her in the news regarding her weird cult. Then, at 16, she learnt the truth, which obviously messed her up quite a bit. That was the end of the story.

Daniele: No! This is not true!

The spellcaster stood up, unable to believe it. He literally felt mad on behalf of Delfina, but more importantly, he felt weirdly...hurt? He felt weirdly hurt by this.

Rudi: Hey, Dan? You ok? Daniele: This is not true. Giuseppe would never do that. This woman is just an attention seeker who looks like them, hell a human can have blue hair if they have occult ancestry. And she even said herself she changed her name to sound closer to Delphine's name. And how convenient a memory-erasing spell was even involved in her story. Rudi: How would you know he would not do that? You never met him. Daniele: No but...I mean, he's considered a hero to young spellcaster who struggle with magic or developped their power late. Hell, he even used to believe he had the same condition as this woman claims to have! Why would he even treat her the way he was treated by his own family? Well, like, they didn't exactly do that to him, but they were super abusive even by 1900s standard. Rudi: I'm gonna send you the Wikipedia article about the cycle of a abuse. You will find that a fascinating read. Daniele: I still don't understand why he'd do that! He's like...He's my hero...He gave me hope for me, for when my condition will make me lose my power. Maybe I'll find a way to make them comeback, and he's super based like he's pretty much always been on the right side of history, which is saying a lot for a dude who's 123 years old. Rudi: If only you knew the amount of time I found out musician and artist I loved and respected said shitty things about werewolves, even the super progressive one. And the older they are the worse it is cause you know, back then what they were saying was actually socially acceptable. Daniele: So why don't you understand why I'm feeling hurt. Rudi: He doesn't even know you exist Dan! Y'all never even met!

As they say, never meet your hero, that's how you find out they're asshole. Poor Dan, he didn't even got to meet him before finding out he secretly suck.

Prev - Next

[amarantine-amirite]

Outrun, Outpace, Outlast

I looked at the dog's breakfast of instructions for my writing assignment and said, "I can't take this. We had so much work put on us today, on top of what we got all week, and I can't possibly get it all done. I don't know what I'm going to do."

Mom heard me and replied, "I'm busy, too. I did the grocery shopping and I went to work. The only reason I made dinner tonight is that you forgot. Evelyn, is it so hard to make meals once in a while?" She didn't even look at me when she spoke.

Mom only told me I'd have to make meals for the 66 days that it took her to complete work on the Clappison file. She never told me I would be on dinner duty permanently. "You finished the Clappison thing a week ago, so why do I still have to make dinner?"

"Why is this such a big deal for you? It should be second nature by now" Mom huffed.

It would be second nature, except I have so many other things happening. I have school projects that require a lot of extra tools with cryptic setup instructions, textbook readings I have to do because the teachers can't teach, and college applications that crash so much as you look at them the wrong way. You can't build new habits if you are constantly fighting fires. "You just don't understand what I'm going through! You didn't have the same...never mind!" I stormed off, foolishly leaving the computer unattended.

Mom ran with the idea that social media was to blame, and one day, she deleted every single one of my socials when I wasn't looking.

This had deeper consequences than it appeared to. After Mom deleted my account, she tried to turn on the parental controls to block the social media sites I frequented to stop me from signing up for a new account. The computer crashed twice as she tried to do this. She had to reboot twice.

She got frustrated by how temperamental the computer was, so she did a factory reset. The factory reset erased all sorts of important stuff, like her will, my college essay, and loads of old family photos and past homework assignments.

There's a backup of my college essay on Mom's work computer. Getting it back wouldn't be easy. If she emailed it to me directly, it would put her security clearance in jeopardy. She's already got two strikes, both of which came from when I sent it to her the first time. If she gets one more strike, she loses her clearance, and if she loses her clearance, she gets fired.

The only way that we could recover the college essay would be if I copied it down from either the work computer or a printout. Both options require me to wait for Mom to provide the solution for me. She either has to ask permission to work from home because she can't bring me to the office or find a way to sneak the document home after she prints it since you aren't allowed to take printouts from work home with you. Neither one of them looks like it's going to materialize.

I can't just pick a new prompt and come up with something else. The common app picks your topic based on your month of birth. I was born in March, so my prompt was "what does the word gratitude mean to you?"

I got stuck the first time I did this because what looks like an open-ended prompt had a "correct" answer. They were looking for one of two responses: either "I am grateful for my health because I have an ailing family member" (this would sort you into pre-med or biology) or "I am grateful for my friends because my parents don't like me" (this would sort you into literature). I had to strategically write it so that it would sort me into the program I wanted, but at the same time, I wouldn't have to say anything that wasn't true. My essay said the first thing, but I used a lot of technology metaphors so that the sorting algorithm my schools of choice used in the admissions process would at least sort me into engineering.

Things weren't lining up for me to recover from the delete. That is, of course, until Heather told me that she found a USB stick with a copy of my college essay on it.

I had no idea it would lead to this.

I can see why Heather had us do this on skis. You can cover a lot of ground on cross-country skis. Plus, since only the toe of your boot is attached to your ski, cross-country skiers can go up and down, various types of terrain. It's a lot easier for cross-country skiers to go downhill than the other way around. "Heather, if you had told me that I would need to go cross-country skiing in the back field of a ski resort accessed through a deer path at the side of the road so I could recover my college essay, I would have thought you'd lost your marbles," I said

"I like cross-country a lot better than downhill because you don't have to get special poles with a ski blade on them. You can just put your ski boot on the prosthetic leg and go," Heather replied.

We made a good pace along the deer path. The terrain got easier once we made it to a dish-shaped clearing that glistened soft hues of pink and purple as the sunset reflected off the snow. Heather made the time-out T sign with her hands. "See that valley down there?" she said.

"Yeah," I panted, "is my USB stick in there?"

Heather nodded. "At the bottom of the valley is a cave that a very high profile criminal gang keeps their ill-gotten booty." She made a circling motion with her hand, emphasizing the fenced-off nook in the rocks on the east side of the basin. "The only thing guarding that cave is some caution tape and safety fencing"

I looked at her with a shocked expression. "Really?" I said with my jaw open like a codfish, "There's no way it can be that easy"

Heather chuckled, "Well, most people see the signs and think it's hazardous terrain. Some people get the idea that there's something cool back there and try to remove the safety fencing so they can see what it is, but give up because it's screwed down pretty tight." she then removed a large, impressive pair of wire cutter from her backpack, " but we came prepared"

We cut down the safety fencing and searched the cave for the USB stick. I poked around the remains of some Chinese lanterns, a piñata with the head missing (probably so they could hide drugs in it), what looked like a couple of stolen Frida Kahlo paintings, and some plastic ferns. "I don't see it anywhere" I heard Heather say.

"That's because it's here," I said, pointing at the Regency-era aired desk with angel figurines, candles, and shot glasses on it. I reached into the shot glass with Kermit the frog printed on it, pulled out the USB stick, and we both got the hell out of there.

I slipped the USB stick into the pocket of my snow pants. Once we got somewhere well-lit, Heather and I both high-fived.

"I don't believe we pulled this off!" I laughed.

"Me neither"

"Yeah, aren't they going to notice that someone was there?" I said.

Heather shook her head. "Probably not. If Ski Patrol sees the safety fencing cut down for any reason, they'll patch it up. Even if it isn't theirs."

"But what if they see all the stuff in the cave that we knocked over?" I asked.

"Again, not an issue. They'll just think one of their own was trying to hide something"

We had successfully liberated the USB stick. Job done, right?

Wrong. Two gangsters saw us make our way back to the car. They must have come back to the cave before the ski patrol people patched up the safety fence. They knew someone had been there.

One of them grabbed me from behind and pinned my arms behind my back. His buddy held Heather down and aimed a gun at her brainstem. "Bitch, give us back the USB stick or else!"

Things looked bleak. One false move and one or both of us would be dead. I had to think quickly. "Oh, we're not the guys who took your USB stick," I said, "they went for that helicopter." I pointed at the Channel 8 News Chopper with my head. "If you hurry, you can catch them!"

Both gangsters unhanded us and motored towards the helicopter, while we went in the opposite direction, back to the car. I went north, and Heather went east

I found somewhere high up where I got a good view of them grabbing onto the helicopter by the blades. It became increasingly clear that they had no idea how helicopters worked.

Helicopters don't start up right away. It takes 10 to 15 minutes for the blades to rotate at full speed. The first guy fell off before the blades could even complete their first rotation.

The second guy managed to hang on. But hanging on the blade destabilized the helicopter. Adding a human to helicopter blades causes more vibrations than you think. The chopper flipped over before it got off the ground.

I went another 100 yards and my phone rang. "Evelyn, where are you?" Heather said.

"At the chairlift dropoff, where are you?" I asked.

"I'm on the patio," she responded.

I turned around. I was up high enough that I could see the main building of the ski resort. Sure enough, they had a patio.

I made my way down to the resort's main building through the woods in between the hills "Lover's Lane" and "Swan Dive". Once I got to the resort, I instantly saw what Heather meant she said she was on the patio.

She lay there on her back with her prosthetic leg and skis missing. "You OK?" I asked.

"Funny story," she said, "I went off the end of the ski jump."

All she had to say was I went off the end of the ski jump, and I had a picture. Upon landing, she lost both skis and took quite a spill. It looked like she rolled down the hill eight times before finally crashing into the seating area of the resort. Her skis came off, and the leg came off. "Where did your skis go?" I giggled.

"Look around," Heather said.

I looked at the city bus and noticed that the ski attached to her natural leg went through the front window. "Oh look, here comes my prosthetic leg."

I soon saw the stray prosthetic leg ski down the remainder of the slope right into a group of kids in a ski lesson.

Heather got off easy. Sure, it knocked the wind out of her and wounded her pride, but seeing the disembodied leg in a ski and ski boot uncontrollably hurtle towards them scared the bejeezus out of ski lesson kids.

I don't think the ski lesson kids are going to ever be able to ski again. I think even looking at skis will be enough to trigger PTSD.

[aminta]

I'm genuinely exhausted and more than a little angry that we have to keep dealing with people telling us that my family is already a lost cause. I'm trying to assume good faith on your part, but just know when I say Biden is killing my family that's not a metaphor.

I haven't told anyone else not to vote for him. I'm very, very clear that I won't be doing so.

That said...

Bluntly, I can't outline an electoral solution, because I don't believe electoralism provides a solution. I think we can mitigate some of the harms on the local level, and I do vote in local elections and encourage others to do so.

But electing Biden in 2020 didn't remove the specter of fascism. He refused to expand the Supreme Court, and more and more of our rights have been eliminated at that level. His justice department failed to prosecute Trump's attempted coup in a timely manner, and now Trump is running again. He hasn't curbed police violence--he increased funding for cops!--or violence against migrants at the border. He rolled back what little pandemic response we had, and people are still getting sick, dying or being left with permanent disabilities. Nothing you dislike about Trump is materially better under Biden, and Biden has not lifted a finger to prevent another Trump victory. And all of that was before Biden started committing genocide.

So. "Who should we vote for?" is not a very useful question. A better question, I think, is, what would you be doing if the fascists had already won? What actions could you take that would help members of your community survive? What resistance would you undertake?

It is not too soon to be doing those things right now.

There’s a reason why an old school segregationist who loves mass policing and imprisoning Black people, migrants and the poor was attached to a historic first Black President and it’s not because Obama or Biden are great guys who want the liberation of the oppressed. No, they were attached because they both represented the opposite.

By joining a Black activist with a white segregationist, they ensured that the inclusion of people of color into the American Empire didn’t threaten that empire or its ambitions. It’s why  Obama expanded the Forever Wars, the drone warfare program, and deported more people than any president before him combined. The Obama-Biden administration was put in place to reaffirm and cement liberal white supremacy in this country, not reject it. Trump was a white backlash to the notion that white supremacy could be expanded. It’s just two dueling brands of racism.

Kamala Harris made her career by locking up Black people in the Bay Area. Her track record consists of terrorizing Black communities through the prison industrial complex. She then became the top cop of California. Her track record consists of rampant anti-Blackness. Not only did she fight to maintain prison slavery, she also fought legislation that would require her to investigate the brutal executions of Black folks by the police. Kamala Harris is also anti sex work. She repeatedly sued backpage despite many sex workers advocating to keep backpage as it kept them safer than being on the streets. Kamala Harris is an example of a Black person weaponizing their Black identity to excuse the violence they have committed against the Black community. Take Kamala Harris’s race away from the equation, and judge her by her actions. Her actions are those of a white supremacist

Kamala is not a Feminist Badass.  She’s not a “future is female” moment.  She’s not a girlboss, she’s not “black girl magic”. 

SHE IS A ZIONIST, MARRIED TO A ZIONIST, WHO SUPPORTS ZIONIST POLICIES UP TO AND INCLUDING THE ANNEXATION OF PALESTINIAN LAND AND GENOCIDE.

She’s happy to help kill Palestinian women, denying them a future, keeping them from being successful and showing off their shine and spark and personality.  So I don’t wanna hear fuck all about how her presidency is a glass ceiling moment or #feminism. She’s a perpetuator of the status quo and a staunch supporter of genocide.  I mean for fucks sake she just met with AIPAC and enthusiastically spouted her commitment for their right to “self defense”, which is not a right they have as an occupying force - WHICH THE UN ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THEY ARE. 

There is literally no justification for these behaviors, actions, and violence.  Because those actions are not self defense … those actions are genocidal, murderous, and cruel.  But Kamala Harris has no conscience.  Anybody world leader who would still support Israel after 9 months is intentionally genocidal.  They know what these people are doing is wrong and they DO NOT CARE. 

Lastly.  And this is where I really lose my fucking shit.

YOU PEOPLE COULD’VE RALLIED BEHIND THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES.  YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT KAMALA.

YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HER POLICIES OR HER STANCE ON ANYTHING.

BUT JOE SAID “SHES IN MY PLACE NOW” AND ALL THE SUDDEN IT’S #SLAY #GIRLBOSS #IM WITH HER.  Fuck you.

ill be fr anon i have a life and shit to do today. could i get a tldr

[nextgenripyourheartout]

“It’s unfair, you know.”

A gravestone, of course, doesn’t talk back. Instead, it kept standing exactly where it did, covered in ice and snow from the harshest winter in years. The blanket she had put on the ground did very little to keep out the cold nor the wet, but she didn’t care much. To preserve some warmth, she wrapped her arms tightly around her knees.

“You weren’t supposed to go yet.”

She pulled her hat a little deeper over her ears. Was it stupid, talking to a grave like this? She felt a little ridiculous. But their time had been cut short and she needed to make up for it somehow. Tell him the things that he had missed, that she now had to endure without him.

“And yet… you did. Although I suppose it wasn’t really by choice. You wouldn’t leave me by choice, I don’t think.” She smiled wryly. “Not after all the effort you put into making me believe you loved me as much as you did. And just when I started to believe it, you were ripped away from me.”

The gravestone still did not talk back.

“I never even got the chance to tell you how much I loved you. I mean, I did say it. But I never quite got to tell just how much. Because I really did.” A beat. “I do.”

She twisted the gold band around her finger at those words, staring at it. A date engraved in it that she had come to see, but he hadn’t. How ironic. They had never gotten to promise the till death do us part before it already came to that.

“I sold the dress. Or gave it away, rather. To someone who couldn’t afford one. I did that with lots of our nonrefundables, tried to find new places for them to go to… My dress went to this really sweet girl who had been down on her luck. Her parents don’t approve of her relationship, so they wouldn’t be there. She’s fresh out of school, too, neither of them had a job yet. I think she was pregnant, too. She didn’t say so, but… you know. You learn to see the signs.” She smiled. “She was a vision in that dress, too. You would’ve said so, too, though you’d disagree with me that it looked even better on her than it did on me.” She shifted her weight a bit as the gravestone still stayed exceptionally quiet. “The cake went to a care home. I made sure to take the decorations off first, don’t think I could’ve handled an entire floor of sweet old people asking questions without boundaries about why I’m giving away a wedding cake. I’m pretty sure some wondered – there’s only so much you can do to hide that a fully white cake is a wedding cake anyway, but none of them asked. The nurses were very kind, too. One of the old men had your name and I just kind of… lost it. They took really good care of me. A nurse’s shoulder is really good to cry on, you know. I know that now. First shoulder I cried on was from a nurse.” She sucked in a shaky breath, cursing the fact that she didn’t have a nurse’s shoulder to cry on right now. “We gave away the flowers. Lucy rallied this group of girls on the day of, and we all just went out into the city and handed out flowers until we were out. Lots of smiles that day, and I think I even laughed. And then I felt guilty for laughing.”

“But I suppose you would scold me for that, huh? No one is worth losing your laugh over. But it’s been hard. I guess it will stay hard for a while, too. Every time I feel good, I feel guilty. It feels like feeling good means I’m forgetting you. And I don’t want to forget you.”

A small family walked past, talking in hushed voices between themselves, but still she suddenly felt so spied upon that she fell silent for a while, even when they were long out of view.

“We also couldn’t cancel the catering anymore… Scorpius came up with a solution for that. We notified a couple of homeless people and word spread like wildfire… It almost got out of hand, honestly, with how many people showed up, but it was really nice to be able to help them, even if it was just for one meal. They were really kind, too. Chatted me up, didn’t ask questions, just… were grateful. And then I thought I saw you in the crowd, and I couldn’t stop crying, and one of them got ‘the pretty boy with the blonde hair’ because they figured he was the only able to console me. God, Scorp wouldn’t shut up about it. I can just imagine you teasing him that it was a compliment from a homeless guy.”

She toyed with the ring again. “Scorp ended up having to take me home and knock me out with a sleeping potion. I’ve been needing those to sleep since you’re gone. Only thing that keeps the nightmares at bay.” She frowned. “A lot of people have been taking care of me. I feel guilty about that, too, even though I always imagine you telling me off. It’s just so hard without you. You were the one constant in my life, you were my lifeline, and now you’re gone.” She felt tears burn at the back of her eyes, though she doubted they would actually come. Her tears had run out a long time ago.

“You weren’t supposed to go yet. We were supposed to get married and go on adventures. You were going to show me all the pretty places you had been and I hadn’t, and vice versa. We were supposed to adopt three cats and they would love you more than they did me, much to my chagrin. You were supposed to make me breakfast in bed and kiss me awake on a Sunday morning, and we were supposed to go out for a walk in the forest behind our house. We were supposed to redecorate the cottage we went to look at the week before you… before. It’s sold now. They wouldn’t have made it as beautiful as we would have.” She wiped her cheeks, surprised to find them wet. “We would have given you an atelier, and me a walk in closet, and we’d have a lovely garden full of flowers and our own fruits and veggies. We were supposed to get chickens. Maybe a donkey. We were supposed to have a pregnancy scare and then decide we didn’t want another scare, but rather a planned one.”

“We were supposed to have a life together. Till death do us part was only supposed to come when we were old and grey and even then we agreed that I would go first and you would die an hour later of a broken heart, so we could reunite in the afterlife and haunt our friends.” A sob raised in her throats. “You. Were. Not. Supposed. To. Go. Not first, not at all. It’s so unfair. Now I must live a life without you? How the hell am I even supposed to do that? Everyone has been so sweet, but I’m holding them back, too and it makes me feel horrible, but I just don’t know how to… go on. How to continue.” She stared at the ever-silent gravestone, the name on which had been obscured by the white powder and the falling darkness. She’d have to go home soon. Erin would come to check on her soon, and panic if she wasn’t there. All her friends worried about her well-being, and she couldn’t blame them. She wiped her tears again, feeling the ice on her bones as she clambered to her feet – she was going to need hours in the shower to feel warm again. If ever. Only as she walked down the path, she noticed the old lady sitting on a bench eying her with great interest. She managed a wry smile, and the old lady patted the spot next to her. Against knowing better, she sat down, and the old lady took her frozen fingers in her own, which were warm and toasty.

“What was his name?” The old lady asked, so kindly that she worried she might break down then and there. “It’s important to speak their names to strangers. Then they get remembered all around the world. My love?” She nodded towards a grave nearby. “Earnest. Honest to God that was his name. Sweetest man I ever met. What’s his?”

Snow looked at the grave a few paces back, the flowers she brought already covered in snow. “Damien.” She said quietly. “Damien Stebbins, and he was the best man I will ever know.”

[harryrryrry]

Before I go

Tommy Shelby x daughter reader

Gif by Joekeerygif

Summary : Tommy decided to send his daughter to a private school in the country before she brings to much trouble. Y/N is doing everything in her power to change her fathers mind

AN : you can also find my works on AO3 here !

———————————————————————

1913 was a beautiful year. They’ll tell you that. The following year was the worst. Tears, screams that pained them, and promises to come back that never felt true, until they were back.

Y/N was almost a year old when she was separated from her father. At that time, the man was her only parent, having never known the love of a mother. Then Polly came in the picture, replacing her father she didn’t remember, and her mother she never met.

And then he came back. Polly had told her multiple times that the man in front of her was her father but seeing as she was only four years old, remembering things were the last thing Y/N cared for. Speaking properly, putting her shoes on and even reading was already a challenge for her.

So “Tommy” it was. It took her almost a year to call him dad. A year of repetitive questions. “Who are you ?” “Where were you ?” “ why are you here now ?”

Some would have lost patience, but never did he. And god knows Thomas Shelby’s patience was thin.

To Thomas, learning the trust of daughter was his main goal. Her first, business after. Arthur always says that his brother has gone soft for the little girl. And never Tommy would deny it. She was the apple of his life. His anchor to earth when the shovels would be back at night.

Having missed most of her toddler years messed him up. Thinking was he wasn’t able to carry her around in his arms, feed her or even cradle her at night pained him more than anything. And every day, under the dirt and the sound of bombs with not light at the end of the tunnel, Tommy prayed that she was safe, loved and that her innocence would remain intact.

And all of these efforts, all these years of gaining her trust and love, went threw the window. Years of work that took a minute to crumble.

" What ?"

During those said years, Tommy had learned a lot of things about his daughter. For starters, they did not only share the same physical traits, but also his character. As Polly would say, y/n learnt from the best. The second mastermind of the Shelby family. But all these skills had to come with a bit of negativity ; being a trouble maker, always getting herself in a though situation were Tommy always had to get her out. Her father had warned her multiple times that one day, she would get herself in trouble - something big and the Tommy wouldn't always be there to get her out. She had brushed it off, saying that she was smart enough to find a solution herself.

" You heard me. I warned you multiple times already. So, you are to leave for Liverpool Monday, first thing in the morning. I won't be there, but Polly will accompany you to the station. Once there, you'll be taking care of. And please, do't bring the trouble with you on your way, eh ?"

Her father, the person she trusted and loved most, was betraying her? Betrayal never felt so hard.

He was sending her away to Liverpool to attend a private Catholic school for girls only. He decided alone he didn't even talked about it with her.

" But you can't !"

Tommy sighed, as much as it pained him, he had to. He had warned her, again and again that this was bound to happen. Sending her away, where she would have the obligation to obey.

Polly and Arthur were right, Tommy was to sit with his little girl. The man never brought a hand upon her and the worst grounding she was no riding for a week.

But this ? For y/n it was the worst punition. No father, no Finn, no riding, no pictures, no friends, no liberty and far away from her family. But the worst of it all ? He wasn't even coming and she knew why. He would crack, take her in his arms, give her a lecture, hug her again and would bring her back home.

And y/n has the attention to play on that.

" You're sending me away, telling me this as if you are reading the paper. And you're not coming ?"

Tommy sighed, heavier than before. " I know, and trust me I would love to come but I can't. I have some important business to take of."

What a lame excuse, y/n thought.

"Bullshit." Thomas head shot up. His glare piercing holes in her head.

" I'm sorry, what ?" Y/n huffed. " see ? This is why im sending you there. So that fucking behavior of yours stop. I'm tired of always having to get you out of trouble."

The more he raised his voice, the more chances were slim for her to find an alternative with him. She had to think of something, and fast. Seeing at it was already Wednesday, she would have a few days to plan something.

" Okay, I'll leave. Can I be dismissed ?" Tommy looked at her as if she had become a ghost. He was expecting her to put up a fight, to scream, cry and whatsoever. For fuck sake's, he was ready to call Polly in case things got to Wilde for him to handle.

"You- huh yes, if you want."

Perfect. The first part of her plan was in action.

She nodded and took off toward her room. There, she packed a suitcase and hide it - but not too much, so it was still visible, under her bed. Until dinner time, she will stay in her room, letting her father alone with his doubts.

At the table, the tension was palpable, you could even cut it with a knife. No one was talking, Charlie was playing with his food, as per usual, Ruby kicking her legs under the table, happy to have sweet potatoes in her plate, Lizzie was eating slowly and silently, and while Tommy was smocking, his plate untouched, y/n was counting the green peas in her plate. She could feel his eyes on her, trying to know what she was thinking or more like what was she planning.

Little did he knew, she wasn't going to let him find out. No matter what it takes.

" Sweetheart, you should eat a bit more than a spoon." Lizzie, who's sat next to her, whispered.

" Im not that hungry. Dad ? Can I leave the table early please ? I would like to go to bed, im not feeling well."

The sound of silverware against the china plates abruptly stopped. What was it with the sudden politeness ? It was too formal - and so not normal - to come out of her mouth. Even her father was uncomfortable to be talked to this way by his daughter.

" Why so formal, eh ?" Y/n put down her silverware on the table and turned to her father with grace.

" Oh, just practicing my well behavior in order to be ready for Liverpool, sir. I do not want to cause any problems to anyone else." For a hot minute, Tommy and y/n looked at each other as id it was the competition. The first one to break the stare would show weakness and even though she knew that his death glare will never look away, she still thought she had a chance.

And to her biggest surprise, her father was the first to break the eye contact. She felt proud, knowing that she would be the first person to defeat him.

"What's in Liverpool ?" Ruby's little voice broke the silence.

"Our dear dad, my little Ruby, want me to leave the house for a few years because he is too afraid to admit the fact that he doesn't want me in his way. Too afraid that I’m "a wild horse that cannot be calmed down for the big day". Am I right, daddy ?" Tommy pinched his eyes shut. Next to her, she felt Lizzie getting up, as if she was sensing the trouble from a mile away.

" C'mon kids, let's go upstairs."

The room now empty, y/n decided to put her plan into action. She forced her eyes to water. "Tell me, really. Why do you want me so bad to leave ?"

Tommy looked at her with uncertainty. The first time he truly felt helpless. He knew that if he opened his mouth only to say one word, he will crack and tell her to stay. But this would mean that he would have to accept the fact that he can be defeated - by his own daughter.

"I already told you. You are getting out of hand. Too much trouble comes your way and I can’t handle it every time. I won’t be here all the time. You need to learn that.”

So it seems that Tommy won’t change his mind. But that’s alright, she’ll find another way.

“Dad-“

“No. Go to your room Y/N, please.”

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia and Owl House Weekly Reviews: The Hardest Thing, O, Titan Where Art Thou? and Clouds on the Horizon:  Sayanora, Frog Town, Steve Rising and WE FINALLY GOT IT PEOPLE

Hello all you happy people! I’m back with my usually weekly reviews of Amphibia and Owl House after a week off.  Now some might ask WHY I took most of the week off despite you know THE FINALE and saved it for this week. 

The reason is simple as it is kinda sad: Burnout. I love this job and yes while reviewing stuff is my passion it is still a job. I do commissions once a week, saving slots just for that, I do my damndest to make sure every review comes out that week, and I put my best into it. But even a job you love, one you wanted some form of for 10 years before finally going for it, can be exhausting. I still tried giving it my best but I was hitting a wall and while I thought scaling back to three reviews a week would magically fix it it didn’t. It HELPED.. but ultimately the actual solution was just stepping away for a bit so I could come back rejuvenated. And frankly as much as I WANTED to talk about the amphibia finale, I also wanted to do so when I was happy and healthy. 

Granted HEALTHY wasn’t in the cards. Yeah despite taking a few days off not long into said days off, I came down with a head cold, horribly conjested and headachey. I still got the rest I needed, but it still sucks that even when I SPECIFICALLY take a week off for the first time in a while that wasn’t me being sick.. I STILL get sick. 

Still i’m back in the new york grove and down to not only covering the heart and liver breaking finale of amphibia, but the last two owl houses. We have epic anime fights IN SPACEEEE, god cats, tearful farewells, soul searching roadtrips with steve, heartbreaking child on parent violence, divorce, and huntlow to get to so join me under the cut.. and for Amphibia.. the last time. 

                                                        The Hardest Thing

Amphibia headlines this week and it’s .. hard saying goodbye. Even with a week after the finale i’m still having trouble letting it sink in that it’s over. We MIGHT get more, and given disney loves the show and this finale leaves lots of room for a sequel, a reunion movie, a spnioff or ALL OF THE ABOVE, it’s likely we will get more eventually.. but the Hardest Thing also does a great job for the most part tying everything up thematically and story wise and giving us one last ride to enjoy. If this world never comes back i’ll be sad... but i’ll still be satisfied. 

Fitting for the title The Hardest Thing did not take the easy way out with the finale and is better for it. Granted it left me weeping in a puddle for the last 10 minutes, but I salute matt for not taking easy outs: Anne and the plantars are separated, as are Sasha and Grime and Marcy, the unambiguously gay duo and face turn bad sad old man. Not only that the three burning stars drift apart: they keep in touch a little, but Marcy still moves away and Sasha and Anne drift apart in high school. There's no big relationship upgrade, no way to keep them together. Anne looses her found family and her girlfriends.. and it was the right call. The series had been building to this and the whole point of it was simple..

A person can come in, change your life, be the center of your world.. and then have to leave it. It’s just a fact: friends move, but what they meant to you stays.  This hit me especially hard given Bobbi, a woman who was like a second mom to me, had died the previous week.. after having moved away 10 years prior.  So yeah the timing hurt, but it also helped the shows real message change: people change, they can change you and ultimately life is not trying to hold on to some perfect image of what it should be, but accepting what it is as it moves on, as you grow and change. And sometimes.. the things you loose come back to you. I will never get the people i’ve lost back.. but i’ve reconnected with plenty of people.. and now so is anne as she reunites with her girls. 

And look let’s get the very gay elephant out of the room: Yes I’ve been a rabbid sashanarcy shipper. I cop to that. But I support the show NOT taking the easy route and giving fans what they wanted.. but what was realistic. Marcy was leaving and while something may or may not have happened with anne and sasha they were two very different people who simply drifted a bit. Having them drift apart, while still keeping in some level of touch, was realistic as it was painful. Plus their now all back in the same place, so the door’s still open as is it for fanfiction. Sometimes that big gay relationship upgrade doesn't happen because a mouse has a gun to your head, hi ducktales. And sometimes it just doesn't happen because it’s not necessary to the story. 

But back to the point, you can’t hold onto the past. You can treasure it but you ultimately need to let go. It’s why we don’t get conformation IF anne and sprigg saw each other again. Given Terri built a working portal with home goods and now has the government's ear , funding and experimental tech, not to mention the fact several robot factories were just... dropped into la , it probably would only take a year, if not just a few, to get the funding, power source, and time for a new portal. They probably do meet again and i’m not just saying that so I don’t ugly cry. 

But it’s not what was important and that’s okay. The real point.. is that anne and spirgg lived. They probably spend every Christmas together, they probably see each other every so often..  but they moved on from their adventures in their own way. Sprigg used them to start his own, to catalogue what they found and really understand it and Anne used knowing all these wonderful amphibias to study earth’s own versions of them. Their adventures helped each other grow into the people they were meant to be and they’ll always be family.. but the part of their lives where there in it every day is over.. and that's okay.

It also contrasts the core well..  a villian whose entire motive is keeping things the way IT wants them and to last forever... and who fittingly dies. As @jess-the-vampire and I talked about in conversation, a villian really should only die when there’s a reason for it. Otherwise it just feels like they got out easy and redemption or being forced to sit with their crimes while everything they hated occurs around them or being forced to do some recompense is more interesting.  Or to put it in the way my brain often does:

And it’s why even if I feel it was done with mild sloppiness... Andrias turn works. No one forgives him, he’s in chains even a decade later, and he even said itslef it was too late. But he still got to be free, turning against the core on his terms and living the rest of his life actively making up for what he’s done, and even outright refusing any more upgrades, willing to die knowing he did something right for once. It works, in part because Keith David is just that good. 

And honestly the only part of the finale that dosen’t work, before we get to more that does.. is the Core. The final battle is UTTERLY beautiful, from the kick ass living in my head forever more remix of no big deal, to the saint seiya inspired powered up verisons of their armors, to the boss as hell hair, to the gay as hell spin, it is one of the best sequences in the show, and in recent western animation.

But the core itself, while tying into the shows themes well.. just falls flat. IT’s motives are just so simple: it wants to live forever and it wants to conquer. And a villain with a simple motive can work: Thanos in the comics wants to kill everything, as does the lich from adventure time. But what makes them work is while the motive is simple their personalities aren’t: Thanos is a blood kniight LITERALLY in love with death, a master of strategy and battle whose utterly horrifying to face not just for his power but because he’s thanos...

The MCU one has a SLIGHTLY more sympathetic if still horrifyingly genocidal bent, but my point is to be simple in motive you need some gravitas and the Core.. just isn’t that. There’s no depth to what they are, no deep strategy or knowledge from having so many minds in one. Ther’es no sense of what they are or what they can do and the only one we get any sense of with andrais’ dad, which arguably harms it as instead of this unknowing being who happens to have andrias abusive dad in there to rub salt in the wound it’s down to just old king dickhead. The core is just weak as a villian, especially after we got so much more out of andrias over the past season and it’s sad to see the series end with that... still punching out a moon was awesome. 

I’ll also say Anne’s disney death... was geninely horrifying but it and the ensuign conversation with the stone diety was hit and miss. Anne being offered godhood, having shown how much she’s learned and thus another moral of the series, that we ALL fuck up but what’s important is we constantly try to be better and don’t let our mistakes eat us alive, a fantastic one we all need to hear from tiem to time, I feel there just.. wasn’st time. The diety just comes out of left field. There was no indication the stones were sentient before this.. they CHOOSE our heroes but magical artifacts that AREN’T sapient do that all the time in fiction.  YOu can cast a spell for chosen one nonsense. So while the diety isn’t a bad character, honestly they got more personality and charisma in a few minutes than the core got in an entire half a season being fully reveealed and Charlyne Yi was great in the role, I just feel it’s a bit tacked on. LIke a way to have the trip home be one way by having anne have to use all her power. I don’t midn the results, as I said the ending is effecting and the narrative has built to this over the series and especially this season: the idea of loosing people has been prevalant, of what loss does to you and how seperation can change you. They’ve subtley been buidling to this. But the way they got there feels half assed and given they puttered around most of 3b buliding an army that amoutned to fuck all in the end, they HAD the time to do more with the stones or our heroes researching them. Instead they just rushed it, gave us one glorious but sadly breif taste of the girls at full power, then got to the ending. Amphibia’s three part finale honestly reminds me of Ducktales finale, The Last Adventure. The setup going into it was wonky, it was a bit of a mess.. but ultimately it somehow works an dthe ending is still utterly satsifying. The villians and heroes both end up where they should and it leaves you in tears while wanting MORE. 

So before we get to my overall thoughts some rapid fire stuff since as the final episode and being a bit longer, there’s a lot of ground to cover

 Grime and Sasha’s goodbye is everything I coudl’ve wanted from my two faviorite characters on the show. I may relate to marcy the most but my trash daughter and trash grandpa were the shows mvps and their heartflet and tearfilled goodbyes were as excellent as i’d expect. 

I do like where the girls all ended up as adults: Sasha’s was the most suprising.. but also the most satisfying. Shocker the character I just admitted wa smyf aviorite and whose solo episodes i’ve consiently gushed over had the most satisfying arc. But her going on to help kids like they were and help them with their issues. Really warmed the heart. Also she’s bisexual as fuck as I expected. Marcy being a webcomic writer fits her like a glove and allows her to use her creativity, genius and nerdery without having to put too much presure on it and anne being a hepitolgist was simply brilliant. It was also a neat touch keeping all the va’s, and it fit given their all grown women and adjusted it JUST enough to show their maturity. May they have a conseual pile ever after. 

Lot to unpack with the wartwood side of the timeskip. We finally get to see polly as a grown frog, and thus have an idea of what sprig size her looks like. It also dosen’t rule out my crossover ship with her giant island sized boyfriend from the other show we’ll get to in a moment so yay. The callback to the goodnight you frogs from the pilot was also neat. 

HOp Pop not only still has silvia, but go this alvacados’. Also he’s still alive in ten years. I’m proud of him and his adotped robot farming son. I’m also happy hop pop got one plantar who’d follow in his footsteps since sprigg and polly don’t seem that intrested in farming in present day let alone 10 years later. 

We didn’t get the offical couple I wanted most.. but as I made clear earlier I made peace with that. But we got OLVIA AND YUNAN. Which I never expected to be made canon but here we are. Respectble and Disaster gay together as they deserve. Also grime is an ambadassador now. 

Speaking of which, we got JOE AND BESSIE. I dind’ thtink they’d call back to that much less given them tons of hybrid children but Usopp bless you matt. Speaking of Kids of all people Maddie has them already. With who? I dunno but i’m glad maddie is happy selling her potions with her tiny children. Maybe her baby daddy died under suspscious cricumstances. maybe she brought him back as a fraknenstine. these are questions for us fans to answer. 

Finally we have Sprigg whose not only an explorer, but is stil with ivy. Awww. And they head off for the dark conteint... er the axtol contient. You know if I had a nickel for every time the show badly teased something I wanted an answer for in the finale without actually answering it i’d have two nickels.. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice. Still got tons of ideas on that. Maybe he invites some old friends along. Maybe he rides on king’s back while chuck grows tulips there. We’ve seen titans can do it. I’ll just have to wait and see on that one. 

Overall though this is a GREAT finale.. but as I said it just has a thing or two holding it back. But like The last Adventure i’ll hold this in my heart. And as I say goodbye to amphibia.. it’s sad. I truly loved this show, warts and all, and it’ll be sad to see it go. Sure I still got season 1 to cover.. but it’s not quit ethe same as digging into new content next week and it’s also hard knowing that with owl house’s finale movies likely airing this year, it’s not the last goodbye to a show I love i’m going to have to deal with. Still this show was a heck of a ride with characters i’ll treasure forever, some hilarous all time great episodes, and a hell of a moral.. one i’ll follow. I may be leaving Amphibia behind.. but i’ll carry it with me. I’m also not QUITE done yet, as i’ve decided to make a tradition of what happened with ducktales.. since the series is over.. best of the series list coming next. Then i’ll finally get back to season one. Still it was a great show.. .so long matt.. and thanks for all the frogs. Can’t wait to see you next time you hop into the creators chair.  PS: As much as I hate to ruin my heartfelt goodbye yeah turns out I was wrong. What I thought was an erroneous fan theory was actually correct: The time skip only takes place 10 years later on Anne’s side. For amphibia it’s 9 MONTHS later. A large part of why I wrote it off as bs was simple: why would they be at diffrent times and if so why wouldn’t they tell us? And I still have no idea why either of those things but it does actaully make the epilogue make a bit more sense: none of the adult cast has aged which I thought was weird at first but is now simply there wasn’t enough time, and the younger cast makes sense given 3 of them were on the cusp of puberty and Polly was changing into a grown child. I still want a follow up on the dark continent thing and all, but it still just feels weird. I’m fine with them having two diffrent time epilogues but as WeirdKev wisely said when informing me of my mixup, WHY wasn’t there a “9 months later thing” it would’ve made this less confusing. Yes again there are context clues, sprig didn’t look or sound like an adult versus anne , sasha and marcy who not only were grown ass women but soudned like it, but I shoudln’t need context clues to figure out two scenes are 9 years apart. There was no reason not to do this. It dosen’t HURT either epilogue story wise, it’s just annoying. 

                                                O’Titan, Where Art Thou?

And now we’re back to the boiling isles as death looms over our heroes... as usual.

This one got back to luz, with Hunter’s fate once again left to next week.. aka this week’s episode but more on our faviorite bad sad hobo willow liker in a bit. For now it’s the time of steve as King is understandably having a bit of an exestetial crisis after finding out he’s...

Not helping is the fact is how while his mom, sister and weird uncle that’s also a tube all get he needs time to process this, that he’s still the king they know and love, and that he just wants to be normal.. lilith on the other hand, given her desperate need for authority and tendency to take things a little bit TOO far in her exciement...

Eda of course wants her to knock off treating her nephew like a god.. but gets distracted with the a-plot. So instead LIlith threatens to murder people in his name, do his bidding etc. And what makes this intresting, and something king himself even points out later with his new big bro, is that this is what he WANTED up until he learned the truth about himself. King wanted to be an angry god and have attroacities commited in his name. He wanted power and worship and whatever he wanted. But now he has that.. he’s HORRIFIED by it. He’s realized he just wants a family, and now some of the only family he has, especially after learning his people are likely dead, all dead, is treating him like a god instead of her nephew. It’s no wonder he runs off. 

Thankfully he finds steve. Look I forgot steve existed, I had no idea he was not only going to get a deep character arc, but conclude said arc via a soul searcing hard traveling road trip with king. It was something I always clearly needed but never knew it till now. Steve has left the coven.. not defected just yet but he’s correctly assumed belos dosen’t give a shit about anyone, the day of unity is a lie and thus has taken off with his sweet new jacket and hog (and his signature steve t-shirt), to find himself. And the episode helps further flesh him out as a character. Steve had no real reason to invite king along.. but he saw a kid in trouble, as unsure of himself as steve was and clearly needing a fucking break. And the montage of said road trip/soul searching journey/walkabout/fucking break is just.. one of the cutest and most heartwarming thing. King comforts steve’s distress at not having a parnter while steve helps him: taking him to the titans bones which the boy hugs and later adorably setting a paper craft figure of a human on top of king. He also tells him he dosen’t HAVE to be whta people want him to be just himself. Granted LIlith tries tracking king down, to the point even HOOTY thinks King just wants to be normal.. and is also the mighty worm of arakis apparently.. and has a tiny him inside. 

Yeah freeze frame it. Ther’es a mini hooty in there.. starring.. meancingly. HAVE FUN TRYING TO SLEEP TONIGHT! :B 

We also see steve’s face and he’s really really redicusouly good looking. Like I was not expecting steve to be a smokeshow of keith david quality but here we are! Steve is just .. fantastic, having grown immensely from a grunkle stan flavored joke cahracter into the loveable guy we know now. I didn’t expect to care this much for steve but here we are. You go man

As for our other plot, Eda’s attempts to keep Luz out of it despite it making no sense finally come to a head: Lilith left them directions to where they were hiding, as she shoudl since you know, bonesburough is now full of wanted posters for all of them so maybe she wasn’t wrong, and neither sister has an actual plan, with Eda just wanting to give her kids one great day before they possibly die in the whole genocide thing. And while it works out for King, Luz is too determined to get their stuff back, particularly francois.

Sadly.. things reach their natural conclusion. Eda lying about the plan means Luz thinks she has one.. and as such when she hears Eda BEGGING rahne to take luz and king and run as far as possible, even if has to give herself up, she’s furious. The scene itself is heartbreaking: Rahne clearly realizes how badly they fucked up trying to leave Eda out of this, while Eda is just so desperate. We’ve seen her so confident that seeing her just begging, willing to give up if it means her children leave... it’s devastating and Wendy Mallick utterly sells it. 

And it’s only apptizer to the main course of tears, as Luz is naturally pissed Eda seems to be underestimating her.. and expects her to run. While her girlfriend, best friends, and ANYONE else she’s met and cared the least bit about, whcih is to say a lot of people are at risk of dying horribly.. eda wants her to run. Yet what makes this inevtible clash so heartbreaking.. is you see why Eda WANTS her to run. They have no allies, no plan, and no hope and even if Luz is capable, she not only shoudln’t HAVE to fight this war, but she can’t. She MIGHT be able to figh tbelos, we’ll see next week, but not only is that a BIGGGG might, it’s to eda’s knowledge three people against the bulk of the isles. At least Luz MIGHT be able to undo the draining spell or find some way to win eventually. At least she’ll live. You can’t blame either for backing their side: One is a daughter being abandoned AGAIN, the other is a mother desperate to keep her kid alive

And so we get one of the most devisttaing fights in animation since Amethyst Vs Garnet: Luz trying to escape to fight anyways and Eda trying to stop her. And you  can tell that while neither is half assing it both are DESPERATLEY trying not to hurt each other. The stakes are too high to do nothing, with Luz using her magic cleverly and eda pesuing her owl-dly, but neither WANTS this. The audience dosen’t want this. but it had to happen. It does show how far luz has come.. but it’s not enoguh. Sadly the fight gets them captured... and Luz not only find sout why but begs for eda to be okay... 

Thankfully like the episode before instead of ending on pain.. we end on hope. Not only does luz wake to being freed by darius, but with the batts. Seriously that had been bugging me all season. The conformatiroioum is cardboard. Eda could’ve busted them out. Btu now we know why: their parental figure already busted them free, and also found king, steve, lilith and hooty. Rahne reveals the truth, apologizes and admits to having learned the same lesson Eda did: it’s fine to want to protect someone.. but sometimes their going to fight anyway and the best you can do is fight with them. We also find out that Darius and Eber were already working on this rebellion and simply attacked rahne because their a terrible actor. Which given we’ve seen the poor person nearly break down just giving an acceptance speech and be easily found out as rebellion leader, yeah good point. Together they are the

Covens Against The Throne S??????

The CATTS. As you’d expect and likely already know because it’s been a week, Darius is horrified by the mere idea of that being the name never mind Rahne telling everybody. But he’s outvoted so CATS IT IS. 

The ending is also geninely sweet, with Luz and Eda carving her new palismen, Luz finally ready and Eda ready to teach her. While time is ticking down to doomsday... the world can wait. For just one minute. For mother and daughter to share one last moment before the world turns upside down

As usual this episode was excellent and I have no real complaints or crticisim here. At most the pacing is slightly rushed.. but given it’s clear by the “if we had 20 more adventures line” there having to do a steven unvierse and try and get to the finish line with what they have left. Granted it’s uknown to me at least just how much of season 2 was finished before the axe came down, writing had STARTED on season 3 at least, or how much was adjusted, but given the sheer panicy nightmare that entails I applaud it for seeming seamless. Things are accelearated but they don’t feel rushed or unearned and they had at least enough time to speed things up. And we’ll see the momentum keep..

                                Clouds on the Horizon

Before we get into the obvious i’d like to be a pedantic old man for a second: This title.. .feels out of place. It’s not a bad one... but at this point the day of unity is HERE. In the utterly amazing intro we see Belos struggle to open the door.. and it turns out the door ISN’T necessary to the DOU. He just wants to go home once his genocide is done. 

Thing is... it’s not that easy. As the collector points out, Belos isn’t human anymore, even if he tries to punch his little buddy for it... he’s not wrong. Belos is a monster in body and soul. And while the right people would likely accept this monster man, as we’ve seen with anne’ and the plantars elsewhere on the same earth... the world has changed. Witches have faded into myths while witch trials, something Phillip probably relished in his day, are now seen as shit shows used to persecute whoever the accuser didn’t like. His “great work” won’t be seen as the heroic effort he thinks, but the horrifying mass slaughter of millions it is.. okay by most people. I know there’s enough asshole sin the world that some would agree with him. But actual human beings would run away in terror.  He could’ve gone home centuries ago, gave this up and found peace... but instead he choose genocide, choose cruelty, and choose his mad ambition.. and  might as well go for two

God I wish i’d seen the parallels between MCU thanos and Belos sooner. Eh making up for lost time. Anyways it’s finally time

The day of unity is here. And the Cats have a plan.. well 18% of one. Darius and Eber’s plan can be boiled down to

So we go with plan Rahne instead: Sneak eda in, have her replace them as coven head.. and use the fact her magic is all out of it to destroy the spell. Granted this requires her wearing a sigil but she’s prepared to make that sacrifice. It’s also a brilliant plan I should’ve seen coming: the anti-magic thing was a bit TOO pronounced to never come up again but it’s also been long enough since it was used I genenly forgot about it. That to me is one of the most clever ways to fire a chekov’s gun: make it so the audeince forgets about the weapon till you fire it. Amphibia proved ot be a MASTER of that and owl house has learned well from it’s sister show. 

As for Luz, her girlfriend is dealing with some...

Sadly she has to deal with something WORSE than Steve Urkel

Her mother. And while normally i’d use this running gag to describe her

And at first she does, refusing to actually listen to her kids concerns about the day of untiy and locking them in their room. She also breaks the tomagachi, as if you needed more proof she was history’s greatest monster. But as we’ll see.. she SOMEHOW gets worse. Yes folks in a time where a crazy old man is trying to commit genocide.. ODALIA somehow manages to be just as much of a crazed up fruit loop. More on that in a moment. 

So since Luz was last told to hurry, Eda gladly supports her daughter, he yuske urameshi style egg of a palsimen and son going to go help him. Granted it fufills her wish of them being outta the line of fire, sure.. but it shows Eda’s growth that it’s not WHY she sends her kids this way. She does it because Luz NEEDS to do this, and because she knows Luz will find a way back to her if they need her. She’s no longer shutning her kids off to try to misguidedly protect them, but simply sending them where their needed most and can possibly bring  back an emo for their army. Darius even fully approves it sending his top man and friends to meet them.. which of course ends up being Hunter, Willow and Gus, the latter of whom happily reunite iwth their pal after a week because the time scale for these episodes is as fast as it is confusingly slow. 

Hunter is also closer with both: he and gus have injokes now and as for willow... she’s gone from side eyeing to full on lovingly eyeing him. 

The only caveat.. is Hutner has oopsy daisy not told them he’s a clone and his life is a lie.. though while a LOT of it is insecurity, Luz rightly points out they wouldn't care about that.. their friends with hooty. EVERYONE is normal in comparison to him. But he keeps her quite by pointing out the phillip thing she hasn’t told anyone and they storm the gate.. and actually pull it off well, easily getting to amity past security as our heroes get past in thei rdope new outfits. Seriously gus has a neat sash now, hunter is now wearing proper clothes just not full gold anymore, and willow gets the biggest glowup of all as she shoudl : her yellow shirt is now a badass coat, she’s wearing green and she’s got shiny leggings. Finally I like her civlian outfit. IT was fine before but holy shit man does she now have one she deserves.

Anyways Amity gay panicks about the world falling apart and just wanting to know luz is alright.. as luz enters. and then.. they fucking kiss

I can’t overstate how well this is done: From luz promising a normal slice of life date after all this shit, awwww, to how romantic it is to amity just going for it. TI’s so fucking adorable and they put a LOT into the animation to make this perfect. They bumped it the hell up and it was warranted. I also applaud them for taking their time: they didn’t have them confess then kiss as common, they simply worked up to it slowly but surely till we got here. It’s still dramatic.. but like... just the right amount for a relationship that’s this important to the show and this important to disney history.. even as they try to bury it. They earned this moment and milk the hell out of it. Also Luz’s crikey in response.. comedy gold.

So our heroes try infiltrating the factory and it mostly works, they even find a mouse alador clone

But naturally get caught while Odalia naturally bitches it up... though without homophobia. She’s fine with Amity having a girlfriend.. she just wants to chooes said girlfriend because she’s a controlling sociopath who cares for nothing but money, abuses her husband and children, and somehow can sink lower than that. I remain unsurprised but we’ll get to what actually threw me. 

Thankfully while she was busy going through her morning routine of abusing her children, King, who was told to stay behind, end sup following the yellowed snack road to Alador, who earlier tried to talk his wife out of all the robots as he’s antsy.. but you know got shot down with “I’m going to endanger our children if you don’t shut up”. Turns out a LOT of Alador’s less than stellar parenting is due to his wife abusing him: Making work weekends, firing half his staff, making him work through ac old. All so she can get richer. You know general odalia being 

It recontexualizes things: yes he was overly passive in matters like the willow thing.. but he’s clearly just as much a victim as his wife and often when abuse switches from spouse to child, the spouse is powerless to do anything. And we have seen him GEINENLY try to change, realizing just how distant he’s grown from his kids last time we saw him , so it doesn't try and paper away his past mistakes, but simply give us the karen shaped reason why. He wants to be better and wants to spend time with his kids father all this is over.  My heart breaks for the guy, being abused by this monster, unable to actually parent his kids.. and then he finds out what the day of unity is from king. 

So he gets a badass moment confronting her and after about a minute of trying to avoid him.. the shoe drops and we get to what i’ve been talking about.. Odalia.. KNOWS about the genocide

Yeah. She THINKS her family will be spared and she’ll live like a queen after. Not getting that NONE of them want this.. or really not caring. To her their just possessions who do what she tells them. 

Turns out though pissing off your husband who also buit your minons is a bad idea and he destroys most around and we get a badass as hell fight. Which is standard for the show at this point but we both see how alador fights, using steampunk abomination tentacles and going GLOWY EYES, but how Odalia fights, using summoned ghosts and the souls of a thousand orphans.. okay they don’t say the last part but it’s implied by her everything. She somehow sunk lower from “Escaping Explusion” and that had her try to murder her daughter’s future girlfriend over a petty grievance. I’m still in shock “Genocide profiteer” is not only a thing but a level you can sink to. 

So a big ass fight insues.. not helped by kiki who Odalia gave a super fighting robot since she got demoted to deliveries. Wethere Odalia is simply going after a vulnerable target to manipulate into doing her  bidding this is how she flirts with people....

And yes despite all these setbacks and the humiliating demotion she’s STILL going after hunter to impress belos

My god Kiki get a hobby... or date a recent divorce whose as garbage as you. I don’t care which. Just stop stalking our boy. 

She actually wins for once... allegedlys.... and grabs him.. and then finds out she pressed the “you kidnapped my boyfriend” button for willow

And thus nearly tears all her organs out and makes her into a puppet. I told you we only got a huntlow thing or two this ep but them fuckers meaty. And as for Lumity.. well we got a fucking feast. It was a good day is what i’ms aying. 

Sadly before Willow can tear off kiki’s head thingy and nail it ot her door like one of those fancy lion door knockers rich folks got she pulls a human shield and gets away. We then get Alador quitting the company and Odalia going off to find someone as batshit as her, sadly not ONCE getting punched in the face. ONCE. It’s all I ask. She deserves it so much! Sure her big plan got unreavled and she’ll probably be brought up for war crimes but still. The divorce isn’t phasing her. I don’t know what will. Possibly a racoon being put on her head. LET ME HAVE SOMETHING. 

Willow naturally seeing her boyfriend kidnapped by someone whose tried to multiple time murder him on a GOOD day and who hasn’t even gotten the news of how bad things REALLY are in this case, is desperatley trying ot make the plane go. Thankfulyl Alador’s gone from overworked regretful dad to the cool dad so he joins the party and gladly welcomes his future daughter and law into the family.. only to find out it’s hunter

Yeah turns out Luz pulled a switch and thanks to the power of all of us being obsessive dorks who poor through every frame for foreshadowing after something like this and i love all of you for it, turns out there was tons from luz whispering to gus to both not talking (Which is weird for them) to both acting more like themselves: luz gives kiki the raspberry which seems like a hunter move but isn’t really in the context, and hunter prepares to throw hands instead of you know.. using a glyph. It also means there’s even more huntlow. Hunter also had no idea she was planning this... but given Kiki being kiki let slip the emperoro KNOWS about the rebellion she’s now their only hope as they prepare for the plan unaware there’s a million targets on their backs. So now Luz stands on the bow of a ship prepared to give kiki the ass kicking willow could not as the day of unity is about to begin, the rest of our heroes are likely hauling ass to help, and all the while the collector wonders if belos is relally their friend, possibly readying for their OWN counter strategy if he inevitably dosen’t do his side of the deal...

As you can tell this episode was another home run as the series prepares for it’s season finale.. and the beginning of the end. Tons of great character stuff, action and basically the same great shit as usual plus one of the biggest and most impactful gay kisses in animation history. So in otherwords it was a helluva day. See you next week for the finale! Or if you’d like you can stick around the rest of the week as I FINALLY return to my venture bros retrospective, and endulge in some civil war laser tag. Also if you want to help keep this blog going zip on over tomy patreon, link below. Thanks for reading. 

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[vendettaparker]

What a Dumbass [P.P]

Summary: Peter’s mistake leads to you being injured. 

Pairing: Peter Parker x Avenger!Reader

Word Count: 2.1K

Warnings: Swearing, like a substantial amount, suggestive content kinda, gun shot wound, and flustered!Peter 

a/n: I really liked writing this. I couldn’t stop laughing at some of the dialogue. and the mistake peter made to cause the whole set-up of the story is so funny to me. like i can legit see him making this mistake. also, i’m gonna make a permanent tag list, so please send me an ask or message me if you want to be on it! <3

        ─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

     Peter Benjamin Parker is a fucking dumbass. All the time mostly. Most of the time his dumbassery leads to a lot of annoyed avengers, a lot of clean up, and a lot of spilled secrets. Hence why like three people who definitely shouldn’t know he is Spider-man do. But every once in while his idiocy can lead to an unexpected happily ever after, at least until he fucks something up again. 

     This particular fuck up has yet to be determined as a happy accident or your new 13th reason. It all started when that spider bitch decided it’d be a good idea to watch some explicit content on his laptop. Now, this wasn’t particularly an unknown activity for him to partake in, since we all know about his little impromptu purchase in Germany, but unbeknownst to this dork, his aunt was in the next room over working on a tear in his suit. And to make matters worse, he accidentally just so happened to purchase a subscription using said aunt’s credit card that was pre-setup in his laptop. 

     Now May is a very understanding woman. Very sex-positive, very loving, and inclusive; the whole shebang really. So when she happened to catch this idiot doing what he most certainly shouldn’t have been doing, she wasn’t mad, just thoroughly disturbed. Then she got the notification about the purchase. That was a bit more taboo in her eyes. So Peter was grounded from patrolling for a week and his laptop privileges were revoked for two weeks. That was fucking merciful compared to what this whole fuck up put you through. 

     At the school that following Monday, Peter spent the whole first, second, fourth, and lunch period trying to convince you to take over patrol for a week. Sure, you could definitely handle it, not to pat yourself on the back or anything, but you were significantly stronger than Peter, so it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. But you just really didn’t want to. Peter had his ‘Peter Tingle’ to help him find danger, while you’d actually have to look. It just seemed harder for you to do than it would be for him. 

     “Why are you even grounded?” You sighed after Peter's 3rd time bringing up the possibility of you patrolling for him at lunch. 

     “He got caught watching and buying p—” Ned started laughing.

     “Ned! Shut up!” Peter yelled, slapping his hand over his friend's mouth. 

     “How has your identity not been leaked yet, Jesus Christ.” You mumbled, giggling. You flipped through your chemistry textbook, writing notes to prepare for Friday’s quiz. 

     “Yeah, and how come you didn’t know May was home?” Ned pushed Peter’s hand away. “Where was your ‘Peter Tingle’ then?” 

     “She’s not a threat, dude. But shit, I really wish my tingle detected her.” Peter groaned, a deep blush covering his features. “Please (Y/N). I really, really don’t wanna leave Queens without any protection for a week. I’ll try to convince May to let me go out on the weekend, so really it’s only five days.” 

     “I guess I could help you out, but you owe me. I should really spend this time studying for my chemistry test. Iron bitch is gonna have my head on a spike if I fail another chem test.” You said, highlighting more notes. 

     “Okay! Delmar’s for a week, anytime, anywhere.” Peter said putting his hand out for you to shake. 

     “Make it a month, I know my worth.” 

     Peter hesitated, but eventually gave in, “Fine, but you better do a good job.” 

        ─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

     So now you were stuck patrolling from 8:30 to 11:00 every night. It wasn't bad per se, and nothing too eventful happened. You stopped a small convenience store robbery, gave a few kids some tips at the skatepark, ran some errands for an old lady, and saved a cat from a tree. Thursday night was the real kicker though. Your night had barely started and you accidentally got in the middle of a drug deal between some smaller mob and a real messed-up junkie. This should’ve been an easy takedown, only six people in total that needed to be taken out, but like was mentioned before, you don’t have Peter’s goddamn, stupid fucking tingle. So after taking all six of the perps out you started to walk away after alerting the police. Unfortunately, one of those assclowns had come to, and grabbed the gun a few feet away from him and shot it towards you. The bullet went through your thigh and out the other side. Screaming in shock and pain, you used your own throwing knives and knocked the gun out of the mobster’s hand, then you proceeded to knock him out again with a few good punches to his noggin, maybe a few more, just for good measure. But this wound would need to be cleaned and stitched up. And if you went back to the Tower, Steve and Tony would give you an earful about “watching your surroundings” and “being more careful”. So in a moment of pure adrenaline and desperation, you texted Peter. 

You: are you home

Spider-Dork: Yeah, why?

You: i’ll be there in 5 

Spider-Dork: What? Why? Is everything ok?

Spider-Dork: Hello??? (Y/N)????

(Y/N) declined (3) calls 

Spider-Dork: Answer my calls idiot. 

     Peter’s texting and constant calling was cut short from a crash in his room. 

     “(Y/N)? Is that you?” Peter called from the couch in the living room. 

     “Yeah, can I borrow a t-shirt?” You called, fumbling around accidentally knocking over another lamp. “Oops, sorry!”

     “Uh, yeah sure. In the closet!” Peter called back pausing his show, prepared to make his way over to you. 

     “And some sweats?” You called back, blood dripping all over Peter’s hardwood floor. 

     Peter got up to make his way to his room. “Yeah, second drawer on the left side.” He said as he made his way to his bedroom. Knowing you were in there, most likely changing, he knocked. “You decent?” 

     “Nope, not really. I need a pair of your boxers too, though.” You called through the door, now seeing that the blood splattered on your underwear as well. “Also, bring the first aid kit when you come in.” 

     ‘What? Why?” Peter said in a more stressed tone, pushing his way into the room, completely ignoring the fact that you were very much not decent. “Holy shit.” He said seeing you out of your suit, in your bra and underwear, blood dripping down your right leg, pooling onto the floor. Your hand, red and bloody, pressed onto what he only assumed was the wound and blood seeping through your fingers. 

     “Bring a mop too.” 

     Peter ran out of the room to grab the first aid kit, plus some extra bandages and a cleaning solution. When he came back in he found you in the same state, standing in the middle of the room, eyebrows furrowed in pain, clutching your right thigh. 

     “What the hell happened?” He gasped, motioning for you to sit on his bed. You hesitated, not wanting to mess up his sheets. He seemed to notice your thought process quickly adding, “I have to wash my sheets anyway.” 

     “Gross.” You mumbled, scrunching up your face in disgust and finally settling down on his bed. 

     “Move your hand and tell me what happened,” Peter said kneeling on the floor next to the bed, positioned right at your hips. You removed your hand, bloody instantly seeping onto the bed. Peter winced looking at the hole in your leg, quickly grabbing the peroxide and dumping heaps of it onto your leg, much to your distaste. 

     “I got shot.” You stated as he cleaned the blood around the hole with alcohol pads.

     “Well, no shit. I mean by who and how?” 

     “Mobster. Sneaky bitch got me while I was walking away.” You winced as Peter inspected the wound further. 

     “I need to stitch this up. Did it go all the way through?” He said lifting your leg to look underneath for an exit wound. 

     “Yeah.” Peter found the exit wound and held your leg up with one hand, pouring peroxide on the back of your thigh with the other. 

     “You have to be more careful, (Y/N)! This looks really nasty.” Peter scolded, setting your leg back down and prepping the needle and sutures. “What if this was in your chest? Or—or if you didn’t get here in time? You could’ve bled out!” 

     “Well sorry that I don’t have your stupid tingle to help me out when I’m being fucking shot at!” You yelped, gripping the bedsheets. 

     “You don’t need spidey sense, you need fucking common sense,” Peter mumbled, stitching his first suture.

     “What the fuck did you just say?” You looked at him incredulously. 

     “I— uh, nothing.” Peter huffed, focusing back on stitching you up.

     “This is your all your fault, to begin with!” You accused, shifting uncomfortably, due to the needle constantly being stuck into your leg. “You’re the one that begged me to go on patrol for you! You’re the dumb bitch that got caught watc—” 

     “Ok! Shut up! For God’s sake, you’re never gonna let me live that down.” Peter groaned, finishing up the last stitch. “Flip over.” He commanded, pushing at the side of your waist to help with the movement. 

     “Well, it was fucking dumb. Don’t you check to make sure nobody’s home? God, we all know you’re a vocal bitch too.” You said, fully situated on your stomach. 

     “What the fuck is that suppose to mean!?” He gasped, prepping another needle. 

     “You’re a sensitive boy.” You shrugged, wincing when Peter started his next stitch. 

     “I-I am not sensitive! I’m emotionally and physically staunch!” He defended, going in for another stitch. 

     You just raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Sure, whatever you say, babe.” You winked at him, blowing an exaggerated kiss. 

     “You're a jerk,” Peter mumbled, finishing up his stitching job. “A jerk with a fucked up leg.” 

     You hummed, quite amused. Peter got up and started to collect his medical supplies. He shuffled out of the room to put everything away. When he returned you were trying to get up and walk, wincing at every slight movement. 

     “Here, let me just—” Peter lifted you up, bridal style. A small yelp coming from you when a sharp pain shot through your leg. “Sorry.”

     “It’s fine. Can you help me get dressed?” You said as he walked you over to his desk and set you down in his desk chair. 

     “Sure.” Peter blushed, painfully aware of your lack of clothes. He picked out some clothes from his closet and drawers. He helped you into them, wallowing in the uncomfortable silence, taking in each whimper and wince from you whenever he brushed against your thigh. 

     “Fuck, I’m so sorry.” He sighed after you were all dressed. “This is my fault.” 

     You looked at his distraught face, feeling bad for initially blaming him for the events of tonight. “No, Pete. It’s fine. I should’ve made sure all of the guys were knocked out.” You put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze.

     “No, I should’ve been more careful when I was watching that stuff. I have my spidey sense, I would’ve been able to avoid getting shot. It’s not your fault that you didn’t get bit by a radioactive spider.”

     “Pete, really, I’ll be better by next week anyway. It’s fine.” 

     Peter shook his head, sighing. “I just feel so bad, I shouldn’t have forced patrolling on you.” You hugged him and rubbed his back soothingly. “It’s my fault you got hurt.” 

     “Peter stop. It’s just an unfortunate accident.” You mumbled, hugging him closer. “It could’ve happened to anyone.”

     “But it didn’t happen to just anyone (Y/N), it happened to you. And I caused it. I-I don't know what I’d do if something ever happened to you. What if it was worse?”

     You sighed, pulling away from Peter and cupping his face, seeing the regret and shame pooling in his eyes. Without much thought, you pulled him closer, slowly connecting your lips in a sweet kiss. Truly getting lost in the feeling of his lips against yours, the feeling of perfection. 

     Peter’s eyes widened in shock for a moment, before he was kissing you back, reveling in the feeling he’s been dreaming about for months. You finally pulled away to catch your breath. Peter flushed at your actions, unable to stop the wide smile crossing his features. 

     “Sorry,” You mumbled sheepishly, “just needed to shut you up for a second.”

     “Maybe I should talk more, just to see what happens,” Peter smirked, pulling you in for another shorter, but just as sweet, kiss. 

     You hummed against his lips. “I really like you. Even when you're a dumbass.” You sighed against his lips.

     “The feeling is mutual.” 

     “Rude. I’m not a dumbass.” You gasped in faux offense. 

     “You’re the one with a bullet wound.” he deadpanned 

     “You’re the one who got caught watchin—”

     “(Y/N)!”