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#I wanna say “me” but she's the cooler sibling here
one-silly-cart00nist · 3 months
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this creature
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yanderederee · 16 days
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Alright, let’s talk about Ken Wakui’s newest work
Negai no Astro
Or Astro Royal, whatever you prefer.
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I will be giving no blatant spoilers in this post, only speculations:)
Manga PV here; ITS SO GOOD!!!!
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯✦
Let’s get the obvious out of the way, Ken Wakui has a very distinct art style. And I love it! A lot of people are making fun of it (mostly on Twitter/X), and it’s really sad. I love his style, and character development.
I have high hopes for this manga, and want to paint a picture of what to expect for those who also want to get into it♡
Let’s start Character Designs
—our main-trio—
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We’re only one chapter in so far, so we’ve only met the main two boys, Terasu and Hibaru (left to right).
Terasu Yotsurugi - 12th Son
Loving Terasu’s take-no-shit personality so far. Simultaneously, he seems very kind and loyal to Hibaru’s ideals.
Terasu is giving Ryusei/Chifuyu lovechild.
Hibaru Yotsurugi - only Biological Son
I love Hibaru’s chivalrous/“old-fashion” ideology. He may seem ‘generic shonen protagonist’ right now, but i don’t care. I will appreciate him.
Hibaru is giving Mikey/Takemitchi lovechild.
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As for our blue eyes beauty over here, we have yet to see her yet. She seems very cute though.
She’s also giving lovechild vibes; Senju/Hina specifically…
—The Yotsurugi family—
There are 13 Siblings of the Yotsurugi family, whom has a history of being Yakuza.
12/13 Siblings are adopted.
So far, we only have designs for 11 siblings.
We do not know a lot of names thus far, WHICH I NEED BTW, so let’s go over what we do have, and my first impressions of them.
—Names going Left to Right per image
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Shio Yotsurugi - Eldest Son
He’s giving Timeskip!Taiju vibes. Anyone who says he looks like Ran…. I can’t see it. He’s too beefy- sorry.
I just know I’m not going to like this guy.
Has a lot of the people’s support, but not mine.
Probably thinks he’s going to make the family better when he’s really ruining it:(
Unnamed Glasses Guy - maybe 2nd Son?
Mmmmm no thoughts.
Token megane character—
Probably corrupt.
I hope he proves me wrong.
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Kou Yotsurugi - 11th Son
Middle child vibes
He will be deranged and misguided.
Probably “hates” Hibaru because he’s so much like their father, who I assume he respects, but doesn’t agree with.
He probably secretly admires them both though.
Unnamed Hottie - maybe 9th Son?
MINE. 👹👹👹 RAPID. FERAL. BARKBARKBARK—
I NEED NAMES, NOW WAKUI. NOW.
Who is he. Where was he. I must know.
also lowkey giving Angry’s blue-ogre vibes…
Based on vibes alone, I lay claim. Awoogaawooga♡
Didn’t appear in chapter 1 though so:( </3
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Unnamed ScarGuy - maybe 10th Son?
Eyes always closed, speaks with ♡ at the end of his sentences…
Seems charming. I mean, look at those eyelashes…♡
Wanna give him a kith.
I have a feeling he and Unnamed Hottie are biological brothers… not sure.
Wakui please, sir, just one chance—-
Unnamed BraidGuy - maybe 8th Son?
Mr. I’ll just stay in my lane. Respect.
Realistically, I think he’ll be my first/second favorite eye candy, depending on how these characters personalities/canons end up being explored.
I’m sorry I have a thing for men with long hair!
Cool earrings too lol
Seems neutral to who’s in charge.
Wakui, seriously, I CAN TAKE HIM—!!!
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BENKEI???? - maybe 5th Son?
Has lion-like eyes and sharp canines….big nose
My size kink is acting up—no, please nO—!
Okay but seriously. I’m not sure what to expect from him yet.
He seems honest, but I can see him getting power hungry:(
Handsome Lady - Maybe 3rd Daughter?
Cooler older sister vibes.
Awoogawooga
Please be a lesbian or at least bisexual—
Seems logical and cool. Probably doesn’t coddle innocence.
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Mr.BigNose - Maybe 4th son?
Uh-uh. No thanks. Not bc of his appearance, but bc his character is depicted as insufferable so far.
Probably sexist.
Probably too coward to admit it, but if things with the family bond start turning south, he’s the first one OUT.
Hehe I may have left this screenshot wide to show off the One Panel that shows Mr. Unnamed Hottie *twirls hair*
I mean seriously look at him I’m going to scream without the s
Story Direction and Expectations
I trust Wakui. The way he explores his stories is through character bonds and personal ideals.
This is one of the reasons why I grew so fond of Tokyo Revengers.
Plus… it’s Found-Family Gang activity. It’s my soft spot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I would say Yakuza but I want to be respectful in how I throw that word around, so I’ll avoid it for now if I can.
The supernatural powers that get involved will surely lead to a type of succession war between the siblings.
“What it means to be strong” will probably be the fundamental lesson of the story.
I am so excited to see how Negai no Astro will progress!
Please support Ken Wakui however you can by reading Chapter 1 onwards!♡
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ronanceautistic · 19 days
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How Nancy and Mike's sibling relationship would be in the "Nancy is raised in the Lab AU"?
Mike would love her so much, and he'd be ecstatic when Karen tells him Nancy's staying, but he'd quickly realise it means no longer being the only child (this is before Holly is born). He'd struggle especially at the beginning, when Nancy would need a lot of attention and care from Karen. And he'd get upset, but Karen would fix it by saying 'why don't you help me help Nancy settle in, then?'
He reads her all his favourite books and shows her all his favourite movies. And he loses his mind after showing her Star Wars and Nancy conjures up an actual (luckily not harmful) lightsaber with her mind. He also helps her learn to read (which I presume she couldn't because Eleven couldn't, right?)
Also, and this is unrelated to Mike I just wanna yap about lab kid Nancy. The Lab always being temperature controlled so Nancy's mind is blown by the concepts of the seasons changing. Irrationally upset (projecting here) when the summer heat starts kicking in and she wants Karen to 'turn it off'. Karen has to teach her that she's gotta wait, like, four months for it to get cooler and so Nancy takes to yelling at the sun to turn off. Just a thought not related to my life at all! (I am sweating rn)
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hypocriticaltypwriter · 9 months
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For the fan kid ask game!😄
💕: which parent does your child tend to cling to? does it make the other parent jealous?
🧠: which emotional traits does your child get from you? which do they get from your f/o?
👒: which physical traits does your child get from you? which do they get from your f/o?
For any of your ADORABLE children🥰 ((especially the tlb👀✨))
EEEEEE Oh, MJ you doll 🤭💜💜
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I'm finna do TLB babies for this one cause I wanna introduce the goobers whilst I still work on drawings of them!
💕: which parent does your child tend to cling to? does it make the other parent jealous?
Oh, all of them are DEFINITELY daddy's girls 100%. Especially Kat, Marko’s baby girl, who's probably glued to his side 24/7. 😭
Jenny comes in second cause, let's be honest here, any child of Dwayne’s is gonna cling to that lovable brooding brunette any day. The guy is totally a teddy bear for kids! AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME OTHERWISE-🥺🥺🥺🥺
Tiff is just a daddy's girl mostly for the fact she knows he can't say no to her... Or he doesn't want to. Paul and her love having daddy daughter nights for mischeif and sneaking off without telling mom. 😈😈
And Annie, being the oldest, is just like her old man, David- trying to keep her siblings in check, which does get a prideful little ruffle of the hair or nudge to the side from him. She loves those little moment. ^^
Is Chrysta jealous of this all? Oh yes. Yes, she is. She could pout for DAYS about it, but thankfully, she's still got her little baby boy Chris, who's still too young to realize David's cooler. And she's gonna take advantage of that LMAO.
🧠: which emotional traits does your child get from you? which do they get from your f/o?
All the girls + Chris have a lot of their moms personality sprinkled in here and there. Especially in their teen years when they use the charm and flirting they're mother had blessed them with LOL.
The definetly get the hyper and adventurous stuff from their dads (specifically Paul and Marko) but Annie and Jenny are on the more mellow side, Jenny leaning towards the shy and timid line. :]
👒: which physical traits does your child get from you? which do they get from your f/o?
Eyes. All the kids have Chrysta's green eyes. Annie and Tiff have beauty marks dotting their cheeks but besides that and the eyes, everything else is their fathers. Vamp genes are pretty dominant in that department! 🤷‍♀️
--
And these are mah babehs!!!!! TYSM for the ask so that I could ramble I know if anyone got me for the infodumps it's my bby girl MJ 🫶🏻🫶🏻💜💜 LOVE YOU BOO!!!
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fvkedupgirl · 1 year
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NINJAGO AU DUMP BC I SAID SO !!
NINJAGO BMC AU
jeremy: jay- doesn’t get the squip to end up w nya, but instead bc he’s sick of feeling like a loser and thinks it’s be good for both him and cole if he was “cooler” bc to him cole is the coolest guy he knows and he feels like he’s holding him back socially
michael: cole- end love interest, obv obv
christine: nya- kind of plays a similar role to chloe or brooke in the sense that jay only tries to date her bc the squip tells him it’ll make him seem cool, rather than genuine feelings; has a little gossip trio w/ morro and pixal
rich: kai- got a squip a year prior, pretty much same character/purpose as rich
jenna: morro- idk i just rlly love the idea of morro being the queen of gossip @ their school
jake: lloyd- bros the green ninja ofc he’s the most popular guy @ school in this au, but also not jock popular guy like jake, more like the popular guy who’s popular bc he’s attractive but ALSO he’s just the sweetest guy. ever. and rlly oblivious to the point where u want to hate him bc of the way the ppl who are nice to him/like him are but you can’t bc he’s so sweet
chloe: pixal- listen okay she’s just a gossip girl ik im pushing it w chloe and christine here but let me LIVE okay let me have my nya pixal + morro gossip trio
brooke: zane- zane is the innocent guy that is besties w the gossip trio bc he follows pixal like a puppy and she would protect him w her life
endgame ships: bruise, bg pixane + maybe samuraishipping
would also include focuses on the dynamics between: kai + lloyd, rgb siblings, nya pixal + morro, kai + jay, + probably more if i fleshed out the whole plot a little more
thinking abt unagami squip?? or maybe some version of superstar rockin’ jay???? probably the latter tbh
SKYBOUND AU(S) BUT MAKE EM ALL BRUISE !! (rhyme time bbg)
so like on the one hand we have the obvious: replace nya w cole. which. i want to do obv bc it’s perfect and i have been planning out the details of the scene where he dies in jays arms and they turn back time and then we finally get our bruise kiss since FOREVER so im not letting my baby go even if other ppl have already written the concept b4.
ON THE OTHER HAND we have, instead of doing the same plot just switching around the roles of some of the characters, REWRITING THE WHOLE PLOT BC HEAR ME OUT HEAR ME OUTTTTT OKAY everyones always like “nyas the bride” “coles the bride” but what if WHAT IF WHAT IFFFFF *JAYS* THE BRIDE???? HEAR ME OUT HERE ME OUT HEAR ME OUT OKAY IVE BEEN THINKING ABT THIS IT CAME TO ME IN THE SHOWER AND I WAS LIKE. THIS. I COULD WORK WITH THIS. BC I WAS THINKING ABT LIKE SOME YUMMY COLE-PERSPECTIVE BRUISE ANGST OF S6 W THE SONG “ITS OVER, ISNT IT” THE OTHER DAY AND I WAS LIKE “HM WHAT IF I WRITE A WHOLE FIC ABT THIS” BC I CANT JUST THINK OF ONE-SIDED BRUISE BC I HATE THE ONE SIDED SHIP TROPE *BUT* ONE SIDED BUT ITS ACTUALLY NOT THEY JUST THINK ITS ONE SIDED BC THEYRE IDIOTS IS A TROPE THAT HAS SUCH A CHOKEHOLD ON ME AND NOW HERE I AM!!!!
any ways uh if i did this im kinda thinking like. nadakhans all “i wanna marry nya” and jays like “dude wtf u can’t just. marry nya ill fite u /p coles my real bbg ofc” and nadakhan says “shit u rite. too much work. plus i got me a captive rite here like it don’t matter who i marry cuz once i got my powers i can bring back that shitty girlypop of mine n e ways. damn bluey ur so smart” and jays like “wha.” so our guy writes a fun explanation of the whole marriage thing to the rest of the squad and he’s like “YOO so im bouta get married but that would not be great for me or anyone else in the whole world so maybe we should do something abt that like just so y’all know” and coles like “bitch not my MANS” and we’ll see where it goes from there bc the timeline would be V different and things would have to get done faster meaning they’d get done differently and id have to actually rewatch the season to figure out the kinks but as i continue to write this the urge to make this a reality grows every more tempting i am foaming at the mouth rn
dumped all of this into my notes and decided to share to gauge ppls interests (pls excuse any rambling my notes are full of so much rambling it’s not even funny)
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Days 859-860
Codex Chaldeas: Family reunion
Rex carried an unconscious Quetzalcoatl into the shadow border, with Mash following closely behind. Quetz had clear some burns and bruised on her, her outfit also had some scorch marks as well. She also didn't have her headdress on her head, but it was being carried by Mash, with Rex wearing her cape, which also had burns.
Nota was the first to greet them "Primo! Mash! So good to see you two okay! And you summoned Quetzalcoatl again!" She said.
"Si! I'm so happy to have her again! Tho we almost lost her again when she expended so much energy to destroy the tree." Rex answered back to her, while taking Quetz somewhere to lay.
After that, Goredolf spoke up from the front seat of the shadow border, as the vehicle started its journey. "It's good that you two managed to survive your first lostbelt. However you seemed to have failed to capture the traitorous magus, Kadoc." He had pointed out.
Rex did feel a lil guilty. "Yeah, sorry about that. After the tree and his servant were destroyed, suddenly that Koyanskaya or whatever took him away. Quetzalcoatl was out and Mash wasn't near enough to do anything." He tried to explain.
"Well if it was out of your power, there isn't much that can be done." Holmes responded. "We're happy you're both fine at least."
Mash spoke up next. "Oh Nota senpai! Who's your new servant?" She asked, while looking at Tezcatlipoca, who had been keeping quiet for the most part.
Nota got awkwardly silent, while Tez gave a bit of a side-eye to her. "Th-this is Tezcatlipoca…" she said. "I summoned him during the blizzard."
Immediately Rex backed up. "Really?! Him???" He asked.
"Oh how welcoming." Tez said. "Then again, if you're already close to birdy there, then you probably don't have an unbiased view of me."
And almost as if him saying that was a trigger, Quetzalcoatl immediately woke back up, filled with rage. "YOU!!!" She exclaims while getting back up. "PINCHE PENDEJO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!?!"
"There she is! Great to see you so full of energy again!" Tez said snarkily towards his sister.
Both cousins were holding back their respective servant. "Amor! You're in no shape to fight!" Rex told Quetz.
"Tezcatlipoca! Don't instigate a fight! You two will destroy the shadow border!" Nota insisted.
In a panic, Goredolf demanded Mash to prepare to protect the vehicle. "Demi-servant! Please be sure to do something if those two can't control their servants!"
"I will try my best!" Mash stated.
"Amor?" Tez asked. "You telling me you finally nabbed a partner? Took you long enough!"
"Pinche perro! Cállate tu boca!" She yelled. "That's none of your business!"
Simultaneously both cousins yelled "Enough! By my command seal! STAND DOWN!" The commands were issued, and both siblings were physically restrained by the spell.
"You two can't just fight like this! We're literally the last bastion of humanity! If you fight carelessly like this, humanity is over!" Nota tells the two of them.
The two of them didn't like it, but it was true they couldn't find it out. Not like this. "Fine! I won't attack this bastard… for now." Quetz said.
"Guess I'll work with birdy for now." Tez stated.
"Thank you" Rex says.
After the two were pacified, Mash stood down, both her and Goredolf relieved they were able to calm their servants down.
Rex grabbed Quetzalcoatl again, and started to guide her elsewhere. "C'mon, amor. I'll show you to my room."
"That sounds much more pleasant." She said, going with him, but not before giving her brother the stink eye.
Nota helped Tezca back up. "I'm not exactly surprised that you like to mess with her, but please chill out with that? You're a lot cooler then I was expecting, so please don't ruin it." She tells him.
"Heh. Least someone's opening their eyes." He states.
"Well, I'm not as close to Quetzalcoatl as my cousin is (obviously), and I always figured I'd wanna get your side of things along with hers. And so far you've been noticeably nicer then how she described, but you still have time to ruin that." She tells him.
"Well I do hope I don't ruin it for you. I still find you more then worthy to be a good master." He tells her.
Nota had a slight blush from that statement. "It is an honor to hear that from you." She says. "Ahem, anyways. Holmes, where are we going to next?"
"We're actually getting a signal from out in the Atlantic Ocean." He tells her. "We're planning to investigate it, as it's possibly more people."
"The Scandinavian Lostbelt is on the way aswell." Goredolf states. "So we'll be handling that on the way."
"Sounds like a good plan." Nota responds. "Guess we can use the time to get to know each other." She tells Tez.
Meanwhile, Koyanskaya took Kadoc to Kirschtaria's lostbelt, after his was destroyed.
"Wow! Way to screw things up, Kadoc." Beryl laughed.
"How was Chaldea able to destroy your lostbelt if they were so limited?" Ophelia questioned him.
"Now I'm sure he has good reason, don't you, Kadoc?" Kirschtaria questioned.
"Listen, I don't know how, but everything was going fine until the last second somehow that 2nd rate magus managed to summon a fucking divine spirit!" Kadoc said with frustration.
"Did he now?" Daybit asked.
"What kind of Divine spirit could he have possibly summoned?" Akuta asked him.
"Quetzalcoatl." Kadoc said. "Suddenly he showed up at the tree with her, and destroyed both my servant and It with her."
"Quetzalcoatl?!" Said a voice behind Daybit. "They have Quetzalcoatl with them?"
"Control yourself." Daybit told the figure.
"Oh? Your servant seems very interested to hear that name, Daybit." Pepe noticed.
"Well if the servant is from Latin America like his lostbelt, they're probably familiar with her." Kirschtaria comments.
A while after the meeting, Daybit talked to his servant. "You need to control yourself when I'm in a meeting with them."
"Sorry master, but them having Birdy with them changes things." The servant says.
"What are you planning?" Daybit questions.
"Something very fun!" The figure says, as he takes off his orange sunglasses, his blonde hair shining in the light. "Can you get me into contact with that Fox girl? Her assistance will be invaluable in this."
"So long as you still stay focused on our plan, then I don't mind it. Tezcatlipoca." Daybit finishes.
A/N: Next fic!!! Bit of a family reunion between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca! Which obviously didn't end well. But that's to be expected. Meanwhile, it seems someone has plans in the Latin American lostbelt!!! Wonder what they could be!
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@madillhethen @sofiaebby @hasbbdoneanythingwrong @haskamadoneanythingwrong @haskiaradoneanythingwrong @hasarjunadoneanythingwrong @hasspartacusdoneanythingwrong @hikikomuridesuuu @the8thsphynx @pastellepastary
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mochidreambubble · 11 months
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From Golden Grove, Love Sunset Bird
[ongoing fic]
Ao3 link
Chapters on Tumblr ~ 1 2 3 (you're here!) 4
previous - next
{Cove was your new best friend, but your fairy pen pal was also basically your best friend. It makes sense but not to Cove, but... But why is it he thinks you could only have one best friend anyways?}
[some notes from me before I continue, or you can just scroll down to the new chapter after the linebreak.
Comes back in here with a wedding pretzel and b/w ice cream sandwich like I didn’t leave this fic for months-
Few things of note going forward:
Due to OLNF clearly still being in progress, I’ve decided to do more of the first game for now. Though, for every B&A chapter out, in future, there will be the same number of NF POVs/Centric chapters.
It’s a little sad cause I wanted to do alternative POV chapters but that would just put this whole fic on hold instead (I do have one more OLNF chapter after this, but next time it will be unlikely)
I’ve also decided not to do a linear timeline, which I think is fine cause I’ll be labelling each chapter title with the step anyways? So maybe don't expect the next chapter for the respective MCs to be in the same or the next step cause I’ll likely just go back and forth on what I feel like writing to make it easier. Unless it’s a narrative thing I wanna follow up on.
(Also due to recent developments…. Maaaaaybe I won’t be sticking to Cove/MC, at least not straightforwardly)
And done, onward to the new chapter]
Three: Beginnings & Always Step 1 ~ “Nobody said I only could have 1 best friend”
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You’d like to think you don’t get into fights that often. Maybe with Lizzie sometimes , which Mom and Ma always sat both of you down for cause siblings only had each other and you should talk things out. 
But this was different. Cove was crying, which made you cry. You cried harder when he yelled that you weren’t friends anymore. What did you even do ? 
You thought Cove and you got on pretty well over this summer. It was super great to have a kid your age for once, and one who didn’t move away once summer break was over. In fact, thanks to Cove, a lot had happened in just these few months alone. You barely had the time to write to your pen pal. 
It made you feel kind of bad especially since, across the summer, you had at least 10 different postcards from them. Mom had left them in a neat pile and a colourful ribbon to make sure not a single postcard could go flying off. Which was silly because you’re sure postcards can’t fly. 
You were waiting for Cove to come over. Ma promised to let both of you decorate the cupcakes she was baking, but only after you’ve both finished your weekend homework. It was criminal (were you using that phrase right?) that teachers gave soooo much homework. It was only the third week of the new school term too. It may have been cooler but you could still smell the summer spirit in the air.
Mr Holden said Cove would be there by 3pm on the dot. You think that means that Cove will be there on time? 
You had your eyes glued to the clock in your room. But you got a little bored just looking at it, so you ended up reading the postcards your fairy friend sent instead. Their summer adventures back home were made up of carnivals (right in the middle of the city! Where did they have the space for that?) and two visits to the zoo. If not, they were spending time with their mother, on short trips to the nearest beach. There were a bunch of stickers. In fact, two postcards were mostly just stickers and a cute drawing smushed in there. Maybe they were wondering when you’d write something back…
There was one postcard scrawled with crayons that caught your eye. It was sent to you not long after the one you sent earlier in summer break. 
Is your green friend smiling now? Cove? I wanted to send you candy to give to your new friend. Candy makes me happy.
Mama laughed when she read your letter. Mama says Cove’s papa is funny. Mama also said sometimes Mamas and Papas do funny things for us. Because we are their babies. But we are not babies anymore, I dunno why she says silly things like this. 
You guess this maybe was the postcard that came with a small box of hard candies. Mom took one look at the postcard and gift and told you it was likely because these were harder to melt. It was a little sticky because of how hot it still was, you bet. But not a goopy mess.
With a quick glance at the clock, you decided you still had time. It was almost 3pm. There was totally time.
You took a piece of paper from your special drawer. It had all your sparkly pens and colour pencils. Most importantly, your pretty paper. Instead of white paper with lines, it was the colour of the sea with starfish and coral at the corners. 
Hello little fairy!
Sorry I took so long to write to you. I had a lot of things to do this summer. Cove is a lot of fun, but he’s still not very smiley yet. But I think he is magic!!! Like for realsies!!! 
You decided to start by telling the story of Cove and the Amazing Alexander. Not about how Cove’s balloon popped at the end though. It was still too sad…
You were only getting started when you heard Lizzie yell super loudly from downstairs that Cove was here. You jumped off the final two steps, touching down with a smack as your two feet landed. Mom yells out to be careful when she hears the telltale sound of what you just did.
“I’m okay!” You tell back, but you hear mom sigh. She worries about the silliest things for sure.
Cove was waiting for you, by himself, cause Lizzie had already joined Mom in the kitchen. You don’t think he waited all that long but you still felt kind of bad…
With a skip in your step, you went up to him just as he stood up, a smile on his face.
“Hi,” he greets you softly, fidgeting with his glasses. 
It wasn’t all that cold yet, but he was already sporting a long-sleeved shirt. Maybe it was just cause it had been a while since he could, since he got his cast off recently. 
“Heya Cove!” Part of you wanted to hug him, but Ma and Mom told you to still be extra careful even though he could finally get his cast off, so you made sure you smiled extra sparkly for him. “Thanks for coming over to help with the decorating!”
“Yeah, it sounded… Fun.”
You grab both his hands to give them an excited shake, but before you can lead him to the kitchen, your mom calls out from the island counter, cleaning up with Lizzie and helping dry some dishes.
“Not just yet kiddos, I’ve just put them in the oven, so it’ll be a while. How about you bring Cove up to your room, hm? I’ll call you two back down when they’re ready.”
“Yeah, I’m just helping mom cause she said I could lick the spoon for icing,” Lizzie says in her sing-song voice.
Mom makes a big show of clutching her chest. “Defeated by icing, oh Lizzie, you’re leaving your mom out to frost-”
Lizzie gives out a huff as she rolls her eyes and you giggle. “Sure thing, mom! C’mon Cove.”
He probably knows the way to your room by now, but you like holding his hand. Cove still takes the time to look around even though your room hasn’t changed since the last time he was here.
Well. Not exactly because he spots the difference right away.
“Postcards?”
Oh. Right. You spent all that time with Cove this summer, but you never really did tell him about your fairy pen pal, huh?
You pat a spot in your room for him to sit as you gather them up. “Mmhm, it’s from my friend in Chicago!”
Cove’s mouth forms an ‘O’ shape as you hand over the postcards. “How do you become friends with someone who lives far away?”
“We’re pen pals!” You say like it answers everything. Cove’s face tells you all you need to now - he was confused and your answer didn’t tell him anything, which meant he thought it was bad and unhelpful. So you grab another pile of postcards and short letters, plop down next to him and begin to explain.
Like how and why you started writing to them, who they were and details like they’re kind of like Shiloh in that they only lived with their mom, they were two years younger, they lived in the city and their home was kind of tiny, they liked doodling and collecting stickers…
Cove was already on the latest set of postcards as you add on, “And they’re my best friend!” 
It was like a magic spell was cast and turned Cove to stone because he freezes entirely. 
“...Cove?” You turn to look at them, small bubbles of panic rising.
“Your best friend?” He was whispering so softly, which didn’t help that he sounded like something was stuck in his throat. His eyebrows were slowly forming a frown.
“Y-yeah, but…. Cove, what’s wrong?” 
“B-But you said we were best friends!” He stands up with a shout, causing you to jump up too with a shock.
You did kind of say that, when Cove asked if you were friends during the sleepover but…
He was already starting to cry which made your heart fast and loud.
“Of course you are Cove!”
“But you just said I wasn’t!”
“I didn’t say that!” 
He tosses the postcard all over and stomps his foot. “Yes you did! You said your pen pal was your best friend!”
You looked at him confused and unsure, but find yourself yelling back. “Yeah! Both of you are my best friends!”
“No!” He shouts again, crossing his arms. “You can only have one best friend!”
And the two of you became stuck in a circle of yes, no and crying because all of it made you confused and upset. Why was he so mad about this?
It became so loud that Mom came up to see what was wrong. You ran over to hug and tried to explain. You’re not sure she understood you fully but she was nodding, at least. She must have called Mr Holden or something because by the time she brought both of you back downstairs still hiccuping the tears back, he had dropped in a little while later. 
He looked between you and Cove, sat on opposite sides of the sofa. You didn’t even have the energy to greet him like usual, even when he smiled at you. Mom had pulled him aside and started to whisper to him. Mom handed him a tupperbox of cupcakes - Lizzie still decorated them as she watched you from the stool she was using to reach the high counter, glancing from Mom to you and Cove. 
“C’mon Cove,” He came back over and ruffled his hair. He looked away when he realised you were watching which made you feel pain and you could feel the tears again. He gets up and follows Ciff out without any issue, and for the first time since Cove moved to Sunset Bird, he left without you saying ‘Goodbye’.
But who cares, he was being stupid. Why couldn’t he understand that you could have many precious best friends if you wanted?! Both of them were important to you after all…
And you try and explain that to Mom once Cove left, and to Ma again. If both of them could understand, why couldn’t Cove…
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It had been a whole day since the fight with Cove, but you still felt upset. Not even dance practice felt fun…
Lizzie was even being nice to you, offering to play whatever game you picked once you got back. It’s things like this that make you really love her, even if Lizzie was bossy most of the time. But it still bothered you, even as you played with her, that by the time the sun was setting on a what should be a happy Sunday…
“Hey, where are you going?” Lizzie stands up just as you do, as you run back upstairs.
You were on a mission now, you decided as you grab a bunch of letters between you and your pen pal. You simply yell out as you swing the front door open that you’re going to the Holdens, your Mom yelling back Alright but you had to be back for dinner soon.
You knock with your free hand, the other squishing the small stack of paper to your body. Mr Holden opens the door with a surprise.
“Hiya Mr Holden, sorry about yesterday.”
“Oh, it’s alright. It seems like my boy made you quite upset too. But, are you here to-”
“See Cove? Yep, can I?”
You watch as Mr Holden thinks on it for a little while, then nods. “Of course, kiddo. Do you remember where Cove’s room is?”
You nod. This would be the second time you would have been there, the first was after the first day of school you had together with Cove. It was super lucky, the two of you were in the same class and your seats were side by side.
You thank Mr Holden and he heads back to the kitchen counter after he makes sure you were fully inside. You walk to Cove room door, taking a deep breath. The door opens before you even land a knock, Cove staring at you in surprise when he realised you were there.
You expected him to slam the door in your face. Lizzie does that to everyone when she’s mad…
But he just… Stands there, not even looking at you, his eyes staring right at the floor.
“Hey Cove,” you manage to say, but it was so soft that you weren’t sure about your plan anymore.
“Hi.”
Oh, at least he greeted you back, right?
“Um… So uh, I was wondering if I could come in for a bit.”
He doesn’t look up, instead shuffling back in. He left his room door open, so you walk in and close it after. You liked Cove’s room, even if it felt kind of empty at the moment. You were helping him add more to his shell collection.
Once you were both in there, standing a space apart, the silence came back. You take in another deep breath.
“Sorry!”
“ ‘m sorry.”
Huh?
Cove finally looks up at you, eyes filled with tears again. “Oh Cove, please don’t cry I’m-”
“I’m sorry,” he’s already crying but he repeats his apology again. “I still want us to be- Be friends!”
“Of course we’re still friends! Best friends even!”
“B-But-”
You take out some of the postcards from your other bestie and start to talk. “A-And you can be their best friend too! I sent them a letter at the start of summer and they sent me so many postcards and some of them were asking about you!”
He looks surprised and rubs at his eyes to stop the tears. “You told them about me?”
“Mmhm! I promise you, they’ll like you too! And we can all be best friends together so… So uh…”
You start to fumble and ramble, about how it should be fine to have more than one best friend anyways cause you should be allowed to make your own rules. And that whoever made that old rule was stupid because Cove and you could do anything you wanted to anyways!
“And you can help me write the next one too! I was gonna write about what I did this summer and you were there for almost all of it so…!!”
He nods at last, and the postcards and short letters go flying as you rush to hug him.
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Mom looks at the rather thick envelope with a smile.
“You sure you got everything packed up in here, kids?”
You look to Cove and he gives a firm nod. “Yes… Uh, we made sure to read everything three times so we got everything.”
“The whooooole summer adventure,” you nod seriously, your hands together motion in a wide circle as you tell mom.
Mom laughs and ruffles both your heads, Cove ducking a little. Your mom promises to get it delivered and you grab onto Cove excitedly. You already can’t wait to hear back!
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[last note from me this chapter: my friend 'weebnt_b' read through the new chapter but they're kind of not feeling too good, so if you see any mistakes, please let me know!
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kyracanwrite · 2 years
Text
Losers club x Fem reader.
(I made these on wattpad a few years ago so don’t mind the weird ooc writing lmao)
Who confessed first and how
Wordcount; 500+
Bill;
°You did.
°You were walking, searching for signs of your siblings that were missing , when you accidentally blurted it out.
°"This is why I like you so much."
°"Yoh-You li-ke m-e?"
°"Yeah... I love you actually..."
°"I-..."
°"It's fine, forget I said anything."
°"I-I Luh-Love y-you, too."
°When I say your eyes widened, girrll.
°You both kissed.
;>)
Eddie;
°You did.
°Again, it was on accident.
°You didn't wanna do something since you thought it was really gross, so Eddie volunteered to do it for you.
°"I love you, Eds!"
°You jumped into his arms and kissed his cheek.
°"I l-love you too, N/n."
Stanley;
°He did.
°"I love you more than I love birds."
°"Are you being serious, Stan? You know I don't enjoy pranks."
°"100% serious"
(A/n, He's dead sirius girl 💀
If you understand the reference joke ily)
°"I love you too, Stan."
°You kissed his cheek and grabbed his hand, and walked into the forest to bird watch.
Mike;
°He did.
°He confessed while you were in the Neibolt house.
°"H-Hey, Y/n.... Just in case we don't make it out of here just know...."
°"Mike.... Don't say that.."
°"Just know.... I love you..  Ever since the first time I saw you...  Don't die on me, alright?"
°"I won't, I promise. I love you too."
°You kissed.
°You both survived and ended up staying in Derry.
Ben;
°He did.
°He confessed anonymously at first.
°Through a poem.
°Then he added his name.
°He contemplated whether he should give it to you or not.
°He gave in and put it in your backpack while you were at the library together.
°When you were at home you opened your backpack and saw a card that wasn't in there before.
°Once you saw who it was from you blushed.
°You left HIM a poem.
°It was saying the feelings were mutual.
Beverly;
°You did.
°You both snuck out one night to go smoke on the cliff of the quarry.
°You leaned your head on her shoulder. 
°"Beverly?"
°"Mhm?"
°"How would you react if I told you I was gay?"
°"I'd think your cooler than you were, if that's possible."
°"Well I am. And I'm gay for you."
°When she didn't respond you stopped leaning against her and tried to read her facial expressions.
°You could see her because of the reflection to the moonlight shining on to her beautiful features.
°She was blushing.
°And smirking.
°She looked at you, then her gaze flickered to your rosy, soft, and shiny lips. 
°She started leaning in, and you did the same.
°Your lips met and you moved in sync, both never wanting to separate.
°She's gay too. (No shit lmao)
Gay panik djejjrkskandnf
Richie;
°He did.
°You were at the arcade with him, playing street fighter, and he won.
°"Ughhhh, I hate you!" You joked.
°He rolled his eyes playfully
°"Love you too, Y/n-" Once he realized what he said he shut up.
°"You love me?" You smirked, raising a brow.
°"Yes."
°"Good thing I love you too."
°You kissed him cheek.
°"Let's get ice cream!"
°You grabbed his hand and ran out, going to an ice cream shop.
°Yall shared one and made a mess over each other. It was honestly so cute omfg ajdjdhowje
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maxanor · 1 year
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i'm not there yet but i am preemptively pissed off again i just wanna know what the hell was in the water cooler of the writer's room for spartacus war of the damned 'cause they went and queer coded one of their main villains like they hit us with tiberius having homoerotic tension with his best friend, him being close to kore in some pseudo mom/son or siblings type way and then he rapes her later down the line AND rapes caesar too and the why of it all is he's grieving????
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sorry for taking so long so answer these but i have so much to say!
i'm gonna be honest and say that tiberius's queer coding doesn't really bother me. i think you can read the relationship between him and sabinus as platonic or romantic, and it doesn't make that much of a difference. i also don't really think there's anything wrong with queer coding villains, especially in a show like spartacus that has so many queer characters that are heroes. queer villains only become an issue to me if the only queer characters being shown are villains, which of course goes back to the hays code. but spartacus is a show with so many queer main "hero" characters (nasir, agron, saxa, barca, castus, etc) that it doesn't bother me that a few villains (mainly lucretia and ilithyia, but i suppose you can throw tiberius in here too if you want) are implied to be queer as well.
obviously i don't love how graphic a lot of the assault/rape scenes are in spartacus, but i think tiberius raping both kore and caeser doesn't only come down to him grieving, although that is a part of it. he definitely rapes kore to get back at crassus ("he took something from me, and i would have something in return"). this could be interpreted as like. tiberius had romantic feelings for sabinus like crassus does for kore, but i think what's more important is that kore is the person crassus cares most about, his confidant, someone he goes to for comfort, in the same way that sabinus was tiberius' best friend and the person who believed in him the most. so, at least to me, it's not necessarily just a romantic comparison, if that makes sense?? more like crassus hurt someone tiberius cared about deeply, and bc he’s unable to lash out at his father he lashes out at kore simply bc she’s there and his father cares for her.
and then his rape of caeser doesn't have anything to do with sabinus and is of course just a way of asserting power over caeser. to me, this isn't queer coded at all and it's just a way for tiberius to demean him and prove that he can get away with it. so i think both assaults have very different purposes (getting back at his father vs asserting dominance over a rival). i hope this makes you think about it in a different way, bc i think tiberius is a really interesting and complex villain and i think his motives go beyond that he's just grieving! i hope this doesn’t seem like i’m defending tiberius lmao like obviously he is a shit person but he’s also a really interesting character (the same with other villains who have assaulted someone like lucretia and ashur).
i don't think that kore's rape was unnecessary (although i wish it wasn't as graphic). it causes a rift between kore and crassus and causes her to join the rebels and ultimately kill tiberius. if she hadn't been raped she would still be alive by the end of the series, and her death is obviously meant to show that despite winning, crassus lost the two most important people in his life (kore and tiberius).
i never really viewed crassus and kore as a love story (at least in the way the other love stories in the show play out), and i think the writers were perfectly aware that there's an uncomfortable power balance there. to me, their relationship is meant to show how crassus differs from the previous villains who viewed slaves as less than romans. of course crassus has all the power in this situation, but he believes that he treats kore (and his other slaves) with respect. i don't think the writers intended for the audience to fan over crassus/kore and be like #couple goals <3 i think, like many of the relationships with the villains in this show, it's meant to shine a light onto both crassus and kore's feelings and motives. kore learns that, despite being treated well (in comparison to other slaves) and being loved by crassus, he still views her as nothing more than a slave and ultimately kills her. as for crassus, it shows that he 'respects' his slaves (to some extent) but also shows that he's unwilling to bend roman law for those he loves. idk!!! crassus (and tiberius) are such interesting villains and in many ways are more complex than those from previous seasons (batiatus/lucretia and glaber/ilithyia) bc his motives go beyond greed and power.
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letarasstuff · 3 years
Text
Hug it out!
(A/N): This was requested by an anon and I swear, if this flops I'll cry, because this is THE cutest fluff I came up with in a while
Summary: Some days are good, some days are rough with two toddlers. This is a rough day for Spencer.
Warnings: Except for tooth rotting fluff, the smallest bit of self doubt as a father
Wordcount: 1.2k
✨Masterlist✨ ____________________________
It’s one of those days. Days, where Spencer is reminded how difficult it is being a single father to a pair of toddlers. From the moment they wake up, which is several hours before their regular time, Spencer knows he is in for it today.
“Ok, who wants juice?” He asks with an enthusiastic voice, trying to lift the mood. His youngest, two year old (Y/N), woke up due to a nightmare and came into his room at four in the morning to make her father cuddle the bad monsters away (her words, not his). Unfortunately she takes after her father regarding her clumsiness. While trying to close the door to Spencer’s bedroom quietly, she lost her balance and smashed it shut. That’s how he ended up with two children in his bed, cuddling close to him and still complaining about the closeness.
The grumpy kids light up a bit at the suggestion of the fruity liquid. “I wan da blu ‘up!” (Y/N) exclaimed. And there does the father see the next quarrel between the siblings incoming. “No! I always use the blue cup!” Her brother, who is three years her senior, argues. He is pretty possessive of his things, which is understandable given the fact that for the majority of his life he didn't have to share his things..
Spencer lets them exchange a few arguments about who should get the cup. Seeing that they are not able to solve this problem on their own (maybe because they are tired children or because the arguments presented by both sides are not that convincing), he decides to intervene.
“Why don’t you share the cup? This way both of you can have it and take a sip from it”, he suggests. But his idea meets his own germaphobia. “Don’ wan’ sha’e. Brother can hav’, I don’ wan’ his germ”, (Y/N) says defeatedly with a sad expression. Spencer can’t take offense in her answer, knowing he would react the same way. “Don’t you want your sippy cup anyway? With that you can also play later without worrying about spilling something”, he asks her in a gentle voice. This is met with a small nod and a tired yawn.
With breakfast and getting ready for the day out of the way, Spencer lets the two of them watch a bit of TV while he mingles around the household for a bit. It’s a free Saturday and all of his prayers wish that it stays that way, especially now, knowing that this day won’t be easy for their babysitter. Sometimes siblings just don’t get along.
“NO! No blanket fo’t!”, he hears (Y/N) shout. The father puts his son’s shirt that he was folding down and goes over to the living room. There he sees his children fighting over the big lavendel blanket that always lays on the couch. “Hey, what is this about?” He asks in a firm yet mild voice. A big part of his parenting is that raised voices only will lead to more raised voices and not quiet.
“I want to build a blanket fort with her, but (Y/N) is just too stubborn and wants to take a nap on the couch with the blanket. Dad, can you tell her that a blanket fort is way cooler than just sleeping please”, the older one complains, pointing to his sister.
Trying to think quickly on his feet for a solution, because a fighting pair of kids is more frightening than staring down eye to eye with an UnSub, Spencer stalls some time by taking the blanket and folding it.
“You have to understand Buddy that your sister still is pretty small and she needs to take naps throughout the day, because her small body doesn’t have enough energy for the whole day. And (Y/N) had a really bad night, so a nap would not be wrong. Maybe we can build a fort together and you two can watch a movie in it and lay down for a bit?” Making it not sound like he should take a nap too, even though this is Spencer’s intention, does the trick. A little bit later the siblings lay on pillows under blankets with blankets above them watching their favorite movie. They surprisingly quickly decided on a movie and saved their father another lecture.
This gives Spencer time to prepare lunch while finishing laundry and other important tasks in the household. As the food is cooking and everything else is done, he sits down with a book in his hand. A content sigh leaves his lips. Finally some peac-
“(Y/N)! THAT IS MY PART OF THE BLANKET!” “NO! I need blane’t too!” “You can’t even say blanket, because you are a baby. Go to sleep baby, I wanna watch the movie!” Quickly the father is back on his feet and strides towards the living room. Once again his children fight over that one blanket.
“Enough is enough, I need you two to come out there”, he says in a firm voice. Slowly both of them crawl out from the fort, looking somber. “I’ll ask each of you to tell me their side of the story, if you want, you can describe to me what happened. After that I want you to apologize to each other and hug it out, understood?” The children nod.
“Ok, does anyone want to explain something to me?” (Y/N) immediately shakes her head. “No, no ‘plaining, no ‘plaining. I good, I vewy good nowww.” Hearing her father talking in such a deep and serious tone is something she only witnessed a couple of times, that’s why she knows that listening now is important.
“And your brother?” He also shakes his head, knowing that nothing he has to say is worth the fuss he made. “Alright. I want you two to hug it out, because even though sometimes you both fight, you have to remember how much you love each other. Do you understand me?”
They nod again. “Sissy, come here. I didn’t want to call you a baby, you are my cute little sister.” The young boy carefully puts his arms around his sibling and gives her a kiss on her head. “I sowwy too, I lub you, bwotha”, she tells him and returns the hug.
Spencer watches the scene unfolding in front of him with an exploding heart. Parenting usually means doing things without seeing an immediate effect. It’s like stirring a boat blind, not knowing if he goes in the right direction or is close to hitting a rock and smashing the whole boat. But moments like these, especially on off days like today, show him that not every decision he made was wrong.
Later the small family lays together under the blanket fort, the father with a child in each arm, one sleeping and the other one talking about the movie they are watching and Spencer doesn’t want to change a single thing in the world.
Taglist:
All works:
@dindjarinsspouse @big-galaxy-chaos @jswessie187 @kneelforloki
Criminal Minds:
@averyhotchner @mggsprettygirl @herecomesthewriterwitch @ash19871962 @ellyhotchner
Spencer Reid x child!reader:
@ilovetaquitosmmmm
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libraford · 3 years
Text
I owe you all a story about kittens. But its about... a little more than kittens. It's a long one.
I want to tell you all about the kittens, which took place in 2019. But in order to do so, I have to take you back even further, to March of 2018, and concludes in 2021. Because it's about kittens, but it's also about business and all the things that can go wrong.
In March 2018, tragedy struck. The owner of the flower shop died unexpectedly, leaving the business to four capable managers. One of those managers was the man that had hired me, leaving a power vacuum at our location. Grandpa was not the first choice to take the lead, but she stepped up and she became manager. In my opinion, there was no better person for the role: she had only ever worked in the flower industry (assuming we're not counting the one week in 1976 when she worked at a pizza parlor,) and as such she knew the business inside and out.
Prior to this, she had taught all of the designers and practically ran the place when the boss was out, so it was the next logical step. And it was good.
Of course, we had our ups and downs. What I did not realize when I joined the flower shop is that the flower industry is volatile- there are so many variables that went into the creation of floral pieces and if there is one misstep you can be set back anywhere from a day to several thousand dollars. There are late deliveries, there are frightening brides, there are missing piñatas… van fires, flower snobs, color corrections, failed psychics, friends, enemies…
You can set the bar so very low and yet…
The rise and fall of drama at this particular flower shop could be dictated into hours and minutes because sometimes you need to hire people just to fill that space. Grandpa was on record by saying 'if they can walk, talk, and spell their name, hire them.' Even so, we were critically understaffed most of the time because if you hire anyone you're going to get a lot of quitters.
It's a tough cycle to break, and our power was limited.
And we had bigger fish to fry: we had an average of thirty funerals, two weddings, and well over six hundred deliveries per week. Business was booming and we just had to keep up- if you make it one week after the next it doesn't feel so bad.
By March of the following year, the four owners had whittled down to two: my former boss and the former webmaster. We had a district manager now, some kind of accounts position… things like that. It was kind of astonishing that before this, all the work had been done by a single man. But the secrets to his success had died with him.
Things were looking good, actually: the flower business was full of life! We were doing all kinds of special events, starting contracts with businesses and getting our name out there. Drama still plagued us, but as far as I'm aware, that's par for the course for flower shops.
Then, in May 2019, tragedy struck. A tornado ripped straight down the street of our headquarters, demolishing the greenhouse and the historical building that it all started in. No one was injured, but the damages were devastating. Despite all this, we kept working.
We worked hard. And hard. And hard.
And though the new warehouse wasn't slated to be finished until 2021, we reached an equilibrium where things were okay.
But before I get to that, I made a promise to you.
It was a hot day in August and I was walking into my closing shift at 10am. After two years of working with roughly the same people, you got to learning how to tell when something was happening. I walked in to everyone staring at me and acting 'natural.' It never looks natural.
In the back of the store, there was a box that Cherry was standing very purposely in front of.
"What's in the-"
"Sh!" Grandpa spied through the window in the cooler door as someone swung out with a purchase. "Did you find something you like," she asked the customer, trotting over to help him at the register.
"What's happening," I asked Blue.
"Nothings happening, it just kind of… happened."
"Blue… what does that MEAN?"
"There's a customer here, I can't talk about it."
I am bursting at the seams to know what's going on.
Grandpa fared the customer well and went back to her station behind the computer. "Open the box," she said.
Ominous, but okay. I go over to the box and Cherry steps aside. There's something moving inside the box and I wonder if Pam's daughter had folded herself into a box to ride out a panic attack again. I carefully opened the flaps of the box and accidentally disturbed the sleep of-
Four.
Tiny.
KITTENS!
Oh my god, it was the most adorable thing in the world and the poor things were screaming because they had only known the world for a few weeks and everything was strange and blurry and all they knew to do was cuddle for warmth and scream. The box consisted of two black kittens, one tuxedo kitten, and a white seal-point with terminal eye goop.
They immediately started climbing up my arm.
"Not that I'm not thrilled, but… why?"
"Stray cat left her babies out by my pond and wasn't just gonna leave the little fuckers," Grandpa said. The seal-point made it all the way up my shoulder to scream in my ear and stare at me with one clear blue eye. "That one's name is Pop-eye. He's my favorite."
"Jake doesn't get along with them," I surmised. Jake was Grandpa's Australian Shepherd. He was old, blind, deaf, and losing his sense of smell. And he was ornery.
"First thing he did was sit on Pop-eye. So they're gonna be at the shop during the day until we can get them all homed. Know anyone that needs a kitten?"
So, for awhile, we had shop cats. One of the all black twins had been claimed the very next day, but the rest of them were with us for some time. We got very good at feeding them all every hour on the hour and eventually they settled into accepting that 'mom' was seven different people.
In the meantime, we had to hide the three of them from visiting management.
This was not my first round with cat-related crimes.
The district manager, Puppet, was due to come for a visit any time that week. He was supposed to come once a month for a routine check in, and there were only ten days left in August. Likewise, we had to hide the kittens from the customers on the off chance that one of them was a secret shopper.
Backtracking once more to explain: the company had shelled out money to pay a third party to send secret shoppers to grade us on a rubric and also whatever they thought was appropriate. The grades were cleanliness, customer service, how knowledgeable we were of products, things like that. If we got above 90%, there would be a bonus in our next paycheck.
Sounds great, right?
The spies could decide that anything wasn't up to their standard. One woman went on and on about our 'black wall,' which was the outside of our cooler and I'm sorry but… that's not changing. There was a complaint that the table at the front used to showcase our bridal seemed out of place and odd. There dirt in the flower pots… where dirt goes. Corporate reads those comments.
So keeping the children out of sight of the customers and any visiting management became our priority.
'So just keep them in the break room,' I hear you, the reader, suggest.
If you've never owned cats, it is imperative for you to know that they are mostly comprised of spine, and only the smallest of openings will deter them from squeezing into parts unknown. Cats are semi-solids. Kittens are semi-solids with a sense of adventure and little tiny needles for fingernails.
And you can't just tape the box shut.
So… they got out. Well, two of them got out. The tuxedo awoke to find that her brothers had gone exploring without her and did the sensible thing, which was cry about it.
Mood.
I have named this cat Brood X Cicada. The black one can be named Abyss. I'm great at naming cats.
Lucky for us, they're only a few weeks old and walk kind of like little tin soldiers. It took all of five minutes to pry Pop-eye from a piece of Styrofoam and locate Abyss exploring an old toolbox. However, by the time I'm done cat collecting, Brood X Cicada had toddled off in search of her brothers and I'm out of hands to hold kittens in. I stuffed Abyss into my apron pocket and tried to save X from eating plastic.
It is at this moment that Cherry came in to tell me that Puppet the District Manager was on his way, and saw that I was helplessly juggling kittens. Abyss was climbing out of my pocket, eager to join his siblings in the high and exalted position that was my hands.
"We need these kittens out of here," I said. "Who hasn't been on lunch yet?"
Cherry dodged her head back into the workshop. "Hey Key, you been on lunch?" Pause. "You wanna go now?"
Key came into the back room and I handed her the box of kittens. "Take these, in your car. Go to burger King or something, I don't care. Puppet cannot see these. If anyone asks, you're on a route."
Key held the box and took a moment to appreciate the series of events that lead to her being handed a box of kittens in a 'Take this, don't ask questions' kind of matter.
Puppet was in the front door as Key was out the back and we successfully avoided a serious mistake. His visit was only an hour and she walked back in without anyone the wiser.
We made it through the big challenge, now to continue looking for homes for them. Ms. Crow found a friend of a friend of a friend that was excited to take Abyss from us. After some interrogating my friends, I found someone who knew someone who could take Pop-eye and Brood X Cicada. (They were renamed Hocus and Pocus.)
Grandpa cried for every single one of them that had to go. And I remembered my very first day of working there when she introduced herself as 'The Tinman.' What a liar, the softy.
Our days went on kitten-free, the management none the wiser.
It was December when I got the feeling that I should be taking photos of my work to build a portfolio. Something wasn't right, I felt. I couldn't say what it was that put me on edge, but I could only say that all was not well. I took photos of everything that I was proud of, and I was proud of a lot of things. By February, I had over fifty items that I could show off to a potential studio. And I thought- in March, I should start looking to see if other shops are hiring.
And in March 2020, tragedy struck. Our state went into lockdown on March 13, dictating that all non-essential businesses close and non-essential staff be laid off. There were two days where none of us knew what was happening, if we had jobs or if that job was safe.
They laid off all but three designers and Grandpa but kept most the drivers, changed our hours to 8-5, closed Sundays. Canceled weddings. No walk-ins. The three designers were Blue, Red, and me.
Blue was worried about her children. She resigned.
Red's wife was worried about him and harassed him into quitting.
And then there was one.
There's a series of poems I wrote in my journal about being an essential worker during lockdown. There's adorable little doodles of skeletons around the margins, festooned with flowers. They all go something like this:
We are the Skeleton Crew.
We once were seven but now are two
We don't know what to do
So we just work, work, work.
Many may wonder how a flower shop would be considered an essential business. The answer is funerals. We were allowed to remain open because of our relationship with the funeral industry. And sad to say: the industry was booming.
And I did all of it. I made every spray, every 'get well soon' vase, every 'happy quarantine' bouquet. I called angry brides to see if they could postpone, I dealt with everyone's grief and uncertainty.
All the flowers that arrived at US Customs through Italy were destroyed because we didn't know whether coronavirus was transmitted through physical contact and there's no way to sanitize flowers. Not without killing them.
It was me and Grandpa. That was it. Ten funerals a day, and everything else. Flowers were more important than ever: you couldn't be there, so you sent flowers. And flowers and flowers and flowers…
I couldn't leave now. I was important, I was needed.
The work became overwhelming for both of us and we began hiring back some of our staff. Some came back right away, bored out of their skulls having to spend time at home. Can't relate. Key never responded, Cherry was pregnant and shouldn't be out of the house.
Dandy came back, Kali came back, Astra came back. Eventually, Blue. After a month of just me and Grandpa, there was almost a full crew and it was enough for us to get through an average week. It took us a month on our bare knuckles but we finally weren't shouldering the responsibility of seven people.
But we still didn't know jack shit about the future there.
In May, the 'economy opened up,' which is a strategic way of saying that people got tired of never leaving the house and stores were pressured to open back up again before a vaccine was released under threat of… you know what? This isn't a story about how America responded to the coronavirus poorly and you can probably find a better thinkpiece about it written by someone with facts and feelings if you want to squeeze yourself behind a pay wall.
This is about workers rights and kittens, two things that are far more important than the economy.
We got 'Hero Pay,' which was two dollars extra per hour and damn did I grasp onto that with the tendons in my wrists. I had never been paid $12 an hour for anything in my life. They started talking about permanent raises, and benefits, 401K, pregnancy leave… and I started thinking… maybe I could stay. Maybe I can stay here for awhile and it won't be so bad now that I'm getting paid actual human wages. Maybe it will be okay.
Life returned to an uneasy normal while we navigated mask laws, sanitation regulations, safety screens, and daily temperature checks. There are stories to tell about some less than great customers we'd had as people realized that they weren't coping with the pandemic as well as they thought, but they deserve their own entries.
We had a revolving door of open positions. If it wasn't a designer it was a driver or both. People weren't ready to come back to work yet but we still had a business to run. People asked if they could perform this job remotely. I'm not sure how one does flowers from home.
It was August when we started feeling the roots of our problems seep into the foundation.
Grandpa's pride and joy was her funerals. She had spent thirteen years building a relationship with the funeral homes in the area to make sure they trust us and our work. If anything was wrong, even a hair out of place, they knew they could call us and have it fixed before the visitation.
"We want unity across the board on our products," Puppet said. "If you're doing the sprays one way and others don't look the same, it doesn't look very good for Oldman Funeral Home, which has locations in all our cities, does it?" He swept his bangs out of his eyes, which was strange tell but we weren't sure for what.
"Okay," Grandpa said. "Schedule a time for me to go down and I'll teach them the way we do them."
"Okay, then."
She went down, prepared to show the crew in the warehouse what 40 years in the business was capable of, only to be met with a strange kind of resistance.
Their head designer greeted her and immediately started instructing her on how he makes sprays. Grandpa, confused, blinked at him with no words. When he was finished, she picked up her clippers and began making her own.
"That's not how we do it," he said. She was met with criticism after criticism. "That's not enough flowers, you're putting them in wrong, you're still making it one-sided. Why did you put the bow there, this looks nothing like our products."
She stood back after his barrage of blows to the ego. "I guess I'm a little confused."
"I'll say."
"Am I teaching you or are you teaching me?"
"I'm teaching you," he said. "Since they're going to all be made here from now on, they want me to show you how we make them in case of emergency."
She let that simmer. "That's not what I was told."
"You didn't think you were supposed to show me how you do it, did you? That doesn't make any sense. Why would we want to look like yours?"
"Oh, I dunno… maybe because we've kept up 30 accounts for 13 years and your location just lost your very last one because you can't make their delivery times and they're across the damn street."
This was how we learned that corporate was planning on taking our funerals from us.
Funerals were something I was immensely proud of. My ability to turn out a thousand dollar funeral order with limited stock was a subject of envy. I could take a phone order, make the flowers, and the deliver it all by myself within an hour. I was good. We were all good. And we trained anyone that stayed longer than two months how to do this because we wanted every person to be able to fix any problem.
And they wanted to take that away from us.
And they did. Because who was going to stop them?
'But what does that matter to you,' I hear you, the reader, ask. 'Surely this meant less work for you!'
Ah, but for the sprays to get to us, they had to come on a truck. Making them in-house meant that we knew we had them. We had to put our trust in corporate to deliver the goods to us by 7 am or we would have to make them day of.
There were days when the truck didn't come, or where only half the pieces were delivered, or a spray got left in the workshop an hour away. At least once a week, often more.
But you know… we adapted. You just schedule more openers to make sure no one is doing it alone and hope to God that you have all the flowers you need to make it. Which you could never anticipate how many flowers you would actually need because them taking our funerals was supposed to reduce the amount of stock flowers we got as well.
Mornings were nightmares, but we adapted.
Another visit, Puppet told Grandpa that she should get all weekends off. All the other managers do. He suggested that I learn to run routes so she can have weekends, and I said okay. I'll learn it.
I got real acquainted with the map of Ohio, and I hated it. I was a weekend manager with no real managerial power. If someone needed a refund, I had to write a note for Grandpa to email the accounts manager because she wouldn't take requests from anyone that wasn't a manager. Everything just waited until Monday. What was the point of me? I couldn't design while managing and I couldn't fix what was broken, so why even have a weekend manager? Let the animals loose in the zoo and it probably would have been a better fit.
But I powered through. I adapted.
Throughout all this, spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets. Completely pointless spreadsheets that we were bound to fill out all day every day. They had simple purposes: inventory. You filled one out to take count of the specials so you knew how many there were. Then you had to count again to put them in the system so that they knew how much we had. Then you had to go back and count them again and put that number in the computer so they knew how much to make and send tomorrow.
I spent an hour each day counting and recounting the flowers in the far-off and futile hope that the counts would remain accurate to the end of the day (which they did not because the call center consistently used the wrong codes) and that the stock would be replenished properly in the morning (it was not.)
An hour was lost each day to this and it accomplished nothing, yet they always yelled at Grandpa if the counts were off or it was late. Why stress a system that does jack shit?
And every time there was a new feature or there was a new… thing, oh look! Another goddamned redundant spreadsheet that served no purpose.
But we adapted. We created a rhythm.
Show up early at 6:30 to make sure everything got in, make everything that didn't, get the drivers routed, pull routes for the third party deliveries, process same-day orders, data entry for the funeral consolidated. Then at 7, when the phones start ringing…
Okay, so before I forget:
Instead of installing a new phone line and hiring a few more call center people like a normal company would, our headquarters decided it would save us money if call overflow rerouted to the next available phone line, regardless of which location the phone was at. So we would get calls for the Kentucky store asking questions about what that store has and for the sake of preserving confidence in our brand we were supposed to pretend that we were the Kentucky store. We're just supposed to know or assume to know what each store had in stock because there's no way that could ever backfire.
It was… another thing to yell at us for. And boy did they, because they were listening in on our calls. Not to like… coach us on how to do better, but to tell us we were wrong. Sometimes they would call one of us on the other line to tell someone currently on the main one that they said something wrong. They also would straight up lie and scold us for calls we didn't take. The phones system, was simply a mess.
...so when the phones started up at 7am, and one person is designing, one person is taking unending phone orders, Grandpa is doing damage control. By 8, we have most of last nights orders figured out and it's time to start on same day orders and tomorrow's orders. It's too early to do inventory now because they'll yell at us for doing it too early.
By 9 we have our second wave of same day orders and next day orders, the rest of the world realizes we're open and starts walking in. That requires the attention of an entire person. We're at this point also taking out trash, breaking down boxes, disinfecting, sweeping the cooler.
Typically, there were only two openers on any given day, which meant most of this was all being handled by Blue or me.
By 10 we've caught up, we can do the inventory now without getting yelled at by the four heads at corporate. We're on route #3 by now and someone probably had to go to the same place twice because the orders came in late.
At 11, a crisis has probably happened. Something dropped, something wilted, something wasn't what they imagined. Someone has to go fix it, and that someone was usually me because I knew my way around town better than the other transplants.
This typically returned me to the shop around 1pm, which meant it was time for lunch, bringing me to 2. 3 o'clock was the cutoff for any next day orders to be sent to corporate, which meant that if there were any funeral orders taken for the morning, they would have to be made in-house. This included sprays, which takes half an hour to an hour depending on how complicated it was and if we had the materials and how much else we needed to make for the next day. Or how busy we were.
There was always something called in at the last minute, taking us to 4 and then 5 o'clock, when the openers went home and the same-day orders were cut off.
But see, that was when we stopped taking orders, not when we stopped processing orders. So if an order was placed for the same day at 4:59, it may not go through until 5:30. And by 5:30, chances are you've sent your drivers home for the day. Which means calling the customer to apologize and explain why something can't be sent out today, and no one wants to hear that they fucked up by sending it out late.
So, on more than one occasion, I had to personally deliver flowers on my way home from work in my personal car, thirty minutes out of my way because if we miss a delivery by God will we hear about it. And it was always some damn $25 arrangement with 'God Loves You' written on the tag, hardly worth the gas to Johnstown.
The irony of it being delivered by the witch was lost on no one.
If that didn't happen and the screen was clear, the night was easy and all we had to do was clean up and watch the door.
Unless a last minute order for the next day came in, which was about half the time. All of this for $11 an hour. (Once they got rid of the Hero Pay, it went back down to $11.)
That was an average, unexciting day for us. You got used to those kinds of stresses, but every day I came home and I was so tired and sore that I couldn't move. I started walking with a cane, had a low-grade fever most days, and my hands looked like I'd taken to them with a cheese grater.
But I powered through. I adapted.
Then it was December. The owners had always been generous with Christmas bonuses, handing everyone an envelope of cash. Mine was $500. This was the largest amount of cash that anyone had ever handed me (feel bad for me later.)
And then it was Grandpa's turn, but there were no envelopes left. It had to be a mistake, she thought. She didn't get paid very much for all the work she put into the shop, so she was counting on that bonus to buy presents for her grandchildren. It… it… had to be a mistake, right?
"I didn't get a bonus," she said. "I thought the accountability didn't take effect until January," she said to Puppet.
Before he opens his mouth again, I have to explain yet another thing.
In September, there was a meeting. Now that we were working on benefits and bonus programs and other things to make sure the staff stays, they needed to put in accountability measures for the managers. Effective January 1, managers are reflected by the income of their store, the number of returns, accidents in company vehicles, and high turnover rates.
Pick one of those attributes and decide its bullshit to begin with, and I'm about to show you the entire steer.
"We had to make an example of someone," he said. "So that the other managers know we're serious."
She was being personally punished for a car wreck that happened in 2019 even though she fired the guy that was in it. We had too many returns, he said, but most of them were sent to us from corporate. She was personally held responsible for the high turnover rate during an economic crisis AND a goddamned pandemic… because they needed to make an example out of someone.
And her grandkids didn't get presents this year because of it.
She cried. The last time I saw her cry was when we were saying goodbye to the kittens. It's not the same.
But she got up every day and listened to them scream at her while we counted and counted and recounted the fucking Christmas specials because the numbers weren't right and we couldn't make them right because someone in the call center couldn't figure out the codes and in their eyes it was our fault, too- we had to be stealing the flowers or something.
"It sucks and then its over," she said. It was how she dealt with holidays: "It sucks and then its over."
We were all angry for her. I got asked to go to the headquarters and help them mass produce more fucking specials and I offered the beat them up for her and she told me not to get involved. Head down, do the work, get it done.
One of the call center girls died of a heart attack a few days before I was due to help them mass. We were supposed to go to her funeral, but we all missed it because there was so much work to do.
Wait, let me back up… again. The company gave us all life insurance. The number we were quoted on our life insurance policy was $10,000, which seems like a lot but in the funeral business it's not. Your average funeral will eat up most of that, if not all. It's very expensive to die right now.
At least… we all thought it was $10k. I was certainly told $10k.
Turns out it was $1k, which isn't enough to buy you a box for your remains. The call center crew ended up crowdsourcing the rest- she didn't have much family.
And none of us could go to the funeral because we were working.
I worked two twelve hour shifts in that warehouse making the same goddamn centerpiece over and over again while a Frenchman in a scarf told me I was doing it wrong, while everyone was grieving on a time crunch.
I really should have beaten them up.
But we got through Christmas, for what it was worth. We found Grandpa some sales that she could get gifts from and we all worked together to make sure we were okay through it. I mean, we weren't- it was blind leading the blind. But we tried.
And then it ended. "It sucks and then its over," she'd always say.
And into January we go and we're back into the stupidity of trying to fight with hq about funerals. I'm constantly told that if we needed certain things we should have ordered them.
I… did. I did. I ordered everything we needed every damn day and it still never came because the left hand and the right hand can't even coordinate enough to pull off a high-five. But it can't be their fault. It has to be Grandpa's somehow.
Now during the week of Christmas, Grandpa had to take an extra day off because she got sick. It wasn't Covid, thank goodness. I can imagine it was a stress-related issue, but it's not my business. Due to the holiday, this put her at under 40 hours for the week.
So they paid her hourly.
...which is extremely illegal to do to a salaried employee, especially one that works way more than 40 hours a week with no overtime.
And then they told her that she'd already lost her quarterly bonus because of a fender-bender that happened on my watch, and because she lost 39 employees last quarter.
I write everything down. I keep a journal. I cannot find 39 employees, even going back the entire year… during a pandemic. They have to be making this up. They have to be because there is no way they can hold the dude that was fired for literally sleeping in the men's room against her.
And I was close to just telling them all that… when my grandma died.
I'm not getting into it, really. Because you know… she was 96 years old and… it happens. It's sad, but it happens. But the relevant point to make is that I was given an… inheritance. It wasn't a lot. Grandma wasn't loaded. But it would be enough for me to keep afloat for awhile if I ever needed to.
When I told my girlfriend, she said: 'you could quit your job.'
And I didn't want to think about that because the flower shop needed me. I was important there. I was special. And Valentine’s Day was just around the corner.
But I was thinking about it. I thought about it every day.
A week before Valentines Day, Grandpa was inconsolable. She had to leave work because her dog, Jake, wouldn't stop bleeding. She needed to get him to the vet.
Two hours pass and Blue gets a message asking her to come help her move the dog. Grandpa lives alone and she's not very strong.
Blue doesn't like dogs. She was bitten by one the first time she ever made a delivery.
And I am known for exceptional physical strength. So I went.
When I arrived, Grandpa was a mess. I had never seen her cry so much, and it wouldn't stop. And I was trying to be strong, but it's hard. Jake was still alive, but bleeding. He was confused and upset, and blind and deaf. He barked, he growled, and he lunged… but always pulled back when his legs buckled from the pain.
I had her grab a blanket and we rolled him onto it, using that to lift him. He thrashed and growled and snapped at me while we walked him towards the door, but he wasn't getting out of the wrap we had him in.
As we're out the door, I noticed a man at the neighboring house. He raised his hand in greeting, but lowered it in confusion.
"Grandpa, is it alright if I get him to come help while you bring the car around?"
The best she could do was nod.
"Yeah, sorry, to bug you but can I ask for a little help here?" He looks at what we're doing and drops his trash can lid to come help. "Yeah, just take that end there and we're gonna ease him into the car when she comes around."
He nodded, took the ends, and we tucked a very confused Jake into the back seat. I thanked the neighbor, Grandpa sped off, and I went back to work feeling extremely odd about it.
That was the first time that I'd ever met the dog: on his way to be put down.
I know it seems weird to tell that story, but there's a reason. Part of it is symbolic. Part of it has to do with kittens. But we're not there just yet.
So now it's February and it is crunch time for Valentine’s Day. We have no earthly idea what this holiday is going to look like because past experiences have us anticipating a large number of walk ins, but state regulations have put a limit of six customers inside the store at any one time. We were never given any… instructions on how to enforce that rule, so we just kind of vaguely set out roles for who has to be the bouncer at the flower shop.
But before all of that, we had to make 275 two-dozen red rose arrangements in bowls. Based on our sales last year and general growth, we were expecting something close to five hundred deliveries on our busiest day. If I wasn't making them, I was counting them. And I was counting, and I was counting, and I was counting… every hour, just like it was at Christmas. We used up every single red rose in the place and came up short.
To which we were scolded: we must have used the roses they sent us for other orders because there was no way the error could have been on their end! Their inventory was impervious to mistakes. Somewhere between the warehouse and our store, twenty-five packs of roses went missing! And why is it only our store that has these problems? Clearly it must be our fault- a store full of thieves and liars and delinquents.
They ended up sending more just because… you know… they care. I guess.
And every hour, they needed a number of something and I counted, and counted and counted…
I think it was February 8 that I started crying every day. When I slept I was stiff as a board because I made so many mistakes throughout the day that the idea of coming to work the next day just to make more mistakes made me lock up entirely. There was no way to relax. There was no winding down from a hard day of work because my body could not move anymore.
I felt like I was made of splintering wood.
I had a dream around this time that I quit my job. I was so happy. I thought about it almost every hour.
So I stayed out of the way at work, picking up cleaning projects because at least there I could be useful and it was dark enough in the cooler that if I started crying no one had to see it.
That cooler was so clean. I wouldn't recommend eating off of it because I used an entire bottle of bleach to clean the floor.
If we're not counting the constant barrage of demands from corporate to count, count, count; Valentine’s Day was worryingly uneventful. Previous holidays were chaotic: filling the requests of the most desperate and clueless men with deep pockets and expensive tastes. Corralling the temporary drivers and make sure no one gets into any crashes or… uh...tries to sell unregulated merchandise from their trunks. Trying to decide what "Malibu Barbie Pink" meant for that one customer who comes in every six months and orders it but has rejected every color pink on the spectrum that our store has ever offered.
On this one… nothing important happened.
We were… slow.
Grandpa started sending people home early because there weren't many orders. We ran out of projects to do.
Sounds great, right?
...heh…
Corporate would like to know why our store is under projected sales by over 200, as if we have any say in how many people buy from us. Like we personally called all our typical customer base and told them not to come to this store. "Yes, hello Mrs. Penderghast? I'm sorry we can't fill your Valentine's Day order this year because we suck balls and don't want your business. Have a nice weekend. Say hi to the grandkids for me."
I don't… fucking KNOW! I don't work in PR! I'd ask the people in that department if they know what happened but… that's the owners. So who really is the fuckup here? Not me, that's for fucking certain! I cleaned the cooler. That's all I did all weekend was clean the Gods damned cooler because there wasn't enough work to go around so I made work for myself.
And then: "Why are the counts off," asked Mt. Rushmore. See, we called them that because between the owners, Puppet, and the head designer we had four white men looking down at us while we did all the work and built their success on the backs of their forefathers. Well… to me it was anyway. To everyone else it was four dudes that looked down on you.
"Why are the counts off?"
Oh, the COUNTS are off? Well, let me just drop everything I'm doing right now and count them for the third time in the past hour because that takes fucking priority.
"There's 95 specials missing from your inventory. Where are they?"
...okay, 95 is a lot. But it was also kind of hard to know how they were 'missing' when we'd sold all of the 275 that we made. How can they be missing if we sold them.
"We need to know where they are."
We don't know where they are. Because we sold all of them. The math didn't add up.
But they hounded us about it like we'd stolen them and resold them on the street corner. Which, to their defense, had happened once (but Sugar stopped doing that when her corner was taken over by the woman who accused Jay of being a demon.) But 95 is a huge number, and these arrangements were a foot wide and two feet tall. Someone would have noticed if a 100x200 foot square opened up in the cooler.
We literally could not know what the fuck they were talking about.
And the truth was extremely stupid: those 95 pieces were redeliveries. When someone has an issue with their order, like it didn't come or it was left out in the snow and got damaged or… someone put the name of their ex on the card instead of their wife… we send a replacement. But depending on who took the phone call, a person might use the wrong code and put it in for 'redeliver' instead- which counts it as another order.
We weren't missing 95 arrangements. We had 95 redeliveries. They hounded us about inventory for two days over a clerical error.
I decided I'd had it. We were going on a full week of crying every time I had a moment alone. They had made us feel like everything that went wrong was our fault: from low turnout to high turnover, missed deliveries and trashed sprays, lost accounts and new grievances…
But did they ever say a Gods damned thing about how hard we worked? How good we were? About how great a team we were under pressure? We once pulled together an entire wedding in fifteen minutes. My ass carried this store through the pandemic. I have done… so much.
So fucking much.
And yet it's our fault.
I had been reasoning with myself that I would stick around for the aftermath when Grandpa was eventually fired: we'd all felt it was coming. But I got that little bit of cash and all my joints were screaming and every time we got negative feedback a part of me died.
The following Tuesday had seen a massive snowstorm. Things that weren't already closed due to the pandemic were closed due to weather.
But we still had to be there. Because someone had to be there to make all the funeral pieces.
Because there wouldn't be a truck the next day, which meant that all of the funeral pieces that we'd sent to the headquarters needed to be made in-house. Which, once again, could have been avoided if we had kept the funeral orders in-house to begin with.
I waited until everyone had cleared out before I said it.
"Grandpa, I have to quit."
I don't think anyone ever looked so disappointed in me in my life.
"Why?"
"The way they treat people here is terrible and I can't see myself doing another Mother's Day for this company. They're so… mean! And for no damn reason! I have cried every day for the past week because I see the way they treat you and I'm… I'm tired."
I thought she was going to cry, but she nodded. "I can't stop you," she said. "I shouldn't stop you. If it's affecting your mental health like this, I'll miss you but its for the best. You know they'll want a written notice."
"And you know I'll tell them the truth," I said.
"...it's not me, is it?"
"If I worked for just you and those fuckers were out of the picture, I would stay. And you can count on me to tell them that."
"Any flower shop you apply to would be lucky to have you."
So I drafted up a resignation letter telling them exactly how I feel: that the way they run this company was asinine and they treated their employees like garbage. They received it on Thursday. Everyone at the shop knew by then. They were upset…
...but they understood.
Puppet did not understand. He emailed Grandpa asking her what she's doing that her people keep leaving.
He didn't see it. He didn't see that he was part of the problem. It always had to be someone else's fault. I explicitly said in my letter whose fault it was and he still didn't take any responsibility.
But suddenly I'm one of their best designers, and he begged me to reconsider, take some time off to think about it. They desperately wanted me to stay and they were willing to bargain, I just needed demands.
No one's ever… begged me before. I don't know if I like that.
This is when it dawned on me that I was next in line. It all made sense now: training me to route, making me do all the extra work, and now they want me to stay?
They were planning on getting rid of Grandpa and promoting me to manager. In a perfect world where Grandpa resigns willingly and I’m promoted on my merits as a designer and the company wasn’t very quickly circling the drain, I would be excited. But I wasn’t. I was frightened. I watched them take a confident, extremely talented woman and turn her into the whipping boy of the flower shop. And if I were in her position, I would have quit. But I don’t have the strength to stand up to the people that are signing my paycheck.
Why… am I at a place where the idea of moving upward makes me more scared than excited?
Flattering, but no. I've seen how you treat your people. My demands are to treat them better.
It was the longest week for me: making lists of pros and cons. I had made a lot of friends there and there's stuff that I will never forget. But the fact that the only people who didn't understand why I was leaving were the people who had the most to lose really hit me in the knees. I could tell them every day for the rest of their lives why they suck and it wouldn't matter because nothing was ever their fault.
And at 7:00 on Friday, I turned in my key.
I didn't have a plan, I didn't have anything lined up. This was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make and I was just kind of… throwing myself at it.
I don't do that. I always have a plan. I look into every possible scenario and I try to make the smart choice. And this time…
I didn't.
It was probably stupid.
But I slept for 12 hours the next night and I could feel my bones settling into their rightful places. I didn't realize how many health problems were caused by standing for 9 hours a day, 11 days a week until I was home all the time to notice them changing. I will always have a limp from trying to pretend I don't have a limp. I'm pretty sure that ulcer is chronic. But my back isn't seizing up and I don't cry every day anymore.
That's something, I think.
About a week after my departure, I got a text from Grandpa that said:
"Hey guess what."
"What," I replied.
The next text was a picture of a week's old seal-point kitten with terminal eye-goo, wrapped in a towel.
"Pop-eye!?"
"I'm keeping this one," she said. The strays had dropped a litter of identical baby kittens by her pond. Two years later, with Jake put down, she could finally have Pop-eye, even if it was version 2.0.
The next text was a few days later. "Puppet fired me."
"What!? Why?"
"Too many accidents, too high turnaround. The new people suck, he says no one wants to work with me."
"Are you okay? How are you doing?"
"I'm okay." She paused and the loading screen did its little dot dance. "I'm playing with my kitten."
413 notes · View notes
cursestothemoon · 3 years
Note
Hi! I love your writing and wanted to request some headcannons of Fred falling for and eventually dating Rons female best friend, so like two-ish years younger than him?
let me tell you i love this idea.
ok
i think up until like
honestly
your sixth year
fred would think of you as this little dorky girl who was always spending way too much time with his little dorky brother
also for the sake of the story Volde-BITCH isn't around
anyway
so fred's been out of Hogwarts for a year now
ron and the gang 😤 just graduated
and everyone is spending the summer at the burrow
Harry has already arrived and him and Ron are hanging out in the living room waiting for you and hermione to show up
Fred and George have closed shop for the week because it's the first week of summer and since hogwarts is out, foot traffic slows a bit
so it's a big ole' weasley sibling party in the living room
and george can't help but make fun of how fast ron shoots up out of his seat when a knock is heard
"Oi, Granger's here lads..."
"He's in love Georgie"
Fred and George were having a field day to say the least
"How much you wanna bet mum'll find them snagging within the next twelve hours?"
"Fred?"
"Freddie?"
Fred has gone silent
George turns to look at his brother and see why he is suddenly unresponsive, he finds Fred with his eyebrows up and mouth slightly agape
he then follows his gaze to the front door where Ron is and Harry are standing, talking to Hermione and a very grown up you
of course you are standing there looking h o t 🙄
you're wearing the tiniest pair of short denim shorts with a black belt cinched at your waist and a thin, ribbed tank top that looks like you've cut jaggedly to cover your boobs and the top of your abdomen
your hair looks freshly done, soft, and fred is willing to bet it probably smells amazing
George can't help but chuckle at his twins lovestruck expression, all for a girl he once nicknamed grindylow
"We shouldn't' be rude, lets go say hi freddie."
the smirk playing on george's lips has fred sending him a glare before he stands up
only he failed to realize you were making your way over to him to say hi
fred stands up and immediately knocks into something, or someone, and stumbles back onto the couch seat he had been sitting on just seconds prior
only this time the person he bumped into comes down with him
you can imagine Fred's surprise when he realizes his hands are on your hips and you have fallen onto his lap
both of you are kinda flustered honestly but youre playing it a lot cooler
"Y/n! You've grown- I mean you got bigger- oLDER...how've you been?"
"I've been good, Freddie. How's the shop?"
"It's gre-"
"you little grindylow, i would like one of those greetings too."
george cuts off his brother and fred swears he could turn him into a slug right then and there but instead he scowls as George quite literally picks you up from his lap and twirls you around
his expression lightens upon hearing your giggles but only slightly
pretty soon you're stolen away by hermione, ron, harry, and ginny much to fred's chagrin
ok to say that fred is having an internal battle would be an understatement
you used to be this little kid who was dorky and a shy
and now you have b o o b s
and this c o n f i d e n c e
that is just pulling him to you
george calls it love
fred calls him a dummy
imagine him walking up one morning and just glancing out his window
nothing out of the ordinary
only instead of seeing a still lake and calm meadow like usual
he sees you in a teeny red bikini, your hair pulled up out of your face, and your neck and chest glistening with a mixture of water and sweat
he quite literally chokes on his spit
"shut. the. fuck. up."
george is not happy to be awoken by fred's coughing
"it's just a bathing suit you wanker"
it is with lightening speed fred gets dressed and ready to join you guys by the lake
both of you will be drooling of each other and the best part is neither of you would realize the other one was doing the same
literally everyone catches on
since then everyone tries to force you two to be near each other
the table needs setting?
looks like you and fred are the ones for the job
there is a seat open next to fred on the couch?
every other spot would be filled before you even entered the room so you'd have to sit next to fred
obviously you guys start talking more
turn out you have a lot in common
and one night while he's laying in his childhood bedroom, thinking, he's like 'oh shit. im in love"
fred's never been the quiet type
and he's a fairly confident guy
so he works out a plan to tell you his feelings
hopefully it ends up with you two dating
fred can only hope right
so he pulls you aside the day before he and george have to go back to their flat and reopen the shop
you don't know what to think of it because he looks beyond serious
which is always worrying
"you wanna sit outside to talk instead?"
you asked after he kept getting interrupted by the loud talking coming from the kitchen
and what he meant to say was "i'd love to"
instead what came out was
"i love you."
"you...what"
it's all a whole blushing mess between the two of you
and to make it even better Harry and George heard the whole thing
george can barely breathe with how hard he's laughing and harry has a pained look on his face
seeing all this fred decides his best option is to flee
so he gets up to walk away
move out of the country
whichever
but you stop him
"I love you too, Fred."
when i tell you everyone stops
george and harry are silent
fred is not moving
and you are so nervous you can barely look up to even see if he's looking at you
but don't worry
fred strides over to you, titles your head up with his hand, and then pULLS YOU IN FOR A KISS
george and harry are dumbfounded
they are standing there just 😮
so you guys are dating now :)
aW how cute
ron is NOT a fan
but only at first
he does not like the idea of his best friend dating his older brother
but he gets over it fast
mostly because of hermione
she ships it aggressively
so does ginny
oK
SO
WAIT LET'S GET INTO THE RELATIONSHIP A LITTLE
FRED IS CONSTANTLY TEASING YOU ABOUT HOW YOU ARE YOUNGER THAN HIM
HE CALLS YOU BABY BECAUSE OF IT
or he'll make jokes about he's so much more mature and how he's such an adult
"you own a joke shop"
"are you even old enough to own a business yet?"
hes so annoying 🙄
but you guys love each other so much 🥺
and im fresh out of ideas and it's late so
enjoy this
:)
tags:
@siriusement
@amourtentiaa
@vsawyer1989​
@lifeofkaze
@theorangedrummer
@erinruby003
@famdomhideout
@an2402lths
@escapingrealitybyreading
@readyg0erge
@maybesandohnos
@therealhouseelvesofhogwarts
@onlyfreds-ficrecs
@fullofsourgrapes
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sunasconcert · 3 years
Text
meeting perona
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in which you meet the girl that had to deal with zoro for two years and surprisingly get along
artists. zoro roronoa x gn!reader ft. wing woman!perona
genre. fluff, comedy
warnings. none except slight spoilers
notes. perona is so different from me and my likes, but i just wanna talk with her and make fun of everyone together <3 LIKE WHEN THE STRAW HAT CREW REUNITES, JUST IMAGINE SEEING HER AND TAKING ABOUT HOW IDIOTIC ZORO IS😩✋🏼
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“zoro?! since when did you learn directions?!” you asked, surprised to see the swordsman. he was the first from the crew that you saw.
“oh shut up y/n!” he angrily yelled back, a tick mark clear on his forehead. “for the record, i came here early so that ghost girl doesn’t get lost.”
you tilt your head to the side, “ghost girl?”
all of a sudden, you see a pink haired girl with an umbrella smacking him in the head. “me? getting lost?! don’t play with me, idiotic swordsman!”
you were surprised to see it was perona, who you thought was with gecko moria. however, this time felt different with her. you let out a laugh, catching their attention, “i knew you couldn’t get here by yourself, moss brains!”
perona also let out a laugh, “you can’t believe how many times he’d gone the wrong direction!”
your smile reached your eyes, happy to have someone to talk to about the idiotic swordsman. “now, perona was it? how was it being with this idiot for two whole years?”
“ugh i can’t believe i’ve had to deal with him for so long!” perona groaned, both of you completely forgetting zoro and ignored his yelling for you two to stop. “you’d point at the direction and he’d go the wrong way!”
you nodded along with her, “i made him a map and he went the opposite way! and i know he’s lying when he says my drawing skills suck!”
“he blames on me for getting ‘lost’. ugh i’m so glad he’s leaving!” perona let out a groan before looking at you apologetically, “just thinking about being on your crew makes it feel like my ghost went through me.”
the two of you continue talking, laughing at the times zoro’s idiocy had made you two want to give up on life itself. zoro tried to yell at both of you to stop, his face blushing bright red from embarrassment.
after a few hours of making fun of the green haired boy, you had to go and get some shopping done and left the two together at the bar.
perona gave zoro a smirk, making the swordsman glare at her. “what do you want now?”
“y’know, your eye scar looks dumb.” perona comments, zoro angrily yelling at her but she continued, “but y/n said you looked cooler. so i guess it’s not that dumb.”
zoro blushed at the compliment. although he didn’t hear you say it, the thought of you saying it made his face feel all warm and fuzzy. “s-shut up.”
“so they’re the infamous y/n i’ve heard you talk about.” perona noted, smirking once more, “no wonder you haven’t shot your shot. they’re too good for you.”
zoro angrily walked up to her, about to hit her head, until she made a ghost appear and go through him. he dropped to his forearms and knees, mumbling the words, “i don’t even deserve to be buried under dirt. i’m below it.”
“you really are hopeless— anyway, even though you don’t deserve the wonderful y/n, they seem to take an attraction to you, i don’t know how, but shoot your shot, i know you can make it.” the pink haired smiled.
the voy looked at the ghost girl, surprised of her words and ignoring her comments. “maybe you’re not so bad, pinky.”
“shut the hell up, idiot!”
perona laughed in her head, happy that there was someone that was able to deal with the greenette. over the two years, the two had grown close despite their arguments and formed a sibling bond. not to mention the fact she doesn’t have to deal with his crappy instincts.
“make sure to make me your bridesmaid, ‘kay zoro?”
“sure— wait, hey! don’t go around making my wedding plans!”
i mean, as long as y/n’s the one i’m marrying, i could care less. he thought, shaking his head before chasing the ghost girl with a red face, embarrassed from her teasing.
156 notes · View notes
volleychumps · 4 years
Note
hi!! i just wanna say i love your writings sm!! and umm,, is it okay if i request a scenario/headcanon of oikawa's reaction about finding out his gf who is sugawara's younger sister and sugawara's reaction finding out that his sister and oikawa is in a relationship? oh, sugawara found out when karasuno was first meeting seijoh for the practice match! if you dont mind doing this and i hope its not too confusing and too much;; ps. i really really really LOVE your writings! keep up the good work!!
Your Boyfriend’s Who? (Oikawa x reader) 
the one in which Sugawara finds out his little sister is dating the star setter of Aoba Joshai~
--------------------------------------
“Suga! What did you do to make Y/N cry again?” 
“What are you-?” The gray-haired setter narrows his eyes at your sniffling figure behind the back of his team captain, hanging his head before releasing a deep sigh when you grin, signaling they had been crocodile tears all along. Daichi continues to stare at him scarily with crossed arms as you tug on the captain’s sleeve “sadly”. 
“I told her she had to sit in the stands and not bother those three on the lineup!” Suga juts his chin in the direction of said three as Ennoshita boos along with Narita and Kinoshita. 
“Booooo, we already told you she wouldn’t bother us.”
“Y/N could always sit with me.” Kiyoko pipes up and your eyes glimmer with hope as Suga groans dramatically with a hand on his forehead as the team finishes unloading their stuff from the bus. 
“Kiyoko please not you too-” 
“The council has spoken!” Tanaka booms as he lift you up onto his shoulders, your fellow first years holding in their laughs at the look of dismay on Tsukishima’s face as passerbys ogle the team oddly. 
“What are you even doing here?” Suga questions with an eyebrow arched, and you grin a little sheepishly as you rest your chin on Tanaka’s shaved head. Daichi palms his face, wondering why your brother wouldn’t ask that question as soon as he saw you on the bus. 
“Um, when you asked mom to sign that paper excusing you from classes she signed one for me too-”
“Mom what-”
“She’s smart. Let her have this.” Tanaka sticks his tongue out as you mirror that action, and Suga groans as Daichi sends you a look saying don’t do it again.
“Sorry Suga-nii.” You mock pout at your brother’s defeat as Suga clicks his tongue, but says nothing as you all file into the practice court, your face blanching when you realize just what school you had snuck your way into. 
“On second thought, I want to go sit in the stands with the rest of the audience-” 
“What? No, stay- you gave everyone the trouble.” Suga scolds as he sits you down on the bench next to Kiyoko like a child. “Now don’t make even more.” 
At your pout, Suga hesitates before kissing the top of your head and jogging off to the court. “Be good. Watch her like a hawk, Kiyoko.” 
“Stop acting like I’m some sort of criminal!” 
“You are a criminal.” Suga calls back as you deflate, Kiyoko giggling by your side as she tilts her head in question. 
“Why would you want to go sit in the stands, Y/N-chan? Didn’t you want to watch up close?” 
“That was before I realized what school Karasuno had a practice match with.” You look around nervously, deeming it fine as long as that certain someone took a hint and didn’t approach you during the match. 
“What’s wrong with Seijoh?” Kiyoko questions further as you lean into her shoulder as the team begins warming up, and you let out a nervous chuckle before leaning in to whisper in her ear, cupping your mouth. 
“My boyfriend goes here, and he may or may not be on Aoba Joshai’s volleyball team-” 
“You have a boy-?!” 
“Sh!” You put a finger to your lips, glancing around worriedly before nodding your head yes. “But I don’t think he’s dumb enough to come up to me-” 
“Think? Suga and Daichi would rip him to shreds!” 
“True, but I’d like to give him a smidge of credit.” You shrug, frowning in worry as Seijoh comes out onto the court, the bestfriend of your boyfriend raising his eyebrows in surprise as Iwaizumi stalls for a second. 
You panic when Hanamaki and Matsukawa raise a hand to you in greeting, grins faltering when you make a cutting motion with your hand across your neck, waving it back and forth while mouthing you don’t know me.
Looks of realization pass the third-years faces as Matsukawa and Hanamaki laugh, Iwaizumi sighing and hanging his head while massaging his temple. You grin nervously as Iwaizumi sends you a message, tapping away on his phone. 
Your team doesn’t know? 
-Worse, my team and my brother don’t know. 
You’re so dead. 
-Where even is he?
Coming l8r.
-That’s good then, right? 
Iwaizumi pockets his phone into his gym bag after scoffing at your message, shooting you a warning look like this won’t end well as you wave it off, the match finally starting after Karasuno finishes warming up. 
You keep worriedly glancing at the entrances to the school as Hinata and Kageyama help pull a good lead over the opposing team, Kiyoko not being able to hide her hum of amusement. 
“Scared?” 
“Very.” You bite your thumb, noticing that the game was near it’s end before relaxing a little. “Maybe he won’t even play-?” 
“Coach! I’m here!” 
“Ooooor maybe not.” You sink in your seat, spinning around in the other direction to face away from Oikawa Tooru as Kiyoko lets loose a few more giggles. 
“That’s him?” 
“...yeah.” You cover your face in embarrassment as you wonder if this was the day your brother finally disowned you.
“He’s...a crazy good player.” You hear Takeda-sensei mumble, and you can’t help but glance behind you to see your boyfriend in action. To your absolute dismay, chocolate eyes met yours as you spin back around quickly, heart hammering in your chest after seeing that Oikawa had smiled immediately at the sight of you. 
“...he saw you, didn’t he?” Kiyoko whispers as you nod, saying your prayers as the game finally ends. You flinch when Suga’s voice sounds behind you, the players all gathering around for towels and water as you sheepishly turn back around for the umpteenth time. 
“What’s with you, oh wonderful sibling of mine?” Suga quips, handing you one of the few juices in the cooler as you laugh, a bit too loudly before poking the hole with the straw. 
“Nothing. Good job win-huh?” Your eyes widen when you see that the score gap had been lessened drastically, Karasuno just barely pulling ahead by a few points as pride flutters in your stomach at your boyfriend’s doing. 
“Ugh, I’m tired.” Suga collapses next to you, leaning his head on your shoulder as you go to shove him off. 
“You didn’t even play-” 
“Just shut up and let me sleep.” 
“Y/N, what do you wanna eat-?” Daichi begins to question, before a voice so familiar sounds that almost has you running out of your seat, not prepared at all. 
“You came with the team to see me, Y/N-chan?” Oikawa’s head pops up between Kageyama and Tsukishima, easy grin faltering at the sight of your brother’s head on your shoulder. 
Oh this would not end well at all. 
“Y/N...chan...?” Suga lifts his head, eyes questioning as he turns to you. “You know him?” 
“I’d appreciate it if you weren’t so buddy-buddy with my girlfriend, you a classmate of hers?” Oikawa tilts his head, grinning with no kindness behind it as you put your face in your hands. 
You can feel Suga’s burning stare as you escape to hide behind a sighing Kiyoko, the entire Karasuno team on edge as Sugawara rises to his feet, holding a hand out to your boyfriend with a matching grin. 
“Try her brother.” 
Oikawa’s face falls, and in any other situation, you would have laughed. 
“You...have a brother?” 
“You’re dating the setter of Seijoh?!” 
“Ladies please, not all at once.” You attempt to joke, Tanaka the only one to throw his head back in laughter as Kiyoko stifles a laugh into her palm. 
“Okay, yes to both of you.” You go to stand next to Oikawa with a sigh, looping your arm with his before offering a sheepish smile. The cat was out of the bag, anyways. “Everyone, meet Oikawa Tooru, my acquaintance-”
“Her boyfriend. Pleasure to meet everyone!” Oikawa corrects as you nudge him, the setter moving to interlace your fingers with his before pulling you to his side, eyes narrowing at the sight of Kageyama. 
“Nice to see you again, Kageyama-Kun.” 
You sigh at the fact that there was more tension between him and his junior than there was with your brother before swatting Oikawa in the side, him whining before pouting at you. 
“Do you even love me?!” 
“Of course I do...don’t. Of course I don’t.” You falter at the hardened gazes of both Daichi and Suga as Tsukishima whistles lowly, enjoying the drama as Yamaguchi nudges him in disapproval. 
The silence that settles isn’t a pretty one as Oikawa chuckles a tad nervously, kissing your cheek before spinning on his heel. 
“I’ll take you out after this-?” 
“She’ll be eating with us, thanks though.” Daichi cuts him off as you groan, mouthing a yes behind his back before Oikawa’s lips stretch into a half-smile before nodding once to your brother. He waves backwards as he walks off to his team. 
You smile in thanks to both Hanamaki and Matsukawa who were both sending sorry stares to you while Iwaizumi rightfully hit Oikawa upside the head for his stupidity, scolding him about telling him not to as Oikawa whines. 
“So,” 
You hide even further behind Kiyoko with a I can explain kind of smile fills your features as Suga crosses his arms, the entire Karasuno team looking at you in accusation. Your brother’s lips stretch into a kind smile as he tilts his head, Daichi and Kageyama crossing their arms beside him. 
“You have a lot of explaining to do.” 
“Before or after my date with my hot setter boyfriend-” 
Needless to say, the surprise meeting between your brother and boyfriend from rival teams did not go over the team of Karasuno too well. 
-------------------------
General works: @takemetovalhalla @savemesteeb @dreebbles @kasandrafaye @yams046
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a-snow-decahedron · 3 years
Note
alphys and flowey, with 22!
I'm so sorry for taking so long. Here we go. 22: books (from this prompt list)
This is for Alphys week! -> Day 6: Flowers
(who said it had to be several flowers?)
Crumpled Paper
Words: 1300
Read on AO3:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/33809740
The first time he met the royal scientist, it had been during a visit she made to the castle, a day after he had emerged in his fath- Asgore's garden, crying out for help for the first time. She carried a bag, which she dropped the moment the king informed her of his finding. She examined him, checking on his magic levels, and as she worked, her face could barely hide her worries. Through stuttering words Dr. Alphys gave her report: she said he had no SOUL, but besides the fact, he seemed fine. She came by every few days to check his stats, apologizing profusely every time. What for? She couldn't explain herself without stumbling on her words, but he got something about an experiment. But it would be fine, she assured him!
He wasn't fine, he couldn't feel, no matter how much he tried. He was not the same and it wasn't worth it to keep trying.
But then he discovered the real power behind determination. Curiosity led him to various places, and soon he found himself outside of the scientist's laboratory. She hid something, and he was determined to find out.
* * *
"Howdy!"
Alphys was startled by the sudden voice. She was back from a trip to the dump, holding a bag full of cans and metallic wastes. At this time of the day, she didn't expect to find anyone outside the lab.
A flower stood by the door, giving her a toothy smile.
"Howdy, doctor! Have we met before?" The flower snickered and winked, as if there was an inside joke she didn't get.
She recognized the kind of flower on sight, after all, she had worked with them during the last weeks. But just like her other experiments, it seemed determination didn't have the expected effects. She rememebered taking the vessels back to the garden and...
Oh no.
Not THIS too.
She tried forming a sentence. But what could she say? She felt herself start sweating, her breathing getting faster. She swallowed and managed to say "We do not know each o- but you said that we do..." She decided to set for a question. "Do you want to... come in?"
The flower's expression was blank for a moment as if considering his options, then he smiled. "Sure! Get me inside!" Alphys sighed in relief. This shouldn't be difficult, right? They could just... take their time to talk.
After some arrangements, she managed to fit the flower in her bag to carry him and set him in her workbench. His small black eyes examined the room, eagerly looking for something. What it was, Alphys couldn't tell.
She was filled with questions of her own. Dozens of theories were running in her head, but she feared the flower wouldnt be able to answer them. She watched him as he tried to pick up one of the books resting on her desk. They were too heavy to lift.
"Do you... want my help?" She held the book for him, which had a winged hero on the cover. She opened it on a random page, so they could both look at the drawings.
"What does it say?" He pointed at one of the speech bubbles.
"What?" Alphys was distracted looking at the pose one of the main characters, a human with human ears, was making.
"On the book. The handwriting's weird."
"Oh that... I'm not sure. It seems it's a human language, but it's not like the one we speak. I think it's called Japanese. It comes from the land where they make cool things like anime and..." She started going through the list of every little fact she learnt about the land through her TV shows, but the flower interrupted her.
"Why do you have a book you can't read?"
"It's called manga." She was quick to correct. "I'm learning how to read and write! I've been looking for books in the dump that can teach you how."
"Is that what you do as a sicentist?" He raised an eyebrow, which was as white as the rest of his face.
"N-no, but it's something... I do sometimes, when I have the time."
"Cool! Can you teach me?"
"To read Japanese?"
"No, I'll pass, it sounds complicated. My sibling would have liked it. They are such a nerd, always saying weird words."
Would that mean...? Oh no, one animated flower is a thing but more? Alphys would be screwed.
The flower opened his eyes wide at his words and he stuck his tongue out in thoguht, as if he was solving a mental puzzle. Alphys waited, was it the right move to ask questions? Would it scare the flower?
"Ah, my tongue slipped. I guess I'll have to tell you. But later, OK?" A part of Alphys wanted to turn to dust right there, a different part wanted to spit out every question that crossed her mind, but the saner part of her decided it was best to play along. Anything to make this less awkward.
The flower found a solution sooner than her. "Why don't you... teach me how to write? I don't know if I can." He looked down at his vines.
"Yeah, sure. let me grab some paper and pencils." Alphys felt the tension dissipate as they changed topics.
"Do you have color pencils too?"
"Uhm, we'll see what I can get."
Alphys found a box of pencils next to her computer, on top of a pile of paper detailing her blueprint ideas, a few scratched projects and a personal story she was working on. Her handwriting made her the least suitable for the job, but the flower was content with her lessons. They chatted about mundane topics, forgetting their situation for a moment. He was reluctant to tell her his name, and never mentioned the "sibling" again, but both of them seemed at ease.
"Do you wanna... stay here tonight? Or do you need to go to the garden?" He considered his options, then shook his head. Alphys leaned to look at the paper, it seemed her friend grew tired of writing and made a drawing. "What's that?"
"It's me! Well, not me me, but my cooler form!" It showed a winged godlike creature, shooting stars out of his hands. He was surrounded by a rainbow cloud.
"Oh! You drew inspiration from the manga I showed you?"
"Maybe? But this is way better!" He was grinning, proud of his successful creation. It took him some time to get used to grabbing pencils with his vines. Even though he couldn't make small things, his grasp was good enough to make a rough sketch.
"I like it! Give it a name!"
"What would they name it... " He whispered, barely audible. "Ah! I know what."
He took a black marker, and with a strange kind of handwriting and in all uppercase he wrote:
"THE ABSOLUTE GOD OF HYPERDEATH"
For the rest of the timeline, the drawing was put on the fridge with a magnet. He didn't get much information about the scientist that night, and saw less of her with every passing day
When he found out why, he reset. Many timelines went by. The ghost of the drawing was forgotten, but his ability to grab things stayed.
* * *
Alphys walked into the lab, putting on her labcoat over her dress. Her day was eventful, and her confession marked the start of a new time. She was feeling... better? Sure, her confidence had a long way to go, but she could handle it one thing at a time. Her smile dropped when she found a crumpled piece of paper, with a message scribbled with a black marker. It was a strange kind of handwriting, in all uppercase.
It read: "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID"
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fandomscombine · 4 years
Text
The Hargreeves Kerfuffle  Part 1 : Disastrous Childhood (Prologue)
TUA Series Part 1:  Disastrous Childhood
The Hargreeves siblings x Hargreeves!Reader (Familial Relationship)
An idea came to me at 2am after binging TUA S2 and rewatching S1 right after!
BG: The Reader is Number Eight. It follows how you fit into the structure of Season 1 and the family dynamic of the siblings.
This part follows when the young Hargreeves Siblings had their powers manifested and the development of The Umbrella Academy.
Contains: Sibling Angst and Fluff. Reginald being a crappy father but sometimes not really?
The series will consist of 10 parts. Where the reader would have a focused interaction with each sibling. (Eg. After this part, it would be Luther x Reader, then Diego x Reader and so on! –Yes Ben is included)
WC:2649
A/N: This is my first ever TUA fic and I’m doing a series. WOw ambitious I know. Anyways I hope you enjoy! And tell me how you feel about it!
>>MASTERLIST<<
>>THE HARGREEVES KERFUFFLE SERIES MASTERLIST<<
READ: [PART 2]  [PART 3]  [PART 4]
>>JOIN MY WRITING CHALLENGE!<<
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~
On October 1, 1989, 43 women across the globe gave birth despite them not being pregnant when the day began. In news of this mysterious happenings, Sir Reginald Hargreeves immediately went out of his way to find as many of these special babies. He has successfully adopted 8 of these children and you were one of them.
One might think that when a person adopts not one, but eight kids would have so much love to give but they would be mistaken. Sir Reginald Hargreeves—Dad, was not a loving father. It would be a miracle for one to see the man show any other emotion apart from anger. Sir Reginald Hargreeves was distant and treated the children like they were experiments that the dynamic felt closer to a doctor/patient relationship. The children weren’t given actual names, only to be called by their numbers based on the order Sir Reginald Hargreeves had procured them. It was only when Grace, their robot mother insisted they have a real name, were the children given them. And so, the children were:
Number One - Luther Hargreeves
Number Two – Diego Hargreeves
Number Three – Allison Hargreeves
Number Four – Klaus Hargreeves
Number Five – Five Hargreeves
Number Six – Ben Hargreeves
Number Seven – Vanya Hargreeves
And finally,
Number Eight -  y/n Hargreaves
For 6 years, the only special thing about the children was that they were miraculously conceived and birthed within a day, the same day. However, on the 7th year , October 1 1996, more strange things started to happen to the children.
It first started with Ben at breakfast. Dad as usual is cold and strict more so in the early morning. ‘Sit up straight Number Six.’ He directed without even a glance up from his newspaper at hand.
‘Yes Sir.’
Beside him you place your hand on his and whispered, ‘You alright Ben? You look sick.’
He gulped. ‘Yea y/n.’ Wiping the cold sweat off his forehead.
‘You sure?’ you questioned, not buying it.
‘Umhmm never bett-----’
You expected vomit to come out but what happen next is something you would never though was possible.
Screams broke out everywhere.
You feel yourself being raised above the table. Looking down, you were 5 feet off the ground held by what seemed to be tentacles.
‘Take that!’ You hear some shout then a thud. Diego had brought down a knife to the tentacle that had suffocated him and in now laying on the floor covered in green blood.
The sight finally snapped you out of your shock, your fight or flight reflexes kicked in.
A quick sweep of your surroundings showed Five and Klaus on either side of you, they too are struggling with the ever-tightening grip of the monstrous arm.
While on the ground, Vanya and Allison are making their way to Ben in hopes of helping him control whatever all this that was coming out of his body. While Luther is fighting off the arms away from Diego who seem to have broken his leg from the fall.
Dad, Mom and Pogo are nowhere to be seen.
You move your head to the left, knowing that Klaus doesn’t do well in small spaces. ‘Klaus it’s okay buddy, Dad would find a way to fic this. Just breathe’ You choked out ‘Just breathe Klaus, everything’s gonna be alright.’
‘mmmm!’ That was Klaus’ only reply but you were thankful to see him to fidget less. He seemed to have taken your advice – how much of the second part of that advice be true, you genuinely don’t know.
You try to move your head to face the right towards Five but no dice. The arm was wrapping itself closer to your neck. ‘Five’ you call out, but it was barely a whisper. ‘five..’
‘Y/N!!’ Five’s scream was the last thing you heard before everything went black.
~
‘She’s broken a couple of ribs and sprained her neck. But’s she’s gonna be okay. Just needs time to rest.’
‘And how long would that time Pogo?’
‘She would need to say in bed for 2 to 3 months, Sir.’
You open your eyes and are greeted with blinding white light. Dad, Mom and Pogo surround your bed.
Grace tucks a stray hair behind you ear. ‘My baby, y/n. How are you feeling?’
‘Sore.’ You reply, noting the coarse sound of your voice. ‘How’s Ben? Klaus? Vanya?—’
Grace cut you off. ‘They’re all fine y/n. Though Ben is a bit roughed up.’ She says truthfully.
‘Number Six has appeared to have powers of summoning monsters with his body and he is currently under supervision.’  Reginald stated.
But something didn’t fit right. ‘But how did you calm him down? The whole fiasco back there was in total chaos?’ Voicing out all your thoughts and questions. ‘No one could get him to take back control, unless…..’ You couldn’t continue the thought. Your eyes go wide. There was no way. It was too harsh, but it was dad after all, he would do whatever means necessary to get what he wants.
Your dad smiles proudly ‘Ah yes. Y/n ever the cleverest of the bunch.’ You had observed that he had addressed you in your actual name instead of your number for the first time in your whole existence.  ‘Unfortunately, I had to sedate Number Six. You do understand that it was the only way.’
You open your mouth to argue.
‘No buts, Number Eight!’ Ah and now we’re back to number, you thought.
‘I’ll have Grace by you side whist you recover and Pogo here would relay your recovery progress to me daily.’
He was almost to your door when he faced you again. ‘Oh and Number Eight, When you feel something different or unusual. Do inform me of it immediately.’ And with that he left.
‘Pogo? What does he mean by feel different?’ Your nerves go up, worried about your siblings. ‘Is anyone hurt?’
Pogo sighs, after much contemplation he begins ‘Y/n dear. Today’s happenings uncovered that there are stranger yet special things about you children.’
You nod, not wanting to interrupt but also wishing he would hurry up and continue.
‘Ben isn’t the only one who have gotten powers today. During the kerfuffle, Diego has shown skill with a knife, Luther immense strength and Five had shown ability to teleport.’
Once again you found yourself in shock.
‘Your father has gotten the idea that you children have varying power wish are “activated” so to speak when reached the age of 7.’
‘Haha-OW’ You clutch your side.
‘Careful y/n, try not to do sudden movements—yes and that includes laughing too.’ Mom says, caressing your cheek.
‘When can I see them?’
‘I’ll try to persuade Reggie to allow them for a visit dear. But now I need you to rest.’
~
Sibling Visits are limited to 30 mins a day, right before the bedtime curfew.
All your siblings (expect Ben who was still under strict supervision and is recovering himself) came to see you the following night.
Allison was the first one through your door and ran to give you a hug. ‘Y/n! We are all so worried!’
‘Aww thanks—OW OW OW’
‘Oops sorry’ releasing you from her death grip of a hug.
Seeing that movements still hurt you. The rest opted not to hug you, Klaus and Diego held your hand, Vanya is sitting on the edge of you bed, Luther gave you forehead a quick kiss and Five being Five, greeted you with the typical sibling teasing. ‘Glad to see you not drop dead in front of me.’
Diego showed off his leg cast and asked you to sign it, which you happily did so. Signing ‘Badass as always. -y/n’ beside Ben’s note of ‘Diego is cooler than Batman’
The 30 minutes consisted recaps of what happened the day before, the gushing of the boys showcasing their powers and debating on who’s the most powerful.
And just like that, the time was up and each had to go to bed. Everyone kissed your head for goodnights, even Five.
‘You know I love you right?’ His eyes softer than you ever seen before
‘I know’
‘You really scared me yesterday when you blacked out.’ Five had his tough façade down. ‘I thought you died y/n.’
‘But I didn’t.’ You reach up to wipe his tears away. ‘It’d take something bigger, if you wanna get rid of me.’
He chuckled. ‘Night, y/n’
‘Good night, Five.’
~
3 weeks had passed, and your siblings never failed to visit you. Over that time, Klaus and Allison had manifested their powers. Klaus can conjure the dead while Allison could ‘rumor’ people to her will.
Ben came by 2 weeks later. His color is back to normal, not like the blueish tint it had the last time you saw him. Though he still had a few remnants of bruises and scars across his arms and face.
‘I’m sorry y/n.’ He said leaning on your door frame.
‘Ben!’ You exclaimed. ‘I’m so glad you’re back up and running!’
Ben was caught off guard. ‘You—You’re not mad at me?’
‘Why would I be mad at you?’ You questioned, genuinely confused at your brother’s words.
‘Cause, Cause I almost got you killed. I am a monster.’
You sat up straight at those words, your ribs hurt a bit at the sudden movement, but you didn’t care. Your brother was blaming himself for something he couldn’t have controlled.
‘NO BEN!’
Ben jumped from your sudden outburst.
You motioned for him to come closer.
‘Ben…’ looking into his eyes. ‘Ben you are no monster.’
‘But—’
‘uuh uh I’m not done’ You held his hand in yours. ‘You are no monster what happened then was an accident, nobody knew, heck nobody expected powers to just show up. It was beyond anyone’s control. It took us by surprise.’
His shoulders relaxed.
‘It wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you for what happened.’
He gave you a bone crushing hug. ‘Thank you y/n. You don’t know how guilty I was feeling.’ Voice muffled by your shoulder, which is now wet with his tears. ‘I kept thinking about the pain I caused you and I wasn’t allowed to leave my room even when I begged dad to see you and say sorry. y/n’
‘Shhh shhh’ Rubbing his back. ‘It’s alright Ben. What’s important is that we’re all here now. Alive, Safe and sound.’.
~
You still have a month left for recovery.
Only you and Vanya are the one left who haven’t had their powers revealed.
Dad had created a group called ‘The Umbrella Academy’ in which he trained your super powered siblings. He even given them codenames to go along with their newfound powers.
Number One - Luther Hargreeves aka Spaceboy
Number Two – Diego Hargreeves aka The Kraken
Number Three – Allison Hargreeves aka The Rumor
Number Four – Klaus Hargreeves aka The Séance
Number Five – Five Hargreeves aka The Boy
Number Six – Ben Hargreeves aka The Horor
With this new training program comes with the downside of spending less time with your siblings. Your traditional Sunday afternoon sister bonding time Allison and Vanya is basically non-existent now. Sure the rest of siblings still drop by to check up on how you’re recovering but it is not as frequency as they once were- you totally understand though, it must be tiring to be part of ‘The Umbrella Academy’ but girl were you still hurt and wanted more than anything to be a part of it.
So, you spend most of your time with Vanya nowadays. You didn’t mind, it is nice to have someone along. Most of the time Vanya practices her violin in your room.
‘That was beautiful Vanny’ you commented after she finished a rendition.
‘Thanks y/n’ Her face flushed. ‘Maybe someday I’d be a famous violinist!’
‘I know you would.’ You say truthfully. ‘And I better get the best seats at your concerts okay? Nothing short of VIP treatment for your favourite sister!’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Allison would get that.’ Vanya teased.
Placing a hand dramatically to your chest ‘uhh I am offended! I thought I was your favourite sister!’
‘well... you thought wrong.’ Vanya tried to keep a straight face but failed. ‘You y/n are the VVIP guest!’
‘Now that’s more like it.’
~
That night you were tossing and turning in your bed.
In the training room, huge boulders were being tossed onto Luther’s back. He currently had 3 on him. ‘More’ he cried. It was an impressive feat to see. A 7-year-old carry the what had to be at least 5 times his weight.
It was at his 6th block when his legs start to shake.
‘Straighten up Number One!’ Reginald voice came through the speakers.
‘I-I’
‘Fix your posture! And stop babbling!’
He was trembling all over, the weight was far too much and carried far too long for just a young boy.
Any second now, he is gonna be crushed by the boulders.
‘LUTHER!’ You screamed. Cold sweat was plastered all over your face. You were still in your room- but it all felt so real.
You look over to your bedside table, 9:07
Training would have started an hour ago. You had time.
You took the stairs two at a time, bursting into the training room. ‘STOP’
Reginald stood from his seat. ‘Number Eight. What in the world are you doing here?’
‘STOP! Luther is gonna get hurt please stop it--.’ Ignoring his question.
‘Number Eight, what are you talking about? Number One is doing perfectly fine!’ He gestured towards the front.
He was right. Luther looks fine. In fact it looked like it was carrying a light backpack instead of 3 boulders. ‘But- But I saw—’ Then it hit you 3 boulders. 3 not 6.
‘More’ You heard him cried out, just like you had in your nightmare.
You stared at Luther, how could this be?
‘I saw him sir, he is gonna collapse from 6 boulders.’
At this, Reginald took interest. ‘You saw?’
‘Yes, I-I must have dreamt it.’ You slumped against the free chair, defeated. ‘but it felt so real.’
‘Let me everything you saw, and don’t miss a single detail’
And so, you did. By the time you finished, Luther was with his 6th block.
It was exactly like how things went down in your dream. ‘No No NOOOO!’
‘Release him!’ Reginald called at the last second. Standing he faced you. ‘Now y/n dear would you please come with me.’
He didn’t speak again until you were both in his office. ‘It seems to me Number Eight that your powers have finally manifested.’
‘what—’
‘A slight delay compared to your siblings, but I presume that it was due to you recovering from your injuries that your body had focus on your recovery first then powers.’
‘What about Vanya? Would she have powers?’
‘It seems that Number Seven has no powers gained.’ Standing in front of you. ‘But no matter now, what’s important is that you’ve got them.’ He placed his hands on your shoulders. ‘You would do great things Number Eight. To see into the future is a valuable asset to have indeed. For this I shall name you Foresight.’
This was it! You own codename!
Number Eight -  y/n Hargreaves aka Foresight.
‘I’m gonna be part of The Umbrella Academy?’ Overjoyed by your father taking pride in you that every other thought left your concern.
‘Yes Foresight. You will.’ Standing straight again. ‘However, your training would only start once you have fully recovered.’
‘Thanks Dad.’ Hugging him and for once showed the affection back.
You wish you could say that it was at this point where you and your siblings finally gotten a loving and healthy childhood. But you were wrong. Things only deteriorated from here on out with the Hargreeves household and by extension the dissolve of The Umbrella Academy.
END OF PART 1
READ: [PART 2] [PART 3]  [PART 4]
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