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got-svt · 3 years

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all the boys you’ve loved and lost during the course of our lives, we meet thousands of people, creating either a seconds long moment or memories that last a lifetime. some of them you’ll have the opportunity to know beyond their names and faces, some you may even grow to love. unfortunately, not all of them have the luxury of staying in your life forever.

❥• two: the academic rival

he’s the one that had you wondering how could you be so similar to someone, yet so different? he knew how to push your buttons and make a competition of everything, whether it was sports, academics or extracurriculars. he was the one that made steam come out of your ears and blood rush to your cheeks. but even you had to admit there was a certain rush that came with it, too bad he transferred schools just before senior year.

pairing: yoon jeonghan x reader genre: fluff, angst, enemies to reluctant friends to ??? word count: 2292

→ you genuinely thought the universe had it out for you when you were placed in the same year level as yoon jeonghan, more so when it placed you in the same class. you first caught sight of jeonghan in your first year of middle school. he was the boy seated three seats behind you. he seemed unassuming at first, somewhat quiet, and — dare you say it — nice and sweet, angelic almost. he only conversed with the other boys that sat near him, not sparing a glance to most. however, it wasn’t until a few years later, when you both started high school that you learned his true personality.

→ it was no secret that you studied hard, spending hours in the library, sacrificing nights of sleep. the results of your hard work showed very clearly in classes, on the nearly perfect marks on each of your exams and essays, how the teacher praised your answers during recitation. you relished in the gold stars, the awards, the quiet envy of your classmates.

→ you had never seen jeonghan open a single book, let alone actually read it. there was not a single time you saw him set foot inside a library. multiple times you’ve caught him answering homework minutes before the teacher walks in the room. which is why your blood boiled when you saw he was getting scores just as good as yours, finishing exams before anyone else in the classroom, his hand shooting up just as soon as yours when teachers call for someone to answer their question. eventually, you both gave up raising your hands altogether, competing to be the one to get an answer out first.

→ you wished he remained that quiet kid in middle school, who only stared at you with wide eyes when the teacher announced you had been the only one in your class to get a perfect score, who acknowledged your existence with a small nod instead of a smirk.

→ unbeknownst to you, your little rivalry was slightly one sided. you see, jeonghan didn’t care much about winning or losing. truly he didn’t mind much if you had gotten the higher score, or be the one to answer the teacher’s question first. but god, did he enjoy seeing the way your eyebrow furrowed when he did, how you bottom lip forms into a little pout, how you gripped your pen so hard he was afraid it would snap. he still remembered the first time it happened, the birth of your so called rivalry, when he corrected your answer to the class first day of freshman year. since then, you had always been determined to one-up him every chance you got. much to your dismay, he was not one to back down.

→ and unfortunately for you, academics was not the only place you and jeonghan seemed to compete in. while you were in the swimming team, he played on the soccer team. you even had a small notepad to keep tallies of whose team was winning more games.

“nervous, yn?” jeonghan asked, coming up to you as you were about to prepare for a race. if anyone else had heard him ask, they’d think he was concerned. but you knew this was only the beginning of him getting you riled up. jeonghan had never missed a single one of your swim meets, each time he comes over to you before the competition would even begin.

“not a chance.” you rolled your eyes, waving a hand to shoo him away to the stands. but he showed no signs of leaving, his feet firmly on the tiled floor of the rec center.

jeonghan raised an eyebrow at your show of unwavering confidence, but he knew in the way your voice slightly trembled that you were not as assured as you presented yourself to be. fortunately, he knew exactly what to do to rid you of your nerves. “we won our game today, so it must be exhausting for you, huh?”

“what is?”

he grinned, knowing the exact words to say to get your blood pumping just before a competition, “living in my shadow all the time.”

“if anything, you’re the one who’s living in mine.” you scoffed, more fired up than ever, determined to prove him wrong. suddenly, you couldn’t wait to get into the water, “i’m leaving now.”

“good luck, yn!” jeonghan called out with a smile, only to be met with a wave of your hand — you didn’t turn back for he would only see the blush that slowly formed on your cheeks. still it was more than enough for him as he looked for a seat in the stands with a soft smile. occasionally, he would send you a wink when his gaze met yours — though you only rolled your eyes at him when he did.

and despite the fact that you seemed to be annoyed at his presence during your competitions, jeonghan always cheered you on, his voice clear and resounding even as you swam underwater.

→ but rarely were the two of you ever actively pitted directly against one another. you were always in the same class, and on the same team during activities that teachers found it somewhat remarkable that both of you were still able to find a way to compete against each other. it was always who could be the one to lead their team to victory, who contributed more points, who their own teammates liked better.

→ it wasn’t until your phys ed teacher decided to make her two star pupils team captains in a friendly game of dodgeball that you were actually engaged in a direct, head-to-head competition.

“you totally cheated!” you yelled out as soon as the whistle was blown, signalling the end of the game. eyes ablaze with irritation and frustration, you pointed a single finger at jeonghan, recalling how you saw the ball lightly graze jeonghan’s leg but he made no attempt in leaving the court.

“i did not.” he held his hands up in mock defense, but a smile was on his face as he took in your angrily shaking figure. jeonghan wanted to burst out laughing, not even the least bit threatened or afraid as you stomped your way over to him. “my team just happened to be better than yours.”

you wanted to wipe that smug grin off his face, it didn’t matter how, you just desperately wanted to. your steps got longer and quicker at his words, cheeks flaming up both from being out of breath from playing and anger. your teammates swore they saw steam come out of your ears. “how dare you!”

your phys ed teacher stopped you just as you were about a couple of feet away from only lightly shoving jeonghan — you weren’t actually going to hurt him. grabbing you by your shoulders, she asked you to calm down and join your teammates in cleaning up the equipment, the agreed upon punishment for the game’s losers.

but jeonghan wasn’t done with you yet, staying behind as his teammates went straight to the showers, “hey, yn.”

“what do you want?” you asked with a frown, not in the mood to hear him flaunting his win so soon.

“maybe i did cheat.” he said, just loud enough for you to hear.

your eyes went wide, feeling somewhat proud that your suspicions were correct. but as you were about to open your mouth to retort, he leaned down so his face was level with and merely inches away from yours. you never fully noticed how good he looked, even though he was drenched in sweat, his hair sticking down his forehead. with a confident smile and a quiet whisper, “but i don’t think anyone’s going to believe you.”

“bye, yn!” he moved away and leaves the gym before you could even reply. but you weren’t even mad, more confused than anything else, remembering how close his face was to yours and how quickly your heart started beating because of it.

→ since the dodgeball incident that had you nearly injuring both yourself and jeonghan, most of your teachers decided that it would be best to keep you two on the same side as it would probably be the best way to keep you two from fighting. they also knew of the incredible potential you and jeonghan could hold if you actually worked together. you both were incredibly smart, talented, and resourceful. whatever you lacked, jeonghan made up for and vice versa.

→ which is probably why your english teacher decided to pair you up for your final project during your junior year of high school. both of you thought it was unfair, since everyone else got to choose their partners. the rest of your class thought it was unfair too, why did you pair up two of the smartest kids in their year? but they were also kind of interested to see what the both of you could come up with.

→ this is how you found yourself in the library, working with yoon jeonghan of all people. you would’ve much rather be paired up with the girl that sat next to you — she was quiet, but sweet. you’d rather even be paired up with your childhood friend, chan. but he was not in the same class and you hadn’t been speaking much lately. so you’d have to make do with jeonghan.

“i’m tired, i’m taking a nap.” jeonghan yawned, stretching his arms out to further prove his point.

“we’ve barely started.”

“and yet i’m already bored.” he sighed dramatically, making a show of hitting his head on the table with a quiet thud.

“what do you want me to do about it?” you didn’t bother looking up from your book, knowing that seeing his disinterested face would only put you in a bad mood.

his eyes light up at your question, thinking that you were actually asking him for a suggestion, “let’s go for a drive.”

“what? no—” was this boy serious? you had another class in thirty minutes, where would you even go?

jeonghan groaned, cutting off your words and your train of thought, “live a little, yn. not everything’s about being number one. you can miss one class.”

you told him that if he wanted you out of the library, he’d have to drag you out kicking and screaming. which is exactly what he did, much to the amusement of your fellow students and even the librarian. now, you find yourself sitting in the passenger seat of his car, aimlessly driving around town — you were sure you passed the same tree four times. still, you found the drive somewhat relaxing; especially since you two weren’t arguing.

but it was much too quiet for jeonghan’s liking. you were just staring out the window, arms crossed. he feared that he’d done something wrong. “hey, yn.”

“what?”

jeonghan chewed on his bottom lip, gripping the steering wheel tighter than he intended, “you don’t hate me, do you?”

you laughed at his nervousness. truth be told, you needed a bit of a break, so you couldn’t be too mad at him for taking you out of that stuffy library. you also knew he was asking for your opinion on him beyond this little trip. “on the contrary, i like that you keep me on my toes.”

jeonghan grinned, turning his gaze on you for the quickest of moments, “so you should be thanking me instead of grumbling in the passenger seat.”

you spent the rest of the afternoon talking, learning more about the other outside sports and academics. you were surprised at how much you had in common and he enjoyed the intense debates you had on your differences.

→ that was the car ride that changed your relationship from rivals to reluctant friends. though you were never really rivals to jeonghan to begin with. arguments became few and far in between. your cheeks tinting pink less out of frustration and more out of being flustered as he became as flirty as he was teasing.

→ unfortunately, he would be transferring schools the following year, just as you started to see him as more than a rival or a friend.

→ and you didn’t find out about it until the first day of your senior year.

“wait, where’s jeonghan?” you asked your friend, noticing the lack of his usual teasing voice greeting you in the morning.

“didn’t he tell you?”

“tell me what?”

“he transferred schools yn.”

❥• jeonghan knew he’d be transferring schools months before he even took you on that drive. he also knew he had grown feelings for you much before that. but with his father’s job needing them to relocate halfway across the country, he couldn’t find it in himself to confess. not when he knew he eventually would have to leave you. so when you bombarded his phone with texts, demanding that he explain why he couldn’t notify you of his move, all he could offer was an apology and another text telling you to check the last page of your english notebook.

you huffed as you looked down at your phone, that was all he had to say to you? after acting like he wasn’t just about to pack his bags and leave town for months on end.

still, you shook your head as you went to your closet, picking up the box where you kept your past notebooks. you shuffled past your science, math, art notebooks to find the one you used for english — still as neat and organized as you remember it to be. you flipped the notebook to its final page.

a quiet gasp escapes your lips as you read the words that were unmistakably in jeonghan’s handwriting,

don’t forget to live a little :) and don’t forget about me either.

seventeen as all the boys you’ve loved and lost. next ➤ vernon chwe, the first love

taglist: @t-secretpot @serenadesvt @chuu-soulmate

ask/message to be part of the taglist <33

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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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Honeysuckle

Summary: The BAU decide to head out for a picnic one summer afternoon, but they’re soon rudely interrupted by a bee sting and anaphylactic shock. Seeing Spencer carted off in an ambulance is not exactly how they expected the day to go.

Tags: whump, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, hurt spencer, friendship, medical conditions, severe allergic reactions

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid

Word Count: 2.3k

Masterlist // Read on AO3 // Bad Things Happen Bingo

Spencer had initially been wary of Penelope’s invitation to picnic in Meridian Hill Park one beautiful summer afternoon — he burned way too easily and didn’t like exposing himself to insects more than absolutely necessary — but as soon as she’d mentioned Derek was going, he’d given in. He wasn’t about to turn down an afternoon spent in the sun with his best friends and boyfriend. It was a rare day off for the team: one not even spent hanging by their phone expecting to be called in any minute, so they were all insistent on making the most of it.

He’s the last one to arrive, spotting the others sat in the shade of an oak tree, already laughing as they get stuck into their first drinks of the afternoon. Despite his initial hesitations, as soon as he feels the sun on his face and sees his friends he’s immediately glad he turned up and he hurries over to join the rest of the team, his own contributions to the picnic in hand.

“Pretty boy!” Derek shouts, grinning widely as he jumps up from his lazy position on the blanket to wrap Spencer in a hug, before pulling back slightly to kiss him. He can already tell he’s a little tipsy, and although Spencer doesn’t drink he has nothing against everyone else letting their hair down and having fun; God knows they deserve it.

His relationship with Derek is only a few months old, and he still relishes every moment he gets to spend wrapped up in his arms.

“Hey guys.” His words are muffled slightly by Derek’s shoulder as his boyfriend is reluctant to let him go, but as soon as he’s released, he turns to match everyone’s wide grins.

“Did you bring the strawberries?” Emily asks, levelling him with a faux-stern look that she can’t maintain for long, melting back into her relaxed smile soon enough.

“Of course.” He takes a seat on the picnic blanket only to be immediately wrapped into a side hug by Penelope. He hugs back before beginning to unpack his bag.

“What about the icing sugar?” she asks, and her stern glare isn’t fake at all: Spencer knows how seriously Penelope takes a) organisation, and b) sweet treats.

“Who do you take me for?” he laughs, retrieving the fruit and sugar from his bag and taking a swig of the cool lemonade he’d packed in his thermos.

Sometimes he wishes he could go back in time and show lonely, teenage Spencer pictures of days like these. One day, he’ll be twenty six, working at his dream job, and spending his days off in the warmth of the East Coast sun one Sunday afternoon surrounded by his best friends, kissed by his boyfriend at every opportunity. They’ve never asked him to be anything other than exactly who he is, inviting them into their group and doting on him relentlessly, loving him just as much as he loves them.

It’s a luxury you only appreciate when you’ve known the loneliness of summer: when the hum of the AC is the only sound in your stuffy, humid dorm room, and you’re researching the effects of methane on winter weather patterns as you long for cold weather again, because then at least then you don’t have to listen to the excited shouts of friends outside anymore, then it’s acceptable to isolate yourself inside with only yourself and books for company.

He shakes himself out of his miserable recollections and reminds himself to be in the present. Emily has her head in Penelope’s lap as they discuss which incarnation of Doctor Who is the best while JJ and Derek discuss the new jogging park opening up across the border in Virginia. He knows which conversation is more suited to his interests and immediately goes up to bat for the Seventh Doctor, which manages to engage him in a spirited debate with both women.

Soon, though, they find themselves all discussing their workplace embarrassments and recalling the funniest moments from over the last few years, and Spencer loses himself in the heat of the afternoon and the warmth of his friendships. He’s gorged himself on all the strawberries and sandwiches he could stomach, and as the afternoon stretches longer and evening approaches he lies down on the blanket and rests his head in Derek’s lap, mirroring Penelope and Emily. His eyes flutter closed as his full belly and heat of the sun tire him out, and Derek’s fingers thread themselves through Spencer’s long hair, a light and welcome touch.

The haze of his friends still chatting around him as he dozes comfortably is interrupted, however, when he feels a sharp pinch on his wrist and seconds later, he’s fighting for breath. He launches upright, wheezing as he claws at his chest, trying desperately to fill his lungs with enough air.

“Spencer? Oh my God, Spencer, what’s wrong?” Penelope cries, immediately by his side as she looks him over frantically, not knowing what’s happening.

“Derek, call an ambulance,” JJ directs, taking charge as she rushes to Spencer’s side as well. “He’s in anaphylactic shock. Spencer, listen to me, do you have your epi-pen with you?”

Her words manage to get through the panicked haze and light-headedness as he can’t get enough oxygen. He can feel his face swelling and his heart racing, but he’s still coherent enough to point to his bag.

“He didn’t eat anything, though,” Emily says, panicked and confused as she watches her friend have a medical crisis while she’s powerless to help.

“He’s allergic to bees,” JJ says, keeping calm as she prepares the epi-pen and administers it to Spencer’s thigh. “One must have stung him for some reason.”

“There!” Penelope points to the bee sting on Spencer’s wrist and JJ lunges for her bag, rummaging until she finds her credit card which she uses to carefully slide under the stinger and remove it, preventing any more venom from flowing into Spencer’s system.

It’s clear after a few minutes that the epi-pen hasn’t worked: Spencer still feels like he can’t catch his breath and the world is fading slowly as his heart beats out of control and his organs can’t get enough oxygen.

He feels himself be moved gently by various hands as JJ directs the others until he’s leaning up as comfortably as possible against Derek’s chest as Penelope elevates his legs to keep blood flowing to his vital organs.

“It’s okay, Spencer,” JJ says loudly, right in front of his face. It’s blurry and out of focus and he can feel himself losing consciousness fast. “The ambulance is on its way.”

It’s the last thing he hears before he collapses completely as he passes out.

⭐️

It’s dark outside when Spencer finally wakes up. His bed is warm and comfortable and he lets himself listen to the somewhat comfortable steady beeps of the heart monitor and movement of staff and patients around the ward before finally opening his eyes to scan his room.

Derek’s sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair right next to his bed, sketching what Spencer can only guess are plans for the property he’s just taken on, an empty jello cup balancing on the armrest of his chair.

“Sandwiches and strawberries not fill you up?” he asks, voice croaky as he cracks an eye open. He can’t help but smile, too. He has the best boyfriend and the best friends anyone could ever hope for.

Derek’s head snaps up as he hears Spencer’s voice, setting his notebook and jello aside to grab for Spencer’s hand. “You are something else,” he chuckles. “Your first thought when coming round from a medical disaster is an observation of my eating patterns.” He shakes his head fondly. “ But you know I can’t pass up a tub of jello.”

“That’s true. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you say no when it’s offered.”

“You’re one to talk, pretty boy.”

They lapse into short silence, accompanied only by the quiet beeps of the machines. “Sorry I scared you,” he whispers eventually, feeling guilt wrap itself around his stomach.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not your fault.” Derek looks sincere as he holds Spencer’s hand tighter, careful of the IV in his wrist. “The doctors… they said it was a severe attack, which is probably why the first epi-pen didn’t work. They’re monitoring you overnight to make sure there was no damage to your kidneys, I think. I’ll go find a doctor to tell them you’re awake.”

He moves to get out of his seat, but Spencer pulls him back down, as well as he can when he’s still feeling weak. “No, just… don’t leave,” he asks, his voice coming out a little too pleading for his liking. “Stay.”

The idea of being alone right now twists his stomach; the idea of being without Derek so desperately scary.

“Okay, okay, baby,” Derek relents, sitting back down and running a soothing hand through his tangled hair, Spencer’s eyes fluttering closed at the contact. “I won’t go anywhere if you don’t want me to.” Instead, he presses the button for the nurse.

“Where are the others?” Spencer dares to ask after a few seconds of quiet.

“The nurses weren’t too happy with four people in here,” Derek chuckles. “I’ve been updating them by text; I’ll tell them you’re awake in a minute. JJ saved your life, you know. None of us had any clue what was happening but she was the only one who kept calm and the only one who got us through those awful minutes waiting for the ambulance to show up.”

“I know,” he whispers. “I told her I was allergic to bee stings years ago. It was just an off-hand comment, it never feels like that big a deal… this is only the third time this has ever happened. I guess I don’t feel the need to bring it up.”

“Well that off-hand comment saved your life, pretty boy.” Derek squeezes his eyes closed for a second, and when he opens them the emotion written on his face is heart-wrenching. “God, I can’t believe I could’ve lost you. There were a good few minutes there when I didn’t think you were gonna make it and after… Tobias… I was just so scared.”

Spencer’s stomach clenches at that, imagining the roles reversed is terrifying just as a hypothetical. He can’t even begin to imagine how Derek felt. He reaches a hand out to touch Derek’s face gently, squeezing his hand with the other. “But you didn’t lose me,” he murmurs. “I’m here, I’m okay.”

“Yeah.” His voice is barely a whisper as his eyes close again. “Is it bad that I kind of want bees to go extinct now?” he asks with a wet chuckle a few moments later.

“Derek!” Spencer laughs weakly, acting scandalised. “Bees are fundamental to the global ecosystem. Civilisation would effectively collapse if bees went extinct, it’s definitely not worth eradicating bees for the sake of me avoiding the rarity of anaphylactic shock, not according to the laws of proportionality. It’s actually frightening how fast the bee population is depleting though… did you know that there are only about 2.5 million honey-producing hives left in the US? That’s down from 4.5 million in 1980 and the loss has largely been attributed to colony collapse disorder—”

“Ah, Doctor Reid, you’re awake.” A smiling nurse bustles through the door and comes to check his vitals, fiddling with one of his IVs before taking a step back. “How’s your breathing? Is the nasal cannula okay or would you prefer a full mask?”

“The cannula’s good,” he says, smiling politely. Really, he just wants to get back to telling Derek all the bee facts he can recall. He has some really good ones itching to be let out. “I’m breathing fine, just feel a little weak still.”

“Good. Your vitals all look stable, so a doctor will be round in the morning to talk you through your treatment and medication. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine, thank you,” Spencer nods, and she gives them one last smile before leaving the room and sliding the door shut quietly behind her.

“I should bring her back in,” Derek chuckles as the nurse leaves the room. “She missed out on your bee lecture. Fascinating stuff.”

“Shut up,” Spencer huffs, sinking back against the pillows. “You don’t deserve to hear my bee facts.”

“No,” Derek protests, grinning widely. “I’m joking, baby, carry on. You were telling me about colony collapse disorder.”

Spencer knows that, of course — he does have an eidetic memory after all — but it makes him smile that Derek remembers exactly where he was in his spiel. Maybe Penelope’s onto something when she says that Derek is “whipped” for him. (It had taken at least fifteen minutes for Spencer to fully understand what she meant by that, mostly because he kept asking about the etymology, history, and statistical usage of the word and she kept rolling her eyes, which he would then insist was not an answer.)

“Colony collapse disorder is depressing,” Spencer sighs, feeling quite tired all of a sudden. “I don’t feel like explaining it.”

“It doesn’t sound great.” Derek goes back to threading his fingers through Spencer’s hair. “Why don’t you tell me your favourite three bee facts, and then you can go back to sleep”

Spencer hums, giving it a bit of thought before replying. “Scientists trained bees to score goals in bee soccer in return for a sugary treat, which is especially interesting because they have brains the size of a poppy seed. They communicate with one another by wiggling their butts. It’s like their own language, they tell their nestmates where to go to get the best food. Bees also live in loads of different places, not just in the countryside. My favourite place they live is in marshes and wetlands, because I love insects that live in watery areas.”

“I’d pay to watch bees play soccer,” Derek laughs quietly. “You’re so smart, baby, I’m so proud of you.”

Spencer sighs happily. “Love you,” he murmurs, eyes closing against the exhaustion.

“I love you more.”

Spencer isn’t awake long enough to argue with him.

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @strippersenseii @hotchgans @suburban--gothic @takeyourleap-of-faith

#my writing #moreid #derek morgan #spencer reid #derek morgan/spencer reid #derek morgan x spencer reid #moreid fic #criminal minds #criminal minds writing #criminal minds fic #spencer reid whump #spencer reid angst #moreid whump #moreid angst #moreid fluff #hurt spencer reid

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Ducktales Final Four: Beaks in the Shell! or JESUS WEPT!

This.. this is a big occasion for me. It’s a return to regular Ducktales coverage.. but it’s also the first episode of the LAST four of the series. It was thanks to Ducktales my blog got a following, first through in character chat things, then through my reviews of this very season. It was starting this last year that took my blog from something I was passionate abbout but did ocassionaly to a vital part of my being and my source of income via one lucky boy who just wont’ let me stop! I kid of course, I thank kev for it, though i’d gladly welcome any other review comissions from you fine folks and fit them into the schedule. There’s a page on my blog for how and if your on mobile you can simply send me an ask or submit to ask about comissiong an episode or episodes of an animated shwo you like and i’ll give you my prices and what not. But it’s thanks to these Kev started comissioning in the first place and thanks to you all clicking on these reviews every week I do them that kept me doing them early on. So I wanted to thank you all.

Covering the last four episodes is really bittersweet for me. It’s not the end for ducks here: I have most of seasons 1 and 2 to cover, and will be covering a lot of season 1 next month so I can properly cover shadow war for my Lena retrospective, not to mention continuing to cover life and times when I have the space, various birthdays, including Carl Barks Next Month!, and so on and so on. But this is not only the first show I covered on a weekly basis but it’s the first show i’ve covered like that to end. To put it in perspective, Loud House won’t be leaving until it WANTS to and even then nick will probably prepare a second spinoff to follow it up in some form, Amphibia has both the rest of season 2 to go, starting next month!, and a third season renewal meaning while that probably WILL be it i’ll have had two full seasons to cover by the time it’s over, and I went into Close Enough FULLY expecting it not to make it past season 1 as it’s long and harried production cycle lead me to belivie Time-Warner was just going to dump it on HBO Max and be done with it.. and to my utter and everlasting delight the opposite has happened: It didn’t just get renewed but it’s become one of HBO Max’s most popular shows, the flagship of it’s adult animation lineup, and been given THREE more seasons, two of which are coming very soon, and likely will get as many as it wants for the forseable future.

The point is.. I went into covering Ducktales expecting at least one more season and genuinely not knowing if i’d make it thorugh covering this one, and once this started to really work out for me, to the point from doubting i’d EVER be able to set up a Patreon to having one that nets me ten dollars a month, feel free to contribute if you enjoy these reviews even a buck a month helps, honest. Plus thanks to that ten bucks a month i’ll be covering the five part 87 Ducktales pilot in April and if you get it up to ten i’ll cover super ducktales. But I wouldn’t even had one without these reviews giving me something to start with, and I figured they’d be around for a few more years, at least one more season. I didn’t think the show would just.. end with this season and while the season IS a proper final season of the show, wrapping up arcs, introducing long overdue cast additions, giving us the biggest and best overarching plot thus far.. a good final season dosen’t make it hurt any less. But as a wise Synthizoid once said...

It hurts it’s going.. I wasn’t prepared for it.. but it’s giving us one hell of a last act, and if this episode is any indication, just because the end is in sight dosen’t mean the last few eps before the finale are phoning it in. This is the end... so now i’ve got my emotional stuff and the weight behind it out of the way, for now i’m defintely going to be bawling come the finale and I’m not ashamed, we can dive into the begining of the end. Counting down.. because really when else am I going to get to use this...

We’re at four and under the cut it’s beaks in the shell. Let’s get dangerous.

We open with a crime in progress as Gandra is stealing a thing for FOWL and Fenton has shown up on the scene to stop her as you’d expect.. along with Huey the boy wonder! He’s finally Fenton’s Sidekick!

Seriously it’s just so sweet to see this little payoff, to see Huey, after talking about it and clearly wanting to assit Fenton however he can, actually participate. Granted he dosen’t have an armor, yet, of his own, but still he’s been through enough stuff to be helpful> plus, Gyro’s reaction to Fenton trying to ge the resources for another gizmosuit was...

Gandra trips up his wheel, and im with 87 Scrooge in Ducktales Remastered, which I finally got to play recently! Horay!, what WAS gyro thinking with that design. Regardless she gets away, and our heroes return the loot off screen. Good day’s crime fighting.

Except something’s off with Fenton as he’s been working extra late lately and lying to both Gyro and Ma’Ma about it with both suspcious, Gyro because he dosen’t like not knowing things and especially not knowing what his former intern’s up to because he’s a bit of a control freak.. and because he probably can’t go visit his new clone farm and work on speeding up the process of his replacement bodies after moonvasion used em all up without Fenton finding out as he’d tell Scrooge and Scrooge would be like “Stop playing God in ways that could get me a steep fine!”. It’d be a whole thing. The fact Fenton’s also using their now shared intern in Manny and neither is telling him why probably isn’t helping and i’ts only that workplace harassment seminar that keeps him from trying to strangle either of them again. That and Manny dosen’t have a neck.

Ma’Ma is more upset that not only is he lying to her again, more on that later, but .. that she’s figured out he has a new girlfriend and understandably thinks there’s some dark reason he’s not telling her, and unlike Gyro turns out she’s two for two. I mean she is a detective while Gyro is more worried about his clone army, his man horse and his robot son. I mean the last two are valid but still Mama just has to worry about her job and her socially awkward adult son. She has more time to focus on this.

But yes, not only is Fenton seeing someone.. but it’s Gandra again. A bit abrubt but honestly this isn’t the first Fenton episode to move his life fast.. and frankly i’m more lenient on final seasons, or seasons INTENDED to be the last ones in terms of offscreen stuff, as your trying to get everything you can wrapped up in the span of 13-24 episodes depending on how lucky you get, if not less. Sometimes you just gotta use a reveal and some exposition to hurry things along and if presented right it works.. and here it is a while the summary for this episode spoiled the reveal, i’ts still subtly dramatic that not only has hef ully forgiven her.. but their together.. despite the fact she still works for fowl. Wuh-oh. After the credits we get an idea of what their working on, as Fenton used the gizmoduck suit to enter some kind of VR scape. This is the Gizmoscape! It’s a vast virtual reality landscape.. that looks like a fancy version of the VR Interface from community. Marble pillars, flowing water falls. Though ironically enough Jim Rash’s character is NOT a part of it and despite Fenton suggesting letting him in to help with their glitch problem she’s reluctant as it’s THEIR baby and she wants it to be perfect first before they allow other people in. Though i’m also sure part of it is that Gyro would start screaming JESUS WEPT! over and over.

Meanwhile Mark Beaks is having a big flashy press confrence to announce the new Waddlephone. Only a 50% chance of exploding! And that’s not my dig at Samsung but the shows as that’s really Beaks sales pitch. Unsuprisingly only one VERY bored looking nerd is there at the confrence. As for why he’s finally fallen so low part of it is explalined in the episode: His attempted thefts of the Gizmoduck suit have gotten stale. As the bored nerd puts it he’s tried to steal it four times already, two that we’ve seen but i’m VERY unsuprised he’s tried again off screen. He’s made it PAINFULLY clear he has no ideas of his own, constantly steals them, and the public’s tired of it. As for why it took THIS LONG.. this is sadly realistic. As the throngs of “hardcore gamers” defending Cyberpunk 2077 before it was released can attest to, internet nerd culture can often be toxic, stupid and defend big personalities even when they’ve CLEARLY done something terrible as long as their doing something they like. Beaks was clearly pilfering enough good products and doing enough antics on social media to still be liked and for them to ignore his blanat and douchey crimes and had enough money on him during said crimes to walk away from it.

Problem is.. while people can be awful and defend someone despite them not deserving their loyality, being a douche in public and doing VERY terrible things.. you have to have something to earn that loyalty. Waddle had that at first iwth project ta-dah, Waddleduck, various aps i’m sure... but it’s clear from context by this point Beaks has nothing left and no cult of personality to insulate him. Unlike say Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos he dosen’t HAVE some big product to mask his shadier wealth hoarding actions, he just has rampat supervilian attempts to steal someone else’s power armor and a hired hyjacking to get back at his cold unloving mother. Even when he does supervillian stuff like that.. he can’t be bothered to do it originally. The public will, and very sadly, defend you from terrible stuff, we’ve seen it with people supproting Gina Carano even though she’s actively spreading harmful disnfermation and then had the GALL to compare herself to jews hiding from the nazis, and one journalist trying to defend her had the gall to compare this to the hollywood blacklisting if the 50′s instead of you know, someone who woudln’t shut up about harmful dangerous shit finally getting fired for using teh platform said job provided to spread said harmful dangerous shit about masks and the vacine. But if you have nothing to offer.. thieri just going to forget you and move on. He has nothing to offer so they’ll gladly gravitate to some other jackass who can at leasat given them a neat phone instead of trying to steal a superhero suit for the 8th time. Mark realizes if he can’t steal something soon.. he’ll be forced to go with the Nuclear option: MAKE SOMETHING HIMSELF.

Back at Fenton’s toilet lab, Huey finds Fenton having some cyber makeouts with Gandra... which translates to him kissing the air and Huey feeling evne more awarkd than usual. As for why Huey’s here despite it being late, he got a piece of Gandra’s nanotech during the robbery and figures they can track her. Fenton is.. less than enthused about that for obvious reasons but things soon get worse for our hero as our other hero notices the linkup. And while sidekicks are a good thing in my eyes; They allow young heroes to get proper training, help nuture their talents and prevent assholes from telling them to stop it instead of you know helping them. It’s.. a more common trope than you think let me tell you.

But Fenton’s discovered the Downside is they can show up anytime, want to hunt your criminal girlfriend down not knowing the full story, and if their a genius like you, figure out what your up to with no effort and really want to try it. Seriously Huey’s almost as smart as you Fenton and will no doubt surpass you one day, this was a matter of when not if and you shouldv’e been more prepared. But Huey wants to try, and while Fenton tries deflecting since he only has the gizmoduck helmet and it only works for him now... Manny comes in with a bunch of vr rigs and Huey dives in. Naturally, Huey soon running directly into Gandra dosne’t go great.. and given this is huey his natural instinct is to have a panic attack over his best friend, mentor and the only person besides maybe his family, boyfriend and girlfriend that really gets him possibly betraying him and his entire family. Gandra is of course mad Fenton invited someone in when she didn’t want that, and even more someone whose clearly not happy with her and will likely tell on them because that’s basic hue-man nature.

Fenton explains he didn’t ask for this, so we get easily the best part of the episode: Gandra’s solution to the child having a mental breakdown.. is to summon a weighted blanket and throw it over him, which Huey mistakes for a trap and she explains helps with Anxiety.. and while he struggles.. it really does. Damn gotta get me one of those. Also while his Autisim remains vauge, likely on puprose, Huey having anxiety disorder, while obvious before, is now 100% confirmed.

So now he’s calm, though his Anxiety meter shows he’s still not happy and Gandra doubts he’ll listen, Fenton can at least try and explain: The two have been seeing each other and working on this in secret.. but it has NOTHING to do with FOWL other than Gandra embezzling resoruces to make it happen. Gandra also explains why the project is so important to her and Fenton via her own backstory: Super Science is a dangerous, unrpedictable field and accidents happen a lot, and given people tend to hate what they don’t understand, hence why the X-Men founded their own island after getting spat on one too many times, it often gets an unfair bad wrap.. and she shows she’s had to put up with this her whole life, making an intresting lazer thing as a kid that lost to a volcano and getting glared at for it accidently destroying said volcano. And as an adult due to her work’s dangerous and experimental nature, no one would take a chance on it and like many a super villian she had to experiment on herself. It’s also why she worked for Beaks last season and works with FOWL now, only supervillians with thier grandiose ambitions and lack of care for property damage would fund her.

That’s part, at least, of why this is so very important to her: The Gizmoscap eprovides an invorment where scientests and others can experiment unabated, where the only limit is imagination and those glitches they keep having and any accident can be frozen , dragged and dropped away with no damage. There’s no risk but all the reward and they plan to give it out for free, to let the public use this and let the world grow from it.

It also fills in a lot of Gandra’s character and gives weight to her last apperance: Her working with Beaks, while hypocritical, now has a tragic edge as he was simply the only one who’d fund her work. Her hatred of Fenton’s corprroate job and people like Scrooge.. is that in general billionares like him usually aren’t good people, and even SCrooge has his clear faults, and she assumed he was just making Fenton shut up and do things just to beniefit him and make him more money.. when Scrooge was instaead paying him to do a genuine public service as gizmoduck, and gives him and Gyro a LOT of leway and a pretty bottomless budget and only turns things down if their way too dangeorus for public release. The tragedy here is if she’d gone to Scrooge.. she never would’ve had to work for FOWL. He wouldd’ve genuinely supported her and likely given her a full ride and a spot in the lab of her own, maybe as an intern but probably on her own merit given how game changing her tech is and how he of all people understands a ballance of risk and reward. It turns her from a very hypcoriticla techie who works with the very people she scorns.. to someone who has no choice and desperatley wants out. And this is her way out: something new and bold that’, while not hers alone as Fenton co created it, could change the world and make it safe for people like her to do what they do without ridcule, scorn or risk. It’s everything she could’ve dreamed of and more and once it’s done she promises to leave fowl and as the end of the episode bares out, and as her tone makes clear, she’s genuine about it. She also TRULY does love fenton and vice versa and both are desspearte for Huey to keep a lid on things from Gyro till it’s ready, as she rightfully worries if it gets out unfisnished they’ll just be mocked agian. Naturally being a good soft boy Huey is now entirely on board, because he loves science, and he loves love and this is both. And frankly given what we saw way back in Astro BOYD... .he knows more than anyone what its like to be laughed at and mocked for being diffrent and simply being smart. And even though his family lvoes him.. only one member is as smart as him in the same way, his mom whose still a very diffrent person, and it wasn’t till this season he really got to connect with people his own age like him. And both Violet and BOYD could benifit form this.. everyone could. So he’ll keep it secret for now. This proves problematic as both Gyro AND Mama are there and both have questions. And while Huey ducks gyro, Mama.. interrogates a small child who she’s defintely met and likely knows has anxiety over something as trivial as her son having a secret girlfrined. You.. you guys might’ve wanted to remove this bit given last year. I”m just saying. Does not play well. The most Huey can come up with is a girlfriend in Canada which fenton plays along with... but given neither her nor gyro are really buying into things, though Mama has a check done on seamstresses in canada just in case because this bit was clearly written years ago and not rerecorded for whatever reason, Huey uses little bulb to fake a gizmo emergency so Fenton can get out of there, go home and work on this himself while Huey stalls and lies. But since his best on the fly lie was “a girlfriend in canada”, which is somehow worse than “who’s Dewey”, and while our boy is many things: excellent at opera, a good friend, a wonderful wingman, excellent at setting a mood, a good son, great at panic attacks, a genius, an expert woodchuck, knowledgeble on quantum mechanics.. the list goes on lying is not one of those things and he seems to be in a pickle.

Meanwhile Mark is struggling to create, can relate, because he’s entirely creatively sterile. And that’s probably why out of Scrooge’s foes.. he stopped being a threat. He has no vision. And while true the Beagle BOys also don’t besides steal stuff and maybe get our deed back, that’s by design as Ma knows they can’t take scrooge or gizmoduck so why cry. Stick to petty crimes and stuff he isn’t aware of or dosen’t care about. But Magica and Glomgold do. Magica is cunning, if not subtle, and manipulative and when on full blast horrifyingly powerful, and it took everything Clan McDuck had to stop her at full, and she still nearly won without any powers when she came back, and even if Lena can keep her in check now, she still GOT her powers back and got her new arch enemy to defeat her old one. Glomgold while only slightly more comipitent than beaks, and even then VERY slightly, he at least has vision. His schemes are entirely stupid.. but he dosen’t stop coming up with them. They may be his first draft but damn if they aren’t entertaining and damn if one or two haven’t WORKED. Simply stealing a few cents from scrooge and gaslighting him in a devil costume NEARLY drove him insane and cost him his fortune. Beaks.. has no ideas. He has ambiation.. but it’s to steal the same tech that even if he got it, he woudln’t know what to do with. The ONLY time he’s been a full on threat has been using someone else’s scheme, that Gandra clearly came up with and STILL required piggybacking on the gizmo suit. He has nothing and while it was fine for a while.. eventually h’es left iwth nothing. Glomgold at least has money, magica at least has power... Beaks HAD both.. but had no idea what to properly do with it and now is on his last legs. Even his idea for a coffee cups with aps is taken because of course “even the dumbest ideas are taken”, this is america. Making dumb shit for rich morons is our primary export. But he sees the fleeing fenton, has a breakdown and declares FINE if that’s what fate wants i’ll steal the armor I’LL STEAL THE ARMOR ALL DAY.

So Fenton heads home to recharge in both senses of the word, and to tell Gandra the timetable’s moved and Huey can hold them only so long. And he seems to be wrong as Huey confidently prepares to answer their questions.. but is seemingly thrown when we get the real reason Mama is so upset: She’s just worried and still a bit hurt from Fenton not feeling he could tell her he was gizmoduck and it breaks her heart that her son feels he has to hide from her again. However while this is genuinely sad and emotional.. the reason he’s thrown is it’s NOT huey, but Louie, whose a bit miffed as he DIDN’T know Fenton was Gizmoduck, and can’t properly bullshit without full info. it’s also really nice that bit FINALLY came up as the rest of the four main kids have known for a while now. But Huey convincnes him to do it.. for 6 months allowance. Frankly the real shocker here is that they actually GET an allowance.

However Mama.. is again a cop. One who REALLY needs to rethink her ethics.. but a cop, and the best one on the force, and thus has easily guessed this is not Huey, and given she’s probably ran into his schemes before, figures out which one he’d bring in to buffer for him and easily gets rid of Louie by asking him to tur informant on himself, since the REAL Huey would under pressure and Louie instead flees in terror not wanting to get arrested and leaves both the lab and the episode. Though I’m pretty sure i know where he went

So yeah things are not great and only get worse, as Mark breaks into fentons house via the open window and upon finding out abotu the Gizmoscape naturally plans to hack into it and take it for himself. Before he does Fenton talks to Gandra and admits they may have to let other people in and we get another reason: She’s worried she’s not good enough. He reassures her.. and this tender moment is interupted by Beaks who imprisons them, hyjacks fenton’s security system aka a gizmo armor, and while still a creatively sterile douche, does have a decent if horrifically scummy way to profit all of this: use the open coloabreation concept to get the legal right to steal all this and say it’s his.

Fenton bemaons the fact that Gandra was right, one bad apple spoiled the bunch and unveling it too qiuckly would’ve gone bad as she feared.. but Gandra’s grown and realizes Fenton was also right, and that they needed more people. While the wrong people can ruin a project, collaboration can help, finding perspectives you didn’t see and helping fine tune ideas. Huey, whose collapsed at Fenton’s due to the exustion of lying, wakes up to find Beaks crimes and being unable to just unplug him, as while Beaks is VERY dumb, even he’s not THAT stupid. But Fenton gets out an SOS over morse to tell everyone So Huey does.. and the calvary arrives, as Huey enters the Gizmoscape with Mama and Gyro. And while Mama is pleased to realize she’s right about the girlfirend thing they don’t really have time for that, so once Huey explains the basic concept, he uses it himself to give himself GIZMO ARMOR. AT LAST.

He also has extra long legs, because of course, just.. of course. Naturally Beaks steals it, and everyone else takes a stab at their own gizmotech armor: Mama daawns a stunning police themed one, Gyro goes for a bulb mecha based on the giant version of little bulb from the great dime chase, an idea brought up by LB, and Gandra goes for a sleek tron esque nanotech number. Beaks take sa bit from each and our heroes wonder how to beat him.. but Fenton realizes that’s simple: Beaks can only copy and steal... they can create. And Gandra uses this against him by pointing that out so he drops his super armor.. to look like Andross from Starfox.. which shows that EVEN when trying to come up with a cool final boss form... Beaks has to steal from something. The rest of the Gizmo Corps, my name for them I own that, Gizmo Legion would also be good, after Iron Man’s iron Legion, suit back up and kick beaks ass as a team. I smell second spinoff.. or first if darkwing ends up hyjacked by Seth Rogen.. who I have nothing agianst he’s just not the one who put in the work for a reboot.

So our heroes win in an awesome sequence, seirously spinoff and Beaks is knocked the fuck out and presumibly will FINALLY go to jail for good to this as he can get away from a lot but directly breaking into an officer’s house and stalking her son, they can omit the gizmopart and even if Fenton went public.. no one would care and he and Mama can take care of htemselves, as can Huey, Gyro, Gandra and Manny, so it’s not like anyones in danger. Beaks is well and truly defeated: he has no idea, an imminet jail sentence, and no one to back him up. Fenton’s finally got the little boil off his back

So now the big fight is over, Gyro can actually process the Gizmoscape.. and is genuinely impressed.. he tries to hidei t because of course he does.. but it’s clear for someone who himself has constnatly been called crazy and had his ideas blow up.. this is paradise to him. a place where he won’t be judged and has unlimtied funds to experiment with his ideas without having to get yelled at when they destroy a city block or nearly choked to death by his own robot son, daughter or nonbinary person. He also easily fixes the problem and proves Fenton right for wanting to include him, as he points out they hadn’t been DELETING anything, simply downsizing it and it naturally caused stress on the server. Fenton talks about Gandra and defneeds her to Mama.. whose just happy he’s happya nd someone can take her son. Alls well that ends well right.

Final Thoughts: So this was a... wait.. why are we cutting back to fowl.. why is bradford there.

Yeah turns out megalmanoical diabolical msterminds kinda monitor their employees so he knew she intended to quit and stole resources, and while she plans to leave, he simply calls in a bunch of eggheads who overwhelm her with sheer numbers and has her fined two weeks pay.. and taken to the lost library to indefintely lock her up. What’s that she asks “You have your secrets, I have mine”

So yeah a bit of a downer ending

Actual Final Thoughts:

This was an excellent capper to Fenton’s character arc. While the Gandra relationsihp is a bit rushed the rest is a masterful capper to his character arc: This episode shows off how he’s changed from EVERY one of his previous three focus episodes, while a major part of astro boyd and how he got his docterate it dosne’t quite contribute to his character arc, and grown from them: From beware the buddy system! he’s learned to colaberate properly and taken his desire to WORK with other people, like he always did with Gyro but was constnatly shut out, and found a proper and brilliant way to that allows people like him, gyro, gandra and huey to really express themselvs. He’s grown from a niave rookie trusting the wrong people in who is gizmoduck.. to someone whose STILL fully trusting despite constant betryals, but now knows who to trust, and an experinced hero who once freed easily counters his nemisis. And finally from Dangerous Chemistry, he’s finally got a ballance in his life: inastead of running from gizmo or treating his alter ego as something else.. he’s found a way to use the gizmotech for science, and FINALLY found his world changing invention one so good and so practical even his mentor, despite trying to walk it back, is genuinely proud of him and genuinely in awe.

Every step lead to his happy ending.. well okay his girlfriend still needs to be freed from her insane ex-boss, but that’s just a few episodes away. Fenton has everything he wanted when he started: his boss finally respects him and treats him as an equal, his mom not only knows who he is but is proud and supportive of him, he has a loving partner creatively and romantically.. and a best friend who while a good two decades younger, is there for him and who he genuinely apologizes too for putting so much on him. LIke all the endings so far this season.. it feels like a throughly satisfying end to the journey we’ve been following. This fits in nicely with Penny realizing earth could be her home and that she dosen’t have to constnatly fight to have a purpose, Lena finally accepting magic instead of running from it and thus gaining peace of mind and power to stop her former abuser from hurting anyone else, Goldie finally accepting how much she cars about Scrooge and his family and that she CAN change... all of this, except penny obviously has been built up through three seasons and while I DEFINTLY could see frank and matt returning to all of them.. i’ts nice to get some closure. It feelsd earned and impressive. The episode is also.. REALLY fucking funny, from the weighted blanket gag to Beaks in general, to Huey yelling at fenton about Mama “She somehow broke Louie!”. It’s a masterful and throughly satisfying end to Fenton’s story. And again we’ll likely see him in the finale but character arc wise.. its a good place to end his.

Next Week: FINALLY, AFTER 10,000 YEARS, IT’S THE TAILSPIN EPISODE. OWEEOOO, OWEEHHHH.

Tommorow: We return to the noiry furry world of John Blacksad as everyone’s favorite panther detective battles white supremacists to find a missing girl and we’re introduced to your faviorite sidekick and mine Weekly.

Later on this week: The Lena retrospective continues with Jaw$, we celebrate Tex Avery’s birthday, and I tackle the awful original tom and jerry movie.

So if any of that tickles your fancy see you at the next rainbow

#ducktales #beaks in the shell!#beaks in the shell #fenton crackshell cabrera #gandra dee #huey duck #mark beaks #gyro gearloose #mama cabrera #little bulb #manny the headless manhorse #gizmoduck #ducktales spoilers

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evilzoldyck · 4 years

Text

Break the Internet

On slow days like these where assignments were not yet assigned, Shalnark found an effortless way to make use of his time to save himself from unbearable boredom. Surprisingly, looking up valuable and sensitive information of strangers turned out to be more entertaining than he thought. Shalnark could scroll through endless facts without noticing how swiftly the minutes turned into hours.

Who knew the mayor of Yorknew City had accumulated an obsessive amount of photos hidden in his secret folder on his work computer dedicated to indulge his foot fetish. A plethora of renowned figure he vaguely recognises seemed to have the same tastes, it was also no surprise that these people had paid for sex more than once according to their transaction history. There were a myriad of amusing information he could use to keep himself busy, it was like reading an open book to someone’s inmost secrets, history and relations.

Though after scrolling through profile after profile, Shalnark couldn’t help but go back to yours. In contrast to many others, you lead an admirable life. An exemplar samaritan from your volunteering efforts, an upstanding citizen contributing to society and a diligent student all the way from middle school to university. This eventually landed you a job as a developmental disability nurse, working with children who were less fortunate and needed assistance.

How cute.

Though no one could hide and cover their secrets with a good track of records, and unfortunately for you, Shalnark knew your yours. Upon foraging your profile for any information he could acquire, he’d stumble upon the history of your recorded texts shared with your current boyfriend. His eyes widened at the ludicrous amount of contents exchanged consistently back and forth in such a short amount of time.

However, Shalnark was ecstatic to know that you were a little bit of a freak.

Numerous pictures and videos of nudes and explicit candid activities shared trustingly with each other. He must admit, your pretty and innocent appearance assisted you to create the perfect facade that threw him off guard. Therefore he would never took you for someone who’d enjoy sexting so much.

Shalnark clicked on a recent video which instantaneously showed a video cut of your body sprawled on the soft sheets, presumably showing off your lingerie as you slyly pushed your chest forward to show off how the delicate laces hugged your curves and slowly trailed your finger down but never letting the camera falter to follow after it.

Shalnark seemed to be enjoying it more than he thought, in just a matter of hours he had went through every video you recorded and sent. He couldn’t lie that your actions turned him on, he was left to imagine just how soft your skin would actually be like in real life and how sweet your soft mewls would sound right next to his ear as he fucked you right.

Though the boyfriend was a problem. Upon further examination, there was a reason to why there was so much lewd content between you and him over texts. Your current partner, Yoji, was working out of town for a huge business project that took months to settle. In the meantime, you both decided to fill the intimacy void obstructed by the physical distance through online social network means.

As expected, Shalnark wasn’t as intrigued or impressed in comparison to yours upon studying Yoji’s profile. Just an ordinary businessman with a slight dirty records of using tricks such as feigning business formalities and paperworks to launder money. A common plebeian among the sea of crowds, he could never understand how someone like you could be with someone as dull as him.

Though this mini mission of his that he assigned himself should be fairly easy.

A simple tune emitted from the computer caught your attention from your book you were currently reading to reveal that it was a notification for a video chat from Yoji. Smiling in anticipation you accepted wholeheartedly after making sure to fix yourself up quickly.

The screen lit up to display the familiar smile and face of your boyfriend. You felt your heart flutter at the sight of him, the distance had taken a toll on your heart and you were eternally grateful that he had even the vestige of time to spare for the both of you every night despite knowing the stress and burden he has from the project.

“Hey cutie, how was your shift?” He asked, softly smiling from the dark hotel room with the computer screen as the only source of light that slightly made his face visible for you.

“Tiring as usual but worthwhile,” you replied casually, resting your chin with either of your hand. “How’s the contract coming up? Are things finally wrapping up there?”

He let out a small sigh before responding back, “it’s getting there.” Immediately you felt guilty, you could see his bloodshot eyes and darkened bags that’s no doubt caused by the accumulated work he’s been facing. “Though can you do me a favour, baby?”

Perking up immediately you’d gladly do anything to help relieve the slightest bit of tension from your boyfriend. “Anything,” You obediently affirmed as he chuckled a little at your enthusiasm.

“Can you get on the bed,” he instructed slowly. “And fuck yourself for me?”

His words instantly brought your blood to rush into your cheek, it certainly wasn’t the first time you both did it over FaceTime but it still was an experience you couldn’t get used to without being a little shy. Perhaps the reason behind your apprehension was that because it was a live feed in comparison to the videos and pictures that you carefully rehearse, you were slightly nervous in putting only the best show for him. Nevertheless, you did as he said and made yourself comfortable on the bed while folding your legs to sit on top of them.

Shalnark smiled pleasingly from the next room over from your boyfriend’s at how willing and compliant you were, though having to masquerade as him was not ideal, he figured he’d have fun and take advantage of the situation before he discarded his toy.

“Take off your top and let me see you play with your tits,” he muttered as he instructed the order on his phone that currently controlled Yoji’s slowly decaying dead body.

“Okay,” You tender and shy voice came through from a secondary laptop screen which allowed Shalnark to enjoy the show from the comfort of his own private hotel room and away from detecting any suspicions from you.

True to your words, you took off your comfortable sweater from the front that revealed your full bare breasts on display for him. Biting your lip, you took both of your hands to your chests slowly, you made sure to send sultry gazes towards him, hoping he was a turned on as much as you were.

Gently, you began to palm your chest as your tits pebbled from the touch, stimulating warmth that bloomed from the pits of your stomach. Yoji seemed to be enjoying the view as he stared intently at the screen. That gave you a boost of encouragement as you continued to play with yourself, pinching and softly tugging on your nipples which made you whimper and roll your head back.

Shalnark languidly laid back on his chair and began to rub his dick through his shorts, eyes never leaving your form as they caress your breasts prettily. You really did know how to put on a show for him.

“Take off your shorts and panties.” He ordered once more. With little reluctance from your end, they were discarded within a moment, leaving you completely vulnerable for his viewing pleasure. “Spread your legs and play with yourself.”

Feeling yourself get even wetter by his demanding decree, you spread your thighs to allow him to look at your glistening pussy. You loved entertaining with the idea of subjecting yourself to him, knowing he loved it when you do as he says, even though he didn’t completely have control over you.

Reaching down to collect the copious amount of slick fluid leaking from your cunt, you trailed it along your slit before rubbing soft circles around your clit making you jolt in pleasure. You felt your hardened little nub making contact with your delicate touches as it easily slipped from your lubricant.

“That’s great, honey,” he breathed out. “But spread it a bit more.”

“Like this?” You asked meekly, one hand behind your back to support yourself from falling down as you spread your thighs more open.

Shalnark’s dick was already out by this point from the confinement of his trousers as he stroked it painfully slow as to match your pace. His eyes couldn’t bear to leave the screen as you displayed your pretty cunt so openly to him, teasing it with your tiny fingers making him want to reach through the screen and show you how much better his would feel. With one hand still gripping onto his device, he typed in another order.

“Yeah, now put a finger in.”

Panting slightly, you reached down and slowly entered a single digit, letting your cunt to squeeze around your finger as you moaned at the intrusion.

“Y-Yoji! Ahh...” your head lolled back when your walls closed in on you, making you rub on a very special spot that sent your senses flying. In haste, you added another finger in as you continued to play with yourself and you noticed Yoji’s eyes never faltered from the screen, watching you slip your fingers in and out.

“Does it feel good, baby?” You nodded lightly at his words. “Can you rub your pussy faster for me? I want to see you fuck yourself harder...”

“Mmh!...” you cried as you sped up your fingers. It felt so surreal, you could feel yourself almost touching the stars at this point. Your eyes were hazed in the image of your boyfriend as your mind were only clouded by carnal desires. You’ve never felt so good every time you did this with him, it made you all the more excited to see him in the next upcoming week for when he gets back.

Feeling your walls clenching onto your fingers, you knew you were near your end soon. “I-I’m getting close...” you whined out, “I’m going to cum, Yoji!”

“Stop.”

You let out a dumb, “huh?” in response. He would seldom stop you just before you reached your peak so this was a slight surprise.

“Reach into the drawer for your dildo, I know that’s where you keep them.” Blushing profusely, you nevertheless acquiesced and promptly took the small pink toy in your hand. “Now fuck and play with it.”

You glared at him through the screen but that front shattered as you felt the head enter into your warm, plush cunt. At this point you’ve nearly turned yourself inside out. “Y-yoji! Ohh...” you moaned at the snug fit as you got it all the way inside, arching your back in pleasure as your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

“Feels nice doesn’t it, babe?” Too high off of pleasure you hummed blissfully in return.

Grabbing the base you continued the pace you were with your fingers, no longer having any patience to draw out your orgasm any longer. The room was filled with your wanton moans and debauched sighs as well as the promiscuous sounds of your slick with the toy no doubt coming through to the audio.

“I’m so c-close!” You managed to whimper out. “Let me cum Yoji- please! Let me cum!”

“Say the magic words.”

“F-fuck! Ahh...” sweat beads ran down the back of your spine at this point. “I love you! I wish you were h-here... fucking me instead- god! I miss you so much, I think a-about you every day, I want you here with me always!”

“Good.”

With his word, you felt your hot, soft walls closing hard around the pink toy and squirt out a gratuitous amount of fluids, coating your thighs and sheets with it. Your mind was blank as you felt yourself so stimulated that you worry your body could couldn’t handle this much force. Gripping the sheets tightly through your orgasm, you cried out in pleasure as you fell backwards with your toes and back curled naturally.

Shalnark’s hands were now already coated with his thick cum, smiling exuberantly at your fun and cute little adventure. Well, now he guess was the time to pull down the curtains and reveal himself. After all, his puppet broke, he has no use for him anymore.

Panting out to catch your breath, you laid on the side to face the screen and smiled tiredly.

“How was I?” You asked sheepishly. Yoji’s face turned blank for a moment before dropping his head down to the keyboard harshly.

“Yoji?!” You cried out in desperation and fear as you sat up in shock. What on earth just happened? You saw a little sword like needle pinned itself on the back of his head and before you could make sense of it the screen went black before revealing a jubilant young man with a smile seemingly etched onto youthful face.

“That was more than amazing!” He joyfully cheered.

Quickly you grabbed a hold of your blanket to make yourself somewhat decent in front of this strange pervert.

“Aww,” he whined at the lack of skin that you covered. “Why are you suddenly acting shy on me now?” Pouting in indignation as if you suddenly took away a toy he was playing with.

“Who are you? What did you do to Yoji?” You’ve no doubt this man was behind it all.

He sighed out your name nonchalantly and replied exasperatedly, “he’s already dead so I wouldn’t get too worried about it, I’ll just take over his position.” He giggled boyishly. “How about it? You seem like your in need of a new boyfriend since your last one is... you know...” he cringed and pretended to slice his head with own his hand.

“You’re crazy if you don’t think I’m not going to report you!” Crying in defiance as you felt tears starting to fill your eyes.

“But then it’d be a shame if your private home movie went viral,” He grimly implied as the screen changed into you fucking yourself silly on the bed. Somehow this creep had managed to record every single second of your lewd activity. You gasped horrifyingly, feeling the said tears now dropping into your hot cheeks.

“What would your family think? Your colleagues? Your bosses? Don’t you work with children?” He placed a finger on his chin pretending to think hard. “I’d imagine it to be quite hard to find a job if something like this went pub-“

“Just stop,” you sobbed out pathetically as you turned to face him through the screen. “What do you want?”

“Meet me at your favourite cafe tomorrow at noon.” Smiling innocently despite the tenebrous tension between the two of you. When you didn’t say anything, too defeated and scared to utter out a word, he took your silence as a tacit comply as his smile seemingly began to widened.

“Great, it’s a date!”

#what a time to be alive living in the future blinging on my hotline 🤪🖕#dubious consent #dub-con #tw:yandere #tw:violence #tw:manipulation #yandere shalnark #shalnark #yandere pahntom troupe #shalnark x reader #reader #reader insert #yandere hunter x hunter #hunter x hunter 2011 #hunter x hunter #hxh #cyber sex by doja cat is timeless #smut #yandere shalnark x reader

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goodbysunball · 3 years

Text

Bring it on home

Comparatively easy listening from the set of records showcased this time around, but there's a world of grief settin' your jaw to grind. You deserve a neck massage and a cocktail; lean into these after you put your misery rectangle aside for a spell.

Astute Palate, s/t (Petty Bunco)

Emily Robb, David Nance, Daniel Provenzano, and Richie Charles got together and hammered out this LP during "48 sleepless hours" in Philadelphia. It's definitely a fairly rough documentation, but if you know the players, that's generally what you'd be gettin' into with 'em anyway. Gotta admit that I'm not a huge fan of what I've heard by David Nance - respect his hustle, though - and the same goes for the tracks he leads here; in particular, the studied classic rock caterwaul employed on "Stall Out" basically rolls my eyes for me. I am, however, fond of David Nance the Guitarist and his heroics on "Stall Out," and "A Little Proof" definitely has me more curious about his recent solo work I've skipped. These are pithy grievances, though: the album rules, as a whole, but it's just hard to stomach some of Nance's lyrics when they're side-by-side with bonafide jammers like "Bring It On Home" and "Treadin' Schuylkill." "Bring It On Home," in particular, with its Velvets-inspired chug and Robb's bleary vocals coolly beckoning you to do as the title says, heats to a boil with the blustery, fried guitar interplay. For me it wipes the floor with anything else on the album, and pretty much anything else I'll hear this year, so let's put all my petty complaints aside and declare this the Summer of Astute Palate, OK? Looks like the secret's out - the LP's sold out from the source, but can be found hiding in various distros and shops. Hunt it down, crack a tallboy, and embrace the sweltering heat of our melting planet with Astute Palate.

Maraudeur, Puissance 4 (self-released)

New and best LP yet from Leipzig's Maraudeur, self-released with some of the best packaging/artwork I've seen in a minute. My memory's usually a bit faulty, but I recall the band being a three-piece on their last, still very good LP from Bruit Direct Disques. I'm inclined to think that the group's ranks have swelled to five anyway, since the sound here is a bit more bright and full, lots of different moving parts zipping and moving around, giving the crisp recording some effervescence. Compared to older songs like "Computer Dreams," Maraudeur sounds sharper, capable of backing up any threats rather than coming across as deflated and listless. Even the slower songs on Puissance 4, such as "Slow Dress," thrive on tension, guitar strings set to snap amidst the robotic/hypnotic vocals. The band seems to have located a sweet spot between the simmering minimalism of Household and the technologically damaged vision of Chrome, and "TWYWYS" basically sounds like a collaboration between the two groups. Guitars are used as window dressing, favoring instead synths and showcasing the chops of the rhythm section. "Face/Figure" and my favorite track "C'est Caché" are the best examples of Maraudeur's rhythmic foundation, but nearly every track causes inadvertent head bobbing. While accessible and familiar on the surface, Maraudeur's dry humor, the carefully camouflaged layers of sound, and whatever is going on in "I Am Here" keep boilerplate post-punk comparisons at bay. Puissance 4 is a refreshing, addictive brew from the not-too distant future, and probably a blast to experience live.

Astrid Øster Mortensen, Gro Mig En Blomst (Förlag För Fri Musik)

New Gothenburg talent alert! Mortensen is apparently a newcomer to the scene, and her debut LP fits in nicely amongst the Förlag För Fri Musik discography. Gro Mig En Blomst features lonely and debased late-night solo explorations with guitar, piano and what sounds like an accordion, accented by electronic manipulations and the found sound that accompanies most FFFM records. It's dreary and stark, and can quickly bring the mood down when it's on. For me the most obvious reference point is Grouper's Ruins, in that both are recordings so intimate that it feels like an interruption to move while it's on. But I also get bits of Picastro's Whore Luck ("Hvor Kommer Mørket Fra?" sounds like it was plucked directly from that album), and there are similarities to Chloe Alison Escott's solo work, on the title track and "Piano i" and "Piano ii." Gro Mig En Blomst is a far cry from more traditional singer-songwriter music, dabbling in Stars of the Lid-like drone on "Brud ii" and jumping into the "Is there a record on or...?" genre on "Solen Er Et Lille Hus" and "Brud i." I can't say I go out looking for records this fragile and surface-level bleak anymore, but Mortensen's work is more often beautiful and calming than hopelessly gray. Another keeper from FFFM, sure to be one of the most sought-after records from the label, and for good reason.

Nightshift, Zöe (Trouble In Mind)

Travel back in time with me, if you will, to a time when "indie rock" was a genre label that had some meaning. After getting rid of the bad taste in my mouth and shaking off the embarrassment at who I was when I largely listened to stuff that'd broadly fall under that label, I'll allow that Nightshift is making a strong argument for some of the music released during the comparative naiveté of the late '00s/early '10s. Across Zöe, you get shades of Broadcast, Lower Dens' Twin-Hand Movement, the UV Race ("Spray Paint the Bridge"), Belle & Sebastian and A Sunny Day In Glasgow ("Power Cut" and "Romantic Mud"). The trick to Zöe is that it folds all these reference points in neatly and places it on a sturdy percussive base. I won't argue that every song here is memorable, but they're all enjoyable, and the songs that hit - "Outta Space," the title track, "Infinity Winner" - send chills down my spine every time. Guitars are plucked and scraped for leading beats, accentuating shuffling drums and giving the bass the spotlight. The vocals are dreamy and lyrics direct, and for the duration of Zöe you're relieved of the pessimistic present and allowed to rigidly dance to Nightshift's hesitant groove. They've charmed their way through my cynicism, and Zöe's been on heavy rotation despite my reluctance. Take it for a spin, and fall under Nightshift's spell.

Hugo Randulv, Radio Arktis: Samlade Ljud Från Den Norra Polcirkeln (Förlag För Fri Musik)

First solo LP from Hugo Randulv, an active presence in the Gothenburg scene with his involvement in Enhet För Fri Musik, Skiftande Enheter and Amateur Hour, among others. Though typically a guitarist, on Radio Arktis, he drops the guitar and instead fills both sides with glacial synths and dusty samples. The label's original write-up for this record called it "grand ambient," though to me it sounds and feels much more personal than something that would soundtrack the Olympics. His use of samples, most notably on "Radio Reykjavik," sounds intimately tied with some fleeting memory, the music serving to enhance or exorcise the feeling tied to it all. It reminds me most of the Fun Years' "God Was Like, No" in that both records used the tools common to ambient/drone music but applied a much more personal touch, that certain nameless attribute that keeps drawing a listener back in. Can't put my finger on it, but both records just sound like they had to be made, rather than serving as a genre exercise or one-off exploration. I don't know that Radio Arktis is going to change anyone's life, but it could, and I've been hypnotized by its wordless, sparkling gray tones for weeks. Even though the "solo musician embraces synths" thing is usually pretty tired and pointless, Hugo Randulv's contribution shows why it's an alluring proposition at all.

Sunhiilow, Beyond the Cycle (Ikuisuus)

More solo synth, this time coming from Valerie Magisson and her Moog Mother-32. Magisson's Sunhiilow project veers into new age/ambient with its bite-sized kosmische explorations. There's something about the combination of the short length of these tracks and the sense of movement present within each that allows Beyond the Cycle to transcend the lifeless drivel that's usually tagged "new age" and "synth." It seems intentional that Magisson was trying to capture the mood of each track title in its corresponding music, and she is largely successful, though its unclear if the title provided direction or was applied afterward. The somewhat jarring introduction of "Wilderness Bloom" and the stoned growth of "Circle Motion" are my top picks, but the album works best as a whole and played very loudly, the overall effect immersing the listener into heady zones traversed by the Nightcrawlers. Leave it to Ikuisuus to release an "ethereal ambient music" record that satisfies, and sounds and looks great to boot. Sunhiilow's a lot more tame than most of what Ikuisuus releases, but it's an accessible, recommended starting point to one of the best active labels. HOWDY.

#Astute Palate #Maraudeur #Astrid Øster Mortensen #Hugo Randulv #Nightshift #Sunhiilow #Petty Bunco #Förlag För Fri Musik #Ikuisuus

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imgoingtocrash · 4 years

Text

knowing (of everything she doesn’t)

Chapters: 1/1

Rating: G

Word Count: 9,097

Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Morgan Stark & Tony Stark, Michelle Jones & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Happy Hogan & Michelle Jones, Happy Hogan & Peter Parker

Summary:

“Mister Stark means a lot to me, M,” Peter says firmly, effectively ending the discussion.

“I know,” she answers, squeezing his hand where it rests over the cupholder between them.

Looking out the window, what she thinks to herself is: do you mean that much to him?

Maybe it’s overprotective or presumptuous of her—she’s only known Peter well for a couple of years and has been dating him for less than one.

It’s just—in all that time, in all of the stories of his alter-ego’s exploits that he’s finally shared…she just can’t see how the universe-saving multibillionaire fits into all of this.

MJ joins Peter for a Thanksgiving visit to the Starks' lake house. It turns out that even after years of quiet observation and a few months of dating, there are still things about Peter Parker and his life that manage to surprise her.

Read on AO3

My gift for @peter-stank for @friendly-neighborhood-exchange!!! Happy belated Birthday, Beedee, and thank you so much for your amazing contributions to the fandom. Hopefully you enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3 (Fic also under the cut, as requested by the exchange/until reveal.)

They’re an hour into a two and a half hour drive when Michelle decides to drop the question.

“Isn’t it weird?” MJ asks. “Casually being invited to your boss’s house for Thanksgiving?”

Peter shrugs, but she can see the way his shoulders tense underneath his hoodie when he answers, “Maybe. Before.”

Before doesn’t need to be clarified. The Blip.

“Besides, he makes a mean turkey stuffing. I promise, that’s worth it,” Peter attempts to deflect, the barest hint of a smile directed her way.

But Michelle has never been good at leaving well enough alone. She asks too many questions, sometimes makes people uncomfortable. It’s how she got good at academic decathlon and how she (mostly) figured out Peter was Spider-Man.

“What changed?”

“Hm?”

“The Blip was traumatic for everyone in one way or another. Why did it change things with Tony?” She never refers to him as Mister Stark despite Peter rarely ever calling his mentor anything else.

“It just…did.” Peter shrugs again, eyes determinately focused on the road ahead and far away from her. “He lost me, I almost lost him, it sucked. That’s all.”

“Okay, but—“ It just doesn’t make sense to her that he was an intern at SI or a superhero colleague or whatever, and somehow it added up to…whatever this is. Schlepping up to the Catskills in Peter’s hand-me-down Toyota for a few days at the Starks’ cabin. Like, that’s just a thing that Peter has been invited to do, and he doesn’t think anything of it.

“Mister Stark means a lot to me, M,” Peter says firmly, effectively ending the discussion.

“I know,” she answers, squeezing his hand where it rests over the cupholder between them.

Looking out the window, what she thinks to herself is: do you mean that much to him?

Maybe it’s overprotective or presumptuous of her—she’s only known Peter well for a couple of years and has been dating him for less than one.

It’s just—in all that time, in all of the stories of his alter-ego’s exploits that he’s finally shared…she just can’t see how the universe-saving multibillionaire fits into all of this.

They arrive at the lake house just as the sun’s setting, the orange hues reflecting across the water.

A loud thwack breaks the relative silence that’s formed by the car’s engine turning off.

“Petey!” shrieks the high pitched little voice that accompanies a little blur of movement out of the house.

Peter’s already unbuckling his seatbelt, a smile blown wide across his face. He kicks the door open—used to the way it sometimes sticks—and just barely misses hitting the brown-haired little girl that can only be Morgan Stark in her precious little head.

“Morgie!” Peter shouts in a parrot of her tone, not bothering to shut the door behind him before he picks up the five-year-old girl, spinning them both around in circles while she screams with laughter.

“’S so good to see you,” Peter says, pressing sloppy kisses to Morgan’s cheeks. “Did you miss me?”

“Yeah! Daddy said you were coming for a whole week this time, and I have a whole list of movies that you have to watch with me, and—“

Morgan trails on, but MJ is watching Peter—his attention is zeroed in on the girl in his arms, his megawatt grin on full display. He’s comfortable with her. She called him Petey—a nickname she knows is usually reserved only for May. She knew Peter was close with Morgan, but she’d always assumed it was in that way she sees her younger cousins every holiday and they think she’s the coolest person in the world for exactly eight hours, and then they don’t see or speak to each other again until the next family event, rinse and repeat.

The girl stops herself, moving her eyes directly to MJ and locking on. She’s always kind of hated that about little kids—they look into your soul and just kind of know things.

“Who’s that?” Morgan asks, more firmly wrapping her arms around Peter, as if to protect him.

(The only danger Peter’s been in from MJ in the last three hours was during their argument about road trip playlists. Particularly, Peter’s memetic gag of repeating What’s New Pussycat? on the same playlist multiple times and thinking she wouldn’t stop it before the first It’s Not Unusual.)

Michelle decides to get out of the car and introduce herself instead of awkwardly staring through the open door. It’s a bit of a chore—the passenger door’s handle is finicky—but she gets out without landing her ass in the mud and considers it a win. She still wipes her hands on her pants as she rounds the car, trying to remove any weird, nervous sweat. She’s not worried about it. She’s fine.

“I’m, um. Michelle,” she states, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

Morgan’s head quirks to the side, looking Michelle up and down before she screams, “Daddy, Petey brought some weird stranger to Thanksgiving!” directly into Peter’s ear.

“Ow,” he hisses, rubbing at his earlobe. “Morgan, that’s not cool, MJ is—“

Morgan doesn’t let Peter finish, sticking out her tongue and wriggling out of Peter’s arms, running off towards the house as fast as she came out of it.

Tony Stark himself opens the screen door of the cabin next, chuckling as his daughter weaves between his legs. The effects from the battle with Thanos are clear—though it’s less intense than she imagines it was a year ago. White scar tissue spindles through the right side of Tony’s face, following down under his t-shirt and transitioning into to the metal arm painted the iconic Iron Man color scheme of red and gold.

Peter showed her the specs of that arm shortly after they got together—apparently Tony finished his rehab just after their trip to Europe, and it was supposed to be a gift from Peter. Seeing it on the man himself is…daunting, to say the least.

“Sorry about her,” Tony says, easing himself down the stairs as he approaches. There’s no kind of limp, but he seems to take his time with it all the same. “She gets a little territorial with us sometimes. Pep says we need to get her around more kids her own age, but the idea of sending her off to preschool…”

He shakes his head like he’s clearing cobwebs. She has to admit, he seems more human like this, surrounded by nature, talking about his daughter, the sun showing the lighter, grey strands of his hair more clearly.

“Hey, Pete,” Tony says, pulling Peter into a hug. It’s not just a one-armed casual sort of hug either, but a full one that goes on for a minute, dramatically rocking them back and forth. “Ugh, I missed you.”

“It’s only been a few days, Mister Stark!” Peter’s laughing reply is muffled into Tony’s shoulder. When they come apart, the smile from earlier has returned. Tony’s hands—robotic and human—have moved to Peter’s shoulders.

“A week. A whole week! I can’t spend that much time away from you anymore. It aggravates my angina.”

“Now you’re just trying to be embarrassing,” Peter grumbles, reluctant when the other man runs his hand through Peter’s gelled hair and musses it up just so.

“Absolutely,” Tony admits. He turns to Michelle. “You must be the famous scary girlfriend.”

“You’re just as bad as Morgan!” Peter whines. MJ isn’t sure she’s ever heard him sound so childish in his life despite the fact that he acts like a giant, overexcited goofball ninety percent of the time.

“My reputation precedes me,” Michelle ends up replying, shaking Tony’s hand when it’s offered. For some reason she was more nervous to meet Morgan than her father. Maybe it’s just her instinct to not be intimidated by rich tycoon types. Then again…she and the rest of the world know that he’s much more than that. Still. Old habits die hard.

“Now see, she can take a joke. I like her,” Tony says, nodding at Peter. Peter’s face goes a soft red, just edging on a full blush. She doesn’t really care if Tony likes her, but Peter clearly does.

Tony hooks an arm around both of their shoulders, leading them up to the house.

“Seriously, it’s good to have you guys. I’ve kind of been dreaming about the holidays—it got me through a lot of my physical therapy sessions,” he admits. It seems to be a more vulnerable comment than he lets on—Peter leans his head onto Tony’s shoulder. He’s almost too tall for it, but it’s…weirdly sweet. Peter’s big on physical comfort, as she now knows. Apparently even Tony has gotten used to it.

“Christmas is going to be a goddamn blow out, trust me,” Tony continues, breaking their grouping to lead them into the house. “Wall to wall Avengers, a mountain of presents. I’m slowly but surely convincing Pepper to let me build a fully functioning Santa’s sleigh to put on the roof.”

“No, he’s not,” comes a voice from deeper in the house. Pepper Potts steps in from what must be the kitchen, wiping flour off on the apron around her waist. “I will accept the light-up ones that are meant to be decoration and nothing else.”

Pepper presses a finger into her husband’s chest firmly, spreading a puff of flour and accenting her point with a quick peck to his lips. It’s a surprisingly domestic scene. She looks at Peter, and he’s looking at her already, soft doe eyes and a mind probably full of gross, sweet things that are way, way in their future.

Dork, she mouths. His returning smile is predictably un-cowed.

“You kids are just adorable,” Tony comments. Pepper nudges him with an elbow on her way to Peter.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says, pressing a kiss to his head and holding her hands up. “I’d hug you but—“

“All good,” Peter replies. “Anything I can do to help?”

“No, no. You unpack, relax. I’ve got it, just—semi-literally have my fingers in a lot of pies, right now.”

“That’s code for please, god, don’t let a Parker near my cooking,” Tony whispers to her.

“Enhanced. Hearing.” Peter’s look at his mentor is the closest to peeved that he really gets. (She has to admit, though—there’s a reason they mostly go out or order in on dates. Cooking isn’t really either of their fortes.)

“Boys,” Pepper hums. It sounds like this is a common occurrence in the Stark household. “It’s nice to meet you, Michelle. Peter talks about you all the time. Again, I’d shake your hand, but—“ She holds up her palms, shrugging.

“No it’s—super awesome to meet you. Thank you for having me.” It’s actually beyond awesome. Despite her beef with Stark Industries and their ilk, she has to admit Pepper Potts is pretty high on her list of inspirational female powerhouses. She became CEO at 40 with only a Bachelor’s in Business and a Fine Arts minor, and Stark Industries entered a historic era of technology production and philanthropy under her guidance.

“Oh my god, you’re totally starstruck right now, aren’t you?” Peter questions in her ear, quieter than Tony so that only she hears.

“Shut up,” she says between her teeth, swatting at his arm without breaking her smile at Pepper.

Pepper smiles, giving Tony a look that Michelle can’t decipher. It might be flirtatious? Are she and Peter reminding Pepper of Tony and herself when they were younger? Her life is so weird, right now.

“I’ll go get our stuff,” Peter offers, out the screen door before she can argue that she doesn’t need his help. Like, it’s nice that her boyfriend can lift an entire car’s worth of stuff in one go, but she doesn’t always need him to. It feels a little…exploitative of his powers, somehow.

“I have a five-year-old to console,” Tony says, then quirks his head. “Chide? Eh, I’ll feel it out in the moment. Maybe a little of both. Make yourself comfortable, Michelle.”

Pepper watches Tony ascend the stairs, a what can you do? sort of look on her face towards MJ.

“Seriously, you and Peter have the afternoon to yourselves. If you need anything, just ask FRIDAY.” Pepper points up to the ceiling, as if that’s where the AI lives—which, maybe it does—before she turns around and attends to the beeping timer coming from the kitchen.

Michelle’s had a little experience with Peter’s AI, Karen, but the whole house being run by a super AI is something totally out of the norm. Honestly, she’ll probably just ask Peter any questions to avoid conversing with it.

She takes the chance alone to really observe her surroundings. From the outside the house looked like a pretty rustic cabin, but inside it’s a mostly-open floor plan mix of modern design and homey decor.

In particular, she notices the walls and surfaces are covered in pictures. The entryway features what can only be a shot of Tony and Pepper’s wedding day. The lake is featured behind them—Tony in a suit, Pepper in a white maternity dress that accentuates her pregnant belly.

Further into the living area there’s a larger variety of shots: Baby Morgan in Tony’s arms at the hospital, a few older shots with faces Michelle recognizes—Bruce Banner, James Rhodes, and even a group shot of the Avengers, smiling and receiving Medals of Honor from the Mayor of New York.

Nestled in a few shots of Morgan at a few different ages is a familiar face. Peter is pictured with Tony—it’s a selfie that was clearly printed, Peter making a goofy face combating Tony’s unamused expression. Next to it is a more recent picture. It appears to be from the spring shortly after the battle. Morgan is sitting in Peter’s lap, her hands covered in sticky popsicle juice while Peter is taking a lick from the offered desert over her shoulder. Clearly a candid moment.

Finally, nestled in-between a shot of the Starks teaching a younger Morgan how to swim and a press picture of Tony and Pepper from a gala she can’t identify is one of Peter and Tony on the very couch next to her, both of them asleep and pajama-clad, like they’d fallen asleep like that the night before and someone caught it the morning after.

“Ugh, that one’s so bad,” Peter says, suddenly behind her. He has a talent for sneaking up on her, one that would probably be more useful if he wasn’t always running his mouth and announcing his presence, particularly to bad guys. “Of course you found it.”

“I didn’t realize—“ she starts, but frowns, unsure of exactly what she’s thinking. It’s so…homey, here, and Peter’s clearly welcome. She knew he visited a lot, but this… “You’re all over the place.”

Peter clearly doesn’t think anything of it, shrugging. “I, um. We didn’t have anywhere to go after, you know?”

He’s never comfortable talking about the Blip or the battle against Thanos. A lot of people aren’t, but Peter in particular always stumbles through it. In the months of their dating, he’s only brought it up if she’s asked, never on his own.

“We lived here for a while. Our old apartment belonged to someone else, but May wouldn’t take any charity, wouldn’t accept the Starks’ penthouse in the city. She and Pepper looked for a place in Queens for months, but there were suddenly all of those people looking for housing…”

He loses himself for a moment. He does this sometimes too, drifting off like he’s disconnected, unable to keep himself in the here and now.

She takes his hand, and with a squeeze he comes back. There aren’t any tears, but there’s a weight in his eyes that she recognizes: guilt. For having a home when others still don’t months later. For failing at stopping Thanos the first time. For any number of other things he’s yet to reveal to her.

“Peter…” she tries, but what can she say? It’s times like this that she wishes she was…more. That she was better equipped to handle this superhero life that he’s so dedicated to. He takes the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she hasn’t figured out exactly how to give him a break, to take some of the weight as her own, or if she ever can.

“It’s fine, I’m—anyway, it was just…kind of nice, after everything that happened. Tony was recovering from here, Pepper was working from home a lot, Morgan was scared, I was…” He clears his throat, not finishing the sentence. “It was good to have everyone under one roof for a while, that’s all.”

She tucks herself into his side in a hug, unsure how else to respond. He would accept platitudes but he wouldn’t believe them. She rarely knows the right thing to say, anyway. Maybe this is the best she can do.

He pats her shoulder, breaking the quiet. “Come on, I’ll show you upstairs.”

Peter keeps his arm around her as they walk, squeezing them both up the stairs with their backpacks in hand.

“We’re staying in my room.” He stops walking, stiffening in a way that makes her feel—well, her age. They haven’t even really discussed sex, but any discussions past their first few chaste kisses have turned out a little awkward, stumbling forward because neither of them have dated before this.

“I mean, as long as that’s okay with you, I can take the couch, or—“

“No, no, that’s fine. We’ve shared before,” she mumbles, knowing there have been a few times May must have seen them asleep on Peter’s bed and let them be. She assumes his aunt’s open door policy will stay in place, likely why the Starks are okay with them sharing. Not like she has much desire to do anything in the Starks’ house, and especially with a five-year-old only a few rooms away.

“Your room?” she asks, moving them along. She assumed he and May just shared a guest bed or something that he just took over whenever he visited, not that he had a room of his own.

“It, ah—Mister Stark insisted,” Peter laughs, but mixed in with the slight embarrassment is something warm too, shown by how Peter’s gaze turns to the door clearly labeled Morgan’s Room in a pretty cursive font, likely Pepper’s work. She can hear the soft murmurs of Tony’s voice in the room, meaning that Peter can probably hear the entire conversation.

There’s a bathroom in the hall that’s a mix of Morgan’s colorful bath toys and what she knows is Peter’s deodorant sitting on the sink counter. Next to Morgan’s room is another bedroom, likely Tony and Pepper’s. At the end of the hall is where they stop, the unmarked door holding a room that is different from Peter’s in New York, but funnily enough, almost more expressive of him.

Peter hasn’t made it a secret that he doesn’t love his new apartment—it’s smaller than their old place, and devoid of the memories from his Uncle Ben’s presence. He seems to think there’s not much point in decorating it with the future expectation of college dorms ahead of them, and has apparently spilled most of his personal effects across this room instead.

The A New Hope poster on the wall is one of the nicer reproductions, framed and—signed by Mark Hamill, of course, probably a gift from Tony. A hologram is up on the desk, the Spider-Man symbol lazily floating around like a desktop screensaver. There are a few Lego sets unfinished in the corner—Peter rarely finishes them without Ned to keep them on task.

It’s Peter spilling out of every crumpled sheet of loose-leaf paper, every sneaker missing its mate.

Peter immediately takes to cleaning up the array of dirty clothes on the floor, mumbling apologies. She spies a faded hoodie with the cracked screen-printing of MIT’s logo among the mess before he scoops it up too.

“I was in a hurry last time I was here, sorry. Pepper says she won’t clean up after me because it sets a bad example for Morgan—which I totally get! But also, I mean, you’ve met me.”

It’s as self-explanatory as he makes it sound—he has a busy life. Sometimes, when stuff is crazy, a few dirty socks on the floor don’t really matter so much.

However, she also senses that some part of him likes the mess. His room in the city is a cramped box, and the charging case for the Iron Spider takes up an entire corner on its own. Here, he’s free to spread himself across the floors and up the walls as much as he likes.

“Yeah, Parker, you are kind of a mess,” she teases, only smiling more at his response of wrinkling his nose up at her.

“Anyway,” he continues with a grunt, flinging a sock into a hamper that’s overfull like he’s some kind of basketball star and frowning when it bounces into the floor instead. “Since Pepper’s kicked us out of the kitchen and Mo is being a grouch, we can do whatever. FRIDAY has any movie or show you could want—comedies, romcoms, that sad documentary about polar bears you like…“

“It’s not sad, it’s realistic.”

“What’s real is that you watched me cry about the ice caps melting for like thirty minutes, M.”

He brings her close, wrapping his arms around her waist and swaying them in place like it’s some kind of grand romantic moment, the two of them bickering in the middle of his messy bedroom at Tony Stark’s house. For some reason she has the impression that he’ll spurt into a tall and lanky mess in a few years, but for now she’s still looking down at him just a smidge, meaning he’s looking up at her all…mushy and enamored.

“As we all should,” she replies, failing to sound serious because she’s suddenly distracted by the hint of Peter’s teeth peeking out of his smile. Her boyfriend is so cute, which, yes, she knew that, but it’s just—he’s so much, Peter Parker, and she’s barely even scratched the surface after quietly watching him for years and thinking she had him all figured out. It’s intimidating, to see the open emotion on his face and know there’s even more that she’d never considered underneath.

“I—“ She takes a breath, trying to recover from the flustered blush that’s creeped up her cheeks without her permission. “Nap. I could go for a nap. That sounds good, right?”

Peter’s smile grows—he’s always so entertained when he breaks her brain like this, so smug that he’s one of the only people that can.

At her warning look, he lets her awkward stumbling drop, holding up his hands. “Yeah, MJ, that’s—sounds good.”

“That’s what I thought.”

If she picked that activity for an excuse to hold Peter close for a few hours alone after the barrage of meeting so many new people, well, no one has to know.

“Pete.” A voice she only vaguely recognizes is within the edge of her consciousness. It’s not her step-father, so she chooses to ignore it, snuggling into the warmth under her head further. “Spiiiider-baby. Kiddo, c’mon, wake up.”

Her eyes open just a slit—watery vision turned milky by the overpowering beam of light that leaks in. In the darkness of the room, she finds Peter’s face, still firmly buried in his pillow. Behind him, partially obscured by the curve of his shoulder and the powerful light from the hallway, is Tony.

He smiles when he catches her eyes. “Not the one I planned on, but hey, one out of two’s not bad.”

“Peeetey,” Tony tries Peter again, this time accompanying his calls with a touch to Peter’s head, he’s—running his hand through Peter’s hair? Is she dreaming? “Buddy, it’s time to get up. It’s dinnertime.”

“Hm?” finally comes Peter’s groggy response, slurred as he turns into Tony’s hand.

“Magic words,” Tony jokes to her, stroking Peter’s curls again, fully mussing what’s already been ruined by their nap.

“Feels nice,” Peter sighs. He squeezes the arm he has around MJ, as if for emphasis. “M’comfy.”

“Aw, they’re so cute when they’re sleepy,” Tony full-on coos, and that seems to do it, eliciting a groan from Peter’s chest against her ear.

“You’re so embarrassing, Mister Stark.” Peter bats Tony’s hand away this time, rubbing at his eyes and flitting them over to the holographic clock on the desk—6:30 PM.

“We slept a while.”

“I’ll say. I had Morgan all primed for an apology and you two were totally passed out.”

MJ removes herself from Peter’s hold, running a hand through her loosened ponytail and catching a few matted curls with a frown.

Tony turns up the lights slowly, sliding the switch to half-power.

“I negotiated that you two would watch Mulan with her after dinner, by the way. She tests people with how they react to Disney movies. Don’t ask me why.”

Peter nods solemnly, stretching his arms with a few quick pops.

“I got Tangled. Ned and I went to see it with Ned’s little sister as kids, but I still got all choked up at the whole hair-cutting scene. Cemented me with her for life.”

Peter literally rolls off of the bed, landing on his feet as if he’d simply sat up and stood like a normal person.

She and Tony are similarly unimpressed.

“The fact that you also act like her personal spidery-jungle-gym probably doesn’t hurt either,” he comments.

“You’re just mad that she doesn’t play Iron Man as much anymore.”

Tony sniffs, but doesn’t deny it. “Pizza’s getting cold. Pepper was too tired to cook anything else tonight, and I instantly agreed.”

“But have you ever had pizza for Thanksgiving?” Peter inquires, tapping his skull with his pointer finger like this idea holds the secrets of the universe. “You order the night before and eat it reheated the next day. No cooking required.”

“Just say May burned a turkey the year before and you were scared,” Tony replies. “It’s so much faster that way.”

“I’ll have you know it was Uncle Ben who was scared—“

By the time they’ve moved on to weighing the importance of tradition versus creating new traditions, Michelle has managed to brush her hair back into a more controlled ponytail and has splashed a little water on her face in the bathroom.

They’re still in Peter’s room going at it when she returns.

“You guys talk a lot,” she interrupts.

They both go silent, look at each other, then shrug. It’s like looking into a mirror, in a weird way, and she’s concerned that she’s dating half of that mirror when the other half is Tony Stark, who spent years flying around in a suit of armor and almost died on multiple occasions.

“Daddy!” Morgan thumps her way up the stairs, sliding into Tony’s legs on socked feet. “Mommy said you’re taking too long.”

Tony easily brings his daughter into his arms, bouncing her on his hip and leading them down the stairs that way.

“Oh she did, did she?” he asks, voice taking on a playful quality. “That doesn’t sound like Mommy. She usually just tells me to hurry the fu—“

“Mister Stark!” Peter interjects, slapping his hands over Morgan’s ears and awkwardly hovering over Tony’s shoulder on the stairway to do it. Honestly, it would probably be more comfortable for him to just get on the ceiling at this point.

“Oh, I’m kidding! I wasn’t actually gonna say it!”

Tony pulls Morgan out of Peter’s loose grip, moving all of them forward and almost sending Peter toppling down the stairs. MJ grabs the back of Peter’s shirt even though she suspects his feet are doing the steadying for him.

“You guys are like some kind of messed up comedy troupe,” Michelle comments, watching Peter pout and dust off his clothes as if it will rid him of any embarrassment.

Pepper shakes her head at all of them as they enter the kitchen, probably having heard at least some of that. “More like a circus,” she grumbles.

“We do have an alpaca,” Tony adds, placing Morgan onto her feet.

“I think that’d be more of a petting zoo,” Peter argues.

“Michelle, I’m sorry about them,” Pepper says. “Get whatever you want, we always order plenty for Mister-Mega-Metabolism over here.”

Pepper points to Peter, who has already unceremoniously shoved half of a slice of pepperoni pizza in his mouth and has a trail of grease slipping down his chin.

“You guys are so mean,” he sulks without bothering to swallow, meaning the words are a garbled, spitting mess. “Mister Stark’s the one that keeps nagging me about my blood sugar!”

“You’re attracted to this,” Tony says to Michelle, pointing at Peter. “This? Really?”

“He’s alright,” she answers, dragging both a slice of vegetarian and a slice of cheese onto her own plate without bothering to look at Peter’s fake-hurt expression.

“MJ, you’re supposed to be on my side, this is—I can’t even—“

In his distraction, Morgan decides to be sneaky. Only MJ seems to catch her subtle movements toward Peter, using her short height to her advantage and the element of surprise to steal what’s left of the piece of pizza from Peter’s hand. She giggles to herself triumphantly, biting into it herself.

“Morgan, sweetie, that’s—“ Pepper tries, but seems to lose the end of the admonishment that was probably about germs.

Peter only smiles, crouching as if preparing for a fight.

“Here they go,” Tony hums, expectant in a way Michelle certainly isn’t.

“You better watch out, you little—!” In a fit of laughter, Morgan sprints out of the kitchen, Peter hot on her heels. They run a lap around the living room furniture.

“Peter, leave your sister alone, she needs to eat her—aaaaand they’re already in the yard,” Tony sighs. He and Pepper seem to give up, bringing their own plates and the so far unused plates of Peter and Morgan to the table. MJ follows suit, placing herself an empty chair between the two table heads.

“I swear to god, they’re normal, like, ninety percent of the time.” Tony pauses. “Eighty-five. Solid eighty percent.”

“Did you…?” MJ feels awkward asking about it, but maybe it’s something Peter hasn’t told her yet, something she wasn’t supposed to know that just slipped out. Tony said—he called Morgan Peter’s sister. “Is there something I should know?”

Both Tony and Pepper look at Michelle like she’s not making any sense.

“What you said—that Morgan is Peter’s sister, it’s just—I can keep a secret! I just didn’t know he was, you know. Yours.“

“He wishes,” Pepper snorts into her ice water.

Tony’s responding smile is far too wide.

“I keep asking May for partial custody, but she just won’t budge!” He snaps his fingers in a very exaggerated, aw, shucks way. Pepper and Tony both laugh.

“Ah,” she lets out, embarrassed to have even had the thought that Peter might be Tony’s secret child or something, picking at her pizza toppings to avoid looking at the Starks.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie.” Pepper pats her arm comfortingly. “Before the Blip there were articles with pretty similar lines of questioning. All shut down because they photographed a minor, of course.”

Pepper seems pretty proud of that, and MJ supposes she should be. People definitely would have made the Spider-Man connection sooner if Peter and Tony were in the paper together all the time.

More seriously, Tony says, “I’ve looked at the kid’s blood…more than I wish I had, honestly, but he gets injured, it happens. Anyway, yeah, no. FRIDAY would have figured that one out pretty quickly. DNA scanners and all.”

She nods, and the awkward silence thankfully only has to sit for a few more seconds before Peter bursts back into the house, Morgan wriggling around and squealing in his arms.

“I caught a wild Morguna!” Peter cheers.

“Is that the name of an actual Pokémon?” Tony asks, switching his gaze between Pepper and Michelle for an answer. “Did I accidentally nickname my kid after a battling monster thing? I only know like three of them, help me out here.”

Peter rolls his eyes, placing Morgan down with a quick tickle to her ribs that sends her flying towards the table.

“Come eat, Little Miss,” Tony commands, patting his hand on the chair to his right. Peter sits automatically to his left. “Michelle won’t want to watch a movie with you if you misbehave.”

“Do you like Disney movies?” Morgan probes, kicking her feet under the table and creating a light vibration.

Michelle shrugs. “Depends on which movie.”

Morgan squints, accessing. She nods.

“Good answer.”

Next to her under the table, Peter gives her a thumbs up, another piece of pizza already in his other hand.

The answer of where he got the food is clear as Tony shoves his other piece over to Morgan.

Pepper rolls her eyes and stands to presumably help re-fill his plate from the boxes on the counter.

Mulan was as good as MJ remembered it being when she was a kid.

Morgan seemed pretty pleased when she started mouthing along the words to I’ll Make A Man Out Of You, but less so when that prompted Peter to turn it into a dance number including the jumping kicks that almost resulted in a broken glass coffee table.

Despite their earlier nap, Michelle and Peter both find it fairly easy to fall asleep that night.

Still, it may be because of the nap that she doesn’t sleep as hard. She feels a disturbance, physically—Peter’s warmth leaves the bed, the steady pressure of his spine against her own is no longer there.

At first Michelle thinks it’s just a quick bathroom trip. Then she finds that she’s not as comfortable as she was those five minutes before without Peter because he keeps the room warm and he’s cool under the sheets (possibly because of the spider-man thing, she’s never asked).

So she waits.

She thinks about the English paper that will be her final for this semester that she only has half an idea for, and what drills AcaDec should be running for their first practice after the break, and…still no Peter.

She thinks about the pictures she spotted of Peter and Tony in the kitchen—the one of them from his internship next to one of Tony in a hospital gown, Peter on the hospital bed, his body covering Tony’s lost arm, both of them smiling with wet eyes and what it all means.

He still isn’t back yet.

She scoots over to Peter’s side of the bed and peeks her head out of the open door. There’s not even a light on in the bathroom.

Well, now she definitely has to investigate.

The cabin probably isn’t old enough for any squeaky floorboards, but she watches her step just the same, aware of every little noise in the half-dark of the night. She makes it to the stairs before she finally sees the dim glow of lights on downstairs accompanying the sound of someone talking.

“…it’s just so—messy.“

“Then explain it to me.”

She goes to her tiptoes, moving just a few steps down. On the couch she identifies the owners of the voices—the backs of Peter and Tony’s heads are silhouetted in the light of the fireplace in front of them.

“Tony…” Peter says, clearly hesitant, curling further into the couch.

“I can handle it, Pete. It’s worse for me when I don’t know what you’re going through, trust me,” Tony replies.

“I don’t even know what I’m going through,” Peter jokes, but his voice is weak, and Tony doesn’t laugh.

Peter sighs. “It was just—one thing to another. Like, I was under that building, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and then it was Titan, and I couldn’t breathe and I could feel myself—I could feel it happening and I was reaching out to you, but then you were—“

She can’t see Peter’s face, but his arm moves over his eyes, and the sleeve comes away tear-stained. He’s crying. Peter’s crying, broken, and her heart strains to do something about it, but this is—all of this is so much and she’s just overhearing it, what is she even doing?

“You were dying and I couldn’t…I heard when your heart—when you—” Peter’s words hitch into sobs, quiet and purposefully muted, like he’s scared to release them.

“Oh, buddy, no, no,” Tony brings Peter closer, his arm bundling Peter against his chest. Earlier she’d thought of what Peter might look like years from now, but now he looks smaller, younger.

The things Peter’s seen…he fought aliens in space, he was dusted and remembers it, his hero, his mentor, this man taking on Peter’s tears and pain with his whole body, his heart—another father—almost died right in front of Peter’s eyes. God, Mysterio almost put a bullet through Peter’s head for revenge—they’re still children, how can Peter handle this, how could anyone?

“Shh, I’m right here. I’m here, I’ve got you,” Tony soothes easily, like Peter is Morgan, just another one of his children seeking comfort.

“It’s okay, Pete. Everyone is okay. Just let it out, you’re okay.” Tony presses a kiss to Peter’s head, rubbing Peter’s back, so gentle, so soft, so unlike anything the world has ever shown her about Tony Stark, something precious and kind.

Something saved only for Peter, for his family.

Michelle sits at the top of the stairs for too long.

Too long thinking of every epic story Peter’s ever told about Spider-Man—the bruises he brushes off, the cuts and scrapes that he can hide away within a day, all of the times that he wins, the failures glided over as footnotes to a success story.

There’s so much she doesn’t know.

She knew he carried guilt, responsibility, but never this. This is a raw, deep wound of loss. It’s a fear scraping at him in the dark that he hides in the light. That he hides from everyone. From her.

Peter is curling into Tony for that comfort instead, burying his fears and worries into the man who brought him into all of this. If there’s anyone that could understand, of course it would be Tony.

She doesn’t know what do to with this knowing of everything she doesn’t. These are things she’s scared to know, things she wants to know anyway because they’re a part of Peter, and she wants more of him despite the sensical parts of her brain that scream for her to run off to California for college and leave dating a literal superhero that regularly risks his own life behind.

As Peter’s tears start to taper off, she stands from her place on the stairs, tip-toeing her way back up to Peter’s bedroom just as quietly as she came, leaving Tony's final whisper of, “I love you, it’s okay,” behind her.

She lies down, bringing the covers that smell of Peter's body wash up to her neck, the familiar scent comforting.

She only falls back asleep as the first dregs of sunshine begin to peek through Peter’s blinds.

Peter doesn’t come back to bed.

Unlike the day before, Thanksgiving morning is a quiet affair. A fog seems to have fallen overnight, leaving the outside of the cabin wet and hazy, matching her mood after the night before.

MJ wakes lightly a few times: the scent of coffee hits her nose, a high-pitched giggle echoes from Morgan in the hall, the sounds of doors opening and closing downstairs break the spell on and off.

If Peter enters the room to get dressed, he doesn’t wake her. She’s not sure if she wants him to or not.

There’s this—knot, buried right in the middle of her chest. Guilt for watching a private moment. Disappointed that she hadn’t thought about it sooner, that she’d let herself accept his constant assurances that he was fine, that there was nothing for her to worry about beyond the norm.

It’s Happy that ends up waking her.

“Knock, knock,” he announces, pulling open the already cracked door. Michelle doesn’t think she’s ever seen him out of a suit before now—usually he’s playing driver for them after school or hovering around Peter and May’s place, something Peter’s only become minimally more comfortable with since May and Happy's dating-ish-thing started. He’s picked a dress shirt and dark jeans instead. Not far from casually formal, but still…weird.

“Morning,” she announces from her blanket bundle, sulky and comfortable.

His eyebrow raises, wrinkling his balding hairline. “Do I wanna know?”

She shrugs.

“Okay, well, Tony and the other kids are making breakfast. Doesn’t seem like your thing, missing out on good food.”

“Are you fat-shaming a growing teenage girl?” She raises an eyebrow, her face dead serious and her tone purposefully instigating.

“Of course not, why would you—“ he catches on quickly, used to her tricks by now, her jokes that aren’t jokes. His lips hint at a smile under his goatee. “Very funny, kid.”

“I thought so.” She smiles.

“Food in ten,” Happy reiterates, turning around to shut the door.

“Happy—wait,” MJ calls, hesitant. He looks back at her expectantly, but she isn’t sure what to say without saying everything, her emotions caught in her throat.

“You—Peter’s worked with you for a while, right?”

She sits up from under the covers, ignoring the borrowed t-shirt of Peter’s hanging off of her frame and the messy wrap containing her curls. This is Peter’s family, in a way, and Happy saw her unhinged and wielding a mace back in Europe. Surely they’re at the point of being able to ignore things like appropriate dress, or whatever.

Her hands end up wringing themselves together. She’s unsure where to look—the whole room is a reminder of Peter, a collage of all the different parts—the hero, the boy, the growing man.

Happy’s facial expression questions the non-sequitur, but he redirects to Peter’s bed anyway, situating himself comfortably, probably realizing this isn’t just about what she’s asking.

“Working with, not so much. Looking after his scrawny ass…” He nudges her with his shoulder, but she doesn’t brighten up much, so he sobers.

“In the beginning, I spent a lot of time ignoring him when he needed me the most. Tony and I both did, and we both regretted it. After the Vulture, things changed. I listened to every asinine voicemail, Tony instituted lab time every other weekend…”

Happy clears his throat, his eyes honest. “Don’t tell him this, but after we lost him, I spent so much time wishing I hadn’t missed a minute of it. I kept wishing I could get him back, listen to him babble about his nerdy crap in the back of the car for just one more hour. Stupid stuff.”

“But then he came back,” she supplies.

He nods. “Then he came back. Tony was out of commission, and I promised myself that I wasn’t ever going to miss another call, even if it was just the kid rattling my ear off about free churros or a dress that he thought looked nice on you at school that day.” At the ending comment, he bumps a hand at her leg, emphasizing.

“Ugh,” she groans, but puts a hand over her mouth to hide a smile. Happy doesn’t appear fooled.

“What’s this about, Michelle?” he asks, meeting her eyes.

She sighs, crossing her arms and leaning back against the bed’s headboard.

“It’s just—after everything that’s happened, after everything you’ve seen him go through…do you think—is Peter okay?”

Something dawns on Happy’s face, followed by a somber kind of smile.

“If you ask me, the people that choose to do this kind of thing—these hero types…none of ‘em are anything close to okay. I mean, you’ve seen the kind of stuff they’re up against first hand. Weird tech, magic, aliens…it doesn’t exactly scream mental stability if you’re going towards that kind of danger.”

It’s not meant to be comforting, and he doesn’t say it as such. It’s just a fact: normal people don’t put on suits and fight bad guys and come out on the other side unscathed. That’s why so few ever do it, powers aside.

“But it does speak to a lot of heart. People didn’t understand that about Tony, when he started: you have to care about people a whole hell of a lot to want to keep saving their ungrateful asses over and over again.”

“I know that Peter cares—and I love that about him!” She blushes at the heated admission, but Happy seems content to let it go with only a kind smile. “It’s just—I didn’t realize how hard it must be on him. He doesn’t tell me how hard it is. I don’t know what to do.”

“Talk to him?” Happy suggests with dry condescension.

She frowns at him, because very clearly she’s not there yet, which is why she’s talking to him.

“I had to try,” he sighs. “Look, I know it’s hard to see someone like him going through all of this. It’s even harder when they don’t admit things are tough. Sometimes it’s just—there’s not much that you can do. We sit on the sidelines, we pitch in where we can, and when they do need us…”

He trails off, looking out Peter’s window. The lake ripples with a light rain.

“When they do need us, we show up. We show up and tell them how stupid they are for acting tough. We’re there when it matters, even when they’re being stubborn and telling us to go.”

Happy shrugs. “Well, that’s always been my tactic, anyway.”

MJ shrugs back, biting her lip. “It’s not the worst advice I’ve ever heard.”

“Tony?” he questions.

“Captain America. Those pre-recorded seminars make you want a big bag of weed more than any college stoner alive.”

Happy actually does laugh at that, patting her knee over Peter’s comforter.

“You two are good together. And I’m not just saying that cause I’m romantic or something—though I did know Pepper and Tony would be perfect together before anyone else, and you can quote me on that.” He points his finger at her, dead serious. Clearly that’s a regular argument at the Stark family get-togethers.

“He’s not going to get lost in this alone. He has too many people on his side for that. But if you need him to be more honest, you’re probably going to have to ask for it. Multiple times. Explicitly. These geniuses have concrete skulls protecting all of that brain matter.” He taps against his own head for effect.

“Yeah, I—thanks, Happy.”

“No problem,” he replies. Then he groans as he lifts himself from the bed, standing. “Now get up, or Morgan’s going to hog all of the syrup. Tony’s not above stealing from her syrup pool, but I personally think it’s an abomination.”

Despite the quiet morning, downstairs is filled with activity once she arrives, her floral dress toned down by one of her favorite grandpa sweaters, grey and a little garish.

Happy arrived with James Rhodes, apparently, as the Colonel is currently swinging Morgan around the living room like it’s a playground. Pepper and Happy are involved in something at the stove, crowded together and bickering about whatever they’re attempting not to burn. Tony is absent at the moment (out feeding their alpaca, maybe,) but Peter’s gaze finds her from his place at the counter where he’s seemingly just stealing bits of fruit out of a bowl instead of contributing.

His smile makes her feel floaty, like the department store dress and thrift store sweater are something more elegant, something he’s revering from across the room. She has value outside of his opinion, yes, but she likes his stuttering compliments, the bloom of pink on his cheeks, the tentative hand he links into her own.

Michelle likes him, might even love him one day, and she wants to get past all of this business where she’s torn up about his other life as a superhero and get back to his eager attempts to get her to full-belly laugh, holding his hand in the hallway, sneaking chaste kisses as rewards for acing flash cards.

“Hey,” Peter says, but he looks just as pensive as she feels. Maybe he knows how she’s feeling, senses it with his weird tingle-thing.

“Hey.”

They end up breaking the following silence at the same time.

“Peter, I—“

“Can we—“

She tilts her head to the porch, smiling. They’re both kind of ridiculous. “Outside?”

Peter situates himself on the porch’s bannister, swinging his legs from his perch. She chooses to lean on the wood next to him.

She’s trying to prepare exactly what she wants to say when Peter says, “I know that you were there last night. I know you heard…well, everything.”

Michelle’s eyes go wide, turning to him apologetically. Of course, his super senses. He probably heard her heartbeat.

“I really didn’t mean to pry, you just didn’t come back to bed and when I overheard you were clearly so upset and—“

“It’s okay, MJ.”

“Is it, though?” she asks curtly. “Because it didn’t seem like that was the first time something like that’s happened.”

He looks away. “It’s not.”

She nudges his side with her own, swaying him on his ledge a little.

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault, bringing everything up like I did.”

“M, no, that’s not—“

She holds up a hand, asking for his silence.

“I just feel like I kept…pushing. You don’t really talk about all of this—Tony, the battle with Thanos, everything that made you want to become Spider-Man. And I realized I never really asked, either.”

She knows that she doesn’t have to take this burden on for him, but she wants him to know she’s listening, that she cares.

“I mean—Tony Stark is kind of your dad, dude! And I had no idea.”

Peter laughs, rubbing the back of his neck as if embarrassed. He also doesn’t deny it.

“It just…it made me feel like a crappy girlfriend, ‘cause I never thought about how all of that felt for you. That’s all.”

“You’re not a crappy girlfriend,” he replies, bringing her hand to his lips for a quick kiss. “Just ask Mister Stark—for all that I like talking, telling people about my problems…” He shakes his head in distaste. “I hate it. It feels like I’m just complaining.”

“Well, I personally love complaining, and would love to hear you do it more,” she says.

He lets out a breath of a laugh through his nose, but he sobers again, keeping hold of her hand and squeezing.

“The stuff with Tony…it can be hard to talk about him without mentioning everything that got us here. It’s easier to let people think what they want to.”

MJ nods, understanding. Tony has been a public figure for his entire life. It makes sense that he’s pretty insular about the people that he considers family. Anyone important can be a liability—at least, she knows that Peter also tends to see it that way.

“It’s cute that you care about my relationship with him so much, though. I didn’t realize you were so protective,” Peter teases, hopping off of the ledge and onto the porch next to her.

“Oh, shut up,” she grumbles, swaying their still-attached hands between them.

“Yeah, yeah,” he hums, smile wide across his face. He’s used to the parts of her that go hot and cold, and takes them in stride.

It feels good to have this out in the open, a previously closed door now tentatively cracked and inviting her in. It's a step closer, she thinks. A step closer to him and his world, this family he's made for himself.

A familiar look overtakes his face, and she feels a rush of warmth in her veins.

When they kiss—really kiss—it’s always tentative, a silent game of question and answer.

Peter inches closer, slow enough that she could turn away if she wanted. (She never does.)

Michelle tilts her head, reaffirming his desire. Are you sure? (He always is, his confidence always so much easier than hers.)

Together they take the final step, their movements more confident now as they’re slowly gaining practice. The slight difference of height between them often means she catches his top lip and his hands have a way of snaking around her waist, pulling them closer.

A wolf-whistle breaks them apart abruptly.

It’s Tony, walking over from what appears to be a barn not far from the lakeside, a teasing caught-the-canary smile in place.

“Well, well, look at you two,” he says, working his way up the steps with a little more pep than the day before.

“Please don’t start,” Peter begs, shrugging off the metal hand that immediately goes to ruffle his hair.

“Hey, you’re lucky it was just me. Rhodey has a real hard-on for breaking up PDA.”

“Please never say hard-on again in my presence.”

“Say it in mine,” Michelle interrupts. “I want it on camera.”

“I mean, I’m sure it already is if you look hard enough.”

Peter groans.

“I’ve never hidden my past from you, Pete. Now, Morgan—I’m hiding as much as possible from her internet searches until she’s at least sixteen.”

“I personally love the old flip-phone one of you drunkenly dancing on a bar-top to Toxic.”

“Oh, yeah! I actually remember that. Nice girl, Miss Spears.”

“I regret introducing you two,” Peter sighs, pouting.

“Love you too, kiddo,” Tony replies, opening the door ahead of them. “Now, c’mon. Happy’s going to deep-fry the turkey and you gotta watch. It’s some real Food Network shit.”

“Mommy! Daddy said your word again!” comes Morgan’s call from the living room area.

Peter shrugs to her, a smile on his face like he’s apologizing for getting her involved in all this.

She takes his hand again, giving it a squeeze before following him back into the Starks’ lake house and shutting the door.

#irondad #spiderson #spideychelle #ironfam #peter-stank #friendly-neighborhood-exchange #marvel #my writing

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melancholicumsomnia · 3 years

Text

[FIC] A Little Miracle In The Volume Part 2

A/N: Here’s the second part of my fic contribution to PEDRO PASCAL APPRECIATION WEEK 2021! Part 2 focuses on the #ppaw2021 theme of the day, Favorite TV show Pedro starred in. Obviously, I still loved Pedro best in The Mandalorian, but his performance as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones was absolutely exquisite!

Thank you to @pedrohub for the incentive to write this little fic. To @pedrocentric, here is Part 2!

PREVIOUS PARTS

Part 1

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Little Miracle In The Volume

Rory

Part Two

Pedro was limping back to his trailer, struggling against the urge to massage his aching groin. He had just come from the Volume to film a scene with Gina Carano, who plays Cara Dune, and Misty Rosas, who was playing the Ugnaught Kuiil. It was a simple scene actually, requiring their characters to ride through the rugged terrain of Nevarro in order to make their rendezvous with Carl Weather’s Greef Karga. In the pre-vis, they were going to ride blurrgs. In reality, the blurrgs turned out to be mechanical bulls, but with a wider girth.

Brendan and Lateef had seen the dubious looks he was throwing at the machine and they couldn’t help laughing.

“Come on, man!” Lateef said in between wheezes. “There’s nothing to worry about. That thing won’t buck.”

“Hey! You can’t be Mando just by wearing the armor,” Brendan then goaded him. “You must ride the blurrg. Both Lateef and I have done it, so can you.”

Pedro let out a groan and gritted his teeth at that memory. Even his back was starting to ache in sympathy with his groin. “I guess I’m starting to feel my age. I really need to work out more.”

With his trailer looming not so far from him at last, he quickened his pace, wanting that ice pack he had his assistant prepare for him in the fridge.

Before he could reach it, however, Pedro’s eyes were drawn to Werner Herzog’s trailer nearby. The German director was seated in front of his trailer beneath a beach umbrella, the Child on his lap. He was watching something on his iPad, which was propped up on its stand on top of a small table. Pedro heard snickers and he whirled to see the puppeteers Tamara Woodard, Kan, and Trevor with remote controls in their hands, hiding behind the crates.

Deb Chow happened to be passing by and, when she saw the trio, she remarked, “You guys are the worst! You should really stop feeding that old man’s fantasies!”

“We just want to keep him happy,” Kan answered, flicking a knob so that Pedro saw Grogu’s ears go up. Sagely, he added, “We all know the stories about him and Klaus Kinski. We’re not taking any chances.” The others nodded in grim agreement, causing Deb to roll her eyes, mutter “I give up!” under her breath, and march off.

Curiosity getting the better of him in the end, Pedro cautiously approached that imperious figure. “Hi, what are you guys watching?”

Werner glanced briefly back at him and said dryly, “Oh, it’s you.” Going back to the TV show playing on his iPad, he replied, “Since you are playing our stoic bounty hunter, I thought I should explore your previous works. The Child and I were going to watch Narcos, but since it’s about Pablo Escobar, it might be too violent for the little one. So I figured the best option would be your episode in Game of Thrones.”

“Uhm, I don’t think Game of Thrones is also appropriate viewing for a kid that young,” Pedro commented in turn, only to realize what he just said. Wait! I’m talking about a puppet, not a real kid. Oh my God! This delusion is contagious! Grogu looked up then and gave him a sweet smile. But, then again, he’s so cute! Awww!

Werner’s lips pursed in a disapproving pout. “Yes, I know. I was pouring myself some iced tea when that scene of you in the brothel came on. I couldn’t cover the baby’s eyes fast enough, so he was able to catch an eyeful of ample bosoms and buttocks.” He glanced down at the baby sitting on his lap, wagging a finger. “Remember what Grandpa Werner told you. When you see a scene like that, you must never watch, you must never listen.”

Great! Pedro couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes, just as Deb had done. Now, you’re quoting Grizzly Man at him.

At Werner’s remark, Grogu gazed up at Pedro again. There was no mistaking the now lecherous, toothy grin on his little face and the enthusiastic bobbing up and down of his brows.

Scowling, Pedro turned to the mischievous puppeteers. He mouthed out to them, “Guys! What the fuck?”

In reply, the puppeteers gave him thumbs up and wide, conniving smirks.

“I should say though,” Werner then began thoughtfully, “I am very impressed with your performance here. Oberyn Martell, a proud, head-strong, and seductive prince desiring revenge for his poor sister… In other actors, the arrogance would overwhelm their performance, making him a figure to be detested or, worse, a caricature of similar characters in past films. But, no, behind that façade is kindness and gentleness. It’s because of your eyes, I think, and your voice. You’re speaking with a Latino accent in this one. You are from Mexico?”

“No, Chile actually.”

“You have a splendid way of expressing your emotions through tone of voice. Very few actors can do that. Brilliant performance, young man,” Werner gave that reluctant praise. “I can see why they chose you to play the Mandalorian. Even if you are not wearing the armor, you can still carry the character on your voice alone. How old were you when you did this?” “

“Uh, 38, 39, I guess.”

“And how old are you now?”

“I’m 43.” Pedro was not sure where this line of questioning was going.

“And it is only now that Hollywood has taken notice of your talent.” The German director shook his head ruefully. “Hollywood has become too reliant on the so-called ‘star power.’ I dread to think about the other precious little stars who are going unnoticed.”

Pedro was touched by Werner’s words. “It’s okay, sir. I’ve paid my dues, done my share of waiting on tables as a struggling actor. In fact, after working on Game of Thrones, I couldn’t find a single job. It took months before I got a recurring role on another TV show, The Mentalist.”

“Now, you have made it at last.”

“I’m not letting this current success get to my head. I know just how fickle Hollywood can be. To be very honest, I still don’t have that confidence. All this…” He raised his hands to the media campus surrounding them. “…All the work that I’ve been doing in the past few months, it still seems like a dream to me.”

“And that’s a very good attitude to have. Always be true to yourself. Show people who you truly are.” A wry, fond smile formed on Werner’s lips. “I suddenly remembered Klaus Kinski. He had been extremely difficult. He was a man with serious mental health problems. But he never sought to disguise his true self. It made it very hard for people like me, his family, and other people around him. Despite his foul temper, his brutality, it is that frank, straight-in-your-face honesty, I think that’s what I admired most about him.”

Pedro chuckled. “At least, I’m not hot-tempered like Klaus Kinski.”

A towering hulk of a man marched onscreen on the iPad and Werner gasped. “That is no man! That’s a grizzly bear!”

“That’s Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, one of the world’s strongest men. He played Ser Gregor Clegane, aka ‘The Mountain Who Rides’, in Game of Thrones.”

At that moment, a bright idea suddenly came into Pedro’s head. Should I dare ask him now? He did just praise me after all. Maybe he is already starting to accept me. Okay, I will!

“Uhm, Mr. Herzog?” Pedro began shyly. “Since you liked my past performances and appreciate my worth as an actor, may you please allow me to spend more time with the baby?”

Werner turned to him sharply, his eyes flashing like daggers. “I appreciate your worth as an actor, true. But it absolutely has nothing to do with caring for this baby.”

Pedro was crestfallen. Still, he persisted, “Sir, please. I promise you that I will and can take good care of the baby. My sister Javiera…she often entrusts the care of her kids to me.”

“But they are not your children! You are a bachelor.” Werner looked him straight in the eye. “How could you be a father to this Child when you aren’t one?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, sir, this Child is a puppet.”

“Then how can you commit to playing a father when you cannot immerse yourself in the fantasy?”

“But how can I commit when you’re keeping the Child all to yourself?”

“I have only three episodes to do in this TV show. I want to make the most of this time I have with him. We have just started filming. You have an entire season to bond with him!”

“No, I don’t! I still have to finish my commitments with Wonder Woman 1984. I only have a single episode with the Child this season, so my time here is short!”

Because the two men were arguing heatedly, none of them noticed that the Child was still watching the episode on the iPad. He was staring enrapt as the trial by combat between Oberyn Martell and the Mountain commenced. Many times, Grogu would look closely at Oberyn’s face and then gaze up admiringly at Pedro.

But then, the Mountain struck back with a vicious blow, knocking out Oberyn’s teeth. As the Child watched in growing horror, the Mountain placed his fingers over Oberyn’s eyes and pressed down.

Both Pedro and Werner were shocked when Grogu let out a high-pitched scream, his eyes wide and waving his little arms frantically. A quick glance at the iPad and Pedro realized why Grogu was in a state of mortal terror.

Before Werner could stop him, Pedro scooped the distraught Child up and started rocking him, patting his back. Grogu kept shaking his little head, rubbing his brow over the soft cloth of the cape hanging above Pedro’s collarbone.

“Sssh! Don’t cry, Grogu,” Pedro whispered soothingly in his ear, being careful that Werner did not hear the Child’s name. “It’s just a TV show. As you can see, I’m okay. He never hurt me.” To his relief, his gentle reassurances gradually calmed the Child down.

Still stunned to silence, Werner could only watch with mouth agape as Pedro placed Grogu back on his lap. To his credit, the Child raised his arms to him, wanting more hugs. Despite his longing, Pedro just gave the little one a gentle smile and a pat on the head.

“Stop watching my past works with the Child,” Pedro scolded the German filmmaker. “None of them are appropriate for kids, except for that one Touched By An Angel episode. I wouldn’t even recommend The Great Wall because he might get scared of the Tao Tei monsters.”

Having given the final word, Pedro limped off to his trailer to get that ice pack and some much-needed rest.

Neither man noticed the perplexed group of puppeteers behind them, all of them staring down at their remote controls. Kan even took to giving his controls little shakes.

When their fellow puppeteer Jason Matthews came over, Trevor asked him, “Hey, Jason! Were you controlling the puppet just now?”

“No, I was in a meeting with Dave.”

Tamara interrupted, “Did you install a mic on the kid because we just heard him scream?”

Jason stared back at them. “What mic? You know that any baby noises will be added by the sound guys later.”

Kan gripped a startled Jason’s arms. “We saw the Child move…by itself! And he also screamed, like a real baby!”

Jason grabbed Kan’s hands and slowly lowered them. “Get a grip, will ya? It’s probably just a minor malfunction. Get the puppet from Mr. Herzog and we’ll check it out.”

“But…but…”

“No buts! You shouldn’t have been playing with it to begin with. You AND Mr. Herzog.”

The puppeteers then walked off, leaving his confused crew behind.

“But…but…we did see the Child move by itself!” they argued back feebly.

TO BE CONTINUED

#ppaw2021 #miracle in the volume fic #real person fic #the mandalorian #pedro pascal #pedrohub #pedrocentric

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ruffoverthinksthings · 6 years

Note

Polyamory Core 4 for ship meme?

1.Whois the most affectionate?:

Carlos.

Whilethe others have their moments of playful flirtations and teasing,Carlos is the one who does most of the clinging, the hugging, thetackling, the glomping, and snuggling.

2.Bigspoon/Little spoon?:

BigSpoons: Mal and Jay.

LittleSpoons: Carlos and Evie.

There’sa system, where the former two were frequently known as the group’s“protectors” whenever things got physical, and the latter two areall too happy to be in someone’s big, powerful arms, safely intheir grasp and protected from threats both real and imagined.

3.Mostcommon argument?:

Howto use their “all-in date night” about once or twice a month, ifthe stars align.

Theseare four very different people, of which they have very differenttastes and hobbies, and even something as neutral as dinner or amovie can get pretty heated, with them arguing over what sort ofcuisine to have together (fusions are considered a category all ontheir own, with Evie’s discerning tastes), what film to see, or ifthey shouldn’t try something completely different altogether, likegoing in a four-team battle at the local water park, and decimatingthe competition.

Itdoesn’t really help that, because of Auradon’s culture, there’sQUITE a lot of ways to spend your time leisurely if you have themoney and/or the connections, of which they have both.

4.Favoritenon-sexual activity?:

Commentingon how freaking weird and awful Auradon can be, either as complainingand stress relief, or just reflecting and observing their world andhow so many people can be so blind to how terrible it is, havingnever had their unique perspective.

5.Whois most likely to carry the other?:

Maland Jay.

Bothare the stronger of the two, there is no way in hell Evie will bedoing any sort of hard physical labour unless it was absolutely lifeor death, and Carlos is more agility and intelligence than strengthand endurance.

6.Whatis their favorite feature of their partner’s?:

Mal’seyes, brilliant like emeralds, glimmering with mischief, burning withanger, warm with love.

Evie’shair, flowing like a deep blue sea, soft as silk, always smellinglike the finest of flowers.

Jay’smuscular physique, useful for heavy lifting, having someone to getaround difficult to reach places, and for being held and carriedaround when either you don’t want to move, or the world feels tooheavy on your shoulders.

Carlos’hands, agile, skilled, well-worn with callouses, as capable of makingbrilliant machines from a spark of genius, as they are comforting andcaring for a weary soul, and other things better off not mentionedpublicly.

7.What’sthe first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings forthe other?:

How they hang out with each other and either casually date with one or two, or just be explicitly “friends” for that outing. It’s difficult to reconcile their growing feelings for each other given that Auradon has a very “pick one” culture, which I expound on at the end.

8.Nicknames?& if so, how did they originate?:

“LittlestSpace Heater.” After Mal starts to develop her dragon traits evenfurther from all the residual magic she is now exposed to, she startsproducing a constant, supernatural heat in her chest. For VKs whofeel the cold more strongly than others, it’s an extra lovelyfeature which makes Mal the center of their cuddle piles most nights,excluding summer.

“YourHighness.” To Evie, for obvious reasons.

“Mr.Magic Hands.” Jay, for his ability to make things appear anddisappear like magic with a sleight of his hands, with or withoutsleeves, along with his well known skills in applying that in asexual sense.

“Doctor”or just “Doc.” Used with Carlos as either teasing orencouragement during his college years when he was still working onhis undergraduate, his masters, and finally, his doctorate.

9.Whoworries the most?:

Carlos.

Asthe resident overthinker and “cosmic chewtoy” he’s more thanaware of all the various things and factors that could go wrong andmake life suck hard. Having been powereless to do much ofanything about them when they do actually come contributes to hisanxiety.

10.Whoremembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?:

Carlos.

He’sa stickler for details and memory, having needing to keep a runningtab of everything in his mind due to the lack of papers and propermeans to document on the Isle—that his notes also tend to befrequently stolen out of spite or used for tinder really helpeddevelop his excellent memory.

11.Whotops?:

Mal,Evie, and Jay, though their switch. Carlos never does, though therewere some rare occasions where they do try and have him take thelead.

12.Whoinitiates kisses?:

Everyoneat some point, though the most shameless and constant are Jay andEvie, due to being flirts and no strangers to just going ahead andkissing someone for fun.

Malis reluctant to show affection still, Carlos prefers hugs and moreextensive physical contact than just lips-to-lips.

13.Whoreaches for the other’s hand first?:

Malin confidence, when they march forward without a care.

Eviein style, when her dazzling outfit is accentuated by the carefullycoordinated fashions of her companions.

Jayin coercion, when he pulls them off to some grand misadventure orinforms them that they’ve been roped into it without theirknowledge nor consent.

Carlosfor comfort, when he needs to feel that someone’s right therebeside him.

14.Whokisses the hardest?:

Jay.

Asa combination of physical strength, his usual enthusiasm, and thefact that boys on the Isle were expected to be macho men, he knowshow to steal anyone’s breath away with his lips.

15.Whowakes up first?:

Jay,Carlos, Mal, then Evie.

Respectively,“the first thief gets the loot,” “it’s time to get on thoseideas that have stewed overnight,” “gotta get to doingsomething,” and “need all eight-ten hours of beauty sleep.”

16.Whowants to stay in bed just a little longer?:

Evie.

Nowthat she has a proper bed as a guarantee, not a rare luxury, she isloathe to leave it by choice.

17.Whosays I love you first?:

Carlos.

Malhas trouble saying it, Evie’s concerned about the optics of it allhere in Auradon, and Jay has trouble actually saying the wordsdespite being quite the flirt, as it was “never a serious,committed thing.”

18.Wholeaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does itusually say?):

Maland Evie, as a consequence of the ones doing most of the cooking inthe relationship. Mal specializes in baked goods, Evie does moreday-to-day meal cooking along with special diets.

ByEvie are usually teasing witticisms.

ToMal: “Have a sweet and salty treat, just like you.”

ToJay: “Rich, dark, and smooth as silk, just how you like it~”

ToCarlos: “Sweet kisses for my sweetheart~”

ByMal are usually complaints and reminders, oftentimespassive-aggressive.

ToEvie: “I spent almost as much time making this as you did in thebathroom this morning, hope it pleases tastes as good as how late youmade me.”

ToJay: “Have one more, since you stole the six others from the tray,you greedy bastard.”

ToCarlos: “I lovingly mixed this by hand, because you stole thefucking blender again, you little shit.”

19.Whotells their family/friends about their relationship first?:

Maldue to the ease with which she can tell Maleficent that, trapped inher terrarium still and all.

20.Whatdo their family/friends think of their relationship?:

Maleficentthinks it’s even worse than when she fell for Ben. “Oh, at leastthere was just ONE tragic, easily abused weak point, but now you’vegot three!”

EvilQueen is quite disappointed Evie would sully her perfect reputationeven more than she already has by (publicly) engaging is suchscandalous “affairs.” “Evie, darling, I realize that royaltycannot be expected to be as perfect as they appear to the masses, butwe have a system about this, a certain measure of discretion andsecrecy.”

Cruellais really more pissed off by the fact that she assumes that she haslost her son and her personal servant a second time, and likely has astrong feeling of disdain for the other three for “leashing him.”It likely doesn’t register to her mind that a relationship couldever be mutually beneficial or purely for love.

Jafaris also disappointed. “People, my boy, I have always told you thatpeople will leave you, people will stab you in the back, people willsteal everything you own, your gold, your power, your influence—theonly three things that DO matter.”

21.Whois more likely to start dancing with the other?:

Jayand Evie.

Mallikes to maintain her cool persona as the “responsible” one ofthe team, Carlos is nervous about these things unless the dancehappens to involve dogs in some way.

22.Whocooks more/who is better at cooking?:

Asmentioned above, Mal and Evie, as a combination of either learninghow to combine and use many cooking-like processes for magic, or justbeing an excellent chemist who also had a lifetime’s worth ofdomestic training.

Jayand Carlos are serviceable in the kitchen, but Jay’s more likely toknow how to fry up eggs, pancakes (both regular flour andbanana-based), and bacon than pretty much anything else, and Carlosis more likely to experiment and use the kitchen tools for everythingbut cooking, and relies very heavily on “one-stepappliances” like waffle irons, food processors, and blenders to domost of the actual food preparation.

Inshort, with the boys, you’re either going to get a greasy,protein-packed meal with a side of toast and stupidly strong coffee,or a smoothie, or a mechanically tossed salad, or other rawingredient rich dish like ice cream—again, machine made.

23.Whocomes up with cheesy pick up lines?:

Carlos.

Malhas been the victim of cheesy, terrible one-liners from people she’sone-upped shortly after, Evie thinks herself beyond the lowest levelof Wit when there are much higher levels to aspire to, and Jay comesclose, but not quite.

24.Whowhispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear duringinappropriate times?:

Jayand Evie.

Shamelessflirts, both before and after the relationship, and the VKs have kepta LOT of habits from their time on the Isle.

25.Whoneeds more assurance?:

Carlosand Mal.

Theformer never had security, the latter was always told that she wasnever good enough.

26.Whatwould be their theme song?:

“TheKids Aren’t Alright” by Fall Out Boy.

Andin the endI'd do it all againI think you're my bestfriendDon't you know that the kids aren't al-, kids aren'talrightI'll be yoursWhen it rains it poursStaythirsty like beforeDon't you know that the kids aren't al-,kids aren't alright

Thishas been a tough life for all of them, to say the least. 16 to 15years of pure suffering, all because they were born to the wrongpeople, and because the world they lived in painted things in such astrict, black-and-white, “Good” and “Evil” way.

They’restill suffering. Life still isn’t perfect. Things could still getbetter in Auradon, and WAY better.

Butif they had a choice to live a “good” life at the cost of nevermeeting, they’d turn around immediately.

27.Whowould sing to their child back to sleep?:

Maland Evie having the best singing voices, as stereotypical as that is.

Malreally enjoys giving their kids a chance at a normal childhood seeingas Maleficent never did that or the many other things mother shouldbe showing their kids, Evie has been trained from a very young age tobe the perfect mother.

Jayis really more for physical playtime like upsy-daisy and horseyrides, and Carlos is all about creative and constructive play likecolouring, building PLUCKO block creations, and talking about how theinternals of their toys work.

28.Whatdo they do when they’re away from each other?:

Asalways, their respective jobs, hobbies, and social lives. I’vediscussed this so many times I really don’t want to regurgitatethat all over again.

29.oneheadcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart:

HowAuradon first reacts to it.

They’rea very conservative country who have very much accepted the idea thatthere’s only to be one love for one person each, andwhile they HAVE started to bend the rules towards same-sex couplings(dramatic age differences have historically never been an issue, nowthat new morals were instated), a polyamorous arrangement was justtoo much for them.

“Yes,but who will you pick in the end?” many a well-meaning associatehad asked.

“Allof them,” they replied.

“Butyou can’t do that! You HAVE to choose just one!”

“Butwhy can’t I choose all of them?”

“Becausethat’s not how we do things here in Auradon!”

30.oneheadcanon about this OTP that mends it:

They mope about it. They reflect.They take into consideration that Auradon will not agree nor acceptto what they’re doing.

Then they decide to just do itanyway.

“We’re VK, we never belongedhere in the first place, nor will they ever completely accept us forwho we are, what we do, what we want out of life. What’s one morething that’ll piss them off…?” Mal says, summing up theirthoughts.

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buffster · 7 years

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Something Blue (BTVS 4.09)

This is part of my ongoing Buffyverse Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the shows. You can find the BTVS list here and the ATS list here. Gifs are not mine.

I loved that Something Blue allowed us to sympathize with both sides of the Willow vs. Scoobies conflict. I’m annoyed when Willow snaps at everyone and interrupts Buffy and Riley’s date, which forces me to recognize truth when Willow says no one wants to deal with her heartbreak anymore. The episode was also really funny.

We discover in the first scene that Willow has been going to Oz’s place alone. She’s clinging to the relationship and fully expects him to return. This is also when Riley and Buffy really get going, which has to be a painful reminder for Willow. I had forgotten about Willow and Buffy’s conversation in the graveyard and in hindsight find it pretty sad. Some of Buffy’s issues with Riley were already present but she basically never dealt with them. I don’t believe the implosion of their relationship was all on Riley. I think he sensed some real issues but just handled it all wrong.

Buffy: Riley seems so solid. Like he's not the type to give a girl grief.

Willow: Get out. Get out while there's still time.

Buffy: I know. I gotta get over the whole bad boy thing. There's no good there. Seeing Angel in L.A. - even for five minutes - hello to the pain.

Willow: The pain is not a friend.

Buffy: But then I can't help thinking, isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? It's nuts, but part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with lots of pain and fighting-

I’ve never gotten the bad boy thing. It’s all cool on television but in real life it’s dealing with a serial cheater at best and visiting a jail at worst. No, thanks. Anyway Buffy definitely has a thing with it which, if I wanted to get analytical, would say goes back to her father and her fear of healthy relationships. Riley could have been forever and committing to that is scary. But when you know Angel or Spike can’t last you don’t really have to commit or face your fears of ending up like your mother. I think Buffy has a lot of issues with Hank (made worse by her first relationship being a nightmare) that go unresolved. I’m not saying Riley and Buffy would have lasted forever, but I don’t think she ever really gave that idea a chance.

Buffy: That's it. The invalid amnesiac routine is over. Kitchens closed 'til you tell me something useful about the commandos.

Spike: I'm trying to remember. It was very traumatic.

Buffy: How long are you going to pull this crap?

Spike: How long am I gonna live once I tell you?

Many people have wondered why Buffy didn’t stake Spike in season four and consider it a plot hole. I don’t doubt wanting to keep James Marsters around was a contributing factor, but I think we can also find signs Buffy had something for Spike in this episode. I don’t think it was love--just a weird sense of companionship mixed with physical attraction. They’d been rivals for so long they were practically pals (and his affection for Drusilla had always made him seem pathetic and more human to everyone). When they take him prisoner Giles is content to ignore Spike but Buffy sits by the side of the bathtub and teases him. They’re already developing that classic trope of the two people who fight so much you just figure they’ll eventually screw. Giles even notes that if they don’t kill each other soon he might lend a hand.

Willow’s solution to the Spike problem is a truth spell. In season six her going straight for a magical solution would have raised eyebrows but now everyone thinks it’s brilliant. It was probably frustrating for Willow that her magical help abruptly became an issue.

Giles: Willow may have had a helpful idea. She seems to be coping better with Oz' departure, don't you think?

Buffy: She's still got a way to go, but yeah -I think she's dealing.

Spike: What are you people, blind? She's hanging on by a thread. Any ninny can see that.

There’s an interesting irony in Spike being so good at reading people he doesn’t care about in the slightest. He’s proven right when Willow returns to Oz’s room and finds his things gone. She’s devastated and returns to moping around until she finally decides to get drunk. Xander and Buffy don’t approve.

Xander: We’ve all got pain, Will--

Willow: Like what? Poor me, I live in a basement? Oh, yeah-that’s dire!

Buffy: I’m taking you home now.

Willow: I don’t want to--

Buffy: You’ll thank me when you still have a friend in the morning.

That made me so sad, especially given Xander’s usual attempts to cheer his friends up even when he’s feeling bad. It highlights a typical Xander issue--human problems tend to go unnoticed in all the supernatural chaos. Xander isn’t going to have a spell go awry and cause mass chaos when he’s upset so people just leave him to deal.

Willow: Isn’t there some way I can make it go away? Just ‘cause I say so? Can’t I make it go poof?

This quote points us to a major underlying issue of Willow’s: she doesn’t like to fix things the hard right way. She loves magic because (aside from the power) it allows her to take short cuts. She doesn’t want to take the long, hard, and human path to healing and (later) forgiveness. This episode is one where you can really see Willow slowly going down the rabbit hole with magic and no one realizes what’s going on.

Giles: A spell? I don't think it's wise for you to be doing that alone right now. Your energy is too unfocused.

Willow: That's not true. I said I was off. Not incompetent.

Giles: I only meant that you're grieving, and it might be best if you took a break from doing spells without supervision.

Willow: So I get punished 'cause I'm in pain.

Giles misses the main things Willow is saying here: one, she does not like to be thought of as incompetent and two, she considers taking a break from magic a punishment. Willow craves approval and is already too reliant on magic. She is also deeply insecure and seeks to use magic to fix that (”if I had any real power I could have made Oz stay with me”). Buffy starts to tell her that she doesn’t want Oz to stay because she forced him but gets distracted. We avoided an important question--does Willow have a problem with enslaving Oz?

Buffy: One more word out of you and I swear--

Spike: Swear what? You're not going to do anything to me. You don't have the stones.

Buffy: Oh, I've got the stones. I've got a whole...bunch of stones.

Spike: I get this spell reversed, they'll be finding your body for weeks.

Buffy: Make a move. Please. I'm dying for good slay.

The sexual tension is pretty blatant in this scene. They’re leaning towards each other and you half expect them to kiss. Buffy is clearly attracted to Spike but too proud and disgusted to ever do anything with him (and that’s if she ever even admitted it to herself).

We revisit the idea that our heroes are “doomed” when it comes to love. Willow calls Xander a demon magnet and causes him to literally attract demons because of her spell. Giles becomes blind, which was interesting because he does see things but often willfully ignores them. Buffy and Spike think they’re in love and getting married.

Buffy: My wedding! I'm getting married! Can you believe it?

Riley: I don't think "no" is a strong enough word.

Possibly my favorite scene was when Riley runs into Buffy and believes she’s getting married. I laugh every time. She manages to save face when the spell is over by claiming she was teasing him over his panic when he saw her looking at wedding dresses.

Xander: Something about Willow and her grief-y poor-me mood swings. So, so tired of it.

Anya: You mean I don't have to be nice to her anymore?

Buffy: We're all tired of it, but what's it have to do with what's going on?

I saw a post mentioning it’s pretty obvious Anya is autistic, which was like--lightbulb! I find her character annoying at times but one thing I identify with is her being a bit stumped by certain emotions and social appropriateness. Anyway, one big neon warning sign the Scoobies miss is Willow being offered vengeance demon status. Heartbreak is one thing, but being recognized as a possible force for never-ending vengeance is a whole other level that clearly points to some deeper issues. It doesn’t surprise me that Anya doesn’t think much of it; she probably thinks her similar capabilities are a normal way to feel. But the hatred and drive for that kind of thing isn’t something every human is capable of. After all, Cordelia was not given the offer after the Wishverse. But Willow turns down the offer and bakes everyone cookies and all is forgiven.

Other Best Quotes:

Buffy: Honey, we have to talk about invitations. Do you want to be "William the Bloody" or, like just "Spike"? 'Cause either way it's gonna look majorly weird.

Spike: Whereas the name "Buffy" gives it that touch of classic elegance.

Giles: Stop whatever you're doing. You smell like fruit roll-ups.

Spike: This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed.

Character Notes:

Riley Finn: Buffy catches him helping hang a sign about the meeting of the UC Sunnydale Lesbian Alliance, telling us he’s a good, community-involved guy. He loves to cruise.

Anya Jenkins: When she sees Willow is sad she says she’d burn Oz’s entrails if she still had her powers. Xander says that’s sweet. Anya is able to help when a demon attacks. She was turned 1120 years ago.

Amy Madison: Willow’s spell briefly turns her back into a human, but she’s back in rat form before anyone sees.

Buffy Summers: Buffy still doesn’t know how to drive. When under the spell she asks Giles to give her away at her wedding rather than her father and wants ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ for the first dance.

Rupert Giles: He’s touched Buffy wants him to give her away. Despite his reluctance when Willow was in high school Giles now depends on her help when it comes to magic.

#tracy forbes #willow rosenberg #buffy summers #Riley Finn #Xander Harris #anya jenkins #xander/anya #Buffy/Riley #rupert giles #amy madison #spike #buffy/spike #Daniel Osbourne #willow/oz #somethingblue

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subasekabang · 7 years

Text

The Reluctant Hand - Chapter 1

Rating: G Word Count: 7719 (Total), 2005 (Chapter) Pairings: Platonic JoshNeku Characters: Neku, Joshua, Kariya Warnings: None Summary: Neku’s waited for what felt like an eternity for Joshua to appear in front of him, only to be greeted with bad news. Joshua laments his struggles of fighting the Higher Plane on Neku’s behalf for the last six months, and finally relays the verdict; Neku will only be allowed to continue his normal life in the RG if he also steps up and assumes his rightfully earned title of Conductor, along with all the responsibilities that come with it. Even though the news should be shocking, Neku isn’t surprised at all. It’s okay, really. He’s heard Shibuya calling him to his post, and though he knows it will be a difficult job, there’s no doubt in his mind that he should answer. After all, he can’t let someone like Joshua rule all by himself, now can he? Author’s Note: Hello everyone! Unfortunately, my fic ended up being a bit larger in scope and I ended up being a lot busier than I initially planned for, so I wasn’t able to finish all of it in time. I’m still going to finish it! It’s my offering/homage for the ten year anniversary, so I’m going to try and finish it by the end of the year. Sorry for the delay! Also, the title of this fic is a bit of a play on words: the first kanji in the name “Shibuya" means “reluctant,” which is such perfect symbolism for a certain scene I had to do something with it. So I came up with this title, where “Reluctancy’s Hand” is also “Shibuya’s Hand.” Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. I hope you enjoy my contribution, and happy tenth anniversary to all the fans around this wonderful world!

————- There were quite a number of things in Neku’s life up until now that he had, at first, been unable to believe. Most of them, of course, occurred during the same month, and most of them had also involved the same infuriating person. It would have to figure that the next incident could only involve that person as well. There was something deeply unsettling about it, the way one second he had been standing next to Hachiko like he had every week for the past six months, expecting nothing, and the next second he had felt compelled to turn his head and had immediately caught purple eyes gazing at him from just a few feet away. Joshua looked subtly different somehow, in a way that Neku couldn’t quite pin down, but before he could even make the attempt, he was running across the gap that separated the two of them. As soon as he was close enough, he grabbed Joshua’s wrist as though he expected it to be an illusion, but when the boy stood put, very real and very much there, Neku had no idea what to do next. “My, my, at a loss for words are we?” At least, if there was one thing Neku could count on, it was that Joshua would fill any silence without further prompting, and Neku nearly melted in relief at the sound of his provoking voice. “Josh…” The name slipped out before he had thought of anything to say, still maintaining his death grip on the boy’s wrist, and they stared at each other a moment longer before Joshua decided to take charge. “Neku, I’m not going to vanish. You can let go.” Neku swallowed the sudden and intense urge to punch him and finally let go of his arm, taking a tiny step back and straightening up. He took a breath and tried to gather everything back into focus, and as the scene finally settled into his head as real, all the leftover emotions he’d been holding onto started welling up to the surface again. “Where the hell have you been?” There were so many things to say, but he had to start somewhere. “It’s a bit of a long story, and I’m afraid I have some… news for you.” Joshua smiled, an expression tinged with emotions Neku couldn’t quite read. “Shall we go get some food?” “You’re buying,” Neku said, automatically starting to walk towards Cat Street. “Of course, of course. Anything for my beloved proxy.” Joshua caught up and started walking alongside him, and somehow, Neku didn’t feel annoyed or hurt by the title. Not as much as he felt he should have, at least. And somewhere in his mind, he couldn’t help but think it was almost too easy to settle back into the rhythm of their shared steps, like it was just a natural part of his life as it had been a natural part of his death. Neither of them spoke along the way, even though there were a million questions trying to burst out of Neku’s throat, but they arrived at the little cafe quickly enough. Much to Neku’s surprise, Joshua pulled out a set of keys to let them in. “After you, Neku.” Neku slipped past him and into the familiar place, somehow still free from dust despite having been closed every day for the past six months. How the place stayed in business was still a mystery. Joshua locked the door behind them and led the way over to the kitchen. “Have a seat. Do you want a drink?” “Are you… making it?” Neku asked incredulously, taking the stool at the furthest end of the counter. “Of course! Sanae showed me how to do it years ago. You don’t need to doubt me so much.” Neku watched Joshua operating the espresso machine, and the feeling of unreality started to creep back. “Where is he? Mr. H, I mean,” he asked, trying to find something to root himself in the present moment. “You want to ask about him first? How you wound me, Neku.” “Just answer the question.” “I’m afraid it’ll be a little while before you can see him, still. All of our business is concluded, but his… has a few more complications to work around.” “‘Our business’…?” “Drinks first,” Joshua said. Neku fell silent as he watched Joshua prepare their drinks; he eventually finished and settled down on the stool next to him, passing over some kind of iced coffee with unrecognizable ingredients. “Okay.” Joshua took a deep breath. “There’s a lot to go over, so I hope you’ve got time.” “Well, it’s Saturday…” Neku said slowly. “Good. Let’s start from the beginning shall we? You’ve received and read all of Sanae’s reports, yes?” Neku eyed him suspiciously. “I did, but what was that all about? It took me forever to find all the items on each list and my parents wouldn’t stop asking me about the weird letters that kept showing up for me.” “I wanted you to read the reports, so I stole them.” Joshua took a sip of his drink. “You stole them?” Neku asked, alarmed. “Of course! He did tell you he lost them—though, that was the you from the Tin Pin universe, so you wouldn’t know about that, I suppose. Anyway, I set up the item lists to keep you busy and make sure you had enough time to digest each piece of the report as I sent them.” “So let me get this straight,” Neku said, twisting a strand of his hair. “You stole Mr. H’s important and secret journal, then made me run around the city playing scavenger hunt only to just mail me the pieces of it.” “I didn’t mail them, I faked the envelopes and left them in your mailbox myself.” “And it never occurred to you that maybe you should just say hello and give them to me in person?” And somehow Neku had really almost forgotten this feeling of exasperation. “Neku, I told you there’s a lot to go over. I’ll explain if you’ll just wait.” “I’ve been waiting for six months,” Neku said, gritting his teeth. “Then you’ve got a lot of practice, don’t you?” Joshua giggled. “I can’t believe—” “It was important that you understand the hierarchy of the different planes, and the amount of trouble that game caused. There was a huge mess to clean up, and a lot of things to be decided, so I couldn’t come and speak with you directly. Sanae’s reports happened to have all the information you needed to know already conveniently written down and explained.” Joshua took a sip of his drink. “You know all of that now, so all that’s left is—” “To explain how everything went down, right?” Neku finished, an inkling of dread starting to settle on his shoulders. “Yes. I’ve spent the last six months arguing with the Higher Plane over what should be done about it all. We don’t really see eye to eye, I’m sure you realize.” “Sure.” “Well, there were a lot of things to battle with them over; what would be done about Sanae’s betrayal, what safeguards would be put in place so that the Composer would not try and destroy the city again, how to make sure that no innocent humans would get caught in the crossfire of battles in other planes… and most importantly, what to do about you.” Neku frowned. “What do you mean? What do I have to do with anything?” “Haven’t you learned yet, Neku? The eye of Shibuya is on you. It’s been on you for a long time.” Neku stayed silent. “In that game, I chose you as my proxy, and you did better than I ever could have hoped. You changed my mind about this city. However, you also left your own destruction in your wake.” “And whose fault is that?” Neku accused, the dread bearing down hard on him suddenly as anxiety wriggled deep in his mind. He took a drink; the concoction was oddly sweet for how strong the coffee flavor was. “I’m not trying to blame you. That’s how my game works; anyone can fight their way to the top if they are strong, determined, and smart, and you are all of those things. You fought your way onto my doorstep in order to stop me, and you cut down everything in your path. Reapers, the Game Master, and finally… even the Conductor.” “I think… I know where this is going…” Neku said slowly. Joshua smiled. “Yes, I’m certain that you do. Shibuya’s eye is on you, so I’m sure it’s spoken to you as well, right?” “The city can’t talk,” Neku said, concern now showing plainly on his face. “Of course it can’t, but it can still communicate. The voice of the city is the collective voice of the people within. Even if none of them are privy to what went on under their noses, they can feel the change, and they want it to stay that way.” “So the Higher Plane—what did they say?” Neku fiddled with his cup, avoiding Joshua’s eyes. “They said a lot of things… you’re a difficult case, Neku,” Joshua said carefully. “What did they say?” Neku pressed. “…you’re going to be the Conductor. They won’t let you continue your normal life otherwise.” “So… what? They’re going to kill me? Erase me?” “If it comes to it, they might,” Joshua said honestly. “They don’t want to, though. Your soul is valuable, and I won’t see it go to waste.” “So I have no choice, then?” “You always have a choice. But there’s no need to be upset, Neku. I already know that you want to say yes.” “What makes you think that?” Neku asked half-heartedly, turning away. “Shibuya has been calling you, and you’ve wanted to answer, I can tell. Maybe you’re scared, but you can answer now, and I know that you will. Deep down, you don’t have any doubts, even if you’re unsure on the surface.” Neku sighed. “Okay, fine, you’re right. But I guess…” He paused, shoulders sagging. “I’m still not sure if I can just accept it. That’s a lot to take on, you know? It’s too much for a teenager who’s still alive.” Joshua was quiet for a moment. “Would you feel better if I explained the reasoning?” “…it wouldn’t hurt.” “First, there’s the fact that you rightfully beat the Conductor, of course.” “I did that together with everyone, though,” Neku objected. “True. Normally multiple challengers wouldn’t even be allowed. However, seeing as it was a bit of a special circumstance, that you were the Composer’s hand-picked proxy, and that you were definitively the one to land the killing blow, it only makes sense that the title should fall to you, don’t you think?” “But why do I have to take it now? Can’t you get someone else to do it?” “I tried to argue that point. The Higher Plane insists that it would only create trouble down the line, and I unfortunately have to agree. The game can’t run without a proper Conductor, so I would have to appoint someone to the job in the meantime. Then what would happen when you died? The reigning Conductor certainly wouldn’t want to give up their seat to you after holding it for decades. It would create a power struggle, and we all know how that turned out last time.” “But can I even be the Conductor while I’m alive? How can I get into the UG? How can I do anything?” “I’ll explain it all, Neku. Everything’s been sorted out. The only thing you have to do alone is step up and claim your rightful title; I’ll be there to help you with everything else.” Neku couldn’t come up with anything more to object with. “You can trust in Shibuya, Neku. It found its voice again because of you.” Neku took a deep breath. “Then… I’ll do it. I’ll become the Conductor of Shibuya.”

#fanfic #submission #TWEWY #TWEWY Bang 2017 #composerlost

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scurvgirl · 7 years

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What’s In a Name

@lillotte17 wanted Aili and Miriel bonding over baby names and Dalish traditions!

Uthvir belongs to @feynites

Elves generally start showing pregnancy earlier than humans, mostly because they’re smaller, Miriel thinks. Healers say that it’s because elves carry slightly differently than humans. It’s not enough to endanger any human baby an elf may carry, but enough to contribute to elves changing quicker to accommodate the life inside of them.

But for those not in the know about it, Aili’s slight figure change may be attributed to eating more human foods (which is also legitimate, Miriel has gained some weight after eating a lot of the human breads and sweets). But Miriel knows that look, and she has only just been married – it falls into place. There is no formal announcement about it yet, however. Miriel believes that’s more of the Inquisitor’s doing, they are secretive and they are concerned with all matters of safety. It makes sense that they would conceal Aili’s pregnancy as much as possible.

Miriel knows Aili, and she knows the Dalish. While hiding the pregnancy makes practical sense, the woman must be going bonkers not talking about it with anyone.

Interestingly enough, Aili manages to convince Uthvir to go to Val Rayoux with the rest of them for a resupply and a super-secret important Inquisitor only meeting. Not that Miriel knows anything, of course.

She tags along and while the Inquisitor is out performing their spousal duty of retrieving that night’s supper, she sits next to Aili. Miriel bumps her shoulder and smiles at her.

“Have you thought of any names yet?” She whispers. Aili’s face turns red but she beams, her hands fluttering down to her stomach.

“Not too much, really, I’m…not that good with names.”

Miriel nods, “Does Uthvir have any ideas?”

“Other than they want it to look like me, they haven’t really said anything about names,” she answers, shrugging.

“Just…perhaps not Enaste. There were five Enastes in my clan. Five!”

“Creators, that is too many.”

“Are you thinking of raising it more Dalish? Maybe something traditional?” Miriel suggest. Aili shrugs again.

“It’s still a little early to be considering things otherwise, don’t want to jinx the pregnancy,” Aili says. Miriel’s brow furrows.

“What do you mean jinx the pregnancy? It’s just names. My parents argued the entire length of Mamae’s third pregnancy on what to name the babe. What if it’s a boy? They had five names for that. A girl? Five more names. Neither? Ten names.”

“Well if you name the babe too early on, it is risky, you know…? Oh, this is clan specific.”

“Ah! That makes sense. Have you done your painting?”

“Oh not yet, I’m not even fully three months yet. It’s the only reason Uthvir is letting me travel.” She wrinkles her nose in distaste at it and Miriel sighs.

“Like you wouldn’t be traveling if you were married and in the clan.”

“Exactly! They don’t like that thought much either though,” she rolls her eyes but she smiles, stroking her belly through the warm tunic.

“If you do not need to put yourself in danger, why?” They drawl, strolling back into camp, holding several geese by the neck. Miriel shifts over and helps them clean the kills.

“I am not an invalid, that’s why!”

“But you carry one,” Uthvir answers and…they have a bit of a point. Aili crosses her arms and narrows her eyes. She won’t be swayed.

“You both have points. Aili should be careful, but don’t underestimate the need to move. Staying safe for the Dalish often involves moving a lot so as not to draw too much attention from the humans. Adhering to a stay-put mentality of safety is very difficult for us. The longer we stay in one place, the more likely we’ll be attacked. When my mother was pregnant with Maren, she insisted the camp move every three days. There have…been some indications that humans are more likely to attack if they see pregnant elves in the camp….” Miriel supplies. Aili nods at her and Uthvir contemplates for a moment before sidling up to their wife.

“I will not allow anyone to harm you or the babe.”

“I know, still doesn’t help the need to move,” she answers, gently threading her hands into their hair. Miriel effectively takes over supper then, putting all the geese onto a spit roast over the flames.

“What is this painting you two spoke of?” They ask after a moment.

“An old tradition,” Aili says.

“Some clans don’t like it because it’s too reminiscent of blood magic, but our clans still do it,” Miriel says.

“It involves taking the blood of a goat, usually stolen, and drawing symbols of growth and protection on the belly.”

“They are probably against it because that is blood magic,” Uthvir replies dryly.

“Not if a non-magical person does it, that’s why usually it’s a hahren or a halla keeper that does it, and not the Keeper or First,” Miriel answers, she leans forward and rests a hand on Aili’s knee, “I’d be happy to do it for you, I know the words too.”

Uthvir narrows their eyes and their hand moves protectively over Aili’s abdomen.

“The spell would actually work if a mage did it.”

Aili frowns this time, “I don’t want blood magic near the baby.”

“It’s mostly ceremonial, and asking for protection rather than demanding it,” Miriel explains. Uthvir blinks, looks to reply before considering better of it.

“They could help with the stones, though,” Miriel says after a long moment.

“The what?” Aili asks.

“In my clan, the Keeper often temporarily enchanted stones to help ease some strains of pregnancy, particularly swollen ankles. Caetili’s ankles swelled so much with the twins that he ended up stringing the stones onto a rope and wrapping each on around an ankle to help ease her walking.”

Aili’s jaw drops, “That sounds amazing, why aren’t we doing that?”

“I could help with that, but Dagna is more proficient at enchantment,” Uthvir says. Miriel nods.

“I know, but it’s there if you want.”

“Oh, oh, there’s the race!” Aili says, waving her hand happily.

“Race?” Miriel asks. She doesn’t know of any race involving pregnancy…it sounds ill-advised. Uthvir looks just as skeptical.

“In my clan, if there were three people were pregnant at the same time, there’d be a race where the spouse would carry their pregnant partner and whoever got to the finish line first got a prize. Aren’t Ethel and Ruby pregnant?”

“Oh they are!” This race sounds much more palatable than having Aili run against other pregnant people. Ethel and Ruby are good sorts, Miriel doesn’t know their husbands too well but the women seem decent enough they could be good stand ins.

“I will win you any race you want – who are Ethel and Ruby?”

“They’re cooks, their husbands are in our army, vhenan,” Aili explains.

“They could hardly be expected to race fairly against me,” Uthvir says and Aili sighs.

“That’s true,” Aili sighs.

“We could hold a race in your honor.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“What prize are you hoping for? It can be easily acquired,” Uthvir insists.

“There is a custom in my clan where friends and family of the pregnant person are expected to give gifts around the time of the birth to help the parents out in any small way. In my clan, this often translated into promises from hunters to provide food while the parents and babe are still recovering, others gave baby clothes, toys, and sometimes even gifts for the parents.”

“I like this plan. Everyone should give you things,” they say, nodding along. Aili rolls her eyes and leans into them.

“Friends, we will ask our friends.”

Miriel turns back to supper and begins to dish it out. She makes sure to give Aili a larger serving than normal, despite her insistence that she doesn’t need it.

She picks up the fourth plate and heads towards a tent that is separate from all the others. Solas sits by his own fire, reading one of his old books, splayed out over his bedroll.

“I brought you supper,” she tells him, setting the dish down next to him. He blinks up from his book, almost startled by her appearance.

“Ah, thank you.”

“You know you don’t have to be all the way over here,” she says, plopping down by his fire. He sighs and sets his book aside, moving to pick at the food.

“It is easier. The inquisitor seems reluctant to have me be anywhere close to Aili since she became pregnant.”

Miriel blinks. Of course he knows. He’s remarkably observant of such things.

“Still, you’re all alone over here.”

“I am used to solitude.”

“What a terrible thing to be used to,” she comments. She does not move and his eyes linger on her for a moment before he turns to his food. They eat in companionable silence for a while before she looks up.

“Have you thought about having children?” She asks softly. He stops eating and coughs for a moment before looking back to her.

“Perhaps in passing. But I never lingered on the idea. Solitude does not lend itself to having children.”

She shifts over so that’s sitting next to him and leans against him, “You’re not alone anymore. Maybe…not think of it in simply passing?” She suggests. He chuckles and looks down at her.

“Are you saying you want children?”

Miriel looks over to where Aili and Uthvir are huddled up. Aili’s giggling at something they just said and their arm curls around her form protectively. Her heart aches and she sighs.

“I do. But I know our relationship is new and I just…think about it? For the future, after all this chaos has settled,” she suggests, taking his hand in hers. He blinks at her, his eyes growing sad and full of weight all of a sudden.

“Alright, I will think on it,” he agrees and she smiles, snuggling into him.

“Ma serannas, ma lath. Do you want to tell me about your book?”

“It is on the differences in barrier construction between various cultural groups in Thedas, focusing on Rivaini Seers and Tevinter magisters,” he begins and she nods, listening to him speak on the various trivialities that don’t entirely make sense to her. She tries to keep up though and asks questions when she feels comfortable.

The night draws on and they migrate into a lying position on his bedroll, looking up at the stars. He talks about what the ancients called the constellations and she tells him what her clan thought. When they fall asleep, he finds her in the Fade and kisses her sweetly.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

She is given a room as requested by Aili. It is small, but nicer than the tent she had occupied while they were fighting Corypheus. There is a small window that lets in warm light. Aili promises to grant her a larger room once…once….

Miriel swallows and leans against Aili.

“Well, we know ‘Enaste’ is not an option,” the other woman says. Miriel smiles.

“No, not Enaste.”

“And Mealla is taken too.”

“Clearly! Imagine having two of her running about.”

“Creators, Skyhold would be rubble in days,” Aili laughs. Miriel sighs and her hands flutter to her stomach, already starting to swell.

“I’ve always like Risir and Elanehn.”

Aili reaches over for a quill and parchment and quickly jots them down.

“Great, we need four more if it’s a girl, five for a boy, and nine more for it’s neither,” Aili says. Miriel smiles despite the pain and nods.

“Right. I…like Urilin?”

“Little Uri! I like it. Four more for the boys.”

Miriel closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She can do this. Her heart aches and her body hurts, but she can do this. Tears eek out of her eyes.

He’s gone, and she’s left with the pieces, one of which is…growing. But it is not the baby’s fault, she loves it already. She can be a mother, even if Solas cannot be a father.

#my writing #aili #miriel #uthvir #the sharp ones like your shine!#solas #solavellan #sort of?#we need a name for this au i realize #inquisitor!uthvir #fic

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thrilla-in-mcgilla · 5 years

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THE FINAL POST

To everyone who thought that this blog was dead, you were mistaken. Yes, I have risen from the emotional shambles that was moving out of residence, and as I [start to] write this post I will be sleeping in my bed in BDot for the first time of the summer. Essentially, with this post, I’m hoping to hit some of the highlights of the year, but mostly it’s just going to turn into one long [and I mean looooong] sappy post dedicated to all of the friends that I’ve made along the way. So buckle your seatbelt ladies and gents and let me walk you through my first year of university.

One of the things that always gave us something to look forward to was going to Arvind’s concerts. If you remember, Arvind is my friend who is in the music program at McGill, and he plays the flute [most of the time at least]. The first concert of his that we went to was on November 2nd, but we went to many more throughout the year. In second semester, Arvind wasn’t placed in one of the major ensembles, which was very upsetting, but also meant that we got to see him perform in the university chorus, yes that means singing. All of us marked it down in our calendars, and I thankfully captured the song with hand motions on video [Come Sweeeeeeeet Death]. Despite being constantly challenged by his teachers, Arvind definitely pushed through first year and is no doubt on his way to becoming the best flutist at McGill.

Towards the end of our first semester, we started having frequent game nights, where uno was by far the most popular pick. Through our game nights, many new catchphrases were created, such as: “oh is that not good for you?”, “cAn’t gO?”, “don’t trust Michael, don’t trust Michael [to the tune of frere jacques]”, “eeYEAHHH”, and many more that I’m probably forgetting. This was especially helpful to help us all deal with the stress of final exams, and “uno in 503?” was a question that would often appear in our group chat [503 was Anna and Sayaka’s room number]. I know, I know, really? You guys stayed in to play uno instead of going out to some party? Most of the time, yes. I can’t believe it either.

Soon after first semester was over, the Owl’s Nest realized that our residence’s dining hall was just not going to cut it for the rest of the year, and we started eating at other dining halls much more frequently. Speaking of food, group outings became a defining feature of my friend group, and we would often plan dinners or brunches at our favourite restaurants weeks in advance [so that we could save our money haha]. Universel was definitely our favourite breakfast place, and I’m pretty sure all of us took our parents and friends there whenever they were in town. Fisshu, although we only went twice, was a delicious sushi restaurant, oh my goodness I can taste the maki from here, yum. Moving on to the more classic university experience, late night trips to Tims, or orders from Chef on Call [their veggie burger gets an A+ from Michael, Sena and I], were probably a little too frequent than we’d like to admit. Yes, that’s right everyone I am still not eating meat, and I’m quite proud of that fact so please try not to eat chicken wings in front of me or I might cry (I won’t eat them though, Michael stop judging me).

As I mentioned in my last post ions ago, I was a part of Hall Council this year. After the Halloween event, we had many more successes. We hosted two coffee houses [like mini talent shows], a winter formal, another beer pong tournament, a residence wide month long elimination game called Gotcha, a free food event, and a “Flashback to Frosh” event. I’ll insert videos of my friends and I performing at coffee house, I have some talented pals let me tell you! While hall council meetings were almost always a little bit chaotic, and we had our fair share of drama, I wouldn’t give up my experience on it for the world. We had so much fun running events for our peers, and I got to spend so much more time with my friends doing things that we love [i.e. being in charge haha]. Our council advisors said that we were one of the most cohesive councils that they’ve ever worked with, and I think that our ability to work well together really showed. Even though we were a group of almost 30 people, which was challenging at some times, we really made things happen. Between running our own events, and going to the events hosted by other councils, we all had a really good time within the residence community and I’m really thankful for that.

(Sena helping me set up the photo booth for the winter formal)

(A VERY low quality photo of Sena, Anna, Myself and Emma [wolves], at IRC’s Blackout, Whiteout event)

(Kaya and I tabling for ERC’s sustainable eating initiative)

(Anna and I at the Flashback to Frosh event)

(Emma [wolves], myself and Anna at IRC’s Wine and Cheese night)

(My delicious beverage and I at our final council outing)

(The entirety of Hall Council at the Halloween event)

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(Coffee House performances)

Moving on to RezWarz, which I mentioned in one of my very first posts, there were several events throughout the year that contributed to the accumulation of RezWarz points. The first notable one is the IronChef competition. A team from each of the residences [or most of them], competed against each other in a cooking competition, where they had to cook both a protein and a vegetarian plate within a time limit, making sure to incorporate a few of the mystery ingredients. My friend Anna [who you should recognize from previous posts] competed alongside my friends Himanshu and Flemming, and they WON! It was very exciting for everyone involved, other than them who were actually competing because they didn’t even want to win! The winners of the first round would represent McGill in the next level, which was taking place at the University of Massachusetts. While they were very reluctant at first because of the time commitment that competing would mean, they decided to go, and they even got third place! Winning the IronChef competition was pretty remarkable for a few reasons. For one thing, C4 does not have any kitchens for students to use, so Anna, Flemming and Himanshu had to practice for RezWarz in another residence’s kitchen, and only for a few hours. Additionally, winning the IronChef competition meant a TON of RezWarz points, putting Carrefour Sherbrooke in FIRST PLACE. But this was not the last competition, so we had to fight really hard to try to stay on top.

(Anna, Himanshu, and Flemming holding their prizes!)

Our final RezWarz challenge was to create a lipdub, which, if you’re unfamiliar, is basically a crazy upbeat video where a bunch of people dressed in funky outfits lipsync to the camera in one take. C4 had managed to hold its lead in RezWarz up till this point, but it was really important that we made a really awesome video in order to secure the win. I had always wanted to make a lipdub video, so I kind of made this project my baby, with the help of wolves [that’s what we call my friend Emma if you haven’t caught on by now]. After making the track that we would be lipsyncing to, creating a shotlist of where each song would take place, and assigning the people who would “sing” each part, it was time to film. Filming, while very tiring, and not quite as crisp as I would’ve liked it to be, was a success. I then poured the rest of that night into editing and after probably around 15 hours total working on the lipdub, it was complete. The winners of RezWarz were to be announced in a couple of days at council dis-orientation, as well as the highest scorers for the lipdub. As it turned out, we won the lipdub, and as a result, WON REZWARZ! I’m sure it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but it really was for us. This was so ridiculously exciting for myself, all of my friends, hall council, and C4 as a whole. I hope I haven’t talked it up too much, but attached below is the C4 Lipdub. I know that this will be something that my friends and I can look back on for years to come, so I’m really happy that it turned out so well.

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Next up on my list of bullet points, birthdays! The Owl’s Nest knows how to celebrate a birthday. After Emma and Michael’s birthdays which I already mentioned, we celebrated 4 more birthdays throughout the year [Sorry Arvind and Sena who have their birthdays over the summer]! We celebrated Anna’s birthday on November 15. Anna booked us an airbnb for the night, so that we could cook ourselves a meal, and bake some desert to boot! Overall the night was a lot of fun, between screaming the lyrics to every ABBA song, to Michael blaming the tomatoes for the mediocre pasta, to eating a delicious brownie with ice cream, to playing board games, to trying to make eggs in a pot in the morning, we had a blast. Next up on the 30th was Jonathan’s birthday. For his birthday I collaborated with his girlfriend to hold a surprise party for him in my room while she was in town. We went out and bought all the decorations: streamers, a banner, balloons, noisemakers, glow sticks, the whole nine yards. I spent a couple of hours setting everything up in my room, and I gotta say it looked pretty good considering it was just me [for the most part, that’s right Michael, you barely helped]. I swear he almost peed his pants so it was all worth it!

The next birthday was actually none other than yours truly! As you might have seen on facebook, for my birthday I decided I would like to go skating in old Montreal. But first, we stopped at A&W so I could grab the beautiful beyond meat burger with sweet potato fries hehe. After a treacherous walk in the cold we finally made it to the rink, which was stunning. I had to reteach myself how to skate for the first while, but once I got it, all was good. The walk back was much less pleasant, all of the owls had to defrost when we got home, but it was worth it [right guys?]. Writing this has reminded me that I’m the old lady of the group, and now I feel weird, but that’s alright, admire the photos.

Finally, the last birthday that we celebrated of the year was Sayaka’s! For her birthday we all went out to a Japanese restaurant [she’s the tiny Japanese one if that wasn’t obvious], and then we came back to rez and had a little party. By little party, I mean we got a little too drunk in my room, but that’s fine. We already have plans to visit Sena and Arvind for their birthdays so they won’t feel left out, don’t worry!

Before I move on to the really sappy stuff, here are some various photos of various fun things from throughout the year that didn’t really fit with the topics above.

(Myself, Michael, Sena, Anna, Arvind and Sayaka after the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, heading out to the Irish bar)

(Wolves, Michael and I went to the Montreal Youth Climate March that was observed by hundreds of thousands of students around the world)

(Wolves, Anna, Sena Lili and I at our first [and only] frat party)

(Sena, Michael, Arvind and I before heading to upper rez for a party with Michael’s friend from home)

(A photo taken on the walk home from karaoke. It was around -25 degrees and also the middle of a snowstorm [and also the night that Arvind and I ended up taking Michael to the hospital for a stomach bug])

(You can’t really tell, but a few of my friends from rez went across the street to protest the protestors who blew airhorns everyday at 10am and 3pm for months)

(From when Sena, Michael, Arvind and I met up in Toronto over the Christmas break)

(A picture of Arvind, Sayaka, Jonathan, Anna, Michael and I with the head chef of our dining hall at the holiday banquet)

(Self explanatory)

(Sena and I counting worms for our biology project)

(An awful photo but an incredible night. We had just had “camp council” which is basically just code for hall council getting drunk with the floor fellows. We were going to go out to a club or something, but instead we ended up having a massive snowball fight on McGill’s lower field, which was definitely 1000x more fun)

(From the night I climbed Mont Royal to take some photos)

(Michael and I at what turned into our favourite bar, McKibbins)

(Taken on one of our last nights together in Rez)

(It’s always snuggle time)

(My roommate Delal and I, right before I moved out of residence)

Okay here comes the really sappy emotional stuff, so feel free to skip ahead if you’re not up for it. I want to write little open letters to the people who made my first year away from home so incredible. So here it goes.

To Sayaka:

Our little Japanese! It’s so hard to believe that at one point you were just the crazy roommate of twin #1 that was moving into 503. You are definitely nothing like what those twins said you would be. What we gained instead was a caring, sweet, GIGGLY new friend that we could adopt into the owl’s nest. Whether it was scream-laughing too loud in the dining hall [I can still feel Ahmed’s intense gaze], or singing a little tune, or looking at anyone with those big eyes, you’ve always had such a positive attitude, and I think we could all learn from that. I will always remember standing in line for warehouse and you asking if you could touch my hair hahaha. A few things to clarify: no you are not 6 feet tall, I live east of you not “up”, the easter bunny has nothing to do with jesus, and so on. However, if you ever need anything, I will always be around to support you, how could anyone abandon the little one and make her japaNESE MAD. I have lots of love for you, and you don’t have to ask to pet my straight hair anymore, I give you eternal permission!

At the end of all these little open letters I’m going to say the song that reminds me of each of the owls, and since musical theatre is something we could always bond over, the song that makes me think of you is Poor Unfortunate Souls. While I was barely in The Little Mermaid AT MY HIGH SCHOOL, I’m so mad I missed you performing as Ursula. Although, I totally cannot imagine little ole you performing as the big nasty sea witch. I guess that’s just some Disney magic for ya.

To Jonathan:

Obviously, our friendship started with quite a few boulders to overcome. It definitely was not easy all of the time, but I’m really glad that we both stuck to the nest, because it just wouldn’t have been the same otherwise. We all know you as drunky jack, or white bread, and I truly hope those nicknames stick around, they’re just too funny lmao. You were one of the first people that I ever felt comfortable around in residence, ever since that night that you, Arvind, James and I walked around in search of an SAQ before we landed in Tims. From the way that we stayed up just talking for hours that night, there was absolutely no way that we wouldn’t remain friends. Don’t lose your spirit. Sometimes throughout the year it was clear you were a little down, but whenever the white boy dance moves were busted out, everyone had the chance to smile for at least a second. Try not to be a stranger.

A song reminds me of you [and obviously first year in general], is Body. There was something about drunky jack in the first week of school that just screams body, so I think it’s a perfect fit [the video of you at beach day, yikes].

To wOlves:

I remember thinking that I would never even get the chance to meet you. What crazy struggles getting that study permit (or whatever it was hehe). I also vividly remember meeting you for the first time and thinking “damn it this girl knows more memes than me”. You literally started flossing in the middle of the room and I just - wow. And you already know how impressed I was that day that you gave that man directions, not in french, no, in SPANISH. We definitely got a lot closer throughout second semester because of our favourite men [who helped us find the aREa of the potatOID]. I see a lot of myself in you, from our taste in bOys, to our taste in music, to our taste in sporcle quizzes, we’ve got a lot to talk about. You’re always there to laugh at my sarcastic side comments, and let me tell you I will always be there to laugh at yours. Some days I swear our minds are linked together. You overcame a lot this year, and I’m proud of you for that. As soon as we get back to Montreal, you, Sena and I must have a cuddly movie night, okay?? I absolutely loved screaming harmonies with you every chance we got, we gotta jam more now that Shelby is fixed and ready to play more Billie. I swear we’ll give you a better birthday party this year, but come on, we tried. One day, ONE DAY, you will perfect the mOve, and I will be there to capture the moment in all of its essence. We have many more inside jokes to create [haha eh :P] so I don’t know what you were planning buuuut you’re not going anywhere. You’re also the only one in the nest who’s movie taste I trust [come on Sena, you want to watch an action movie again??]. We need to do a day where we watch each others favourite movies, even if it’s a lot of them! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our movie dates over text message and we better keep doing that all summer, it makes me feel less lonely! I love you like you’re my child and I will keep screaming at you not to eat timbits during shabbat [shabbafe bampus hehe]. I swear one day we will run into linear algebra boy and simultaneously confess our love for him, but until then we can only dream. Don’t forget your worth. I love you so much my little wolf.

Sis, you already know what your song is. No Flex by our favourite boys TMG. I feel like this doesn’t need any more explanation. [my body count up in the double digits (11), I got a TEXT, that’s all, no further comments thank you].

To Avinash Arvind Krishendeholl [the Indestructible Lotus]:

Wa-ow, what a year it’s been eH? First of all, thank you for being everyone’s emotional support dog, you’re probably one of the most dedicated friends that I’ve ever had. I probably would have cried myself to sleep many times this year if it weren’t for you. I don’t know what it is about you, but I think that everyone can just automatically sense that you’re trustworthy even when they first meet you. I felt instantly heard by you, and that’s a very special quality to have, and I mean it. I know we kid all the time, but I actually want to take the time to be completely honest with you in this little message because I feel like I don’t tell you enough how much I appreciate you. Arvind, you’ve really felt like my partner through the year and I know that a lot of the nest feels the same way. You’re the safety patroller 1 to my safety patroller 2, and I feel like it works for us. That first crisis really bonded us, I think it became evident to both of us that we are both the type of people who won’t just go to sleep if we feel that any one is in danger that we can help. We’re problem solvers my dude. I know everyone says they don’t know what they would do without you, and that’s just become something that people say casually, but seriously. You were a grounding force for all of us, someone that we could go to for actually anything. Whether it be conflict within the group, conflict with someone else, just a bad day, a big paper due, or even wanting a good laugh and a bite to eAT, you were there. You were there if I just wanted to sit in a room with someone else, or if I wanted a shoulder to cry on, and I hope you feel that I can be the same for you when you need it. Beyond all of this sappy crap, you’re seriously a force to be reckoned with. I know this year was tough for you in music [seriously why would they put a flutist in a choir, Schulich wyd??], you have the ability, and the perseverance to do absolutely anything that you want. I actually can’t wait to see what the future holds for you because whatever it is you end up doing, you’re GOING to dominate, no doubt in my mind. Your section would be incomplete without a mention of all of your catchphrases so here we go: what are we gonna eat NOW, wait why’d the mood change, L-O-L, sAAAd, I have received communications from Mr. McIntosh, you want some cUHrry, im JOKING im joking, gUUUYS, senAAAAAAH, waaow, in FAAAACT, the power of seven theorem states, that’s a fallacy, what’re you gonna do gIRL, OPE, wait why’d you look down, I’m on a diet, let’s get the gOO, knowing me knowing you ahah, chef?, I’m in mUsic, now wHaaat are you doing, bwaaaaaah, ooooozgayyy, weeeeeelll??, heeeeet [hoot hoot], schWWIIING, the sweet meats, motion, notice, stOP gUYS, eeeeeYeaaah, Kaaaaaasssidyyyy Michael saaaaaiddd, heLLO, just a petit quelque chose, I am holding a notice in my left paw, proceed in B flat minor. Nest don’t punish me for forgetting a bunch, he’s a very quotable boy.

Your song was already mentioned in this post, and I believe it is very fitting Knowing Me, Knowing You [ahaaaah]. Anything ABBA will remind me of you and Michael instantly, for obvious reasons, but I chose this song because it became one of your catchphrases and I think it suits the two of us the best [you know me all too well].

To Shishtar:

I get to tell you all of the things I love about you everyday next year in our cute little apartment hehe. But of course I will give you your space here as well. I am proud to be the first fluent speaker of Sennish [other than the creator herself]. I know Arvind and Michael give you a hard time, but they just don’t get you like I do. I hope you don’t mind that I totally latched to you during frosh, but I think it worked out well for both of us, what do you think? If you go back and read some of my first posts, it was all Sena all the time. I can’t wait to live with you in just a few months. It going to be like having slumber parties every night, and oh my the DECORATING! I had so much fun every single time we went out together [that might be trouble hehe] you’ll always be my best dance partner. I know that no matter what I’m feeling I can go to you and trust that you’ll feed that emotion back to me. If I want to laugh, you’re in, if I want to cry, you pull up the audition videos, it’s really a good set up we’ve got going. I want you to know I will always always always be here for you. If a shishtar is in need, a shishtar is here for her, those are the rules. I just know we have so much in store for us and our friendship and I can’t wait to do it all. I feel like you’re the friend that I can adventure with, you’ll never turn down a good time [unless you’ve already drank too much and can’t make it out lmaoooo]. I’m so happy that we raised our worm babies together, even if that experiment was VERY questionable! I wonder how they’re doing now actually, probably thriving. Let’s not carry soil back from across the city again though, that was not too much fun. I will now go into some roommate vows. As your roommate I pledge to always repeat myself when you say wait..WHAT?, and only get annoyed at it sometimes. I promise to cook you breakfast when I get the chance, and more importantly, teach you to cook some things other than “thin meat” and “cubed chicken” because that has to be a crime. I promise not to force you to every bafe tuesday [only some], and to help you study when you need it. There’s more, but I’m sure we’ll cross those bridges when we come to them. I can’t wait to take the next step in our friendship, even if our landlords are trash. We’ll manage. [AND I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THE JONAS BROTHERS WHAT THE HECK]

The song that I chose for you may be surprising, because it is not a Sena song. I picked Electric Avenue, because of that one Cafe Campus tuesday that we went to. One of the first songs that came on that night that got us bopping was electric avenue [which I captured on video]. I just know that I’ll never be able to hear that song without thinking of you and that night, even if it ended with us running full speed in the wrong direction!

To Michael:

We all know how much I love you, but I guess I’ll try to scratch the surface with words. Not that your ego needs to be stroked any more than it already is, you are definitely one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. You somehow just know so many things and you are able to talk intelligently about virtually anything. I don’t know why, but you seem like a completely different person now than from when I first met you. I still remember us wandering around together at RezFest, going back up for more samosas [eyeeeah], but to be completely honest I didn’t think that we would really become friends. That day I kind of felt like I was a placeholder until you found the people who you actually wanted to be friends with, which sounds sad as I write it, but I was happy to be that. Much to my surprise, you stayed with me the whole day, and we hung out with almost everyone who would soon become the nest [first the dean’s list though hehe]. I’m absolutely honoured to be your friend, and honoured that we’ve shared so much with each other starting with beach day. You’re passionate. That’s something that I really admire. Even if nobody wants to hear it sometimes, there’s not a chance you’re shutting up about wave particle duality, and that’s something I respect [even if sometimes it drives me crazy] about you. You don’t give up easy either. Not getting into McGill didn’t stop you from coming here [yes I had to bring it up hahahaha], and that mentality drives you, which I have mad respect for. The fact that you can’t sing doesn’t stop you from spewing nonsense about the circle of fifths [hehehe right @Arvind?]. In all seriousness, you are more than aware that you mean so much to me, and I appreciate that you standby for my moments of existential crisis. You don’t give up on me even when I act insane and I am very thankful for that, because lots of friends would take a step back, but you persist. Your sarcasm and sass makes me laugh like no other. I know you’ll never stop making fun of me for knowing so much about astrology, but that’s so libra of you. Try not to be as much of a doormat living with Arvind as you were living with Grant [yes, you were a doormat, even at the end], although I’m sure Arvind won’t try to see how high he can pile his clothes, so you’re already ahead of the game. Oh I almost forgot! Thank you for helping me in my pescatarian adventures. Having someone else so close to me live the same lifestyle really helped me out, especially every time Arvind ordered chicken wings. Along the same lines, thanks for always backing me up on my environmental speeches to not only the nest, but in council too. Just like I said with everyone else, I can’t wait to make even more memories with you, and I hope that you’re in my life for a long long time, because I don’t know what I would do without you!

No surprises here, the song that reminds me of you is The Chain, although this might as well be any Fleetwood Mac song. This is unrelated but just so you know, my gramma just said “there’s chippy” as a chipmunk ran around the backyard and I thought that that was an odd coincidence. But yes, listen to the wind blow [insert incredible bass line].

To Anna:

My dear sweet Anna. I’m not crying you’re crying!! You have kept my life interesting from literally the moment I met you. Please go back and read one of my first posts from the first night when you went on about your boy troubles, what a night. From that moment on you’ve filled my life with so many interesting and emotional moments. I think that everyone remembers the night that you said that this friendship probably won’t even last a month, and look at us now baby. We all have gone through so much this year as a group, and I know that a lot of that had a huge impact on you. You may be small, but by god are you tough girl. The amount of bullshit that you have gone through this year is remarkable, but you’ve never given up on any of us. You and I have gone through our fair share of trouble, but never once did I question that we would resolve whatever it was and be stronger than ever. We both confront problems the same way, so that means that whatever the problem is, it will be solved in record breaking time. You’re the one person who I always go to with the hot gossip and I feel like we could actually talk for hours about nothing. But for real back to the toughness thing, you endure so much. You’re very independent by nature, but it always surprises me that you are able to stay alone so far away from everyone. You have done so much for me this year and I doubt you even know it. I feel like you always understand whatever it is that I’m going through better than anyone else. I won’t forget the time in my room that we literally just read each other our poetry and cried on each others shoulders. You can sniff out when I’m upset and you’re so good at comforting me and making me feel loved. Okay I was joking before, but I seriously am crying now. It was so hard for me to leave your room particularly because I feel like I was safest to be myself in there. We spent so much time in 503 that it was my home away from home. You also always gas me up?? Like thank you girl because you know that sometimes I need that validation! I always trust you for that fashion advice because you shop so much that you must know what looks good by now [hehehe]. For real though, you’re so incredibly beautiful inside and out and I’m so proud to call you my friend. You’re simultaneously like my daughter, sister, sometimes my mom and always my best friend and that’s quite remarkable I’d say. Stop doubting how smart you are! You are doing great just where you are, you’re meant to do this, don’t let anyone tell you different. You’re strong. I literally can not wait to share every single little thing with you the moment it happens, so if you don’t mind, I would love to do just that for a long long time.

My song for you is one from our girl dodie, it’s Human. Every time I hear this song it brings me back to the two of us sitting in your room just feeling the feels. The lyrics are true. Paint me in trust, I’ll be your best friend. Love you so much my tiny little friend.

Okay that concludes the sappy letters to my best friends. I’m sure you’re tired of reading at this point, and I’m tired of writing, so to finish off this blog post I thought I would let a video fill in the blanks. For those of you who don’t know, I have been taking a one second video every day since October of 2017. This has turned into an amazing way for me to look back on the memories made throughout the years. So here is my collection of one seconds for my year in Montreal, starting with move in day!

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Thank you for keeping up with me this year, even though I totally slacked on writing these posts. Long story short, I’m absolutely in love with Montreal, and with McGill. So thank you for caring and staying tuned for the Thrilla in McGilla, catch ya next year!

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kendrixtermina · 7 years

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Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part 8, A: The Sensitive Style (Basics)

This style is probably what most of the uninitiated think of when they picture an “introvert”, perhaps because it’s one of the most common kind of introvert* -

This is the sort of person who prefers a few close friendships to many more shallow ones and prefers to stay within their comfort zone. They can be shy but more generally, they just prefer to be nestled in an emotionally secure environment and stick to what they know & are good at - though they can be very creative & imaginative within that sphere, once they feel sufficiently secure. They typically take a while to warm up to you but are a lot more affectionate once they do - roughly your classic supine temperament or the sp six.

*(though it’s possible for the trait to be present in a “lowkey” manner if the person has more extroverted styles)

The Six Domains

Emotions

In a way, each of the styles has their own way of looking for emotional security, for example, the Devoted find it through attachment to others while the Vigilant style tries to archieve this through independence and self-reliance. The Senitive style archieves this by building a small, manageable world they can call their own - they’re territorially and family centered and tend to form deep, life-long personal attachments with their family and/or a few close friends.

Their home is their castle, which they make comfortable, personal and attractive - they are always glad to be home, and within the bounds of their “territory”, they are emotionally free & ready to be warm, open, creative, giving & spontaneous.

Outside their secure sphere, however, they’re a bit like fish out of water: They feel vulnerable. As such, they move into new situations uneasily, becoming cautious and holding themselves in emotional reserve. They’re rarely at their best around strangers - they may even feel vaguely threatened, out of their element, guarded, anxious or worried, though they generally try to mask their discomfort under a polite, if cool facade.

Because they have a tendency to worry and/or get anxious about things that might go wrong, they’re generally cautious and, if they can’t just stay home, they will tend to prepare themselves for every emergency - they’re frequently the one to bring the bandaids. Hence, they live quiet, private lives, prefer their get-togethers small & intimate and if they travel, they often revisit familiar destinations - and they might actually like travel a great deal if they have some familiarity with the place or the people with them - Despite their uneasiness with the unfamiliar, they’re actually pretty curious in their own way:

If you saw them in their element, though, you would not think of them as reticent people - they often do their jobs & favorite activities with confidence, skill & efficiency - they like to know the ins & outs about their familiar environments or fields of expertise and aren’t diletantes of any sort - they very much like to study, experiment & learn, it’s just that they’d rather explore the known rather their big unknown, or that their journeys are more of the “inner” kind - for example many are avid readers, have a great imagination and a complex, creative inner life. Heck, they’re probably the ones responsible for the whole “shy dreamy bookworm” trope.

Relationships

The Sensitive style is ultimately an other-directed personality type: To feel good about themselves and comfortable in the world, these people need the approval of others. They genuinely like others and want the in their lives, but in a manageable fashion - in a warm, solid relationship or a small group of friends and family, their self-confidence peaks, but put them in a large gathering and they’ll be thinking of ways to excuse themselves.

To a degree, a Sensitive person’s self-confidence is inversely proportional to the size of the gathering, and especially the number of strangers present at a given time. Unlike Vigilant types, who tend to doubt strangers until their intentions are known, Sensitive individuals tend to doubt themselves in the presence of strangers - they want to feel that they’ve made a good impression, but as the crowd size increases, the number of strangers to impress becomes overwhelming, and they’re likely to get all self-conscious, worried that their discomfort will lead them to do something stupid or silly - they might be more comfortable socializing on the arm of someone they know, hunt for a familiar face, or, failing that, count the minutes until they can go home and calm themselves down with some sweet, sweet introvert time.

But when they know the people around them and are sure of their affections, they don’t get tied down with social anxieties and their personalities shine forth - hence why they prefer to build their lives around a few people that they feel welcome & happy around. They’re often the sort to treat their best friends like honorary siblings, but they will be slow to establish new ties - until they begin to trust a new person’s feelings for them, they’ll seal off their emotions and confidence behind a polite, well-mannered, emotionally distant facade.

Once you’re “in” though, they’re loyal, devoted and caring, and often marry for life - or at least prefer long-term relationships.

Self

In the safety of their known world, Sensitive individuals actually have a good sense of who they are and what they can do. Outside those boundaries, however, in the wide world of strangers and in relation to peolple with whom they are not yet comfortable, they might temporarily lose perspective - other people become huge, powerful & potentially threatening, whereas they themselves seem to pull an Alice and shrink, losing their certainty about themselves.

Self-Control

Despite the above, they do generally have good self-descipline & good self-control, which they generally use to manage their behavior and keep their feelings and discomforts to themselves. Their only risk for developing self-control problems is if they begin to self-medicate their social unease with booze or drugs, coming to depend on them as “chemical courage”.

(If this applies to you, consider seeing a psychiatrist for a safer way to treat any out-of-control social anxiety - in a controlled setting involving a proper doctor and a treatment plan, the right kind of drugs might actually prove useful. No shame in this, therapy is just a tool you may opt to choose to get closer to the life you want. There’s even support group-ey things on this very website.)

Worldview

To a Sensitive person, the world is ull of threats - Beyond the limits of their territory lurk the big bad wolves and the infamous map dragons - thus, they stick close to the hearth, or return relieved after venturing away, and all is safe and well.

Work

Sensitive individuals may bring many good qualities to the workplace - that is, if they can find a comfortable work “nest” and a structure from which to operate - they they are reliable, steady and effective.

Highly Sensitive people work best with few co-wokers & the time to get to know them, so that their office or department can grow into a little family or at least a comfortable safe heaven that they can return to day after day - They like to stay put in their jobs, having little need of variety for its own sake.

Sensitive types tend to be thorough & good at concentrating on their work, and because they care what other people think of them, they try hard to do good work - but unless the workplace is small or has a family-type environment, they’ll be uneasy dealing with management and unfamiliar people in general - some might even be reluctant & awkward about calling a repairman.

Something that contributes to their efficiency at work is their comfort with routine - every type of work, in or out of the home, has its daily repetitions - for some types (the Dramatic for example), routine is tantamount to drudgery and quickly lowers their motivational hp bar, but for the Sensitive type, routine provides a welcome structure to their day - for similar reasons, they like defined roles in which they know what is expected of them and don’t have to readjust each day - indeed, vocational roles often provide a welcome identity to use in unfamiliar settings.

Sometimes, this leads to the sensitive types acting pretty confident in professional or otherwise ‘structured’ settings (like a PTA), but going all tongue-tied in a purely social gathering - To an extent they role-play automatically. This is also how you get celebrities with a reputation for being super sweet, shy and surprised that people actually like them behind the scenes, no matter how flamboyant, assertive or exhibistionistic their stage personas may seem - such people have probably made that capacity to “transform” into something than can earn them a living.

For some Sensitive people, it can even be an effective coping mechanism to imagine themselves “playing a role” or “using their work voice” to get through unfamiliar social stuations.

Life Choices

Leadership

People of this style are often more ambitious on behalf of their work than on their own “political” success - they’ll do the best work they can do and are happy to please the higher ups. They may sometimes wish to be promoted to management in oder to do more challeging work, but they are not eager to increase their exposure to higher management.

Sensitive bosses do not like to deal with people outside their immediate unit and may appoint a subordinate to ct as a liason - that said, if they have a counterbalancing, more socially capable style such as Dramatic, they’ll be able to work the hierarchy and attend necessary social situations, though they might still feel a tad insecure on the inside & reluctant to show their true selves.

A Sensitive person may benefit from taking part in a long-term mentoring program or otherwise having someone whose opinion & guidance they can rely on.

Among their subordinates, they like to create & promote a family environment, though they may appear cold and aloof to newcommers until they are sure of them and their performance. They work best in staffs with little turnover.

Job Recomendations

If this is your predominant style, look for a career in which you play a defined role, and in which your interactions with or exposure to the public are limited and/or structured - an accountant, doctor or computer programmer, for example.

Sensitive individuals may also do well with clients because they can take refuge in professionalism, which allows them to be involved with their clients’ interests yet not emotionally involved - however, Sensitive types are uneasy with the prospect of consulting or influencing strangers, so steer clear of contracting, PR, sales and the like, or anything that will require much public speaking.

Due to the sensitive style’s ease with routine, repetition and habit, as well as their ability to concentrate, they do very well in technological fields.

Stress Sources

For this type, stress mainly comes from having to brave the unfamiliar, or, from criticism: Sensitive types care greatly about how people react to them, so that disapproval, criticism or humiliation can be very painful, even if they manage to hide it - they react either by staying clear of the criticizer (if they’re outside thir central sphere), or, if the person is important to them, by trying to improve their behavior or performance in order to “win them back.”

To deal with the stress of crossing the the unknown, Sensitive types generally resort to one of three coping strategies: They find someone else to come along, they back off from the challenge, or, sometimes, they jump right in, doing what they fear iin order to master it (see below for more on that) - most Sensitives, however, are quite happy to structure their lives around predictability & comfort and feel little need to wrestle with their inner demons.

Since sensitive types count on having at least one loved one to count on at all times, breakups can be highly anxiety provoking - to cope, they’ll generally seek out other familiar faces - this is the sort of person who will camp out at their best friend’s after a messy breakup. They’ll be reluctant to get out & meet new people and often attempt to return to former relationships. If they have no one to make up, their social reserve can make it hard to find a new partner, which can get them down quite a bit.

Parenting

Generally speaking, Sensitive types make good parents: They’re attentive to their offspring and watchful for their safety. A moderately Sensitive parents will anticipate the problems their kid might encounter “out there” and prepare for tthem, for example, making sure that they’re wearing scarves in winter and suncreen in summer. They’ll tend to take a lot of safety precautions and worry that something might happen to their babies once they start to date, go out to camp or move out.

Furthermore, they tend to provide their kids with a strong sense of home and family, ensuring that they always have a place to turn to - with the result that the children feel secure & retrospectively appreciate that they were well-cared for & taught to stay safe.

One should, however, take care not to impose ones’ own anxieties on the children and make them fearful of taking chances.

Romantic Compatibility

Sensitive types are best off with people who are also family-centered but can take the lead socially.

Solitary types, who are content to do without others, generally do not match up with Sensitive individuals (Pity, you guys are so cute & make cool friends IMHO! Oldham has a point tho there’s potential for a pretty fundamental disconnect here. We may just fundamentally not understand how having someone with you or not has anything to do with enjoying an activity, whereas for the Sensitives it can totally make or break an experience - Plus, when I was younger, stupider and not at all type-savy, I even used to think people who raised such concerns were completely unreasonable & ridiculous...)

A particularly good match may be a person with a balanced mixture of Conscientious and a more socially ccomfortable style, such as Dramatic or Self-confident. Too much Conscientious style, however, may cause the mate to feel rather uncomfortable or socially awkward; Too much criticism isn’t good, either. On the other hand, a highly Self-Confident partner may not be tolerant of the Sensitive person’s limit. Dramatic partners should take care not to expose the Sensitive to too much socializing or stress

A Devoted partner will be sufficiently accepting, but if the style is very pronounced, they may lack the deciciveness to take the lead & support the Sensitive partner when they need someone to rely on.

Alternatively, Self-Sacrificing or Leisurely partners may be suitable, as they also form strong family ties. (I don’t know about romantic matches but both of these seem pretty common in friendships.)

A mate with at least some Senstive, Vigilant and/or Serious will be content to live in & share their partner’s small world, but there’s a chance that they’ll reinforce rather than ease their discomort with “The World”.

The Adventurous style is amoung the worst matches for this type, due to being pretty much their exact oposite with a strong need to take risks & explore and a short rather than long “relationship attention span”.

Idiosyncratic people aren’t ideal either, as they may intensify the Sensitive’s social anxieties by being generally socialy tone-deaf & embaassing the Sensitive types with their eccentricities in dress or behavior - Sensitives tend to try to fit into groups rather than stand apart from them & don’t like calling attention to themselves. (Guilty as charged; I may owe my Sensitive friends from school and especially my pronouncedly Sensitive sister a bunch of apologies... Being sisters, we still get along but since reading this book I’ve been trying to overse & prevent the friction there.)

Specific Issues

Defrosting Ice Queen Syndrome

Because they act a lot more reserved in public, there’s a chance for people to get wrong first impressions. With their tedency to politely excuse themselves, stand aside and keep a certain distance, there’s a possibility that they might be mistaken for being haughty, holier-than-though or unfriendly, particularly by more communicative types -

Once you see them with their inner circle or at least a smaller group, it can be a shocking contrast when they’re suddenly all friendly, warm and animated & just generally sweet. They’re generally homebodies and not that interested in getting around & meeting people, preferring to stick with a few close friendships.

However, once you get them to relax & ease up around you, they’ll generally be able to be in “comfortable mode” with you if you meet them & might be more comfortable in a given situation if you’re there with them. Don’t push this process, though - Sensitive types take a while to take to know people and can be slow to open up - they may need some processing time before agreeing to ‘relationship upgrades’. If you give them time, they will gradually open up on their own.

If this style is very pronounced, though, an individual may find it had to form the close bonds they desire to begin with & reach that level of intimacy - They may begin relationships only to see them dissipate - the problem comes from the Sensitive tendency to hold themselves in reserve and their recitence to be themselves. To varying degrees, all Sensitive people are private with their innermost thoughts & feelings, and are suceptible to believing that to impress others & avoid being judged, they have to put on a facde. If the trait is very pronounced, a person may be afraid that if they reveal their so-called true selves, they won’t measure up to what the other person wants - So they end up masking precisely what would make them attractive, interesting or likeable: Their likes, dislikes, quirks, idiosyncracies, basically a lot of their individuality, ironically shooting themselves in the foot by appearing bland & uninteresting because they end up agreeing to everything the other person says.

The Secret Artist

While many artsy folks like nothing more than to show & talk about their art, the Sensitive types tend to treat it like their other means of self-expression, that is, mantain it as a private pleasure - they might be embarassed when prompted to show their paintings or play their musical instruments and their loved ones may go a while without realizing that they even have artistic inclinations - which are actually common for this type.

Though they might spent some of their happiest hous with their artsy hobbies, it may take a long time until your new Sensitive friend is comfortable showing it to you - they see it as a private sanctuary, not something for the entertainment of other people.

‘Counterphobic’ Sensitives (yes, the book actually uses that term)

Though it is usual for the Sensitive style to be content with the known or search for the familiar within the unknown, some individuals reveal an opposite tendency: They lead right into the unknown desite, or rather because of their inner anxiety - the whole “facing your fears” thing basically.

In their efforts to demistify the strange and unfamiliar and tame the terror, they may plunge ahead into things they’d never dared before, at times taking up a comittment so that their unwillingness to dissapoint keeps them in line. Unbeknowst to many, they may agonize about the prospect, fear failure and be sorely tempted to call the whole thing off, until they go through with it regardless - often with surprisingly good results: Their anxious attention to their environment and what they have to do within it can keep them sharply alert, well-prepared & generally on their toes.

With time, they might get less nervous and often they’re glad they rose to the challenge, but many never quite eradicate a certain anticipatory dread & disturbance to their inner sense of security, and pull off life regardless of it.

#typology #extraTypology #oldham #oldham personality #personality #Sensitive

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mikeyd1986 · 6 years

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MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 103, May 2018

Last Saturday morning, my parents and I drove down to the 9 Grams Cafe and the Armstrong Playground, Mount Duneed for Hunter’s 2nd birthday party. I was feeling a bit nervous about it considering I hadn’t seen certain family members for years and so there’s always social difficulties: remembering names, feeling socially, awkward, wanting to fit in and belong plus dealing with other’s peoples personalities. https://www.facebook.com/ArmstrongMtDuneed/

Thankfully it wasn’t too bad despite the gale force winds threatening to blow all the food, presents and decorations away. We literally had to tie and tape down the black balloons and giant number 2 balloon a few times. Because I only knew a handful of people, I was huddling around near my parents, aunties and uncles. I actually had a really good laugh with my Mum, Auntie Kathy and Auntie Gaye which helped to reduce those anxiety levels and made me feel more included on this special occasion.

When it comes to kids and being a Dad, I feel like Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park who was lumped with John Hammond’s grandchildren. You could tell that he was very hesitant and desperately needed an instruction manual to look after them. I think the distance and lack of connection with my own Dad explains why I’ve always been so reluctant and awkward around kids. I literally don’t know what to say or do around them.

But baby Hunter seems like a good kid. He’s filled with boundless energy and has a cheeky smile. He was running around the playground, climbing onto the equipment with no issues at all. All the adults took it in turns to keep a close eye on him as he didn’t seem to have an off switch. We all sung “Happy Birthday” to Hunter three times as a group before having some cake and departing the playground.

Later on that afternoon, we drove down to Queenscliff Harbour to check out Gaye and Clint’s new houseboat, The Catamaran. It was difficult for me adjusting to the swaying motion of the boat even though it was tied down and moored. I guess I’m just not used to it. But I did try to relax and enjoy the experience. The interiors of the boat were really glamourous with plush red leather seating, a mini kitchenette and row of bar fridges, a dining area, downstairs galley, a front deck and top deck upstairs. We all enjoyed a couple of beers and wines each before checking into the Seaview House. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamaran

The Seaview Guest House is an old English-styled motel featuring rustic wooden furniture, narrow corridors, low pile carpet runners, floral-patterned bedspreads, heritage coloured walls, floral print wallpaper and a selection of abstract and landscape paintings. The motel itself contains guest rooms with ensuites, TV, Wifi, central heating and cooling, a lounge area, dining room, cafe and art gallery. Outside my window of the guest room, there were some beautiful oak trees with large green and brown autumn leaves. A pile of these were all piled up at the foot of the building and scattered across the pavement. It was such a lovely place to stay the night in. http://www.seaviewhouse.com.au/

Last Saturday night, we went down to Gaye and Clint’s place located in Clifton Springs to help them set up their shed for a garage sale tomorrow. Considering they’re actually selling the property and retiring on the houseboat, this was pretty much an “everything must go” affair. The shed was really dusty, dirty and cluttered with junk. Admittedly, I felt a little lost and uncertain being in there with Rod, Warren and Clint.

A big part of my autism is needing structure and clear instructions when doing a task. Thankfully that’s exactly what I was given which made it easier for me. I can’t stand the thought of standing around awkwardly and not being useful. I ended up putting all of the Styrofoam blocks in a big pile together, sorted out the extension leads into separate piles and putting some items out on the fold-out trestle table. I felt pretty proud of myself seeing how I arranged all of the handbags, lamps, towels, throw rugs and cushions out, ready for the garage sale tomorrow morning.

Later that night, we headed off to the Springs Bistro at Clifton Springs Golf Club for dinner. After feeding the dogs, Clint took me for a spin in his two-door red Nissan Coupe sports car. I really know next to nothing about cars so everything Clint was telling me about the features of this car went in one ear and out the other. However, the rev was really loud and fast. It felt like I was in the passenger seat of the Batmobile or an Aston Martin from the James Bond movies.

Being a Saturday night, the bistro was really buzzing with people so it was a good thing that Gaye booked us a table in advance. I ordered a beef burger with onion rings and a side of chips. I find that it can be really challenging dealing with my family but tonight we had plenty of laughs together. I was able to let go of some of my emotional issues at least for the time being. Even in the most stressful and dysfunctional of circumstances, we all have to stick together somehow.

Last Sunday morning, we checked out of the Seaview Guest House and had breakfast at the Panache Cafe & Creperie Edgewater, which is just a few minutes walk away. It is a French-styled cafe with beautiful lead-lighting, wooden tables and chairs, interior brickwork with torn plaster walls and large market umbrellas outside. I ordered the sweet crepe with strawberries and vanilla ice-cream which was absolutely delicious! https://panachecafeandcreperie.com.au/

Later on that morning, we drove back down to Gaye and Clint’s place in Clifton Springs to help them out with their garage sale. I felt a little out of my depth being one of the “helpers” but I just tried to be myself and decided to adopt my door greeter role from work. Greeting other people is something I can definitely do even when they’re total strangers to me. There we met a bubbly lady named Rosalyn Dodds who was quite easy to talk to. She is a friend of Gaye and Clint’s.

I decided to buy a few things to help contribute to Gaye and Clint’s sales including a table lamp with a bright purple shade and a sky blue coloured cushion. I was technically broke today but I really wanted to buy something even for a few dollars. My parents ended up buying a large floor rug, twin lamp shades, an extension lead, a handful of old records, some cushions, a throw rug and an antique tick-tock wall clock.

On Monday night, I attended my first Zumba class in probably over a year at YMCA Casey ARC in Narre Warren. I still remember back in 2016 when I tried my very first Zumba class and was literally shitting myself at the back of the group fitness room. Back then, my anxiety levels were in overdrive and I was very self-conscious about my body. I was also really worried about people looking at me, keeping up and messing up the dance moves. Five years ago, I wouldn’t be caught dead doing a Zumba class. All this shows how much I have progressed not only with my fitness goals but also my personal development.

I think I’ve really learned to not take life as seriously and be comfortable having a laugh at myself. It’s honestly the only way I could ever actually enjoy a Zumba class. I know right off the bat that I can’t dance to save my life and so I’ve already accepted how uncoordinated my dance moves probably look to most people. Plus I’m not there to be a technical Latin dancer. I’m there to burn off calories and have fun.

The instructor Geri certainly helps to make Zumba accessible to everyone. Nobody really gives a shit about how you dance or what you look like so being judged is not a concern for me. Of course it’s still pretty challenging for me both keeping up and articulating the dance movements at least to some extent. If I get really stuck, I always try to follow along with the person in front of me. But I had a ball tonight. I was shaking my hips, swinging my arms overhead, wiggling my chest and man boobs and sweating a whole heap. https://www.fitnessfirst.com.au/find-a-class/zumba/

On Tuesday morning, I started the first week of my Employ Your Mind - Phase 2 program at WISE Employment in Cranbourne. This phase of the program is very different compared to the first phase for several reasons: you work in a group rather than 1 on 1, you do individual work on a project of your choice and start working on the Thinking Gym, which are computer-based puzzles designed to help improve your cognition skills.

Of course for me, meeting new people is still a barrier for me and initially my social anxiety was flaring up a bit when I met the other learning coaches and EYM students. But once I was settled in, I was generally fine and more relaxed. We started the first session by introducing each other to the group in pairs. Then my learning coach went through the guidelines and group expectations.

The computer program that is used in Employ Your Mind is called HAPPYneuronPro. Each of the puzzles or games in the program focuses on a different area of thinking including long term memory, working memory, attention, reasoning and problem solving and thinking speed. I found these games to be a little difficult but mostly enjoyable and educational.

The last part of today’s session involved doing a mini project called Introduce Yourself. We each had to present information about ourselves regarding character strengths, general facts, interests, goals and thinks that we’ve discovered during Phase 1. For me, this has always been an area I’ve struggled with...oral presentations in groups and just public speaking in general.

Every time it feels like the spotlight is focused directly on me and I always seem to get flustered, anxious and shaky. But I think I did pretty well considering it’s only a small group of us. I would have been much worse in front of a larger group, on a stage, with a microphone and no notes in front of me. No thank you! http://www.fifeemploymentaccesstrust.com/employ-your-mind.html

On Tuesday night, Mandi Herauville, Rodney Millar and myself did a wet session together at P3 Sports & Recovery in Berwick. It was my first time visiting this place even though I’ve driven past it many times in the past year or so. I was feeling slightly apprehensive about it seeing as this centre is mainly designed for athletes and sports people but honestly who cares? I deserve to recover just as much as anyone else. I suppose you could say that I’m from a fitness background considering my participation in Crossfit and Strength Training.

In a way, P3 does have similar facilities compared to a traditional aquatic centre such as swimming pools, a spa bath and a sauna room. But the difference is that there is more of a focus on hydrotherapy and being able to recover from sport-related injuries and soreness. There are also plunge pools, a 12 metre swimming pool and a hydrotherapy pool. There are so many benefits from using these facilities from increased blood flow and muscle strength to reduced joint tension and relaxed muscles. http://p3sportsmelbourne.com.au/wet-therapy/

Of course being my first time being at P3, the usual questions flooded my mind: Where am I going? Am I heading in the right direction? But that stems from my need for clarity and certainty in new situations. But it didn’t take long for me to find my way around and bump into Mandi and Rodney. I think the most challenging part was adjusting to the sudden change in water temperature. It’s not everyday that you’re suddenly jumping from a hot spa into an ice cold water pool and visa versa. http://p3sportsgoldcoast.com.au/wet-therapy/

My cheeky side really came out tonight as I was making jokes about my sexuality. I’m a gay man and of course I’m going to be appreciating the masculine form of the male species. There were whole sports teams worth of guys flooding into the wet therapy area and I was not complaining at all, just saying! (IT’S RAINING MEN. HALLELUJAH. IT’S RAINING MEN, AMEN!). I’ve become so relaxed about being gay now that it doesn’t bother me if other people know. I don’t exactly yell it from the rooftops either.

There was a 3 minute timer constantly ticking over as you generally “cycle” between pools. You really had to be switched on and ready to move when the timer hit zero. It was certainly a different experience to your typical aquatic centre type pools. The added bonus is that the water contains magnesium chloride, which is similar to the Epsom salts used in baths to relax and soothe your muscles. Despite the blokey atmosphere, I really enjoyed tonight’s session at P3 probably due to the company of Mandi and Rodney. It certainly made things far less daunting for me. http://p3sports.com.au/try-the-magnesium-hydro-pool-or-a-session-in-the-recovery-lounge/

On Thursday morning, I had an appointment with my support worker Ally Lamb at Colourfield Cafe Casey Central in Narre Warren South. I was feeling pretty drained today, probably due to how eventful work was last night and also the sudden change in weather (insert “WINTER IS COMING” meme here). But it still felt good sharing my thoughts and feelings with Ally today. People can really drag you down sometimes but it’s important to build yourself back up again. I still have moments where I get upset, emotional and overwhelmed at work but I’m learning to deal with it better. https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/mental-health/programs-services/personal-helpers-and-mentors-phams

I decided to finish off my Mother’s Day shopping and get some groceries at Woolies. But that, I had to drop into Centre Management. I actually won a prize advertised on the Casey Central Shopping Centre Facebook page for Mum. It was a homewares gift pack from Habitania - Casey Central including a clock, bird and succulent. I’ve also got my mum a pink poinsettia plant, notepad and weekly planner, a coffee mug from The Pancake Parlour, a teal coloured cushion, some lavender scented bath salts and an animal door stopper (corduroy dog). http://caseycentral.com.au/

On Friday morning, I attended a Vinyasa Flow yoga class with Dell Brown at Just Be Yoga and Meditation in Beaconsfield. I was actually intending to do a yoga class last night but I was feeling really off for some reason. My energy levels crashed sometime in the afternoon and even though mentally I wanted to go, physically my body said “No Way!”. So I made the decision to wait until tomorrow morning and hopefully I’d feel more up to going.

It was a really wise decision despite the torrential rain and traffic on the roads at 9am. Considering how cold and wet the weather conditions were, it was a large turnout in the studio this morning. I still wasn’t 100% but I had enough strength and energy to get me through today’s class. I heard that sudden changes in weather temperatures can affect a person’s mood and energy levels and I can very much attest to that.

We did several flowing sequences (Downward Facing Dog, Plank, Chaturanga, Seal or Updog), a Sun Salutation (Standing Forward Fold, Half Lift, High Lunge, Warrior 2, Revolved Triangle pose, Reverse Warrior), balance sequence (Tree pose, Dancers pose) and some supported handstands into the wall. https://www.livestrong.com/article/332693-what-are-the-benefits-of-vinyasa-yoga/

I was actually really proud and impressed that I was able to pull off and hold an L-Shaped handstand into the wall with no assistance needed (thank you Aaron Petty!). I think patience, practice and confidence have had a huge part to play in that considering I could barely place on foot on the wall a couple of years ago. https://www.doyouyoga.com/how-to-do-l-shaped-handstand/

Later that morning, Mum and I treated ourselves to a Classic Victorian-styled High Tea at Baked Bakery Cafe and Patisserie in Narre Warren South. We only decided doing this a couple of days prior to celebrate Mother’s Day and I’m glad we did. The staff at the Bakery were all very accommodating and polite with Irish chef David being our host. We enjoyed a glass of sparkling non-alcoholic champagne, a teapot of English Breakfast tea, two types of scones: white chocolate and cranberry, cheese and herb, a selection of finger sandwiches, brownies, jelly slices and green macrons. All of this for $25 per person. Easily the cheapest high tea I’ve ever had with excellent service and beautifully presented food and drink.

On Mother’s Day, my parents and I went out to dinner at The Pancake Parlour (Fountain Gate). I wisely decided to book the table a week in advance as I knew how packed the restaurant would be for Mothers Day. I couldn’t help but spoil Mum with everything she does for me. Luckily I bought a large gift bag to put all the pressies in. I ordered the Royal Canadian pancakes with bacon, eggs, pineapple and banana fritter. It was a good night out enjoyed by everyone especially my Mum. https://www.pancakeparlour.com.au/

“Open to everything happy and sad. Seeing the good when it's all going bad. Seeing the sun when I can't really see. Hoping the sun will at least look at me. Focus on everything better today. All that I need and I never could say. Hold on people that slipping away. Hold on to this while it's slipping away.” Moby - Slipping Away (2005)

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