"I'm not afraid."

the mystery of love ; kuroo tetsurou

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x f!reader

synopsis: kuroo tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. he believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. but that doesn’t mean he can’t believe in love.

tag(s): sweet summer lovin’, friends to lovers, inspired by call my by your name, university student!kuroo tetsurou, lab intern!kuroo tetsurou, so much pining lol, fluff, angst, slow burn ; warning(s): profanity, mentions of alcohol ingestion (it’s legal bc they’re in italy!), suggestive themes ; wc: 4.8k

a/n: happy birthday tetsu!! i hope you guys like this. i really enjoyed writing it ♡

Kuroo Tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. He believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. At least, that’s what he tells you. Sometimes you treat this information as a source of hope; other times, you’re not sure what to make of it.

This, you realise with his shoulder pressed against yours and both your bodies sprawled across his wrinkled bed sheets, is one of those other times. You turn your face to look at his.

“What?” he asks, one side of his mouth curling up in a smile.

For a moment, you wonder what would happen if you just said it. You could blame the alcohol. Get away with it scot-free. While you mull the option over in the dead silence of his room, your brain suddenly registers the music still playing from the living room. The low bass reverberating through the walls. How close your lips are. The sound of his breaths.

“Earth to Y/N?”

And like that, the little what-if that rose in your mind falls back with its tail between its legs. You bite your lip, look around his room like the walls have a script printed on them. Unfortunately, they do not.

“I was just thinking about my shirt.” It’s not great, but it’s the best you can do while still feeling the vodka and orange juice burn in your stomach. And smelling it on yourself.

Kuroo’s laugh booms through the room and you can’t help but giggle along with him. “I said I was sorry!” he says, hazel eyes twinkling with mirth. He pauses and glances at his closet, then nods his head in its direction. “Take a hoodie. Your pick.”

A smile–– one you try to downplay but fail miserably to–– creeps up your face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kuroo replies. “You can also shower here if you want. It's the least I can do after spilling my drink all over you.”

When you emerge from Kuroo’s bathroom in one of his thinner hoodies, a lot soberer and drying your hair, he’s not on the bed anymore. Quietly, you step out of his room and look for him through the house. People are crashed everywhere–– on the sofa, over the kitchen counter, even propped up against walls. The floor is covered with plastic cups and mysterious pools of liquid. Wrinkling your nose, you try your best to step around the messes, looking in every corner in the house for the raven-haired boy.

You find him back in his room, actually. He’s back on his bed scrolling through his phone, the light illuminating his sharp features. When he hears you close the door behind you, he looks up, eyes immediately zeroing in on the black hoodie over your torso. The corner of his mouth twitches up.

“Where’d you go?” you both ask at the same time. He chuckles; you grin. Crawling back onto the bed, you tell him to go first.

“I went around to make sure nothing’s broken,” he explains. “Perks of being the only sober intern in the house, I guess.”

A beat passes.

This house is rented. You forgot about that. All his expenses are paid for by your mother’s lab. You forgot about that. He fits in your world so well, like maybe he’s always had a spot there, that you forgot that Kuroo Tetsurou is only here for the summer.

“Right.”

Kuroo raises a brow. “And you?”

“I went to look for you.”

He smiles and holds his hands out like a magician at the end of a trick. “Well, you found me.”

“Yeah,” you muse. “I guess I did.” Aren’t you lucky.

With that, something shifts in the air. A contemplative expression crosses Kuroo’s face. Maybe he’s realised how his words come out sometimes. Kuroo often says things that sound like they have more than one meaning and it used to throw you off, but now you just go with it. You’ve even picked up that habit yourself. “Do you ever wish that you’d met someone earlier? Maybe under different circumstances?” he asks.

Sighing, you fall back against his mattress and stare up at the ceiling. Telling the truth feels easier when you can’t see him. “Yeah. All the time.” A few seconds pass. “Do you think we would’ve been friends if we went to the same college?”

He also lies down. You’re both back in the same positions you were in an hour ago, but something’s changed. “No,” he admits. You’re not surprised–– that’s what you’d expected. “I’d be a junior and you’d be a freshman. We probably would’ve never met. And even if we had, I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with a… freshie.” He chuckles softly at the end. “And look at me now,” he adds softly, more to himself than you. You look over at his face. A contemplative smile rests on his lips.

That urge to just say it returns.

“Kuroo, I think––”

“You’re my favourite p–– oh, my bad. You first.”

And it goes away again.

“Um, uh,” you stutter, “how long do you have left here?”

Kuroo raises his brows. “On this planet? Hopefully a while, Y/N.” He sees your unamused expression and drops the front. “Three more weeks.”

Your eyes widen. Eight weeks have already passed. Blood rushes to your ears. Eight entire weeks have already passed, meaning that in three weeks, Kuroo Tetsurou will leave forever. And in four, you will, too. Except you’ll come back. You’ve done so every summer since you were born, probably will do until you die.

But this place will never be the same as it used to. Not after him.

“Y/N?” Once everything comes back into focus, you see the concern riddling his features. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah.”

Say it.

“You didn’t have too much to drink, right?”

Say it.

“I just got buzzed. What about you?”

“The only drink I was planning on having all went to your shirt.”

Say it.

“Kuroo.”

“Yeah?”

Not yet.

“Let’s go on an adventure.”

At two AM, everything is different. The streets feel different, the villas look different, and you–– you can’t put your finger on it but Kuroo Tetsurou has changed, too. He sits behind the wheel of your father’s white 1953 Cadillac with the convertible roof down, unruly hair blown back by the breeze, a euphoric grin stretched over his face. In the passenger’s seat, you sit with an equally large beam and your hands raised into the dark sky.

“Where to, Miss?” he shouts over the wind.

“The stars,” you shout back with a laugh. Kuroo’s cat-like eyes briefly flit over to your side profile, lips curving to form a smaller, more tender smile. But you miss that–– your gaze falls on him just a second after his return to the road.

“I heard you say Jack’s,” he says, smirking.

The 24/7 diner sticks out like a sore thumb in the row of sun-baked stucco and stone buildings with its bold neon lights and shiny exterior. During the day, it seems gaudy, way too American for a small town in northern Italy. But at night, this place feels like home. You’ve been stumbling into Jack’s completely shit-faced since you were sixteen. Of course, all those other times had been with the kids of your mother’s coworkers. All those other times, you could hardly remember what you even ordered when you woke up hours later.

But this time, you walk in with Kuroo Tetsurou at half-past-two in the morning, the chemicals running through your bloodstream epinephrine and dopamine, not ethanol; if you’re drunk then it’s on a feeling and your only poison is the boy next to you. You study his face and consider that thought. No, he’s not poison. He’s the antidote.

“Y/N!” the server exclaims, rushing over with two menus. “And Kuroo! My two favourite customers, but together this time!” Giovanni ushers you two to a booth by the window and takes your orders, purely for show, of course. He knows your orders by heart: the Lorenzo for Kuroo and the Quentin for you.

“With fries on both, please,” Kuroo adds, throwing you a wink. “Aren’t I a gentleman?”

“You only did that to have more for yourself,” you reply drily. Having him over at your house for dinner every night made picking up his idiosyncrasies so unbelievably easy. You know them like they’re your own. You know him like he’s your own.

Kuroo clutches his chest and pretends to be offended, then changes the conversation to what happened at the lab today, or rather, yesterday. That your mother and the other researchers are so close to finding a cure for the strain of virus that’s recently hit crickets in southern Italy.

“You should drop by again sometime,” he says. “Last time you came around was, what, two weeks ago?”

Your face breaks in a grin. “Are you saying you’ve missed me? Chemistry getting boring?” you tease, drawing a loud laugh from him.

“Sodium hydrogen, you little shit.” Your mother’s used this one on you before, but hearing it from him makes you giggle anyway.

Giovanni comes back with two plates, each loaded with fries. You both say your thanks and he retreats to the kitchen again, but not before wiggling his eyebrows at your reddening faces. Wordlessly, you grab your fork and knife and transfer at least half of your fries onto Kuroo’s plate. Kuroo stares at you with the slightest smile. That look sends your stomach into flips.

“What?” you question nonchalantly, cutting into your burger.

“Nothing,” he says, mirroring your actions. “Nothing at all.”

It’s hard to imagine that after spending almost every day together for eight weeks straight that there’s still more to learn about each other, but there is. You tell him more about your real home. Your best friend who called you at 3 AM last night because of timezones. Stories from every summer before this one, when you were a different person in the same place you are now.

He tells you more about Kenma, his best friend from high school. How they played on one of the best volleyball teams in Japan. Stories from training camp, literature class, the metro ride home after school–– you listen to every single one in rapt attention. There’s not enough time in the world for all the things you want to know about Kuroo Tetsurou, so you take what you can get. If only you’d known him before you’d known him.

“If we’d met earlier here, do you think we would’ve been friends?” you ask after paging Giovanni for the check.

“No,” he replies, picking up a few remaining fries with his fork instead of his fingers. The corners of your mouth turn up. That’s your thing. He considers the scenario seriously. “I think we met right when we should have.”

“What about the future?” you press, leaning into the conversation. “Let’s say we meet in two years here, instead of now. Would we be friends?”

Kuroo sets his fork down, eyes you steadily. “What’s this about?”

You blink. “What?”

“What’s with all these hypotheticals today?” Perhaps worried that he came off too harshly, Kuroo adds, “I thought I was the scientist.”

“I just… it feels like I’ve known you since forever.” This feels like it was meant to be, you don’t say. And I want to know you forever.

A sigh–– fond, but still a sigh–– blows through his lips. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates,” he says with a wicked grin.

“Are you calling me your soulmate?” The question, shamelessly genuine, painfully hopeful, leaves your mouth without you intending it to and you regret it instantly. Because Kuroo Tetsurou has told you many times that he does not believe in soulmates.

Is it so bad to dream, though?

You watch him carefully but he doesn’t say anything, just continues smiling wryly like you’d intended to tease him. Like he knows that you know better. But you don’t.

“Are you?” he suddenly replies. Sharp eyes hold yours, daring you to respond. Do you dare?

At that moment, Giovanni returns with the check. “Who’s paying?” he asks, unaware of the tense exchange that just occurred across the table. Inaudibly, you sigh in relief. Kuroo is about to say that it’s on him when he catches himself in the middle of his sentence, looks your way, then back to Giovanni. He says you’ll go Dutch. You nod in approval.

“So,” Kuroo drawls once you’ve both paid for your meals. “Where do we go from here?”

Good question.

Kuroo Tetsurou has never been to an outdoor club period. And though he’s been clubbing, he has never once gone dancing in his lifetime. You tell him that’s about to change as he parks the car in a lot near the venue. Before him, all your summer nights were spent here.

“You’ve been here for two months and you haven’t been to an outdoor club yet?” you ask while unbuckling your seatbelt. That can’t be possible. If you’d been in his shoes… an attractive college student in a foreign country for the summer, you would have gone wild.

“Nope. I’ve been a little busy, y’know, spending my days in a lab, handling chemicals, studying viruses, washing lab equipment, writing up reports for your mother and her colleagues, working on my own research on the side… the usual.” He flashes you a bright, sarcastic smile.

“Poor baby,” you coo, ruffling his hair. Kuroo laughs while you continue messing with the dark locks. “Was your first full day here the only tourist-day you’ve had so far?” His weekends, you already know, are spent either lounging around cafés, pools, or the great outdoors with you or the interns. But you’d assumed he’d had time to do some exploring on his own.

Kuroo nods. “And my guide wasn’t even that great,” he mutters, shooting you a dark look. “She sped through every attraction and hardly spoke a word outside of the tour to me. I think she hated me.”

You giggle and open the door, letting the music from the outdoor speakers infiltrate the bubble inside your car. “Maybe she was just nervous!” you say as you get out. That’s a lie.

“About what?” Kuroo follows suit, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. “I was so friendly to you and you just brushed me off each time.” He pouts.

But you don’t reply. Instead, you just grab his hands and pull him towards the venue. As you step into the boundaries marked by fairy lights and rustic wooden fences, Kuroo stops in his tracks and tugs on your intertwined hands. You glance down before up, trying to memorise how his hand looks around yours in the few seconds you can steal.

“Y/N,” Kuroo says. The strobe lights paint his skin pink, blue, purple like it’s a canvas. “Tell me why you were nervous.” Grammatically, it’s a command. And yet it sounds like he’s begging.

“What’s it mean to you?” you ask, feeling your heartbeat speed up in your chest. So what if you just… said it? What would happen?

“Everything?” he replies with a cheeky smile. The odds that he seriously means that are slim. But… they’re there. You shake that possibility out of your mind. That’s just the hope talking.

“Depends how convincingly you say it.” You tug on his arm. “C’mon. Let’s dance.” But he doesn’t budge–– he just continues to stand by the entrance of the club with an expectant look on his face. People are starting to stare.

“Fine,” you say with an eye roll. “I’ll tell you." Kuroo smirks, something self-congratulatory ready to leave his mouth, but then you let go of his hand and dance backwards into the throng of moving bodies. “But first, you’re gonna have to dance with me!” 

You allow yourself to be swallowed by the lively music, the people, the moment. Seconds later you’re deep enough into the crowd that you lose sight of Kuroo. Something in you says that he’ll show up soon, though. For now, you let yourself breathe. Forget about the heaviness of what-if’s, the itch to confess, the dread of the aftermath. Feelings are a lot like gravity. Sometimes they keep you grounded, other times, they weigh you down. This is one of those other times.

You dance up to a friendly-looking group of teens your age. Three guys and two girls. You shout your name and follow up with how it’s nice to meet them, hoping one of them finds you nice enough to keep around. Dancing alone in a club is one of the worst things that can ever happen to someone. Luckily, one of the girls–– the one wearing a purple wig–– pulls you in for a hug, drunkenly shouting back, “Bianca!” Bianca pushes you into their circle next to one of the guys and, just like that, you two start moving to the beat, feeling it in your feet, shoulders, hips. At one point, you turn around and take a good look at his face. The guy’s cute enough, but he’s not Kuroo. Still, you say nothing as he moves closer to you and grabs your hand, lifting it up and motioning for you to twirl.

Suddenly, a pair of hands grip firmly onto your waist and pull you out of the circle. “Hey!” You look down, suddenly realising they’re Kuroo’s. A shiver runs down your spine. He spins you around to face him. His lips are set in a firm line, eyes completely devoid of humour, nostrils slightly flared.

“Hi,” you say quietly, testing the waters.

“Hi,” he replies curtly. His hands are still on your waist. Selfishly, you choose not to point that out. Instead, you try to defuse the situation with a light question. Playful tone.

“Where were you this whole time?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well… you found me.” You flash him a sheepish grin. A peace offering of some sort.

“I did.” He doesn’t take it.

“Lucky you.”

Irritation finally seeps through his features. “You just left me on the dance floor!” he snaps. “And then when I find you after searching the entire venue, you’re dancing up on some random guy!”

“It was in good fun!” you retort, wriggling out of his grip. “And I wasn’t dancing up on him.” You want to ask if he’s jealous so badly, but you take a good look at his face and decide against that.

“Fun?” he asks incredulously. “Worrying about losing you, worrying about myself getting lost, then having to worry about that guy after finding you isn’t very fucking fun to me, Y/N!” The words fly out of his mouth like daggers without pause. Once finished, he looks at you with a disappointed gaze, shaking his head lightly, chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say, looking down at your shoes. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with him–– a sort of shame drills itself so deeply into your conscience that all you can think about is making things right again. “I didn’t think my actions through.”

A second passes. You wonder what he’s thinking.

“Hey, look at me.” Kuroo lifts your chin up with an index finger. Your wide eyes meet his narrow ones. Just as a pink beam glides over his face, his gaze softens, falls down to your lips. And then you feel his thumb on your chin, barely grazing the skin of your bottom lip. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. The revelry in the background fades to dull beats against your eardrums. Suddenly, you register that he smells of, as usual, blackcurrant and amber.

But now you also smell of blackcurrant and amber.

You’re wearing his clothes. You smell of him.

Kuroo’s eyes crawl back up to yours, wide like he’s just been caught in the middle of a crime. You blink expectantly, ignoring the furious way your heart pounds in your chest. Shallow breaths puff through your slightly parted mouth.

“I am.” It comes out barely a whisper. C’mon. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me––

You gently touch the hand he has on your chin. Kuroo jolts back like he’s been burned. “I’ll, uhm, I’ll be in the car,” he stutters, looking away from your face. He pushes through the sea of people, leaving you all alone on the dance floor, body doused in blue light, fingers touching the area his thumb had been as if preserving its print.

Kuroo hardly notices you slip into the passenger’s seat minutes later. He’s got his forearms hanging over the steering wheel and gaze fixed ahead into the darkness, mind probably running off to a place he wishes his body was, too.

As soon as you’ve buckled yourself in, Kuroo starts the car.

The entire drive home is silent.

Once Kuroo pulls into your courtyard and parks, he turns off the engine, unbuckles his seatbelt, and steps out of the car. Wordlessly, you follow his actions and meet him by the stairs to your door.

“Hi,” you say quietly. He doesn’t look at you.

“Hey.”

The two of you stand outside your front door in silence as you both consider what to say next. This can’t be the way it ends.

“I shouldn’t have… done that,” Kuroo says first.

“Done what?” You choose to play dumb. Call it selfish, but you want to hear him say it. Maybe then it’ll feel as real as it had been. Kuroo sighs and leans his shoulder against the stone wall, crossing his arms over his chest. There’s no way he can dance around what happened. Perhaps the past two months can be summed up as the development of a strong friendship with skilled doublespeak and metaphors and just enough artistic licence, but this can’t. And Kuroo knows that. He can’t feed you an alternative truth like he’s done so many times before. What’s more, he can’t lie to himself anymore. So maybe it’s better just to not speak at all.

Your eyes burn holes into the side of his face. Fine. You’ll concede first. “I was never nervous.”

Kuroo blinks, turns his head around to look at you. “What?”

“I was never nervous. I was playing it cool because I didn’t want to risk befriending you and getting attached.” I’m still playing it cool, you don’t say. And I’m already attached. “Guess I just came off as a bitch instead.” You laugh. “But can you blame me? You were this cute, older guy. Smart, too, since you were interning with my mom. You were my dream guy.”

An amused breath blows out of his nose. “Were?” he questions, grinning, only remembering the fragility of your platonic relationship a second later. “Um––”

“Are.” It slips out of your mouth without you realising. Fuck. Kuroo stills. It’s too late to take back your words now, so you might as well just keep going. “You still are my dream guy.”

Seconds pass and neither of you says anything. Sweat gathers in the palms of your hands. You start to feel your heartbeat through your neck. The buzz of the cicadas grows louder. Oppressive. Behind Kuroo, the sky is starting to turn pale blue and pink in the horizon. That means it’s almost sunrise. The night is almost over, and, hopefully, so is this awful conversation.

“And… you don’t feel the same.” Funnily, you feel like you’re lying. You’re telling Kuroo how he feels and you think you’re lying. Does that make sense? None of this night even feels real. God, you hope this has all just been a dream. Mustering a soft smile, you say, “That’s okay. Thank you for the party. And the adventure.” It was fun while it lasted. You feel the house key in your pocket and turn to unlock the door. “I hope this doesn’t change anything between us, Kuroo. Can we still be friends?” The words leave your mouth feeling like barbed wire. You know damn well you can’t still be friends.

And suddenly, you feel his calloused hands around your cheeks. Suddenly, his hot breath fans over your face.

“Can I kiss you?” he murmurs.

Your eyes close instantly. “Yes, please.”

And suddenly, his soft lips are on yours.

Kuroo breaks the kiss seconds later. “Fuck,” he whispers, resting his forehead against yours, touching the tips of your noses together. “Y/N, I don’t want to be friends. Fuck.” A dry chuckle leaves his mouth. He pauses to collect his thoughts but decides that that can wait. Instead, he presses another kiss to your lips so fervently that he backs you up against the wall with no space between your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heartbeat like this, chest to chest. Kuroo’s hands travel down your waist and rest on your hips. His tongue runs across your tongue, your teeth, the insides of your mouth. You gently suck on it, drawing a satisfied moan from him. When the kiss ends, you see that his lips are red and cheeks are swollen. A warm feeling spreads through your chest. “I thought I could be happy just being friends with you but I can’t. I want you so bad it hurts. Not to mention, when I saw you in my hoodie?” His fingers pinch the material. “I thought God was testing me or some shit.”

“Sure didn’t feel like you wanted me that way,” you retort, still breathless.

“In my defence,” Kuroo says, thumbs tracing your cheekbones, “I was very scared.”

“Of what?”

It looks like he’s about to tell you, but he changes his mind and doesn’t answer. He grabs your hand and pulls you back to the car with a cheeky grin. “I’ll tell you only if you tell me where we can watch the sunrise.”

Kuroo holds your hand, stroking your thumb the entire drive there.

After a short hike, you plop down on the grassy hillside, supporting your body with outstretched arms in the back. Kuroo sits down beside you with one of his hands covering yours, fingers intertwined like a honeysuckle vine around a hazel tree. You tell him that you grew up running along this hill with your parents. It used to be your playground. Maybe, you think, it’s time to make new memories here.

“Beautiful,” Kuroo breathes, a wonderstruck look in his eyes. The sun’s just risen halfway above the pink and blue horizon, the saturated orange casting the entire city below gold. It’s not just the city, though. He’s also gold. He’s just as beautiful. You watch him with a soft smile on your lips, noting how his wide eyes and slack jaw return to normal as he stares off into the distance. After resting your head on his shoulder, you fix your eyes on the sunrise ahead. You wonder what he’s thinking so quietly about.

“Penny for your thoughts?” you finally ask once the sun has finished revealing itself.

Kuroo blinks, returning to reality, but continues to stare straight ahead. “I was just thinking about… soulmates.”

You lift your head off his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates now,” you tease.

“Hmm.” He turns to look at you, the sun turning his hazel eyes the colour of honey. That same wry smirk from Jack’s returns to his face.

“You wanna know why I was so scared?”

“Pray tell.”

“Because I’ve never felt this way towards anyone.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No,” Kuroo laughs, laying his head down in your lap, looking up into your eyes. “I’m serious. I used to purposely stay away from girls in high school. Same in college. Same all the way until you somehow wormed your way into my life. That’s why we wouldn’t have been friends.” You cock your head to the side.

“Why?” you ask, running your fingers through his hair.

Kuroo’s eyelids flutter shut. He inhales deeply before talking. “My parents are divorced. The years before the divorce were… very ugly.” 

(He spares you the details of the midnight arguments, the smashed plates, the holes in the walls. He spares you the details of how he only ever knew how to fall asleep with his head sandwiched between two pillows, how he hasn’t seen his sister in a decade, how he’ll curse and snap but never yell because he always feels like a child again around the noise. That’s for another time, if you’ll have any.) 

“I still remember all the fighting and yelling. For the longest time, that’s all I knew about marriage and relationships.”

“Did you think all relationships were like that? Fighting and yelling?” you ask.

“For a while, yeah. I’m still a little scared of that, to be honest. Ending up in a relationship where all you do is fight.” Kuroo sighs. “But that’s not the only thing. I thought I wouldn’t know how to love someone, growing up like that.” At that, your fingers pause in his hair.

“Wait,” you say, furrowing your brows. A wave of immense sadness (not for yourself, for him) washes over you. “You think you wouldn’t know how to love someone else?”

“Thought.” Kuroo cracks open his eyes and smiles up at you. “I’m in the process of changing my mind.”

Did Bobo really create the Wayward Sisters? If so, why weren't Jack and especially Cas included in that episode? That's my biggest issue with that pilot honestly, I mean, the fact that the show abandoned Claire and Cas' bond after season 10 and gave that storyline to Salmondean. Her bond with Cas is more interesting because of their connection to the Novaks. I also think that Claire and Jack would've made a more engaging dynamic and spin off together, I think they're strong characters & actors

Hi there!

Bobo isn’t the “creator” of Wayward so much as it can even have one, as it was a very organic idea, which even involved a healthy amount of fandom input. The original campaign in season 10 was for Wayward Daughters, and the idea picked up so much steam the altered title for, I guess, a mix of copyright and thematic relevance was the Sisters one. I’d say 10x08 was the real genesis of it as something that could be really solid. Once Kim and Briana were put together the chemistry and star power they could have had together was really meteoric as far as our small SPN world was concerned. Phil Sgriccia directed 9x13 and wrote 10x08 and was more of the parent of Wayward than any specific writer in that sense. Jody and Claire were pretty much common property of the show by that point. Claire was really introduced again in relation to plotlines and questions about Cas and less to do with them really going out of their way to re-launch her. I think they’d have been much cornier about it from the start and while YA protagonist diary writing her way through the end of Wayward Sisters was cute, it’s the sort of cutesy that really has to be earned. If she STARTED that way, like maybe me and 3 friends would be stanning her and everyone else would be revolted :P

(I am a YA fantasy novel author, but I do think everyone should make room in their hearts for this level of cheese)

In any case, Bobo just threw his hat into an already crowded ring with Alex, but obviously loving the characters and having his own personal wayward child to contribute did help elevate him to the prospective showrunner seat, but also all the other writers who’d written these characters except Dabb had left at that point. If Bobo was going to shepherd them through to their new show, he’d be the legacy writer, even though he was a new baby writer in the season Donna was introduced... Attrition aside, he did genuinely write them very well, loved their stories and was great with writing Jody when he could get her, so he would also have been a good choice even if all the others were left still... 

But anyway. Season 10′s subplot for Cas was about Claire and learning some stuff about himself along the way, but she was used very much for his personal development and for Dean as well, being a mini Dean herself in a season where he had lost a lot of his sense of self. It’s a total accident of scheduling but Angel Heart (10x20) being the last episode before 10x22 is a nice touch in that regard. And while Cas tried really hard with Claire and awoke his inner Dad side so that he’d be more prepared for fatherhood next time, it was pretty insurmountable between them to have anything more than a bittersweet relationship where the best he could do was make up with her and see her somewhere safe. The fact of him looking like her actual dead father is horrendous the more you think about it and while she managed to see him for who he was instead of a horrible monster, that’s more than enough trauma to inflict on an already traumatised girl for the sake of helping Cas’s manpain and tidying up the sticky question of Jimmy and Cas’s right to the vessel. 

Angel Heart very specifically ends with TFW mailing Claire to Jody because they know she’s already good with Alex in a genuine way and can handle these sort of issues and has done it before. And also because she can be a guardian who will not constantly remind Claire that her father is dead but something is walking around wearing a perfect reconstruction of his face. Carver era did a few things here and there with bodily autonomy and the problem of angel and demon vessels, but it was also really hit and miss. They’d get random waves of feeling guilty about it but then by necessity go back to stabbing angels in their still-living vessels an episode later. Claire was a way to address at the very least that whatever Cas was being put through was only a punishment on Cas and not on Jimmy as well, which is probably why we got such sappy Heaven scenes. We NEEDED to be shown he was in Heaven and largely okay with what was going on so that the show could justify using Cas at all as a character without breaking the code of ethics they tried to make their own characters adhere to. Aside from that it also gave Cas a side plot for when he wasn’t needed in the main plot, and any emotional connection to anything that wasn’t Sam and Dean.

Anyway 10x20 caused this huge fandom high which was followed by one of the lowest lows of the fandom immediately after, and both centred on female characters (in fact, now we know, 2 lesbians even! Though I’d wonder if, The Gay Agenda aside, Bobo spite-wrote that specifically because of the roots of Wayward) and I think that galvanised the whole movement of fans and hopefully some self-reflection in the show. They DID start making an effort in season 11, which shows some of the early signs of better inclusion but also backtracking or edging nervously away from the more intense Carver era stuff. Not just because Dean didn’t have the Mark any more but in general it was like someone had opened a window and let in some fresh air... Even before Carver bailed somewhere around the midseason to go do a different show and Dabb started to step up. 

All this to say that the Wayward stuff was always about the female characters and making up for the past sins of the show. It’s even a riff on the “wayward son” line which obviously centres around male protagonists and their journey. Claire stumbled into being a part of it in the lucky way of being in the right place and time, but the journey had already started even in the season 10 momentum with earlier work and it was that which suddenly made the prospect that Jody had two young women living with her now seem like a starter for the next generation of the show as it was a mirrored format to season 1 in a way, if you took Alex and Claire as the new Sam and Dean. It was exciting but people flipped out after Angel Heart because stuff had been bubbling since season 9 and earlier in season 10, so this was just pouring more candy into an already visibly full bowl of potential tasty gems. It made a possibility seem real that hadn’t before because we already had Kim bitterly complaining that the CW refused to hear the case for a Jody spin off because she was too old. The next best thing was a Jody spin off where she was the Gandalf to some CW age appropriate characters.

(the CW is and always has been garbage)

Anyway in season 13 Jack was introduced as a Claire 2.0 but as a male character with staying power for that reason, but he was filling the space she left for Cas. He couldn’t be a father to her and neither really wanted that set up anyway. But thematically it had created the possibility of Dadstiel and the space he had in his heart for that. Since the show was in its waning years they would be looking for endgame and handing Cas an easy win with a son he could unconditionally love who would love him back unconditionally absolutely filled that gap. It was a non SamnDean thing that Cas could have for himself outside of whatever happened with them. Not sure the memo came back that he was supposed to have mORE than that but oh well it’s not real if you don’t watch it :))) But yeah Jack was always going to be linked to Cas’s endgame, he wasn’t a free-floating character such as Jody who could go where she wanted and do as she pleased. He was main story relevant from start to finish and tied inexorably to another main character’s fate. Because the show wouldn’t do that with its female characters they could be bundled into spin offs but in practical terms Jack was both never what the Wayward as envisioned by fans or writers was about, nor would he have been free to go. 

Since it would have been about centering the stories of people overlooked by the main story, Claire a case in point that she had her life ruined in season 4 and it was a footnote until season ten, and then metaphorically more the concept of having queer and non-white characters in the mix of main characters, it would have represented a future of the story where the main show was unable to tread. Probably because of the CW. Also inherent biases in the writers. Bad cocktail. Jack is both too white and too male to fit the brief to ever leave SPN, and not only that but he is so as a precise mirror to the main white male characters, being passably any one of their sons if you squint, and meant to be instantly instinctively read as such... he was one of the safest bets of representing the show as the network wanted to imagine its target demographic.

So I really don’t think that Jack has any place being in a spin off of the show unless you want more of the same. They tried to give us something different and the CW didn’t like it because it wasn’t more of the same. Ironically a Jack spin off, with or without Claire, would have more chance of being greenlit and more chance of success. But the spin off they put their heart behind was Wayward Sisters as it was. And I think it was absolutely correct that never mind leaving Jack out of it after his work was done in the lead up episode to help set the table, but honestly they could have cut all the middle scenes of Sam and Dean wandering in the woods and gained precious seconds with the girls and still had a functioning story with those guys. It was like some cowardly missive was sent that the show couldn’t actually go more than 10 minutes without showing a flesh and blood Winchester or the whole thing would spontaneously sizzle out of syndication and the money tree would wither on the spot. And in the mean time, we could have been having Banter with the girls. Or Claire and Kaia holding hands some more. The good stuff :P 

Hello, Aadya. Just wanted to rant a bit and ask you a question.

So, a few days ago, I saw a tumblr post about some popular institutes like Allen and FITJEE having tumblr accounts. Now I am from India, but I have never attended these classes. Tbhwu, my mom tried to get me to attend Allen but I refused. I told her that the place didn't give me good vibes and that I would study on my own. And thankfully, she agreed. Then even though my mom agreed to letting me study on my own, my dad kept forcing me to attend Allen, and i don't want to.

Before I read the post, I didn't know that these institutions gave more mental health problems than they solved, but can you please explain to me why so many students are scared of it? How exactly do they manage to make things worse for students? I need the list of reasons so I can show them to my dad.

Please shed some light on this, if you want.

-❤

Hi! This is going to be long so buckle up.

I am in 9th, right now and I have been attending Fiitjee since class 8. 

In the beginning, I was shit scared of the place, but two months in, I kind of started vibing with it. I was always one of those know it all kids. Yup, I read my elder sister’s books. I was ahead of my class.

And when I started Fiitjee, it felt like I was finally in a place that would appreciate my curiosity.

You know the NCERT books? Yeah so, what they do is to pick the chapters from there and derail it into teaching the syllabus of two classes ahead.

Let me give you an example, class 8 has the topic ‘metal and non-metals’ in chemistry. Guess what, we were taught spdf configuration, redox reactions, oxidation problems, and all that.

The funny part is, chemistry was naturally easy so all of this seemed fun and games. Everything went downhill when they did that in maths and physics. In that chapter Light, they taught us lense equations. 

It was just weird for me. 

So naturally, after two phases my rank sank. [Phase means terms.]

You know what else sank? My self-confidence. It’s still at rock bottom. Fiitjee did that. It killed my self-esteem. No one is ever going to tell you that you will do better.

The only thing they’ll keep repeating is, “there are harder things ahead.”

The teachers there weren’t awful. They were just impassive. They don't really care for you. It’s not like they wouldn't answer your doubts, they just don't care enough to explain it fifty times. Or to explain things in a more exclusive manner. It’s like they teach only to the best of the kids. 

Only the best of the kids. 

Another fun fact: Almost the Fiitjee students are either from really rich backgrounds to waste money or they are super smart.

I fell in between. I wasn’t a super genius. And my parents are that rich. But they put a lot of money (around 50 thousand in 8th and 2.5 lakh for 9 to 12) hoping for me to become a genius.

haha, look at me, a mess up.

Now get to the taunts. Parents taunt you. They will taunt you. It’s impossible for them to not. I M P O S S I B L E. It’s justified though, did they put money in you to become a fuck up? No. But are you a fuck up? ✨YES✨

Plus, the school pressure. Not healthy. 

So to sum it up, things Fiitjee gives you for a really high amount:

taunts

possibly depression because you aren't acing it, and no one cares for mediocre students.

✨anxiety✨ 

murdered dreams because you need to be studying as much as you can

t a u n t s

Really expensive. REALLY EXPENSIVE BOOKS. 

exhaustion 24/7

you degrade in school. that’s a fact. It will happen.

dead social life because its always ✨fiitjee time✨

did I say exhaustion?

lead me into self-harm in the first place because I felt like I was a failure

yes, an eight-grader felt that

you know in the 3rd phase parents-teacher meet, my MAT (mental ability) teacher told me “no one is going to read your books if you fail class tenth” after papa told him that I write.

haha look at me now I am failing, not writing but doing fiitjee

perfection 100

ALL IN ALL ITS A MONEY HOARDING SCAM 

unless you are one of those students who can handle stress perfectly. Then institutes are the right thing for you. They will give you a direction. See, I am not villainizing institutes. I am just explaining what it did to me. Your experience could be different. You can be one of those smart kids the teachers love.

ABSOLUTE NO-NO FOR NEURODIVERGENT KIDS. ABSOLUTELY NO. KABHI NAHI. NO NEVER. IT WILL KILL YOUR CHILD INTERNALLY. YOU WILL BE DEAD INSIDE.

You all know about the glorious Fiitjee Tab? AAH.

Now that. Is what a money hoarding scam is. Someone, please explain further, I will reblog with a picture of mine.

@strudel-and-creme? explain further, please?

And hey, anon, @warning-coffeeisexplosive is an Allen student. You can have some personal insight from him.

saint. || soobin (3.5)🌪

pairing: soobin x reader genre: au word count; 2k

the next couple of days flew by and you decided to clear your mind of everything. you weren’t going to believe soobin or listen to taehyun. and you chose not to think about it much longer because you didn’t dare to believe soobin would do something like that and also because it wasn’t good for your mind considering the fact that it was exam week. 

when the scores released were more than happy, excited even. you passed all of your exams with a passing score and to make it even better you earned the incentive. you decided to do nothing else but ramble on it about it to taehyun.

“how’d you do in math?”. taehyun questions while the both of you were in chemistry doing your lab experiment. 

“I passed!”. you exclaim happily taking notes on you guys’ experiment. 

“good job! see i told you you weren’t stupid”.

“well compared to you at least. you still scored the highest out of everyone on everything”.

“not everything this time”. 

“what? who did better than you?”.

“first and foremost there are a lot of times where I don’t do the best”. taehyun laughs. “that asshole yeonjun is pretty smart”.

“so who did better than you then?”. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t hear”. 

“hear what?”. 

“soobin scored the highest on the history and astronomy exams. even earned the incentive too”.

“he did?!”. 

“yes”.

“oh my god”.

“yeah yeah can you fangirl somewhere else we have an experiment to finish”. taehyun pretends to be annoyed while laughing. you sigh, trying to contain your excitement. “fine taehyun, fine”. 

your calm demeanor changed immediately when you saw soobin, you jumped on him and started drowning his cheeks with kisses. it took him by surprise but he loved it of course. you give him one last kiss on his lips before cupping his face. 

“what’s gotten into you?”. soobin grins. 

“I heard! I’m so proud of you soobin”.

“damn I wanted to tell you myself. who told you?”.

“taehyun. to celebrate i want you to come to my house so I can cook you dinner”. 

soobin’s eyes light up in an instant. “really?”.

“yes. don’t be late”. you say, booping him on his nose. 

and soobin definitely wasn’t late. he showed up at your doorstep with ripped jeans, a hoodie and some sneakers. he didn’t know how formal you wanted him to dress so he just played it safe by dressing how he normally does. as soon as you open the door for him his mouth was already watering for what you were making him. 

seafood was his favorite. 

your parents had just finished getting dressed and they stopped and smiled at soobin on their way to the door. your father shook his hand and your mother hugged him. “I’m proud of you soobin, looks like there isn’t any punishment after all is there?”. she laughs and soobin laughs along with her. “No I guess not”

“since we’re going on our little date tonight we decided to let our baby grow up and have her own date. you’re a really respectful kid and she’s a sweet girl. we trust you both to not do anything you’ll regret”. 

you roll your eyes and laugh in the kitchen. “mom please go!”. you playfully demand. “I’m talking some sense into soobin!”. she retorts with the same playful tone. 

she smiles at him again before giving him motherly kisses on his cheek that made his heart warm. “be good alright? we’re leaving baby!”. she says to soobin and then yells at you. you give her an okay before the both of them disappear out the door. 

you sit the assorted seafood on a plate and place it on the table. you figured soobin would usually be sitting at the table right now but he was too busy in the living room still touching his cheeks. you grin, 

“what is it? don’t tell me you’re falling for my mom now”. 

snapping out of it soobin approaches the dining room table. “i’m not. it’s just she kissed me and told me to be good”. 

“what’s wrong with that?”.

“nothing I love it. my mom never did that to me before”. 

you ruffle his hair and kiss him on his forehead. “you’re so cute soobin”.

he laughs prior to staring at his plate with the utmost hunger. “how’d you know I like seafood?”. 

you push a strand of hair behind your ear and hand him his eating utensils. “I didn’t but thanks for telling me now I know”. soobin took no time in digging in. he was pleased with the taste and the seasonings making a wonderful combination in his mouth. you sat his drink in front of his plate.

“wow you’re really showing off you got me a drink this time?”. soobin boasts. you laugh, “shut up”.

“no really. and this food tastes amazing what else do I get?”. soobin says jokingly before shoving shrimp into his mouth. you start to clean off the countertops. “what do you want?”. you hadn’t realized he was joking and you were taking the question quite literal. 

okay, he hadn’t told you he wanted it necessarily but you were kind of curious and you wanted to try. you were nervous though. he looks down at you, 

“you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to mama”.

“no i want to”. you say, unzipping his pants like so. the last thing you thought you’d be doing after exams was being on your knees under your dining room table. you slowly fold down his boxers briefs becoming nervous. it would be the first time you saw soobin’s dick.

you couldn’t believe your eyes when it sprung out of his briefs standing eight inches tall. you could cry at the girth and the veins on that thing. 

“s-soobin”. you stutter and he smirks. 

“I told you you don’t have to”. 

“I want to try though”. you say and grasp it with your hand. you did what you saw in the porno and roll your lips down mid length before coming back up with a pop. soobin chews on his food and clutches his chair, his eyes closed for a swift second. “fuck”. he groaned. it turned him on at how your innocent eyes stared up at him while you were trying to fit him into your mouth, but instead gagging and watching your saliva drip down it instead. 

“you have to be careful princess”.

┈     ┈     ┈     ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟     ┈     ┈     ┈

“are you mia howard?”. the officer asks. 

the blonde haired girl toys with her sweater a little. she was feeling a little drousy and more anxious than usual. the invasion left her with some side effects and she’d be prescribed medication to help her cope. she nods. 

“we’re not here to frame you or anything like that alright sweetie? we just want to know what happened to you at the Priemere hotel that night. and we want to tell you that everything you say here is confidential”. the girl officer spoke next. they figured she’d be more gentle with her and could get her to confess. plus mia’s sensitivity couldn’t handle the aggression of the male officers.

“p-priemere hotel?”. mia stammers biting her lips. 

“yes. we have footage of you entering this hotel with a man that goes by the name of Choi Soobin? am I correct?”. 

“a man?”. she questions again with her body shaking from the cold. 

“we know it can be hard admitting these things, okay? we want you to be truthful with us. there is evidence that you’ve been taken advantage of at this hotel do you remember?”.

Six Dancing Queens - Chapter 1

It’s finally here! Well, not FINALLY, but I wrote the first chapter! Please keep in mind this is my first fanfic.

Also on Ao3

Word count: 1383

SIX DANCING QUEENS

CHAPTER 1: No Way

Catalina only truly felt at home on the dance floor. The outside world was too difficult, too unpredictable. But here, with the familiar music and the steps she’s run through countless times, she felt safe. Secure. As long as that music was playing, she didn’t worry.

But a sharp voice cut through the soft melody, jerking her out of her state of dance-induced bliss.

“Catherine, I need to talk to you.” Catalina sighed inwardly. Wearing her best false smile, she turned to face the young man standing in the door.

“Hello Henry,” she addressed him. “What is so important that you interrupted my practice?”

Henry Tudor was a spoiled brat. Everyone knew it, but they didn’t dare say anything. His parents owned the Tudor Academy of Dance, and he was their top pupil. He always got the lead in shows, he always got the most solos. He was infamous for his frequent tantrums and fiery temper.

Catalina was his first partner, assigned to him after his older brother Arthur had shown no interest in dance and left to pursue a more stable career. Catalina and Henry had been dancing together since they were children, and their stage chemistry was unrivalled. They had won countless medals together, but recently, they had begun to fall apart.

The two had been friends since childhood, but their friendship was practically gone now. Once Henry showed Catalina his true colours, via a tantrum and false accusations, she realised she was in trouble. She tried her best to act like nothing had happened, but Henry’s tomato face and murderous eyes were forever burned in her memory.

As Henry grew older and evidently bored of her, he tried to get rid of her, but he did it subtly. He began calling her Catherine, and tried to trip her up in the hallways. He replaced her practice CDs with obnoxious hip hop, which he knew she hated. The only reason Catalina still stuck by him is because she needed a partner. She hated being alone. And she still saw Henry as that carefree, young, selfless boy that she knew he no longer was.

But she had hope. She had hope that one day, things would change. They would go back to how they were before. Perfect.

“I need to talk to you,” Henry’s voice startled her back to the present.

“Let me take my shoes off first.”

“No,” Henry said adamantly. “Now.” Catalina shrugged and turned off her music, hurriedly following Henry as he took off too fast down the halls. She recognised the route they were taking and an uncomfortable feeling settled in her stomach.

When they reached their destination, she knew something bad was going to happen. People were only brought to The Office when they were in trouble. Everything she had done in the past few weeks was rushing through her mind. What had she done wrong? Why was she here? Catalina was panicking, big time.

Henry ‘courteously’ opened the door for her.

“After you,” he said, with a slight smirk in his voice. That made Catalina doubly worried. She timidly stepped into the office, worried at what she’d find there. She expected to see the stern stares of Henry Snr. and Elizabeth boring into her skull. Instead, she saw something that she never thought she would. 

Sitting in front of the desk, making pleasant conversation with the two directors, was none other than Anne Boleyn.

Catalina gasped, but quickly silenced herself and greeted Henry’s parents. She heard the click of the door as Henry pushed past her roughly to take a seat beside Anne. He not-so-subtly laid his arm around her, smiling down at her with an expression on his face that Catalina hadn’t seen in years. 

“Ah, Catherine,” Elizabeth’s soft voice addressed her. “I’m so glad you could join us. Please sit down.” Catalina hesitantly sat on the chair, worried that Henry would pull it out from under her like he’d done so many times before.

“I trust you know Ms. Boleyn?” Elizabeth continued. Catalina nodded. 

“Of course she does darling, they’ve been training together, remember?” Henry Snr.’s reminder was addressed to his wife, but Catalina remembered only too well when she’d first met Anne. 

Anne has transferred from Frenchy’s School of the Dance Disciplines. She had little ballet training, as she had spent most of her time in hip hop, but Henry had ‘kindly’ offered to help her. 

Catalina was horrified when she learnt that she would be training with her and Henry, in their PARTNER SESSIONS no less, but she couldn’t argue with Henry. Not if she wanted to stay there. 

So she trained Anne. She wasn’t very fond of her though, and some things were evident when Catalina first met her. The younger dancer’s carefree attitude made it clear that she wasn’t ready for the commitment that ballet posed. 

But Henry seemed smitten with her. Catalina wasn’t jealous, quite the opposite, but she wasn’t going to lose her gold medal winning partnership because of some new girl who didn’t even take her dancing seriously. She needed this partnership if she was going to go far. She wasn’t ready to be alone.

Catalina’s panic levels reached new heights that she never knew existed as Elizabeth took a deep breath, a pained expression on her face. 

“We have come to a decision,” she said. “Due to the recent strains on your relationship, and your lacklustre performances as of late, Henry and Junior decided that it is best if you…” she trailed off, making eye contact with Catalina, looking apologetic. 

“They decided that it is best if you are no longer partners.”

Catalina’s mouth fell open in shock. She was silent for what seemed like forever, until her mind was finally able to form the words on her lips. 

“P-pardon?” She stuttered out. Elizabeth looked pained, whilst Henry had his signature smirk. 

“Tell her the rest, mother!” Henry encouraged. 

“There’s more?” Catalina exclaimed. Elizabeth nodded gravely. 

“You are still welcome at this academy, and you always will be,” Catalina could sense a ‘but’

“But Ms Boleyn will be Henry’s new partner.”

Catalina clenched her fists and grit her teeth together. What came out of her mouth next surprised her. 

“No Way,”

“Excuse me?” The older Henry enquired. Catalina stood up, and defended herself. 

“I have known Henry for years, and we’ve been through so much together! And now you expect me to sit in silence as that- that girl who has only been dancing… what? A few months? Takes my rightful place?”

Elizabeth tried to soothe her, but Catalina wouldn’t calm down. 

“You must think that I’m crazy! You want to replace me? No way!” She spun to point at Henry, who looked terrified at her outburst. “If you thought you could leave me, you must think I’m naïve, please believe me there’s no way! I’m not letting this happen!”

“Catherine, I’m sorry, but you really should calm down,” Anne’s voice was dripping with poorly disguised sarcasm, and Catalina hated it. 

“No way!” She yelled at Anne. She was about to rip the girls throat out before she noticed Henry Senior’s murderous stare. She quickly quieted down and prepared herself for a more calm response. 

“Mr. Tudor, with all due respect, could you tell me what you think I’ve done wrong? I’ve been humble, I’ve been loyal, I’ve tried to swallow my pride all along,” she turned to Henry Junior again. “If you can just explain a single thing I’ve done to cause you pain, I’ll go.”

Catalina waited. One, two, three seconds. 

“No?”

“Maybe it’s just time for you to go, babe,” Anne piped up. It took all of Catalina’s strength not to strangle her on the spot. Henry smiled at Anne.

“I couldn’t have put it better, my dear,”

Catalina couldn’t believe her ears. She stormed out of the office, true to her word, and slammed the door. She ran as quickly as she could through the corridors, barely holding back tears. She ran to the only place she felt secure, apart from the dance floor. Curling up on the floor of her dressing room, she cried. She cried until she had no tears left, and she still cried. Her worst fear had come true. 

Catalina was alone.

through it all // Peter Parker x reader

A/N: I AM SO SOFT.  This is probably my favorite fic I've done so far. Kinda want to turn it into a series..... let me know what you think. I think I’d be super fun and would be a really cute series. 

requests are open

Summary: Peter discovers his powers and runs to y/n for help

Warnings: angst? maybe?, fluff, some swearing I think

Word Count: 2,399

masterlist

You were sitting in your room doing homework when you heard a knock at your window. You lived on the second floor of your house and there is no possible way that someone could’ve climbed all the way up to it on their own. You slowly stood up, weary of your steps towards your bedroom door. When you reached for the doorknob your phone buzzed in your hand. 

From: Peter Parker 

It’s me knocking on your window don’t call the cops 

You looked at the text message with confusion and walked towards your window and threw your curtains back. You saw your best friend, Peter Parker, outside your window. You quickly opened it up and when you got a good look you just saw him hanging on to nothing on the side of your house. 

“I can explain. Just please let me in.” He frantically said. You moved out of the way and he crawled into your room, the way he came in it was almost like he was sticking to whatever he touched. You stared at him waiting for him to explain whatever was going on. He was pacing around your room, incoherent words falling out of his mouth and his hands running though his hair. 

Peter Parker has been your beat friend for as long as you could remember. You met when you were kids and have been inseparable ever since. You two have been through everything together. You and Peter were unstoppable, and everyone knew it. The way you knew each other was on a different scale. Your minds and bodies seemed to move with each other, always in sync. 

When you started high school, things started to change for you. You were both changing, inside and out, and you started to look at him differently. And he seemed to look at you differently. 

You started to notice things about him you had never seen before. Like the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed or smiled. Or the way he would bite his lip when he was trying to focus on whatever he was doing. You also started to notice when he would stare at you. You always seemed to catch his gaze whenever you weren’t right next to each other. Anytime you made eye contact he immediately looked away and distracted himself with something. You always had this teeny crush on Peter, but those feelings started to deepen. 

The fear you had of losing your best friend because of some feelings never allowed you to say something to him. You always thought about what it would be like if you told Peter about your feelings and he didn’t feel the same way. You couldn’t imagine losing him, so you’ve kept it a secret. 

“Peter, what is going on? What was that? How did you get up here?” You said to him walking over and putting your hands on his shoulders, looking him in his eyes. His eyes were filled with fear as he looked back into your Y/E/C eyes. 

“S-something happened to me. I woke up this morning and I felt like my senses had been dialed to 1000. I’m so aware of everything around me and I don’t know why. Someone tripped over a backpack at school this morning and it was almost like the whole world moved in slow motion and I-I caught her without even missing a beat. W-When I got home today I grabbed a book off my desk and it started sticking to my hands. A-all the pages were sticking to m-my fingers and I couldn’t stop it.  I-I don’t know what’s going on with me and I’m freaking out. Y/N y-you need to help me p-please h-help me.” He rambled on, tears coming to his eyes and his body shaking. He started to hyperventilate and his hand went to his chest. 

Your mind was going a mile a minute and you couldn’t seem to wrap your head around everything your best friend had just said to you. Sobs racked left his mouth and you immediately wrapped him in a hug. He wrapped his arms around your waist and you had yours around his shoulders. His head was in your neck as he cried into it. You rubbed his back and tried to calm him down. His tears slowed down and his breathing returned to normal and you both sat down on your bed. He pulled away from you and wiped his tears with his shirt. You placed a hand on his bicep, which was definitely not that big yesterday, and looked at him. 

“You’re going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. It’s gonna be okay.” You rubbed his arm and look into his bloodshot eyes. He hugged you again and could feel his warm tears hitting the back of your shirt. You rubbed his back and just whispered ‘everything is going to be okay’ every time you felt him choke back a sob. You stayed like that for what felt like hours until he pulled back from you and let out a deep sigh. 

“I’m so scared, Y/N. I don’t know what this is. I can’t tell May, she’d probably have a heart attack. Can we keep this thing between us? You’re the only person I can trust. I don’t even want to tell Ned, I don’t know what he’d think.” Peter said to you while running his hands through his hair. “Of course. Between us.” You said to him, studying his face. You both stayed silent for a little while, just trying to relax from the most stressful 30 minutes of your life. 

“So you can climb up walls, huh? If I’m going to help you figure this out, you should show me. For research purposes, y’know?” You said to him. He looked up at you and chuckled a little bit. 

He stood up from your bed and walked to your wall. He placed his hands on it, followed by his feet and started to ascend the drywall. You stared up in amazement as he made his way to your ceiling. 

As soon as you were about to say something your mom had come into your room to say goodnight to you and to not stay up too late doing homework. You quickly shooed her out of your room after saying goodnight and locked your door behind her. 

You looked up and saw Peter holding back a laugh as you let out a breath of relief. He dropped down to the floor with grace, barely making a noise as he hit the floor. You and Peter continued to test out his new found abilities late into the night, finding the fun in the once scary situation. After finding a spider bite on him, you had come to the conclusion that all of this had to have been caused by it. You didn’t understand how a tiny spider could’ve done such a tremendous thing to Peter, but decided to stick with it. 

You jokingly called him ‘Spider-Man’ and he thought it would be a cool superhero name. Both of you started to make up these scenarios of Peter becoming a superhero and going around saving people with these abilities he had. 

“Too bad you don’t have webs coming out of you. If you did you could probably have them coming out at such a high level you could probably shoot them far enough and like hang from it like spiders do.” You said to him as he sat in your desk chair. “I wonder if we could make our own and store it in something. Almost like a water gun, but with webs coming out.” He said to you, grabbing a piece of paper from your desk and started to draw something out. You got up from your bed and stood behind him as he began to draw and write things out. 

“I think that would work. I bet I could find all of this in the chemistry lab, I’ll try it out in class tomorrow.” He said, a yawn leaving his mouth. “Do you mind if I stay the night? I told May I was coming over here and don’t really want to try and explain to her why I didn’t stay and why I’m coming home at 2 am.” He asked you.

“Of course. You’re always welcome here. You’ll just have to sneak out in the morning and come in through the front door so my parents don’t ask questions when we leave for school tomorrow.” You said throwing some pillows onto the floor for you to sleep on. 

“I was thinking we could just share the bed. Don’t want either us waking up with a sore back, plus I think we both need a good couple hours of sleep after tonight.” He chuckled nervously. 

“Works for me.” You picked up the pillows and pulled back the covers to dive into your bed. He was already in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, so he just went straight into your bed. 

You were both laying on your bed, trying to fall asleep. Peter was on his back and you were on your side facing away from him. You and Peter always had sleepovers, it wasn’t anything different. But usually they were in his living room or your basement. 

This time you were both inches away from each other on your bed and everything about it was different. There was this unspoken thing between you two and it seemed to hover over the both of you in that very moment. You could feel the heat radiating off of his body from the other side of your bed. 

“Peter, are you still awake?” You asked in a whisper, just incase he had already fallen asleep. 

“Yeah, I can’t seem to shut my brain off.” He said barely above a whisper. 

You turned to your other side, now facing him. He mimicked your actions and turned to you. Your faces now inches away from each other. In the dark you could see his eyes flicker around your face, studying every feature of it. 

A blush crept onto your cheeks as you saw his gaze shift to your lips. He licked his slightly and his brown eyes returned to yours. He brought his hand up to move a piece of your Y/H/C hair out of your face and let it linger there for a second. Your breath hitched in the back of your throat as his hand ran under the curve of your jaw. 

He licked his lips again as he started to bring his face closer to yours. You closed your eyes, anticipating what was going to happen next. You felt the softness of his lips press against yours and you began to kiss back. He smiled slightly against your lips. He lifted himself onto his elbows and you moved onto your back, and he hovered over you. 

You ran your fingers through his curly brown hair and down to the back of his neck. You deepened the kiss and brought your bodies closer together. After some time, you and Peter had ditched the shirts and were both exploring each others bodies. 

“Maybe we should save this for when we don’t have to be up for school in 4 hours and my parents aren’t sleeping just a few doors down.” You said, pulling him up as he started to place soft kisses down your body. 

“That’s probably a good idea. We can just cuddle the rest of the night.” He said as he moved on top of you, back to his original spot on your bed. He pulled you by your waist and wrapped his strong arms around your body. You had your face against his chest and an arm thrown around his waist and your legs a tangled mess beneath your sheets. 

You woke up to the god awful sound of your alarm. It usually didn’t bother you as much as it was currently, since you don’t usually find out your best friend has superpowers and then end up making out with him during your secret sleepover so late at night. 

Your positions had changed in your sleep. You were on your back and he was still wrapped around your body but was now between your legs with his arms wrapped tightly around your waist and his head on your stomach. You ran your fingers through his hair and he started to stir in his sleep. He looked up at you with sleep still in his eyes. He smiled slightly before going back to resting his head on your stomach and tightened his strong grip around you. 

You shut off the alarm and let sleep take over your body again. 

“Y/N!! It’s time to get up. You’re going to be late for school.” Your dad yelled through your bedroom door, knocking on it loudly. You and Peter practically jumped out of bed at the noise and stared at each other with fright. You placed a finger to your lips, indicating Peter to be quiet.

You cleared your throat and shuffled towards the door. You opened it slightly, and looked at your dad standing in the hallway. 

“I don’t think I can go to school today, dad. I feel like such crap. I think I’m coming down with something.” You said, your voice somehow super raspy and sick-like. You coughed dryly and looked back at your dad. 

“I’ll call the school and let them know. Just make sure you get all your work made up.” He walked away and you shut the door and locked it again. You looked back at Peter and shrugged your shoulders. You got back into bed with him, and now you were on top of him, using his body as a pillow. His arms found your waist again and you buried your face in the crook of his neck. You placed a few kisses there and then shut your eyes, ready to go back to sleep. 

The last thing running through your mind as you drifted back into sleep, with Peter’s arms around you, was how happy you were that you could finally express your feelings for Peter without fear of losing him. With a grip so strong around your body, he’s probably never going to let you go anyway. And that’s exactly how you wanted it to be. 

Prompt List

So, I decided to make an official prompt list. So, when I open requests, you can use a prompt from here, or just send me whatever you want. You can check out what I write before

1). “This is who I am, I know I’m a monster but I can’t change who I am.”

2.) “What’s a motto?” “I don’t know what’s the motto with you.”

3.) “How many fucking times do you think I’m going to let myself go through this again?”

4.) “Do you know what it’s like to go to bed every day to escape your demons only to find new ones haunting you?” 

5.) “Dude, that was crazy! I didn’t think that would work.” “Me neither.”

6.) “Are you sure I can’t punch him in the face?” “Yes“ “Damn it.”

7.) ”I don’t need your forgiveness, and I’m way past asking for your permission”

8.) “It hurts me that you can lie to me so easily. It hurts that you always lie to me. When can I have the truth? Is it too much to ask for?”

9.) “I’ve been telling her not to, it’s not my fault that she’s a prick and can’t do shit when she’s told to.”

10.) “Do you ever think about everything you’ve done in your life? How do you not hate yourself?

11.) “I’m not proud of much, but I’m proud of you.”

12.) “If you’re here, and he’s here, then who the hell is making all that ruckus in my bedroom?”

13.) “Please forgive me.”

14.) “Let her. Let her kill me. Let her hurt me. I deserve it.”

15.) “P-Please hold me.”

16.) “That is false.”

17.) “I-I can’t remember what I did yesterday or what I did today. I-I don’t know where I am.”

18.) “You were supposed to be my friend. You were supposed to be my family.”

19.) “Own up to who you are. Never let anyone shoot you down.”

20.) “As Sir Isaac Newton once said, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

21.) “I thought dragons came after virgins… so why aren’t they after you?”

22.) “Being insanely smart has its downs.”

23.) “You said you’ll always be there for me. You lied.”

24.) “Yes! I’m a real person! I have real people’s feelings!”

25.)  “It’s us, always and forever.”

26.) “I have to pick between the only people I’ve ever cared about, and whoever I don’t pick dies.”

27.) “Why are you always running away from me? I’m not that bad!” “You’re the devil in a white suit.”

28.) “Can we please stop this? W-We’s always fighting. I-I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”

29.) “I hope you learned your lesson, next time I won’t be there to save your ass.” “W-What are you talking about? What do you mean you won’t be there?”

30.) “Eres un idiota.” “Did you just call me an idiot in Spanish?” “What?! I would never.”

31.) “But why does this matter? I can guarantee you that I’m never gonna use it.”

32.) “Doesn’t it bother you that we can never be normal?” “Maybe it did. But now, being different is better.” 

33.) “So, if you’re so good with kids, then where the hell is mine?” “That’s not fair.” “It’s your fault.”

34.) “I’m too tired to care.”

35.) “I don’t want to kill you. But I will. Because my family is more important. So again, leave. Now.”

36.) “Danger’s my last name!” “I thought it was (Y/L/N)?”

37.) “I-I can’t find anything of my meds. Not my anti-depressants, not my pain killers, not my anxiety meds. I-I can’t stop shaking.”

38.) “I have to write a 4-page long argumentative essay.” “Well, you are good at arguing.”

39.) “But you tried. That’s what counts. Not everything is a success.”

40.) “Ugh, it’s you again. Didn’t you die last year?” “No, that was fake.”

41.) “Don’t do that!”

42.) “You’re so stupid! I hate you and your stupid little face!”

43.) “What the hell?! You’re supposed to be taking an exam right now! What the hell are you doing here?!”

44.) “Did I stutter?”

 45.) “Let go of my pie. Now.”

46.) “You’re sneaking out, aren’t you?”

47.) “How many times must I tell you? No drinking before dark.

48.) “So, you have a metal arm? That’s exciting.”

49.) “Do you think that I’m gonna leave you? You’re stuck with me, with us forever, no matter how much you hate it.”

50.) “Uhm, am I going crazy, or do you also see that horse?”

51.) “You’re not who I thought you were. You’re better.”

52.) “Are you sure you two aren’t related?”

53.) “There are literal monsters, roaming the streets, and you’re telling me to stay calm?!”

54.) “I know this may be hard for you to believe, but there are ways to solve your problems, without violence.”

55.) “Well, I didn’t expect that.”

56.) “You look like you need a hug, kid. What’s on your mind?”

57.) “Please don’t! She’s a child!” “So what? Many children die every day, why should yours live?”

58.) “I said to blend in! Not dress like you just killed someone!”

59.) “You’re lying.” “That makes two of us

60.)” Well, this is awkward.”

61.) I uh, think I might be pregnant.”

62.) “Do you want me to kill somebody for you?”

63.) “I thought you were dead?” “Yeah, guess I was hell to put up with. Even for Hell.

64.) Prove it to me. Prove to me this world would be better without you. ‘Cuz it won’t. Let me show you how much you mean to me. To us. Just please, get down from there.”

65.) “Let me help you cook before you burn down my house.”

66.) “I’m not scared of you. You’re like a little puppy!”

67.) “I want you to come with me, not anyone else.”

68.) “Do you know each other?”

69.)   “I hate you.” “I know. But you need me.”

70.) “Isn’t it a beautiful day to create some chaos?”

71.) “I’m not drunk enough for this.”

72.) “Welcome to Vampire 101. Don’t get caught by hunters.”

73.) “Please don’t hurt them! They’ve done nothing wrong!”

74.) “I’m doing the best I can! I don’t know how to drive!”

75.) “I heard screaming, are you okay?”

76.) “Hey! Are you telling me I’m bad at my job!”

77.) “I really don’t care.”

78.) “I can’t remember. I wish I could.”

79.) “Watch your language!”

80.) “Hey, I can’t find the scissors, can we use your claws?”

81.) "Minutes. We only have minutes till it's too late.

82.) "Just be careful. I don't want a call at 3 AM from the hospital saying that you died.

83.) "What do you want?! I'm playing Mario Kart!"

84.) "There's a light at the end of the tunnel." "Yeah, it's called hellfire.

85.) "Who gives a rat's ass about Chemistry?!

86.) "Oh my god just your voice makes me wanna die!

87.) "Why the hell is there a 72-inch teddy bear on my bed?

88.) "None of us here have a life, so who the hell is texting you at 10 PM?

89.) "I just want it to end? Can't you just leave me to die?!"

90.) "Okay, he keeps giving me the evil eye."

91.) "I've been stabbed more times than days I've been alive."

92.) "Did you cut your hair?" "No, I got stabbed by a knife."

93.) "Please save me."

94.) "A shady ass mansion and 6 weird ass kids, what could go wrong?"

95.) "Oh my god they are dating! You owe me 5 bucks!"

96.) "No! There's something wrong with me, everyone always leaves me!"

97.) "Why is there a 5-year-old in your hands?"

98.) "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant."

99.) "So, I'm a witch, my dad's a hunter, and my mom's an evil coven leader. Talk about a messed up family."

100.) "You know what they say, the kindest one is the most broken one."

101.) "I've got all the time in the world for you."

102.) "I-I didn't kill him."

103.) "You're covered in blood."

104.) "Took years, but I finally have the courage to say it, I love you. Will you go out with me?"

105.) "Well, I'm never working at this coffee shop again."

106.) "I accidentally drank dish soap."

107.) "He's kinda hot."

108.) "Are you drunk? Again?"

109.) "I can feel myself, fading away."

110.) "Don't stray away from me, I love you."

111.) “It’s a hard life but I had you. And I’d never give up that.”

112.) “Don’t move! One wrong step and you’ll die!”

113.) “You are good enough. Don’t doubt yourself.”

114.) "Do you smell something burning?" "Dude, that's your hair."

115.) "I just feel so numb, a-all the time. S-So fucking numb."

116.) “He saved my life, (name). You keep saying everyone else doesn't forgive him. I know you’re the one who doesn't. Stop acting like you're the high and mighty merciful one. I’m going to find him, and you’re not gonna stop me,”

117.) "I love you, why are you pushing me away?"

118.) "Why is nothing I do good enough for you? Every time you look at me, it's like you're just staring at a steaming pile of disappointment. Why do you always think you're better than me?"

119.) "I-I know you're there. Just please let me out."

120.) "You're gonna kill me? With what, reckless driving?"

121.) I'm listening to you, I have been fucking listen to you!"

122.) "Know that you are good enough,"

123.) "I'm sorry that I was a dick. Just please, don't leave."

Prompt List

Check out What I Write before requesting

1). “This is who I am, I know I’m a monster but I can’t change who I am.”

2.) “What’s a motto?” “I don’t know what’s the motto with you.”

3.) “How many fucking times do you think I’m going to let myself go through this again?”

4.) “Do you know what it’s like to go to bed every day to escape your demons only to find new ones haunting you?” 

5.) “Dude, that was crazy! I didn’t think that would work.” “Me neither.”

6.) “Are you sure I can’t punch him in the face?” “Yes“ “Damn it.”

7.) ”I don’t need your forgiveness, and I’m way past asking for your permission”

8.) “It hurts me that you can lie to me so easily. It hurts that you always lie to me. When can I have the truth? Is it too much to ask for?”

9.) “I’ve been telling her not to, it’s not my fault that she’s a prick and can’t do shit when she’s told to.”

10.) “Do you ever think about everything you’ve done in your life? How do you not hate yourself?

11.) “I’m not proud of much, but I’m proud of you.”

12.) “If you’re here, and he’s here, then who the hell is making all that ruckus in my bedroom?”

13.) “Please forgive me.”

14.) “Let her. Let her kill me. Let her hurt me. I deserve it.”

15.) “P-Please hold me.”

16.) “That is false.”

17.) “I-I can’t remember what I did yesterday or what I did today. I-I don’t know where I am.”

18.) “You were supposed to be my friend. You were supposed to be my family.”

19.) “Own up to who you are. Never let anyone shoot you down.”

20.) “As Sir Isaac Newton once said, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

21.) “I thought dragons came after virgins… so why aren’t they after you?”

22.) “Being insanely smart has its downs.”

23.) “You said you’ll always be there for me. You lied.”

24.) “Yes! I’m a real person! I have real people’s feelings!”

25.)  “It’s us, always and forever.”

26.) “I have to pick between the only people I’ve ever cared about, and whoever I don’t pick dies.”

27.) “Why are you always running away from me? I’m not that bad!” “You’re the devil in a white suit.”

28.) “Can we please stop this? W-We’re always fighting. I-I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”

29.) “I hope you learned your lesson, next time I won’t be there to save your ass.” “W-What are you talking about? What do you mean you won’t be there?”

30.) “Eres un idiota.” “Did you just call me an idiot in Spanish?” “What?! I would never.”

31.) “But why does this matter? I can guarantee you that I’m never gonna use it.”

32.) “Doesn’t it bother you that we can never be normal?” “Maybe it did. But now, being different is better.” 

33.) “So, if you’re so good with kids, then where the hell is mine?” “That’s not fair.” “It’s your fault.”

34.) “I’m too tired to care.”

35.) “I don’t want to kill you. But I will. Because my family is more important. So again, leave. Now.”

36.) “Danger’s my last name!” “I thought it was (Y/L/N)?”

37.) “I-I can’t find anything of my meds. Not my anti-depressants, not my pain killers, not my anxiety meds. I-I can’t stop shaking.”

38.) “I have to write a 4-page long argumentative essay.” “Well, you are good at arguing.”

39.) “But you tried. That’s what counts. Not everything is a success.”

40.) “Ugh, it’s you again. Didn’t you die last year?” “No, that was fake.”

41.) “Don’t do that!”

42.) “You’re so stupid! I hate you and your stupid little face!”

43.) “What the hell?! You’re supposed to be taking an exam right now! What the hell are you doing here?!”

44.) “Did I stutter?”

 45.) “Let go of my pie. Now.”

46.) “You’re sneaking out, aren’t you?”

47.) “How many times must I tell you? No drinking before dark.

48.) “So, you have a metal arm? That’s exciting.”

49.) “Do you think that I’m gonna leave you? You’re stuck with me, with us forever, no matter how much you hate it.”

50.) “Uhm, am I going crazy, or do you also see that horse?”

51.) “You’re not who I thought you were. You’re better.”

52.) “Are you sure you two aren’t related?”

53.) “There are literal monsters, roaming the streets, and you’re telling me to stay calm?!”

54.) “I know this may be hard for you to believe, but there are ways to solve your problems, without violence.”

55.) “Well, I didn’t expect that.”

56.) “You look like you need a hug, kid. What’s on your mind?”

57.) “Please don’t! She’s a child!” “So what? Many children die every day, why should yours live?”

58.) “I said to blend in! Not dress like you just killed someone!”

59.) “You’re lying.” “That makes two of us

60.)” Well, this is awkward.”

61.) I uh, think I might be pregnant.”

62.) “Do you want me to kill somebody for you?”

63.) “I thought you were dead?” “Yeah, guess I was hell to put up with. Even for Hell.

64.) Prove it to me. Prove to me this world would be better without you. ‘Cuz it won’t. Let me show you how much you mean to me. To us. Just please, get down from there.”

65.) “Let me help you cook before you burn down my house.”

66.) “I’m not scared of you. You’re like a little puppy!”

67.) “I want you to come with me, not anyone else.”

68.) “Do you know each other?”

69.)   “I hate you.” “I know. But you need me.”

70.) “Isn’t it a beautiful day to create some chaos?”

71.) “I’m not drunk enough for this.”

72.) “Welcome to Vampire 101. Don’t get caught by hunters.”

73.) “Please don’t hurt them! They’ve done nothing wrong!”

74.) “I’m doing the best I can! I don’t know how to drive!”

75.) “I heard screaming, are you okay?”

76.) “Hey! Are you telling me I’m bad at my job!”

77.) “I really don’t care.”

78.) “I can’t remember. I wish I could.”

79.) “Watch your language!”

80.) “Hey, I can’t find the scissors, can we use your claws?”

81.) "Minutes. We only have minutes till it's too late.

82.) "Just be careful. I don't want a call at 3 AM from the hospital saying that you died.

83.) "What do you want?! I'm playing Mario Kart!"

84.) "There's a light at the end of the tunnel." "Yeah, it's called hellfire.

85.) "Who gives a rat's ass about Chemistry?!

86.) "Oh my god just your voice makes me wanna die!

87.) "Why the hell is there a 72-inch teddy bear on my bed?

88.) "None of us here have a life, so who the hell is texting you at 10 PM?

89.) "I just want it to end? Can't you just leave me to die?!"

90.) "Okay, he keeps giving me the evil eye."

91.) "I've been stabbed more times than days I've been alive."

92.) "Did you cut your hair?" "No, I got stabbed by a knife."

93.) "Please save me."

94.) "A shady ass mansion and 6 weird ass kids, what could go wrong?"

95.) "Oh my god they are dating! You owe me 5 bucks!"

96.) "No! There's something wrong with me, everyone always leaves me!"

97.) "Why is there a 5-year-old in your hands?"

98.) "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant."

99.) "So, I'm a witch, my dad's a hunter, and my mom's an evil coven leader. Talk about a messed up family."

100.) "You know what they say, the kindest one is the most broken one."

101.) "I've got all the time in the world for you."

102.) "I-I didn't kill him."

103.) "You're covered in blood."

104.) "Took years, but I finally have the courage to say it, I love you. Will you go out with me?"

105.) "Well, I'm never working at this coffee shop again."

106.) "I accidentally drank dish soap."

107.) "He's kinda hot."

108.) "Are you drunk? Again?"

109.) "I can feel myself, fading away."

110.) "Don't stray away from me, I love you."

111.) “It’s a hard life but I had you. And I’d never give up that.”

112.) “Don’t move! One wrong step and you’ll die!”

113.) “You are good enough. Don’t doubt yourself.”

114.) "Do you smell something burning?" "Dude, that's your hair,"

115.) "I just feel so numb, a-all the time. S-So fucking numb."

116.) “He saved my life, (name). You keep saying everyone else doesn't forgive him. I know you’re the one who doesn't. Stop acting like you're the high and mighty merciful one. I’m going to find him, and you’re not gonna stop me,”

117.) "I love you, why are you pushing me away?"

118.) "Why is nothing I do good enough for you? Every time you look at me, it's like you're just staring at a steaming pile of disappointment. Why do you always think you're better than me?"

119.) "I-I know you're there. Just please let me out."

120.) "You're gonna kill me? With what, reckless driving?"

121.) "I'm listening to you, I have been fucking listening to you!"

122.) "Know that you are good enough."

123.) "I'm sorry that I was a dick. Just please, don't leave."

Chemistry - Peter Parker

Request: can you do a one shot where peter hates the reader and they’re in the same chemistry class and the reader is struggling and failing the class cause she has a bad family situation and the teacher tells her that she won’t be graduating because she’s failing and peter over hears the conversation so he decides to help her and finds out about her family situation and they become friends? it’s okay if you don’t wanna write it but i love your writing!! ❤️❤️❤️

heck yeah! this sounds soooo cute! and thank you sm :)

Summary: explained above!

Warnings: fluff, swearing, angst, mentions of death, TERRIBLE WRITING

Pairing: Peter Parker (TH) x reader

“I’m sorry Ms. (L/n), but I can’t let you graduate if you’re failing my class, you’re going to have to retake this year if you can’t get your grade up in the next few months.” Your teacher handed you yet another graded “F” on a test, making you cringe a bit and stuff it into your book bag. “I know what you’re going through is hard-”

“You don’t know anything about what I’m going through. I’m trying my best here, can’t you see that?” You spat, heaving your book bag up with a loud sigh. 

“Death in the family or not, you have to pass to get out of here. And I’m not going to let you slide by.” She sat in her chair with a sigh of agitation, picking up another test and slamming it down in front of her. You scoffed and stormed out of the classroom, the students beginning to get their money for lunch and going to the cafeteria.

A couple of weeks ago, your Mom and Dad got into a car crash while you were out with your friends. You weren’t made aware until your Dad came to and called you, making you stop in your tracks and immediately drive to the hospital. Your mother was in a coma due to severe brain injury, as she had been on the passenger side where the car hit. After a few days of worried pacing and waiting, she had flatlined and the doctors could do nothing to revive her. Your father is clearly trying his hardest to get through this, but he can’t even look after himself, so you’ve been on your own throughout this process. You started skipping school and failing your classes to cry in the courtyard; everyone in the school new about this, and though they tried to help, nothing could make your pain go away. 

“E-excuse me?” You heard a soft voice mumble behind you. Turning around, you saw the face of a familiar Peter Parker; you hadn’t known him too well, but he sat behind you in your chemistry class. He was super smart, and seemed to keep to himself mostly.

“Hey, Peter.” You smiled gently at him, and he seemed surprised that you even knew his name. Despite what some people thought, you weren’t a bitch, you were grieving, which caused you to isolate yourself from your friends and the rest of your family. Even though you tried, you couldn’t find the strength to keep relationships.

“Y-yeah... I’m P-Peter. I-I sit behind you in chemistry, but I guess you already know that...” He seemed to trail off, a light pink tint blooming on his cheeks. “I’m sorry... a-about your family it must be really hard...” You nodded your head; Peter knew about grief, when Peter’s uncle had died the whole school knew about it, but nobody really had the courage to say anything to him.

“Thank you...” You gave him a tight-lipped smile, wondering where this conversation was going, or why he was talking to you in the first place.

“A-anyway... I overheard that you were having some trouble in chemistry... a-and I like chemistry so... if you want I-I can help you... with that.” He seemed to end the sentence in a question, and he definitely seemed like he was scared to talk to you, but that was more of an awkwardness thing. “I mean if you want... you totally don’t have to-”

“I could really use the help.” You admitted sheepishly, fiddling with the skin on your fingers for a bit. You were a bit nervous in the first place, why was someone you barely knew being so nice to you? But, then again, he was a nice kid from what you heard and saw, and nobody - not even the teachers - had offered to help you. “Are you busy tonight?”

“T-tonight? As in like after school...” Peter mentally hit himself. He couldn’t believe he was stumbling over his words and being so... weird in front of you. Sure, he liked you and everything but acting cool was definitely not one of his specialties. 

“Yeah... like after school.” You answered curiously, tilting your head with a small endearing smile stretching your lips.

“Of course, I-I knew what you meant.” He took a small breath in, attempting to calm his racing thoughts. “Yes, yes I should be free tonight. If you want you could come over to my apartment, my aunt is making a casserole, shouldn’t be too bad of a disaster.”

You smiled gently at that, he was funny, cute, smart and he was willing to help you. Sounds like the whole package.

“Sounds good, I can drive if you want, just tell me the way.”

“O-okay, thank you...” He trailed off as you nodded, beginning to walk to your locker. 

“Thanks for offering to help, I really appreciate it.” 

Peter smiled and let out a tiny noise of glee when he was sure he was out of sight; sure, it was something as simple as helping you not fail chemistry, but it was a start.

-

“There are so many stupid equations to remember!” You yelled in frustration, rubbing your temples, wanting to rip out your hair in anger. You were a smart kid, but not paying attention and missing a lot - especially in chemistry - is a hard thing to come back from.

“Okay, okay. Why don’t we take a break?” Peter said calmly, timidly moving the textbook away from you with a sheepish smile.

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have shouted.” You whispered, your head still in your hands, already feeling tears stinging the back of your eyes. You couldn’t believe you were crying in front of someone you barely knew.

“Hey, it’s okay... I get it. Just take some deep breaths.” Peter absolutely knew grief, he’d lost his parents and his uncle; even though it happened a long time ago, he would still get nightmares and get flashbacks. Though he wasn’t the best comforter at first, he knew your pain.

“I-I’m sorry... I shouldn’t have... I knew this would happen.” You began to stand up, desperately trying to hide the tears forming in your eyes, but Peter could see them, and his little heart broke at the sight of them. “I-I should go... thank you again for-”

As you turned around, you felt a light pressure on your forearm, not enough to pull you but enough to catch your attention. You couldn’t look back at him, you knew if you did, you would want to cry on his shoulder, and you didn’t want to open up, you didn’t want to put that burden onto someone as sweet as him.

“(Y/n)...” That was the first time he’d said your name, and so softly. It already felt like home, it felt so warm and comfortable, desperate to comfort you. “Don’t go... please. You’re not a burden. I promise you, you’re not a burden.” It was like he was reading your mind, and in that second you knew why. He had probably been in this exact situation before. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, but I’m here... I know you don’t know me well... but I’m here.”

That voice. So soft, so tender and loving. No bad intention behind it, just the need to make you feel safe and comfortable, the need to take your pain from you. By this point, tears were flowing freely down your face, and you slowly, slowly turned to meet his eyes. That face. That puppy-dog face just wanting, itching to pull you into a tight hug and never let you go. He barely even knew you, but all he wanted to do was tell you that everything will eventually be alright.

Neither of you moved. He didn’t want to make you flinch, he just held your arm  gently, his thumb twitching back and forth carefully as to try to soothe you in some way. When his eyebrows creased, you took a shuddering breath in and moved towards him. With some hesitation, he reached out his arms and pulled you into his chest. You weren’t heavily sobbing, you were barely even crying anymore, but the comfort and vulnerability you felt made you smile. You hadn’t felt loved in a long time, and you couldn’t help but wrap your arms around him as well. As soon as that happened, he pulled you a bit closer and put one hand on the back of your head, stroking your hair soothingly.

Neither of you wanted to let go, being this close to each other created a strong bond wordlessly. He started to rock back and forth gently, his other arm going to wrap around the small of your back as he bent slightly forward to be your height. You breathed in the scent of his hoodie, the smell of school still lingering on him with a hint of whatever cheap cologne he buys. 

Eventually, you both pulled away, Peter’s hands immediately coming up to gently wipe your sticky cheeks of tears you forgot were even there. “I’m s-”

“Don’t apologize.” Peter shook his head, leaving a lingering touch on your cheek before pulling away. “Thanks for opening up to me, really. It means a lot.” You gave Peter a small smile and a nod, rubbing the back of your neck shyly and putting your bag down. “Hey, we should take a break. Maybe we could help Aunt May not burn the complex down.” Again, you smiled.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude...”

Peter shook his head, taking your hands in his and actually making eye contact with you to show he means it. “You’re not intruding at all, I’m sure May would love to meet you.” 

“Okay.” You nodded softly, and he smiled in response, that pink tint coming back to paint his cheeks. Oh sure, now he was getting all blushy again.

With another shy smile, he opened the door for you and gestured for you to lead the way. You were met with the bright smile of - presumably - Aunt May, who seemed just as happy to see you as Peter was.

As you and Peter helped May with the food, you all got to know each other better. You talked about your life and what’s been going on, and for the first time in a while, you smile genuinely. You laugh with them over embarrassing and funny stories, even finding the courage to put some of your own in there. 

Peter swears your an angel. He’s never heard you laugh before, genuinely. I mean a giggle here and there when you were talking with your friends at the lunch table in front of him, but this was you. You were finally happy for the first time in what felt like an eternity. 

“Hey...” Just before you were going to walk out the door to drive home, Aunt May tapped you gently on the shoulder. “Peter really likes you.” She gave another one of her bright smiles, and you could see Peter blush from across the room. “You’re really special, (Y/n). Never forget that, okay?” You almost felt moved to tears once more, where were the Parkers a couple of weeks ago?

“Thank you, Ms. Parker...” You gave her a smile and a nod, hoisting your bag up once more.

“Oh please, you’re family now. Call me May.” She gave your hair a small ruffle and smiled opening the door a little wider so you had a comfortable space to get out.

“Thank you, again. And Peter?” His head perked up from around the corner as he was putting dishes in the sink. He was still blushing madly, but doing his best to hide it. “Call me. Maybe we could try again?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah that’d be awesome.” With a final smile and a nod, you walked out the door and shut it gently behind you, shaking your head as you felt dizzy off the happiness.

“Peter.” Aunt May sighed heavily, shaking her head and smiling.

“Yeah, May?” 

“Do you have her phone number?” May knew her saying that was a sign, telling him to give her his number. 

When Peter’s eyes went wide, you could hear Aunt May’s laugh from the stairwell above you just as you heard your name being echoed throughout the stone walls.

-

Do you have Thai BL recommendations for people who like SOTUS? I especially want to look for those with good relationship/character developments or a university setting (bonus points if they put a lot of focus on campus life). Thank you in advance!

Absolutely! I’ll give you a list of 14 ones that match your criteria, love. I’ve watched over 200 dramas so far so I’ll do my best! ❤️ (I’ll assume that you watched SOTUS S and Our Skyy already) 1. Kiss Me/Kiss Me Again/Dark Blue Kiss/Our Skyy - this was the second BL show I’ve watched and even though the first two seasons have straight couples as the main storyline, the third one (Dark Blue Kiss) had the secondary BL couple as the mains. In Our Skyy just like SOTUS it has a special episode. It follows the story of Pete and Kao, two uni students that start by hating each other (they legit punch each other half of the time) and then fall in love. I loved this series because the actors were also my favorites and their chemistry was out of this world, it’s a GMMTV production (like SOTUS) and its starred by New Thitipoom and Tay Tawan.

https://mydramalist.com/27353-kiss-me-again

2. He’s Coming To Me - a LineTV original but in collab with GMMTV, it stars Singto (Kongpob from SOTUS), and Ohm, this series will make you cry buckets and it’s my absolute fave after SOTUS. It’s perfect in every way, the story will capture you and the actors make you feel their pain. Even though it’s not set exactly in uni, one of the main characters is a uni student and the other is a ghost trying to understand why he’s still around. Together they will find out who exactly this ghost was and what happened to him...and somehow love happens. Besides the amazing leads, the secondary actors as their friends are absolutely hilarious. I beg you to give this a shot, you won’t regret it :P

https://mydramalist.com/31880-he-s-coming-to-me

3. 2Moons/2Moons2/2Moons3 - so this series...is a mess and a half but still a classic within the BL world so I will recommend it since it fits the university life theme. The first one had a certain cast and because of issues within the company (Motive Village), they changed it for the second season and now there’s a third season in the works. I should warn you that the second season retells what happened in the first one and then adds quite a bunch for the secondary pairings, you will love them for sure. It tells the story of a freshman at a university called Wayo that is also attended by his long-time secret love, Phana Kongthanin, a med second-year student, the problem is that Phana doesn’t recognize him. Both have their own group of friends and as expected love happens, even if you end up getting bored with the main couple, I’m sure you’ll fall in love with the side ones. Definitely recommend the second cast version :)

https://mydramalist.com/30962-2-moons-the-series-season-2

4. 2gether/Still 2gether - another one from GMMTV (shocking), with new actors and fresh faces, this series was instantly shoved to the top and trended every single day. The story follows an old cliché but it’s not boring at all, Tine is a very handsome student and cheerleader in college, and then we have Sarawat who is in the soccer and music club. When Tine gets some unwanted attention from Green, who he doesn’t have feelings for, he ends up asking Sarawat to fake date with him in order to chase Green away but there’s a plot twist in all of this. Why does Sarawat agree with it all in the first place? You gotta watch to find out. The second season wraps it up in a very very satisfying bow with lots of fluff that we missed from that season 1 finale.

https://mydramalist.com/39563-2gether-the-series

5. Bad Romance/Together With Me/Together With Me: the next chapter - now...this series was a ride...why? Because the two first seasons showed us how the side couple turned out to be together and then the third season came out and well...they fucked up. I absolutely hate the cheating concept do I’ll advise you to just ignore the third season even though it has a happy ending. Korn and Knock are both uni students and best friends, but things get complicated when one of them wants more and the other already has a girlfriend. It will make you want to slap them both at some point but their chemistry and kiss scenes were one the best I’ve ever seen in BL.

https://mydramalist.com/22990-together-with-me-the-series

6. En of Love: Tossara/Love Mechanics/ This is Love Story - all the three series are set in uni and even tho they have different stories and main couples, they all connect in some way. The acting and the directing are not the best out there and it can get confusing at times but it can be seen as something light and cute to watch if you ever get bored of heavier plots.

https://mydramalist.com/33785-en-of-love

7. HiStory 2: Boundary Crossing - a Taiwanese drama with only 8 episode and part of the HiStory Series, this one tells the story of Qiu Zi Xuan that was an excellent volleyball player in the past, but he had to give up on his dreams due to his injuries, but he still participates in the volleyball-related training, arranges and helps them to get into training, watching them improve. During the training, he meets a guy, Xia Yu Hao, a guy with a really bad temper who gets easily infuriated with people that make him angry, but he strives to acquire what he persistently wants to achieve. It’s a bit different from what we are used to but so cute and heartwarming in the end!

https://mydramalist.com/26354-history2-boundary-crossing

8. Love By Chance/A Chance to Love -  This one also has some clichés but it will get you hooked in no time! Pete is a handsome and rich university student that is incredibly timid. His shyness is caused by the fact that he tries to hide that he is secretly gay. By chance, Pete gets hit by a kind-hearted boy on a bike, Ae- Over time, Ae protects Pete from the world; he takes care of him. But somewhere between the intense closeness and soft touches, Ae begins to feel more than how a friend would. Yet, Pete doesn't want Ae to know the pain of being ridiculed for dating a man. Thus he ignores his feelings for Ae. But Pete falls deeper and deeper in love with the kind-hearted boy on the bike who once hit him, by chance. The main couple is absolutely adorable, Saint and Perth look absolutely amazing and the secondary one, even though it didn0t get a happy ending, they will have their one story arc in the new season (a chance to love) which is currently airing. We also find out what happened with the main characters.

https://mydramalist.com/27393-love-by-chance

9. My Engineer/My Engineer 2 -  When Bohn, the popular engineering student, starts a revenge plan on Duen, the innocent first-year medical student, their feelings slowly start to grow through roses that Duen has to buy for Bohn every day for a month. The second season is yet to air but you should give this one a chance since the first season didn’t actually end with any kind of cliffhanger.

https://mydramalist.com/26362-my-engineer

10. Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey/ Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey 2/ Our Skyy - from GMMTV this is where one of the great 4 couples started, specifically Off/Gun, the first series has a straight couple as the main couple and Off/Gun as PIck/Rome as the secondary one, then on the second season we get to more of them as usual. There’s also a special episode in the Our Skyy compilation. They are all uni students and we see how their lives slowly change and eventually how they fall in love. Pick’s character is afraid of falling for his best friend but eventually realizes that he can’t let Rome go. A very sweet and cute series.

https://mydramalist.com/22703-senior-secret-love-puppy-honey-2

11. Theory Of Love - This series...oh man it’s so good and makes you want to kill people at the same time. It’s the second series with the actors Off and Gun, where they play Khai and Third. Third is a filmology major along with his best friends Two, Bone, and Khai, but he has a secret. Third has been secretly in love with Khai for years. For three years, he has kept his secret love in his heart, silently supporting and loving Khai while knowing there is absolutely no future between them since Khai is as straight as a streetlight pole and also an absolute player. To make matters worse, Khai has a "no dating friends" policy. How long can Third love Khai silently while watching Khai bring a different girl home every night? Third has tried to see Khai as just a friend. But has failed time and time again. Because as easy as it is to fall in love, to stop is just as hard.  Maybe even harder. That is until Third learns a secret that breaks his heart completely. But when Third decides to stop, Khai decides to start.I absolutely loved this series and Off and Gun’s acting is just superb, please please watch it :)

https://mydramalist.com/31865-theory-of-love

12. Until We Meet Again - This one will mess you up, thirty years ago, Korn and Intouch were university students in Bangkok. At first, Korn kept pushing Intouch away, but in the end, he couldn't resist the boy who was so full of life where he was the exact opposite and decided to let him into his heart. However, in a time where homosexuality was unacceptable and having parents that were against their relationship and each other, Korn and In's love was bound to be doomed. Their story ended with tragedy. Years later, a freshly returned to Thailand, Pharm who is a  freshman in T- University has grown up always feeling like he is waiting for someone. Being riddled with sad dreams that always left him waking up with a wet face, fear of loud noises, and a birthmark on his temple, the boy has always felt like there is someone he is missing. Dean the third year swimming club's president at T- University has also spent his life searching for someone whose faces he can not remember. The red thread of fate that had tied them together in their past life once again pulls the two boys back to each other, tieing them to each other and a past that might not be worth remembering, but a love that is unforgettable. This will fuck up your feelings and the better part is that the side couple will get a new series soon as well,

https://mydramalist.com/33506-until-we-meet-again-the-series

13. Why R U? - So, this one is for everyone that appreciates some steamy scenes and good acting, which unfortunately is rare. Here we have Saint and Zee playing the roles of Tutor and Fighter and it’s everything you could ask for if you are a fan of hot scenes in BL (nothing graphic obviously). Tutor is said to be ‘wise’ beyond his age and acts rationally, while Fighter is the emotional kind. They started having some animosity with each other but developed a close relationship right after. The final scenes might seem confusing but this series was caught in between the whole Covid.19 situation so they had to wrap it up however they could. 

https://mydramalist.com/32592-why-r-u-the-series

14. TharnType - I’ll recommend this one due to its popularity, but please be warned for sensitive themes like R**pe attempts, and other abusive situations. It’s not my favorite BL due its themes and quite...controversial scenes that made no sense to me. But I agree that the acting was quite amazing and the chemistry was there. Type is a dark, tall, and handsome freshman. Although he’s a warm boy, he is homophobic because he was molested by a man as a child. His life turns upside down when the new year of college brings along a very interesting person in his life a gay roommate, Tharn. With a gay guy and a guy who hates gay men that have to share a small space together for the rest of the year, what can possibly be the outcome of their story? Hatred? Or maybe love?

https://mydramalist.com/32555-tharntype-the-series

So there ya go, these were the ones that fit your criteria that I could remember. If you have any more questions let me know and I hope you have fun!❤️

real quick before I get into season 6

So this is my second time watching Season 6 and I’m p. excited.  This last week or so I’ve been dredging up bits and pieces, but most of it is a blur.  It seems the memories that lasted this whole year were mostly of the huge armored truck and the nonbinary character who works at *spoilers*’s tech startup.

I’m curious to see if the second time through it’ll settle in like it belongs.  I remember Season 5 really didn’t make any sense to me until I saw it again.

But really I’m just excited that in 11 hours I can watch the new stuff?!

But first, before I forget, here’s my last thoughts on Season 5.

So remember how I was surprised at Season 1′s structure, that it folded up nicely down the middle with some pretty tidy symmetry?

None of the other seasons do that.

Instead, I remember particularly strongly how jarring the end of the Ghost Rider arc was in the middle of Season 4.  And then again when the (what I’m calling) Kasius arc also wrapped up mid-season.

I’m not sure when I read about it, but it probably was circa Ghost Rider, that they’d intentionally decided on what I’m pretty sure they called “pods” of episodes, these seasons-within-a-season sort of narratives.

Season 2 sort of kicks it off, what with the race to Terragenesis taking eps 1-10 and the Afterlife/splinter SHIELD stories filling 11-22.  Then Season 3 has the monolith/Maveth mystery to start, followed by Hive & the Inhumans for the second half.  S4 is super poddy, obviously branded as Ghost Rider/Agents of Hydra, and S5 also splits neatly into future!Lighthouse and present day!Lighthouse.

Two points to make on this:

Kasius is such a rockstar villain that I feel really bad for Hale/Ruby/Talbot.  They’re so apples and oranges but having the highlight come first allows for unfavorable comparisons to be made.  It’s like asking any well-to-do Kree to compare Xandarian snail to oops all berries.

Good thing they’d had all this practice writing complete stories in 12 eps, since I’m hoping Season 6 (and obvs Season 7) will still feel as fully formed as their longer antecedents.

Anyway, that first point is my major point for S5.

S3 already feels like the second half of S2, and its internal halves are the most similar to each other as any of the other “pods,” so it’s not like people have a reason to go around saying “I liked the first half of the season waaay better than the second.”

(although I might.  I might say that, actually.  but not because the halves were branded separately from one another)

And S4, though the two halves are barely identifiable as coming from the same show much less the same season, they’re both good.  Robbie Reyes is perfect.  The effort to incorporate new MCU topics/aesthetic from Doctor Strange is great.  Robots who just want to be a real girl is my JAM.  All the Framework cameos really make my day!  And then Robbie Reyes comes back all deus ex machina (ironic) and saves the day, and

it makes sense that he does because the function and nature of the Darkhold was well established in part 1 and

it’s GREAT that he does because he’s perfect and we miss him.

Then here comes S5.  I really really respect so much about the creative decisions that took the story where it went (ie, outside Papa MCU’s sphere of interference), and getting to reuse the same set in a different context while minimizing “on-location” shoots is just technical and financial genius, okay. 

But there’s so much about the first half, in the future, that compels me waaaaaaay more than the gritty anger of the second half. 

Kasius, WOW what a villain.  Dominic Rains, everyone.  I have nothing unkind to say about the performance, the character, anything.  Impeccable.  Spectacular.  Perfection.

The mystery of the season opener!  We had the tag scene where Coulson’s “in space” and plenty of time to ruminate on the how and why, especially with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 coming out right as S4 ended and Thor: Ragnarok literally sizzling in the theaters at the same time as this season started.  They answer the question by the end of the episode, but not before several characters come up with and pursue several different theories, and that’s fun.

What a way to capitalize on the Inhuman storyline your show’s been about for years now, without forcing Papa MCU to contend with all this good work you’ve been doing.  Just go somewhere he can’t reach you (the future), and then un-write all of it anyway.  V. tidy.  Extra style points will be awarded.

LEITMOTIFS.  If y’all’ve seen BSG, then you know Bear McCreary is a master of the art.  But this season has so many good themes, my friends.  The Daisy/Quake theme that’s been knocking around for a season is here in full force, and Sinara’s is the best bad guy theme you could have wanted, and dearest sweetest Flint has the best great guy theme you ever heard.

Just, while we’re here.  Sinara.  She says nothing for episodes (it feels like, I wasn’t counting) and her first line is a scornfully growled “compassion.”  Give it up for Florence Faivre !!!  She hardly has any lines but you always know exactly what she’s thinking and what she’s about.  Sinara and Kasius have the richest on-screen chemistry of anybody on any show from any era fight me on this I dare you.

Mack’s coming down from his second life in the Framework, and that suuuuucks that these folks never have a moment to rest before barreling into their next story.  But he gets to be a father to Flint!  And Yo-Yo gets to be a mother!!!  UGH why couldn’t they have brought Flint instead of Deke lololol oh well.

I think I know another reason why Lincoln seems overhyped to me.  That other Inhuman, Ben I think his name is?  He’s in like two episodes, serves a narrative purpose, and is disposed.  I know Lincoln’s in like 18 times as many episodes but they have the same exact overall impact on my brain-hole.  Imagine if it was Ben that came back with them instead of Deke.  That’s how I feel about Lincoln.  Like, how did this obviously disposable character make it this far?

Then you have Deke.  You love to hate him.  He’s a very well-fashioned character who is flawless in making you feel the way the showrunners want you to feel.  That’s the kind of character that gets killed off twice and still comes back, and it doesn’t surprise you.

So, Enoch.  Enoch is everyone’s favorite character, right?  Right.  Give me genderless robots with a soft spot for humanity ANY DAY.  PLEASE where are they I need them.  (I’m un-repressing memories of S6 and I feel like somehow I should be careful what I wish for)  Man I remember with 1000% clarity the absolute glee I felt sitting down for the opening montage of S5 the first time, how ballsy weird it was, just watching this freaky bald alien of a man go swimming with some fun electro pop number playing in the background.  100/10 please make more television like this

 More monoliths!!  The time one is so pretty!

(remember when there were more monoliths and no one knew where they came from or what they did but then it didn’t matter because they got instantly exploded?)

The low-key obvious answers to the season’s questions, what with the Inhumans running all over the shop, Quake there to tear everything down and Flint there to put the pieces back together I’m not crying you’re crying

Oh man, and Simmons getting to mentor not one but two Inhuman youths to be confident and trust in themselves and their powers.  What a ways from the fear-panic response to Daisy when she turned.

Also, yeah, it has to be said, this show’s blatant “you’re different and that’s okay” agenda sits very well with me.  Agents of SHIELD says LGBTQ+ rights!

So anyway, part 2 falls a little flat for me because its strength is its themes, but I’m not really compelled by the stakes and definitely not by the villains and not really even by the intra-team drama.

Obviously S2 touched on parenthood, but it was pretty specific.  S5 digs in and brings us a lot more on the topic.

Kasius desperately desires his father’s approval but very deeply despises the methods and the people who earn it.

Hale was indoctrinated by Hydra and was very earnest in wanting to uphold the values of the organization, until the organization (and Whitehall) shared with her their narrow appreciation of the gift of her loyalty.  Even then, she struggles to make sense of this loyalty, only realizing too late that being a good Hydra pawn and a good parent are categorically mutually exclusive.

Ruby, obviously, is like a mini-Kasius, the brave-faced rebel who wears her mother’s disappointment on her sleeve like a badge of honor to pretend that it isn’t crippling her.

The Von Strucker kid, boy is he messed up (and his Hydra dad had something to do with it)

((echos of Ward are still heard even this far after his demise, and we know what his father figures were like))

Poor Talbot, got some brain damage and some Hydra conditioning on top of that, cracked that noggin wide open.  He just wanted to do good by his family.  Just wanted his son to know he loves him.

Polly and Robin.  The daughter who needs constant special care because she’s stuck inside her own mind and the mother who’s been through hell and back and still manages to do her best.  Even when she knows she won’t always be there for her daughter.  Even when she knows she’ll be replaced.

May getting a glimpse at the life she and Andrew once talked about.  Getting a chance to do right by that little girl.

Mack recovering from getting that same glimpse, from the echoing memories of a life time spent with his greatest regret erased.  Being roped into being a thug and threatening that dad without knowing the meaning behind his threat -- being told that people like him don’t deserve the privilege of parenthood.  But then getting to know Flint, and having Yo-Yo at his side while they fast track this kid through all the things he’s gonna need to know in order to be the Big Damn Hero the world needs him to be.

The timey-wimey promise that FitzSimmons will one day be parents to a brilliant daughter who will unfortunately give birth to a Deke.

Coulson and Daisy.  Another parent placing enormous expectations on his daughter, desperate that she be ready for his responsibilities because his time is running out.  A daughter who mishandles these expectations and refuses to stop fighting a losing battle, not because she’s not ready to step up, but because she doesn’t want to face the fact that she’s losing the man who raised her.

Anyway, aside from all this good Theme work, part 2 wades perfunctorily through musty remnants of the previous season, from The Doctor to The Russian.  Which makes sense, because that season ended in a way that left so many loose threads -- but then this season comes along and summarily ties them up, all cute little bows, the lot of them.  Dusts its hands.  Nothing to see here.  Move along now.  Time’s up.

This Photo of Us Part 1: Lips Like Strawberry Wine

To literally no one’s surprise it’s more Micoverse. Let’s just say I listened to Blake Robin’s Unhealthy Obsession one too many times. 

Warnings: none for this chapter

Part 2 / Part 3

**********************************

On a wet, rainy autumn afternoon, Jacob Pierly disappeared.

----

Months before, just as spring was nudging aside the last, clingy vestiges of winter and stubbornly sprouting flowers against the still chilly mornings, Jacob Pierly met a girl. He’d ducked a coffee shop, eager to warm fingers cold from poor circulation and a breeze that had been biting since the early afternoon. Instead he got a shirt soaked with piping hot coco and a frantic, scrambling apology from the young woman who’d spilled her drink on him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention--it was a total accident--I’ll pay for the cleaning! I’ll--I’ll buy you a new shirt! I’m so, so sorry!”

“I, uh, n-no, it’s f-fine, it’s just--it’ll come right out. It’s not a big deal,” Jake stepped back, awkwardly raising his hands to fend off the woman’s frantic cascade of paper napkins, “It was my fault, I was distracted. Let--let me buy you another one.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t--”

“Please?”

The young woman bit her lip, dirty blonde hair in disarray, twenty or so napkins clutched in her grasp, “I...okay.” She smiled, shy and relenting, straightening up and trying to compose herself.

Jake’s heart skipped a beat for reasons entirely unrelated to preexisting medical conditions.

----

Her name was Rosanna Pearl and she was studying for a medical degree at a nearby college.

“With a minor in chemistry,” She added as they sat at a table in the cafe, each anxiously clutching at their drinks and avoiding direct eye contact, “And you can call me Rosie. Everyone else does.”

“Jake Pierly,” He said, the corner of his mouth twitching in an awkward smile, “Stay at home editor.”

Rosie giggled, “Pierly. Sounds like Pearl. Our last names kind of match. That’s a little funny. Maybe it’s fate we ran into each other.”

“Ah, maybe,” Jake could feel his ears burning as he chuckled, “But next time fate intervenes, I hope it involves less spilled hot chocolate.”

Rosie laughed, a real, resonating laugh that made her cheeks turn pink. It was such a sweet laugh that Jake found himself laughing too.

“What do you edit, if you don’t mind me asking?” Rosie asked when they had settled down.

Jake swallowed a mouthful of decaf, shrugged one shoulder and looked out the window so he didn’t have to face his problems, “Nothing special. Usually whatever anyone throws my way. Creative writing, mostly. Sometimes academic papers but there’s a lot of jargon I don’t get in those so I have to decline a lot of them. I can’t tell you how many awful books get handed off to me by these wanna-be novelists that think they’re going to be the next Stephen King or something.” He rolled his eyes, caught Rosie’s glance, and flushed, “D-don’t tell them I said that, I mean, I do the work. P-pays the bills, you know. Heh.”

“Oh no, don’t apologize, I’m pretty sure I know the type,” Rosie raised her eyebrows, “I used to work at a salon and you would not believe the bitches--the kinds of people who came through there! Awful people. Just. Terrible.”

Jake hid a smile behind the lid of his coffee cup, “Sounds like you’ve got some horror stories.”

Rosie smirked, “I’ll regale you with them sometime.” She glanced at her phone sitting on the table next to her, “But right now I really have to head out. Tell you what, coffee’s on me next time and I’ll spill all the dirty client secrets. Deal?”

Jake hummed, “Deal. What’s your number?”

----

“DAD! DAD! JAKE HAS A DATE! JAKE HAS A DATE!”

Dan looked up from the stove so fast he banged his head on the cabinet. Head smarting and eyes watering, he turned to face the teenager spilling head over heels into the kitchen, “Ow! What!? Milo, stop shouting! What did you say?”

“He didn’t say anything!” Jake shouted, spilling into the kitchen and nearly wiping out on the tile as his socks slid underneath him.

“JAKE’S GOING ON A DATE!”

Dan stared at Milo and then looked at Jake who appeared as though he’d like nothing better than to vanish through the floor, never to show himself again. His face was bright red and he was twisting his shirt into knots between his fingers, gaze darting across the room, shoulders hunched to his ears as he curled in on himself. In contrast, Milo was bouncing up and down, a wide grin on his face, snickering madly at having shared a piece of juicy gossip.

“Jake?” And even though Dan said it carefully he could still hear the eggshells popping under his feet.

“Ih-it’s not a date!” Jake said to the floor, “It’s just a coffee…meetup. Thing. To talk about work. Strictly--strictly platonic. M-maybe even business related. We only just met today and barely know each other but sh-she seems nice and stuff and we were joking around and so we’re just--just going to meet for coffee next week. It’s not a date! It’s nothing!”

Dan winked at him, “Of course, Jake. Not a date. Strictly professional. Got it.”

“You both are the worst.” Jake groaned and Milo cackled with glee.

-----

Dan and Milo left him alone about it for the time preceding the coffee meetup (though Jake suspected Milo only did so with much bribing and pleading from Dan). Jake was grateful for that much because he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten out of the house with friends apart from Dan and...well, these days it was just Dan. So this would be a nice change of pace from the usual fanfare.

Still, that didn’t stop him from fretting the morning of and changing his shirt three times. He couldn’t help it, he wanted to be presentable. That’s just who he was. He only settled down when Milo caught him trying to match ties and asked him what “his date’s favorite color was”. Dan had to stop Jake from chasing the teenager around the house with a dress shoe and threatening to smack the smile right off his face.

“When do you think you’ll be home?” Dan asked as he ushered Milo away to find something more productive to do with his time.

“Um, no later than 5?” Jake hazard, pulling on a jacket, “I’ve got a video call with a client I don’t want to look like roadkill for tomorrow, so I’ll be home in time for dinner and a decent night’s sleep.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Yes, dear,” Jake chided gently, “I’ll keep my phone on and I promise not to sleep with any strangers.”

“Jake…”

“Whoa! Dad’s cheating on dad!”

“Milo, go to your room!”

“This house is a nightmare!”

Jake could only laugh as he stepped outside and pulled the door shut.

The drive to the cafe was short but enough for Jake to work himself back up into a nervous frenzy all over again. He nearly shut his leg in the car door and tripped over his own feet as he stepped into the cafe.

A glance around and he met Rosie’s pretty brown eyes at a seat near the back, private and away from the crowd, sheltered mostly by a bakery display. She smiled and waved and he made his way over, slinging his jacket over the back of the chair as he sat down.

“Hi, um, hello Rosie, sorry. I hope you haven’t been waiting long. You haven’t, have you? It’s just I had to wrangle Milo and--”

“No, no, you’re fine, I’ve only been here a couple of minutes,” She assured him with a smile, “Who’s Milo? Your cat?”

Jake choked on his own breath of air and struggled not to laugh, “Oh my g--no, if he heard you call him that--good lord. No, no, Milo’s my son. Adopted son. My roommate Dan and I are looking after him since his dad, our friend, um…” He swallowed, the lies tasting foul in his mouth.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I’m sorry I asked.” Rosie said quietly. She shifted in her seat, glancing away from him, “Wow, what a way to start the day. Good job, Rosie.”

“Ah, it’s not...a big deal. It’s been ten years.” Jake pushed his finger across the linoleum tabletop in an absent manner, “Anyway, weren’t you going to--what was it?--regale me with epic tales of your worst clients?”

Rosie smirked, “I don’t think I said it quite like that. But why don’t I get us our drinks and tell you about this lady who wanted every shade of pink in her hair.”

----

It carried on, as these things tended to.

Every few weeks, Jake and Rosie would meet up at a cafe or a restaurant, and share drinks, a meal, and stories of their lives. Jake told her about college, about the red head father of his adopted son, something he hadn’t talked about to anyone for ages. In response, Rosie admitted her crippling fear of academic failure and disappointing the legacy of her dead parents. They got along incredibly well for a pair of mostly introverts, enthusiastically discussing music almost every time they met up. It made Jake light up in a way that even Dan couldn’t remember seeing before.

So of course, it had to end and end badly. Because life just couldn’t be fair to Jacob Pierly.

Dan came home from his shift one evening to find Jake slumped bonelessly on the couch in the sitting room, his expression tired and forlorn, his shirt unbuttoned and rumpled, and an empty package of Oreos open beside him. The television was stuck on the retro channel, playing old reruns of shows from the 70’s and 80’s, audio muffled by age and then cleaned up by modern tech.

“Jake…?” Dan asked tentatively, setting his coat down on the back of the couch, “Hey, buddy, you okay? Is Milo sick again?”

“Huh?” Jake blinked, coming back to himself with a small jolt and looking around as if unsure of where he was, “Oh, no, he’s over at Cody’s right now. He’s fine.”

“But...you’re not.” Dan said, easing onto the couch as if afraid he would startle his friend away, “Wanna talk about it?”

“Mm...I dunno…” Jake sighed, letting his head roll back onto the couch cushions, “Not really, but…” He sighed again, “I screwed up, Dan.”

“How’s that?”

“I...I asked Rosie out.”

Dan brightened but then immediately sobered, “Ah, that was, um, real brave of you.”

“Tch,” Jake snorted and his lip curled and for a second, Dan saw a flash of forgotten bitterness and old anger bubble to the surface, “Yeah, sure. Would have been great except she...she said no.” He deflated all over again, staring at his fingers curled loosely in his lap, looking more drawn and tired than ever, “Said I must’ve gotten the wrong impression, that she never wanted to be more than just friends. Said...we should probably...not see each other for a while.”

“Aw, Jake,” Dan murmured, “Jake, buddy, I’m sorry.”

Jake shrugged and sniffed as if he could dismiss the dreary atmosphere hanging in a cloud over his head, “‘S whatever.”

“Nooooo, no it’s noooottt,” Dan cooed, scooting closer to his friend on the couch, “Come here, Jake, let Dan hug all your sorrow away. Hug Machine Dan is here for you.”

“No, no, no Hug Machine Dan!” Jake backed up, but Dan pinned him against the arm rest and crushed him into a hug, “DAN! DAN LEGGO!”

“Are you done being sad?”

“YES!”

“Lies. I’m gonna keep hugging you!”

“I’m going to tell Milo to eat your cookie stash.”

----

Jake’s funk lasted for weeks.

But, eventually, as summer tumbled awkwardly into autumn, apologized, and politely stepped out of the way, he got over it. Jake tended to hang onto things and hang onto them hard and it took work for him to let them go. But he was trying and Dan could see he was trying and told him he was proud and Jake shoved him and they laughed and tried to pretend they didn’t miss the echo of a third laugh that should have been there but wasn’t.

Things were getting better. Things were looking up.

And then, on a wet, rainy autumn afternoon, Jacob Pierly disappeared.

hello! i was wondering if you had any books rec please? cause i’m pretty bored lately and in need of new books to read. so if you could make me some recs (can be fantastic, "real world", mystery, basically everything that is distracting/really good!). it would be awesome if you could 💞✨

*suddenly forgets every book i’ve ever read* LKRGNNGR jk. 

illuminae by amie kaufman and jay kristoff so this is a YA sci-fi novel following our protagonists Kady and Ezra after their planet is attacked and the surviving colonists get rescued by another fleet. however, this fleet is not as safe as they hoped, because not only is a deadly plague spreading, but the ships AI is also going rogue. The really cool and exciting aspect of this book is that it’s told through case files-- a.k.a records of chat logs, transcriptions of surveillance footage, the AI coding itself, etc. The format really makes you feel like ur an agent uncovering the mystery alongside our heroes. It’s beautiful (as in like the page spreads but also the story) and fun/funny and fast paced. (it’s also the first in a trilogy and in in the middle of gemina and wow. it’s wild but in a good way. Warning’s that there’s a lot of death and it can be kinda creepy/dark)

the gentleman’s guide to vice and virtue by mackenzie lee this is pretty much like a road trip, friends to lovers, bed sharing, dumbassery au if that au was set in 1700′s with a dash of magical elements. GODDD this books is so funny and beautiful like. phew! We follow our chaotic disaster bi Monty as he goes on a grand tour of europe for a year before he has to get his act together, alongside his intelligent and iconic sister Felicity (who is aro/ace and i believe that’s explored further in a companion novel), and his long time best friend Percy (who is black and disabled) who he just so happens to be like. Super in love with. As a chaotic disaster bi, Monty does a lot of dumbass shit and shenanigans that eventually derails their Grand Tour! (Warning for like period typical homophobia, racism, sexism, and ableism, though i think it’s handled really well and still a fun book).

truly devious by maureen johnson: now this isn’t like. OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SERIES but i found it to be a really fun YA mystery trilogy (the final book has yet to be released tho)with a great atmosphere/setting. This takes place at Ellingham Academy, a private school that helps exemplary students pursue education that can’t be offered by public schools. Stevie Bell is one of those new students, a girl with a passion for true crime, her favorite unsolved case in particular actually took place at Ellingham Academy. Stevie wants to solve the case of who Truly Devious is-- the person who captured the founder’s wife and daughter in the 1930′s, but while she’s attending, a new crime unfolds. I absolutely loved the setting, and the mystery (though i think it gets more interesting/better done in the second novel). Stevie has anxiety and I really enjoyed how it was written, and her friends are iconic (one of her friends is lesbian and has a nb partner also). The romance is kinda meh but it’s not like unbearable and i liked it a little better in the second novel!

the devouring gray by christine lynn herman: this book has been described as a mix of the raven cycle, stranger things, and riverdale and honestly like. yeah. (though if you’re a trc stan like me don’t expect TRC iconicness, and for the riverdale aspect it’s more of the the things that make the show interesting aka small town with deep secrets, long standing family feuds, etc.) The descendants of the four town founders are in charge of protecting the town from the Gray (aka p much the upside down from stranger things relgnerg), and each family has their own type of power (for instance death or fire, and each descendant has their own special type of power to do with death, etc). This book has some mixed reviews but i would definitely try it out if you’re interested bc i found it to be fun and i think the next books are gonna have a lot of potential. There’s a really nice theme of grief, and also 2 of the mains are bisexual and use actually use that label as well as some other side characters so like. i like that elrkgnerg. 

the sun is also a star by nicoola yoon: okay i realized there were no stand alones except like maybe gentleman’s guide if you don’t wanna read the companion novel erkgnerg sooooo. This is a contemporary novel set in a single day following two povs. Natasha, who’s family is going to be deported to Jamaica that night, so she’s trying to do everything she can to make sure her family can stay; and Daniel, a Korean-American boy who has an interview with a Yale alum, but doesn’t truly want to attend Yale, he wants to become a poet despite the wishes of his family. We follow them as they meet and begin to grow closer and explore topics like the racism both of them face, their beliefs, etc. There’s also chapters from the pov of people the run into throughout the day, like security guards, or the subway driver etc. This book is like p insta-love but as someone who hates insta love i actually thought this was done pretty well and i enjoyed their romance. Mostly because it’s a high-stakes day coming of age type atmosphere, Daniel and Natasha really open up to one another, and they have great chemistry. This book is really beautiful and I finished it in less a day. (also it’s own voices for Natasha’s character)

also i mean im not gonna go hella in depth with these bc they’re super popular and this is already hella long but i will always recommend the raven cycle by maggie steifvater and six of crows duology by leigh bardugo bc like. god i love those books. 

Carried Away Chapter 9: Dinner and a Movie

Masterlist

In the cab on the way back to his house, Henry looked very much like the cat that ate the canary. Lucy was about to say something about his smug expression when his phone gave a chirp. He took it out, read the screen and smiled. “My mate Chris is in town, he wants to know if I can meet him for dinner. Would you like to meet him?”

“I suppose, you met Sarah, it's only fair I meet one of your friends. Will he be bringing a female companion along with him?”

“I don’t know, I’ll check,” Henry said, typing away on his phone.

“Because I don’t want to tag along on a boys night. I’ve been a third wheel too many times.”

“He says it’s just him, but he doesn't mind if I bring you.”

“Of course he’s going to say that!” Lucy argued.

“Listen, we’ll go, have 1 drink, you can meet him, he’s a great bloke, and then we, just the 2 of us, can get dinner nearby.”

“How about, I stay at your place, and I’ll make something for dinner, while you go have a drink with your mate, it will give me a chance to catch-up on my emails and texts and blog posts. And I’m exhausted. I’ve been going for almost 3 weeks now non-stop, and I didn’t get much sleep last night.” She gave him an incredulous look. “I think a night in, would be wonderful. I’ll make dinner, we can watch a movie, just the two of us. Just don’t stay out all night and leave me all alone. You’ve opened pandora’s box big boy and I plan on taking full advantage.”

Henry agreed with her plan and sent the plan to Chris before taking Lucy to his local market to get supplies for dinner. She insisted on paying. “You’ve paid for all of my meals since I met you. Let me pay for this dinner.” He grudgingly agreed and took Kal for a walk before leaving to meet Chris.

Lucy set-up her laptop on the coffee table in the living room and got to work slogging through a backlog of emails she had ignored for the last week. Kal curled up next to her, promptly falling asleep. Lucy’s guilt about withholding information from her mother that morning finally overcame her. She called and chatted for a few minutes before dropping the bomb. “Mom, I’m not staying at the hotel I gave you the information for anymore, I’m staying with a….friend. I’ll be here until I leave for Cardiff, like the original itinerary I gave you.”

“A friend? What do you mean a friend? I didn’t know you knew anyone in London. Who is she? Why didn’t you stay with her the whole time?”

“Mom, it’s not a she, it’s a he. His name is Henry.

“How long have you known him? Where did you even meet, did you meet him when you were in Spain?”

I took a deep breath. “Actually mom, I met him a week ago. I was lost and he helped me with directions after his dog tackled me in the street.”

“And now you’re living with him! What do you know about him?”

“I’m not LIVING with him, I’m just staying at his house for the next 3 days until I leave town.”

“What do you know about him! He could be a serial killer or worse!”

“I know enough mom. I’m not going to discuss this with you, I just didn’t feel right lying to you this morning, so I had to clear the air.”

“Lying to me. What did you lie about?”

“It wasn’t a full lie, but the reason I haven’t called or emailed is because I’ve been with Henry.”

“Well can I meet this mystery man, put him on the screen.”

“He went out for a drink with a friend of his. I told him to have fun so I could catch up on emails and phone calls.”

Her mother sighed heavily. “Well at least give me a last name so I can stalk him on Facebook since you’re so tight-lipped about this.”

“He’s not on Facebook, mom”

“Don’t be silly, everyone’s on Facebook. Just give me his last name.”

Lucy sighed in a perfect mirror of her mother, she might have smiled if she hadn’t been so exasperated. “Cavill, Henry Cavill.”

Lucy watched her mother type on her tablet. “Well let’s just see here, I’m not finding anyone other than this actor. Do you have a middle name to try adding to the search.”

“No, mom, that’s...him…” she said trailing off.

“What! You’re dating SUPERMAN!”

“Mom we’re not dating, I don’t know what it is, we haven’t really discussed it, plus I’m leaving in 3 days, which kind of throws a wrench in the works.” Her voice falling with each word.

“Oh honey,” her mother’s voice softened with concern. “Ok, I’m staying out of it, just please be safe, protect yourself, and your heart. You are using protection, aren’t you? ”

“Yes mom, we are.” Lucy rolled her eyes.

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“I’m going to go now, I’ve got a bunch of blog posts to write. I love you, tell dad...well tell dad however much you think he can handle, and tell grandma I’m fine. I’ll call her when I get to Cardiff.”

Lucy spent the next hour updating her blog. Henry was mentioned in her posts, but never with his full name, and none of the pictures she posted had him in them. They hadn’t discussed how public this relationship was, and Lucy was very self-conscious about being in the public eye. She also didn’t want her extended family asking a lot of questions she didn’t know how to answer.

By the time she caught her blog up to the present, and posted pictures to her facebook page, it was about time to start preparing dinner. Lucy loved cooking, but it was hard when she was traveling to prepare her own meals. She just hoped Henry didn’t expect that she’d cook him dinner for the rest of her stay with him.

Henry entered his favorite dimly lit pub and scanned the room looking for Chris. He saw a flash go off at the far end of the bar and saw his friend posing with a pretty brunette. Henry waited a few minutes until the girl had left before approaching him.

“Been waiting long?” Henry asked, settling his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Long enough.” The other man replied, standing to envelop Henry in a brotherly hug. Chris Evans pulled away and studied his friend’s face. The handsome brit couldn't stop smiling. Chris searched his memory for a time he’d seen his friend of over 8 years this happy and came up blank. The two men had met in their early 20’s on set for a small movie they both had parts in. They had instantly clicked and had been friends ever since.

“You look happy,” Chris commented as they both took seats at the bar.

“I’ve met someone.”

“I guessed that when you asked to bring her along. Tell me about her.”

Henry hadn’t intended to tell his friend the whole story, but it all came spilling out; from Kal in the street to the dance in the park, and now her staying with him.

“So she’s a regular woman. What’s she do?”

“She’s a school teacher.”

“That’s hot, man,” Chris replied, while Henry just laughed.

“I can’t put my finger on it, but she’s gotten under my skin. And I want her to stay there. I mean I’ve known her a week, and she’s alone in my house. I’m either crazy or…” and Henry didn’t finish the statement as he realized he might actually be falling in love with his nerdy American teacher. Chris watched the emotions play over his friend’s face.

“You’re thinking the big one, huh? Love?”

“It’s only been a week. Plus she’s leaving in a few days. We have chemistry, but we don’t really have much in common. Our lives are completely different.”

“Who are you trying to convince? Me or you? I don’t know anything other than what you’ve told me, but she sounds great. Give this one a chance, why don’t you. See if this could be something. You deserve to be happy.”

“Ok, enough about me. What are you doing here?” Henry asked, desperate for the spotlight to be off of himself. Chris allowed the conversation to flow toward himself, though he made a mental note to check in on his friend periodically.

Henry unlocked his door feeling happier than he could remember being in quite a while. He liked the idea of having someone waiting for him when he came home; someone other than Kal to talk to at night. He replayed his conversation with Chris over in his head. He was infatuated with Lucy. It couldn’t be love yet, he almost had himself convinced.

Once the door was open he was met with the New Kids on the Block telling him to Hang Tough. His smile widened. After dropping his keys by the door he made his way to the kitchen to see Lucy dancing with a pair of salad tongs in her hand, singing along. She hadn’t noticed him come in, so he leaned his shoulder against the door jamb, crossed his arms, and watched the show. His resolve of his conviction slipped with each goofy dance move she performed. Once the New Kids were done, Whitney Houston starting singing about wanting someone to dance with.

Periodically Lucy threw a piece of food to Kal who was laying on the floor, which explained why the dog hadn’t greeted him at the door. His smile widened. He watched Lucy chop something green with an impressive amount of skill. When she turned to get something out of the refrigerator, she finally saw him and screamed.

“Henry! I didn’t hear you come in. How long have you been watching me?”

“Long enough to know I should hang tough. You’ve got some moves.” He said pulling her close for a kiss. “I missed you.”

“It’s only been 2 hours.” She kissed him and rolled her eyes. “But I missed you too.” She said giving him one more kiss, before pushing him out of the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in about 10 minutes. Why don’t you open the wine, and tell me about your drink with Chris.”

Henry did as instructed, and opened the bottle of white wine she’d purchased at the market to accompany the light pasta dish.

“Chris told me to tell you hello.”

“Well, hello back, Chris, though I’m sure we’ve never met.”

“No probably not.” Henry laughed “Though I’m sure you know of him. You said you were a Marvel gal.”

“Chris. Not Hemsworth?” Lucy thought out loud while she sauteed bacon on the stove, and checked on the pasta water.

“No, the other Chris,” he laughed.

“Chris Evans‽ Oh my homeroom girls are going to be so upset with me if they find I had a chance to have a drink with him and bailed. You’re friends with Chris Evans! Isn’t that against the rules or something? Marvel, DC?” She teased while adding the pasta to the water, and taking the pan of bacon off the burner and draining it. “This pasta is going to take a few minutes. Let’s pick out a movie to watch. I want to just veg tonight.” She said wrapping her arms around Henry. He turned her in his arms and walked into the living room still wrapped around her.

“What are you in the mood for?” Henry asked opening a hidden cabinet door to reveal his movie collection.

“That’s where it is! I was trying to find your movies, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Let’s see what do you have.” Lucy rested her hands on his arms which were resting on her clavicles. She scanned the titles. “Ooooh! Man of Steel! I haven’t seen that yet. But no, I don’t want you to see me watch that for the first time. I might embarrass myself. So nothing you’re in.” She turned and lifted her head to kiss the underside of his chin. She ran her fingers over the titles on the shelf. “Oh! I can’t believe you have this movie. I love this movie!” She said sliding a fantasy movie from the shelf.

“You said nothing that I’m in. So that one’s out.”

“You are not in this movie. I’ve seen it probably 20 times.”

“I can assure you, I am in this movie,” he argued.

“What as an extra, maybe one of the lesser pirates?”

“No, I play the character of Humphrey.”

“Humphrey?” Lucy searched her brain for the character in the film. “Oh! Who went ‘all the way to Ipswitch’ to get the ring! Oh, now we have to watch it. I’m going to finish dinner, you pour the wine and pop the movie in.”

Henry just smiled and laughed to himself, but did as instructed. When he returned to the kitchen for the wine he watched Lucy combine ingredients from several bowls to one large bowl, tossing everything constantly. With deft hands, she separated the pasta into two bowls, topped them with grated cheese and the herbs he’d seen her chopping.

She inserted a fork into each bowl and carried them to the living room. Henry had dimmed the lights and lit candles. Kal was curled on the floor by the end of the couch, having lost his spot, next to Henry, to Lucy. Henry started the movie before taking his first bite of pasta.

“This is amazing. You made this? In my kitchen?”

“It’s just a simple carbonara. Really no big deal. Now shhh. I want to watch the movie.” She explained tucking into her own bowl of pasta.

They enjoyed a cozy dinner together, Henry briefly paused the movie to take care of their dishes and Lucy helped him clean the kitchen before returning to the living room to finish the movie. Henry sat on the couch, pulling Lucy down to sit on his lap. She played at pushing his hands away when they started roaming her body, but she couldn’t hold out long. Much of the remaining movie was ignored in favor of exploring hands and some serious snogging.

The following morning, they were awoken early by a pounding on the front door.

“Who could that be? It’s not even 7:00.” Lucy groaned.

“I don’t know, maybe if we ignore it, they’ll go away.” He said nuzzling into her neck. The pounding only increased.

“It’s your door, they won’t be asking for me.” She said pushing him away. “Now go answer the door so I can get back to sleep.” She grumbled.

Henry stalked down the stairs pulling on a t-shirt and cursing whoever happened to be knocking. He opened the door to find his publicist looking annoyed. “Finally! What took you so long?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s 7:00 in the morning, I was sleeping like most normal people. Now tell me what you are doing here so I can go back to sleep.”

“Sleeping alone?” He asked pushing past Henry and handing him a celebrity rag. The front cover had a picture of himself and Lucy kissing, he recognized his clothes from the train station the day she went to Oxford without him, with the headline ‘Who is Superman’s new Lois Lane?’

Chapter 8          Chapter 10

B99 and The Good Place

YES. THANK YOU!!!! I LOVE THE GOOD PLACE AND BROOKLYN 99 SO MUCH. AND NOBODY EVER WANTS TO TALK TO/WITH ME ABOUT TGP. I made my friend watch it with me just so I could talk about it with someone lol. Also because it's just a genuinely good show. (Next up I'm gonna make her finish iZombie with me too, haha.)SO! For B99Favorite Main Character:Its gotta be either Rosa or Jake. You know I'm in love with both Andy Samburg and Stephanie Beatriz. (especially Stephanie Beatriz, *dreamy sigh*)Fun fact! My favorite side character is Kevin. Whether it's in B99, The Good Place, or on the Thrilling Adventure Hour, I love the deadpan humor of Marc Evan Jackson. He is, after all, a naughty bitch ;p. Favorite Female Character:Oh, for sure this goes to Rosa Diaz. I love her so much and Stephanie Beatriz plays her to absolute perfection. it's so cool to be able to see such a badass lady cop on TV, who both plays to and subverts the typical Strong Silent Badass™ trope. Rosa is from a cooler world than any of us.OTP:I know it's a boring answer, but it's gotta be Jake and Amy. From the jump their relationship was built on mutual (if, admittedly at first, somewhat begrudging) respect and trust. They were friends, which is so rewarding to see. There have been couples like that on TV before, but usually it's all a lot of 'will they, wont they- which can be fun too if done right, like seasons 1 and 2 did -but it's refreshing to see it played in such a different way. Jake just straight up told her and didn't expect anything to come from it. He didn't pressure her to like him back and he didn't even hate on Teddy (until he got all weird and creepy in later seasons, and even then he was polite) while he was dating her. He respects her and treats her well and I will forever remember the scene where he tells everyone why/how he decided to propose to her, it was perfect and truely sweet. Jake and Amy make each other better. He helped her to loosen up a little and compromise without getting rid of her take- charge, eager-to-please attitude or her independance, and in turn she made him into a (slightly) more mature person. Amy helped turn Jake into a (somewhat) functional adult, but she didn't force him to lose his fun, childish side either. They genuinely care for each other in a way that you dont often get to see on TV between Het Couples. Like the episode where Amy takes the Sargent's exam and Jake says he always knew Amy would be his boss one day? HE RESPECTS HER SO MUCH. Almost any other sitcom would have Jake's arc for that episode be about him feeling insecure at the thought of his future wife being his boss, but B99 didn't and I love them for it. Their love is so sweet and believable. I even teared up a little during the wedding scene because I'm an absolute sap like that. I also really, really like the chemistry between Rosa and her potential new girlfriend Alicia (as played by the also amazingly beautiful and talented Gina Rodriguez.) They had immediate chemistry- which I'm huge on -and Alicia seems like a genuinely cool and sweet woman. Anyone who can make Rosa lose her composure in front of people she cares about has gotta be something special. I'm hoping in the next season NBC will let them bring Gina Rodriguez back and she and Rosa will become TV's gayest and most dynamic power couple. That would be pretty sweet. Sorry that this has turned into Rosa and Jake fest. But if it helps, Holt and Kevin are definitely couple goals too and I'm glad Kevin'sgetting so much more screen time. I agree with Jake: I also want them to be my two gay dads. Not that I dont love my dad, I'm just welcoming in the extra role models, lol. Lord k ow I probably need it.NoTP:I love that the show steered away from it, because I wasn't really much a fan of the Boyle/Diaz Dynamic of season 1. But, I do honestly love them as bros together. It's another trope the show subverts since Charles is the one who's super in touch with his emotions and helps out Rosa in her relationships when she has trouble expressing hers. I just... I really love relation/friendships built on trust and respect. It's my jam.Favorite Other Pairings:I know she's not your fave but I do like Gina and Rosa together, they have a fun, snarky vibe together and Gina does genuinely care for Rosa and respect her opinions, way more than she does with most other people. Except maybe Holt. Also Amy and Rosa. I love episodes where the two of them team up together. Basically, what I'm saying here is that I just want Rosa to date ALL the girls on the show, haha.Least Favorite Character:I hate to say it, but I want a huge fan of Pimento? Like, he was dangerous and rude and I know he went through a lot of trauma undercover, but dude needed some help, and I mean just that, really. He needs to be in therapy for his PTSD because it's affecting his relationships and his whole life.I'm not too big a fan of Hitchcock either, just because like... Okay, so, Scully is dumb and occasionally rude, but at least he tries to be nice most of the time and even tries to contribute; Hitchcock is... kind of a jerk most of the time? I know that's the point, but still... like, fix yourself my dude.Also, I do really love to hate The Vulture. He's insufferable, but his dynamic with the team and their hate for him is so much fun to watch. Of course when I say least favorite, I still like these characters, it's just that if I had to pick, it would be these three.Favorite Season/Episode:I actually really like this past season a lot. Like, so much happened! ROSA CAME OUT! JAKE AND AMY GOT MARRIED! HOLT AND KEVIN GOT QUALITY SCREEN TIME AS A COUPLE! It was pretty amazing.I love the episode where Rosa came out to her parents. It was so sweet ♡ and I think it's really important that it ended in such a medium place. Like, that happens to people sometimes other TV shows, sometimes parents dont either accept you wholeheartedly or kick you out and denounce you. Sometimes, you just get stuck in a crappy in between place (note: not deflection btw, my parents are cool with my identity, but I has happened to people I know and it sucks watching them try and get through it without sacrificing the relationship between them and their parent[s]). And we never get to see that because TV likes to focus on the extremes. And Rosa found out that you can find your own family if you need too. Which, as you know, I am always up for in my media. Found family tropes for everyone!Who Would I Date:I mean... look how many times the words Jake and Rosa have come up in this post. In your heart of hearts you know the answer to this question.Rosa (whom I have to separate from her actress because I love them both, and for different reasons) would be a little hard to date for me, just because she's so closed off and sometimes ya girl needs some validation of affection. But she's so...so cool. She does the right thing, even if she'd rather hit the problem in the face with an axe, and I know she's a police officer but it still counts, damnit. She has all these layers to her, like the dancing and the gymnastics and stuff. She doesn't reject traditional femininity, it just doesn't appeal to her. Also I bet she'd make anyone feel hella safe. She's... honestly the best word I can come up with right now is dreamy. Rosa Diaz is a Dreamboat with a capital D, and I'm sorry, but if you dont think so you're wrong.Jake is kind of the polar opposite. The only thing I would see becoming a hypothetical issue in the hypothetical relationship is that I can also be immature and messy and garbage at being an adult. We'd be too similar and it wouldn't help anyone, unlike with Jake and Amy. But he's so sweet and caring and funny. He's a genuinely great guy who respects everyone who deserves it, and sometimes even people who don't. Plus he's definitely a good cuddler and I like being the big spoon, so that would work out well for us.----------------------As for The Good Place:(WARNING! Spoilers for The Good Place are below, so if you're asking me but haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend skipping this until you do watch it, because I don't want to spoil anything for you. It's that good.Favorite Main Character:How, actually, do you choose on this? How?!? I love them all so much, truly. Chidi is a nervous smol (though also very tol) beanpole. Eleanor is always a Mood™ and she shows so much growth over the course of just 2 seasons (same with Michael, but that'smore over the course of 1 season. I'llgive him a pass though because it was entertaining as hell when he finally realized the concept of mortality). Jason became so much more lovable and sweet in season 2. Janet is my favorite omniscient NonBinary robot ever. And Tahani is, to quote Eleanor directly, "A sexy, tan rapunzel. The dream." Plus, she really knows how to go all out with something, which is fun. I loved how into her role as Rhonda Mumps she got. Plus, watching her tell off her parents was so good.I think I'm gonna have to go with Either Chidi Eleanor or Janet. That's as much as I can narrow it down though, because I am weak.Favorite Female Character: Well, since Janet is not a girl, but instead- as mentioned above -an omniscient NonBinary robot person, I'll go with Eleanor. I think I just really relate to her character. Which means I should probably shape up my life, lol. But it's so nice to see a smart, funny, unladylike and kinda sleazy character, who ultimately has that heart of gold and a desire for self-improvement played like this by a woman as a main character. She's like the likeable, morally gray sidekick in so many romcoms, but she gets to be the focus for once. I dig it. Also, I tend to flock towards bi-coded characters. Have you seen Eleanor's collection of flannels (Janet could literally get her anything to wear, but mah girl craves that bi aesthetic)? Any of her interactions with Tahani? That girl is bi af, if not pan. OTP:Oh, for sure it's Teleanor (Elhani?). Like, the chemistry between Jameela Jamil and Kristen Bell is so thick. They're so good together! And I swear if I dont get a flashback to attempt #218 at some point I will cry. 2nd OTP is Chidi/Eleanor because a) they're super cute together, B) they make each other better, and C) LOOK MA, ITS AN INTERRACIAL COUPLE AS THE MAIN FOCUS OF A SITCOM WHERE THE POC IS A DUDE! I've heard tell of it in legends but never seen it before in real life! I joke, but seriously, it is neat to see.Runner up: J² (aka Janet & Jason). What can I say? I'm a sucker for cute, oddball couples who shouldn't work but ultimately do.NoTP:I wasn't very keen on Tahani/Jason. Like, it was a fun distraction, and it did lead to the scene where Tahani tells her parents she ate a cheeto, and it also gave us some much needed Janet screen time/character arc stuff, but they just didn't work for me as a couple. I think, though, that that was kind of the point? Like, they needed to make that mutual mistake together so they could get to where they needed to be. Jason grew up a bit and learned to problem solve and Tahani gained confidence and the personal growth she needed to tell off her douchey parents.Favorite Other Pairings: Is it weird to say Shawn/Michael? I feel like it is, but I would still read it. Also maybe Janet/Eleanor. That could be fun.Least Favorite Character:This is slightly less tough than the questions above, but if it came down to it and I had to pick, I'd probably say it's pretty much just amounts to a few of the characters that the show designed for me to hate.Figuratively, everyone in Tahani's family is a garbage human being. And not in like, the fun, likeable way that say Eleanor or Jason were 'garbage people,' but in the awful, 'I would gladly punch you in the face' kind of way instead. Same goes for Eleanor's parents and her roommates (Though the one who remained her friend after she switched up everything in the season finale was okish in S2, what little I saw of her). It's super weird, but I actually do like the demons for the most part. Shawn is amazing to watch, which I, in large part, chalk up to Marc Evan Jackson's performance. And I even liked Vicky and Trevor, in that same, The Vulture from B99 sort of way. So literal demons are more likeable than the characters mentioned above, which should tell you something.Favorite Season/Episode:Season 1 was amazing and that first Cliffhanger twist was wild and awesome and I didn't figure it out until about 30 seconds before Eleanor did because it was so good, but it wasn't just a twist for the sake of it either, like, the season was built around it and makes sense with it, which is really cool to see in a sitcom. HOWEVER, all things being equal and with that said, Season 2 was EVEN BETTER SOMEHOW?!?! they ditched the formula and changed it all up! It's a sitcom! They never do that! And they only spent like what, 1 to 2ish episodes replaying the new attempts? And they focused on some of the Bad Place characters too while they were doing it, so it didn't get boring. That could have so easily happened too, if it hadn't been handled as well as it was by the writers. But it was handled well and they kept changing things up and giving us more info on the characters lives and their deaths and all that good juicy character development stuff I love so much and it was so, so worth watching.Episode wise, season two had my favorite episodes too, starting with the big neighborhood-ending party and all the way up to the finale (the episodes before then were also great, obviously, but that run towards the end had me captivated so thoroughly I almost called in sick to work to finish them, haha.)The stuff where they infiltrate The Bad Place was golden. If I had, had, had to pick a single episode... yeah, nope, I'm still not able to because it comes up a tie between the one where they leave the neighborhood behind or the finale. There was so much good character stuff, and lots of little found family type moments and Mindy even got a little bit of a reward at the end! (Side note: something deep inside of me loves Mindy St. Claire so much and wishes I could have more of her confidence and fuck it attitude). The demons were hilarious and Judge Gen was a delight to watch! This show is just so good, it makes me want to cry a little. Just a bit. I'm so excited for season 3!! Less than a month left yeah! ♡Who Would I Date:It would probably come down to either Janet, or Eleanor. Tahani has potential, but she's too...aristocratic to actually date for me, I think. Chidi would be an amazing partner, but I feel like we're both such anxious people that it would quickly become an unmanageable tornado of stress and bad decision making, lol.Janet would be cool because she's weird and fun and chipper and so sweet, plus she has all the knowledge in the universe which is neat. I do love a smart cookie. And with Janet since I'm more demi/ace-ish and since she doesn't have sex parts, that would take a weight off my mind I think. So check off 'would date a self-aware, omniscient robot' on my list of weird character traits.Eleanor would also be a good candidate too because she's relatively down to earth and laid back, as well as being fun and relatable and just... kind of a cool chick. Plus, I know deep down she actually does care about things and is a decent human being, which is sort of a must in a partner, lol. The only drawback is that we might make each other worse because we'd probably let each other get away with a lot, so it might be somewhat counterproductive to the point of the show, haha. ----------------------Thank you so much for asking these! And for letting me rant and rave over my two favorite sitcoms in what has, apparently, turned out to be a fucking essay on 'Things I love about Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place'. Sorry I got so verbose about it. I'm also sorry that I, as a person, always fail so completely at making choices and narrowing things down, lol. But this was fun! Hopefully you've seen TGP, I'd absolutely hate, hate, hate to spoil such an excellent and surprising show for someone. Assuming you have, I'm gonna run over and ask you about this one too. In fact consider this an open invitation: if you need someone to talk to about B99 or TGP, consider me your gal!