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lovebittenbyevans · 7 days

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See No Shame | Part 2

Summary: You and Nanami were only seeing each other for three months. You eventually wanted more but of course they always say “don’t be someone second choice” in a man life.

Pairing: Billionaire! Nanami Kento x Female Reader

Warnings: cursed words

Author note: second part of this mini-series is here! I like writing for this. If you like you can reblog, comment but enjoy reading!

Part 2

Three months went by fast when you used to be around Nanami a lot. You didn’t care what he did and how rich he was at all. You just wanted to be around him all the time but now everything changes between you and him.

Sometimes you can't bring yourself to cry about him anymore even though your heart still beats for him. You tried to avoid him after he didn’t want to deal with you like that anymore but he only calls or texts you when she is not around.

For the past few weeks you only took shifts at the library when you thought it was necessary. You didn’t want to face Nanami again and cry about him some more.

You were trying so hard to get over he doesn’t feel the same about you but Tiffany kept sending you articles about him with Ariel nonstop. Of course Tiffany would send you a whole text message about how Ariel isn’t shit at all. You would laugh at anything she sends you with a comment.

Ignoring Nanami calls and text messages is all you have been doing for the last few days. You couldn’t bring yourself to cry about him anymore. You are regretting going to Yu Haibara party since he is Nanami's best friend.

You placed the gift you got for him on the table with a bunch of other gifts. “Don’t look now but Nanami is here with Ariel.” Tiffany whispers next to you.

You sigh and roll your eyes. “It seems like they came matching tonight.” She whispers to you again.

Fucking great

It shouldn’t be a surprise for you that Nanami was here at all. Yu and Nanami have always been close since their high school days. They always say fake it until you make it.

You made your way to the other side of the room as Tiffany followed right behind you. You greeted some people you knew but didn’t chat with them for long. You pour yourself some champagne into a tall clear glass cup as you hear a voice behind you. “Y/N and Tiffany.”

That whiny and flat voice, you only heard three times. “Ariel.” You gave Tiffany her tall clear glass cup as you turned around with a fake smile on your face.

“Wow, small world.” Tiffany clears her throat and takes a sip of her drink.

Ariel looks stunning wearing a purple body-con dress that shows her curves. You thought she was dressed up going to a club.

Ariel grabs tall clear glass from one of the butler’s who was handing them out on a tray. “How are you, Y/N?” She takes a swig of her drink.

“I’m good.” The only thing you said to her.

Tiffany jumps right in the conversation. “I’m good too. Work is killing me.”

Everyday you thank god for Tiffany because you have no idea where you would be without her.

You excuse yourself and walk around the place. You had to admit Yu always knew how to throw a party. You stop to admire one of the paintings on the wall when a raspy voice can be heard behind you. “Hello, Y/N.”

Suddenly your heart was racing fast as fuck.

Shit, Shit

“Yu, got that painting of his beautiful mom for Mother’s Day three years ago.” He says standing next to you.

You take another sip of your drink before speaking. “Hi and it’s beautiful.”

Nanami nods, placing both of his hands behind his back. “Hmm, I also want to say I–” You interrupted him as you locked eyes with him. “Don’t apologize. I am happy for you and Ariel.”

Fuck! It hurts for you to say that

A piece of your heart felt like it was being ripped apart again. You told yourself you had to say it in order to move on from him. You let out a breath while feeling a lump in your throat.

“Um. Thanks.” He muttered.

You squeezed his shoulder. “Happy looks good on you Nan.” You look at him again before making your way back to Tiffany.

You truly need to stop lying to yourself for once. For now you feel like a complete idiot when you know you didn’t mean those words to him.

You cough getting her attention, setting your empty tall glass down on the table. “I want to leave.” You hate the way you are feeling right now.

“Y/N, don’t take her away from me.” Gojo pouts while squeezing her cheeks with his palm.

You scoff and shake your head. “Nice to see you too, Gojo.” Sometimes you can't stand Gojo at all. He acts like a child half the time.

Tiffany gave him a kiss on the cheeks and followed right behind you out the front door. “What’s wrong? What did Nanami do? Is it Ariel?”

You let out a loud whine and start rambling. “I told him I was happy for his relationship.”

Tiffany smacks your arm playfully. “Now, why would you tell him that lie? We both know you are not over that man.”

You sigh. “I know. I know.”

She embraced you with a hug and rubs your back gently. “Look, I love you but you need to stop running away from him. Fuck Ariel.” She continues. “He doesn’t deserve you and he still can’t see it.”

You stood there listening to her as she pulled away from you. “Y/N, learn to feel your feelings then eventually brush it off.” Her eyes focused on you.

You understand what she was saying but it is hard for you to do that. You never saw yourself brushing off the feelings you have for this man. Your heart still beats for him and that’s scary.

“Oh my god.” You felt completely sick.

Tiffany hates seeing you like this over someone who just ended things with you three months ago. She never saw you act like this over guy before.

She opened her mouth to comment when you felt your phone vibrate against the pocket of your black jeans. You pull your phone out and a text message from Nanami on the screen.

Nanami: I don’t want you out of my life, Y/N

Nanami: I love you

Your eyes widened, those three words shocked you completely.

Is he serious?

“What happened?” Tiffany asked.

You turn your phone off and put it back in your black jeans pocket. “You can stay. I’ll just go home by myself.” You take the car keys out of her purse.

Tiffany gave you a side eye glance. “You sure?” She can see right through you that there was something you aren’t telling her.

“Yeah, tell gojo to take you home. I want to take a walk first.” You gave her a hug and then began walking down the block.

Taking your phone out of your pocket, you continue walking while rereading Nanami messages a couple of times. You notice three dots appear for a second and then he sends another message.

Nanami: let’s talk soon, I want to take you somewhere ❤️

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goth-pod · 3 months

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Goth-Pod Ep 6: Bruce Wayne

Welcome back to goth pod! Come with Juda Boone to start the discussion on Gotham's most well-known name.

[goth-pod is a fictional in-universe podcast based on the DC comics universe. Juda Boone is an original fictional character, not based on any real person or known comic book character.]

Transcript under the cut

Hello everyone and welcome back to Goth-Pod! Your Gotham based podcast. You're listening to cape supremacy believer and host, Juda Boone.

Gotham, we have a problem. A problem that we have let run loose and unaccounted for for far too long.

That Problem? Bruce Wayne.

I know I said I wasn’t going to explain who Bruce Wayne is, but the man has been running rampant in our fair city and I finally feel the need to speak my peace.

Did you know that Bruce Wayne gives a major portion of Wayne Enterprise profits to local charities? Actually- he’s responsible for all the major renovations and expansions of the children's hospital for the past decade.

I mean, I can’t believe no one is talking about how ridiculous that is. He could obviously be putting that money to better use elsewhere. Like a private jet.

Or maybe- maybe he should lose his ludicrous petitioning for keeping the City park clean and instead fashion a huge W-shaped building over it.

It’s just hard, as a Gotham citizen, to see this man be so annoyingly good at being a Father. Doesn't he know that there is a very lonely office that he should be attending to? Keeping vulnerable children out of the vulturous media is truly just inconsiderate to his many raving fans.

I’m concerned about what sort of precedents this could set for other people in his position. Celebrities, CEO’s, Billionaires- with a B. They might start getting ideas to act as people and treat others as people should Wayne continue this kind of behavior!

Free Resources for the Gotham community, healthcare and livable wages for his employees? Who does this man think he is?

And I want to say that this is not coming from a completely outsider perspective. My family has been personally effected by this. My uncle used to be at an entry-level position at Wayne Enterprises. And thanks to W.E’s scholarship program for all employees, he was able to go back to school with a full ride.

Gotham City, with it’s grime and criminal underground and villains, shouldn’t have Bruce Wayne.

But we do. And if it wasn’t obvious, I have been sarcastic for most of this episode.

Bruce Wayne, behind the glitz, is someone who cares deeply about the city. I don’t feel entirely comfortable pointing at a rich man and going “Don't worry, he's one of the good ones!” Which is probably why I formatted this episode the way I did.

Bruce Wayne isn’t the “Prince” of Gotham for nothing. Now, I feel like there's an old adage about.. Heroes.. And what they may or may not wear.. Huh, I can't think of it right now. Let me know if you guys remember it.

Thanks for joining. I’m Juda and you’re listening to Goth-Pod. Until next time, stay safe, Gotham.

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depressed-teacup-inc · 11 months

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At this point, I am literally just trying to see this season to an end

Hi hello, yes I’m late, time to review Revolution! Let’s go because at this point I’m getting tired of this show.

So basically the entire episode is Adrien’s trying to tell Marinette that he’s leaving Paris and trying to stop it, but Marinette doesn’t really listen, and is focused on stopping Chloe, who’s now mayor/dictator??? Yeah trust me the logic of this show is gone, somehow people are ok with the super demonized caricature Chloe being mayor like everyone didn’t hate her already (my guess is that this is supposed to be alluding to the current state of world and politics and lack of trust people hold in the government)? Love the lack of consistency and logic.

Now. I don’t want to criticize Marinette too much, because technically, yes, she was busy trying to handle the Chloe situation (which in itself makes absolutely no sense and by all accounts shouldn’t be possible) but I will note that despite Adrien clearly telling her something was wrong multiple times, she never seems to care or understand? Like he told her multiple times that there’s something wrong, but she never seems to care or do anything about it until it actually affects her (which is unfortunately in character)

But apparently people are criticizing Adrien?! Saying how he’s awful for lying to marinette about having to leave and left it for the last minute? And frankly, the show kinda does it too (in the next episode, many of Adrien’s classmates discuss how awful it is Adrien didn’t say anything and how could he keep this from them like that)

LIKE??? BITCH??? Two points:

1. Adrien’s dad is Gabriel fucking Agreste?!

Like wow what a shocker the child of a man that has proven to abuse and isolate his son on multiple occasions has a fear of asking others for help in his situation because he worries nothing can truly beat this actual billionaire who’s also his legal guardian? And also is implied to have legit magic control powers over him, sentimonster style?

2. This really isn’t that of a big fucking deal

Like I do not get why this show keeps saying how “Adrien lied to marinette!!! He didn’t tell her he’s moving away!!!! How could he!!!” And how literally everyone and their mom is seeing this as an awful situation for marinette, when in actuality, all she knows is that Adrien will now be living a couple of hours away from her (due to the bullet train between Paris and London) and that he won’t literally be with her every second of the day.

Like I get it for a 14 year old yes this might be a huge fucking deal, but Alya even says so herself! Adrien is in London, they’ll just get a couple of tickets for the train and figure it out from their! And even in the worst case scenario where Adrien stays in London, there’s the option of a long distance relationship (that’s just as valid a relationship as any and would be a refreshing take on how not every relationship is super conventional and in person)

I just really don’t understand why the show shows Adrien genuinely going through some horrible shit from his father (like full on white room torture in the episode after) and then all the show focuses on is how this affects marinette and how sad she must be rather then the genuine psychological damage this must be doing for the kid! Like no one in this show remembers the amount of control Gabriel has on Adrien or something.

Anyways rant aside, before the entire going to London thing happens (btw congrats adrienette shippers for the kiss) there’s a whole thing where Chloe makes a deal to be akumatized by Monarch so she can send people to detention (it’s painted as a torture chamber but it’s literally people walking around with a video of Chloe saying they’re ridiculous, so basically P.E. Class), and then there’s a big fight where Ladybug and Chat Noir almost detransform because they used up their lucky charm and cataclysm and are trapped (btw the lucky charm had no fucking point to the story, why was it underwear? Frankly it was kinda creepy if the writers to have panties as the lucky charm for nothing but a weird joke, and not even connecting to the messages of unity and everyone taking action but ok)

But like… they just don’t?! Like I swear to god this show makes no sense anymore, Ladybug and Chat Noir just say they’ll never give up and fully transform and recharge again, and now they have no time limit and full powers?!

Like, the entire principal (just like Gabriel said) of the miraculous time limit, is that Kwamis need to recharge after one use, and that adults can lend some of their energy and power to Kwamis and therefore have them last longer to the point they don’t need to detransform, hence “only adults don’t need to detransform”

But now it’s apparently a purely emotional thing and not physical? Ladybug and Chat Noir somehow grew up by saying they’ll never detransform again (I do not at all see how this is a moment of growth to them) and now they just don’t detransform, despite the fact they are physically still kids?

Like by the shows logic of emotional maturity, Gabriel shouldn’t be able to hold a transformation at all then, because he’s the farthest thing from emotionally mature.

And also, it kinda makes all the stakes in fights now null and void? The biggest stake and challenge in each fight from day one of miraculous was “there’s this bad guy, you guys have one chance to use your special powers to beat them, think smart and solve this puzzle” but now it’s just gone??? It would have worked if the akumas overtime became more intense and hard to beat but clearly that’s not the case as even akumas powered up with actual miraculouses can be beat by a normal ladybug and chat noir.

The best thing the show could have done here is rather then make the becoming adult thing emotional maturity, have Ladybug and Chat Noir notice their transformation seems ti be slowly lasting longer as they age (have it be a metaphor for puberty and growing up or something) and then actually make the fights and villains more difficult and compelling so by the time Ladybug and Chat Noir no longer transform back, the priority isn’t for them to keep their secret identity (which sucks and anyways doesn’t matter) but to stay alive!

But anyways I digress, when has this show ever pulled a logical move?

Which speaking of…

I have no fucking clue what they’re doing with Chloe anymore.

They spent. Entire SEASONS! PLURAL! SEASONS! After the introduction of Audrey Bourgeois, telling us how “no Chloe is irredeemable her actions are never justifiable she’s just evil and bad and she has no other reason for doing anything and she’s so bad she’s cooperating with monarch and Lila look how evil she is hate her so marinette looks better in comparison”

To now… suddenly pulling this scene?!

Like. WHY??? Why would you purposely demonize Chloe despite the very real opportunity she had to get better and be complex, only to now pull a “whoops wait look guys deep compelling character!”

And while I heard people say this is the show maybe finally making Chloe get her redemption arc after hitting rock bottom, I can’t agree? The show is known for its repetitive nature, and if the show is to redeem Chloe and suddenly make her a good person or give her a compelling reason for acting the way she did, marinette looks bad in comparison, for not having as compelling reasons to do just as bad things:

Example? Marinette and Chloe in season 3’s Animaestro, trying to sabotage Lagami and publicly humiliate her in front of Adrien so she won’t “win him over”.

If Chloe has an explanation for this behavior (she’s taught to be cruel and mean from a young age by an abusive and neglectful mother, and because of her equally neglectful father, she learned the only way she’s heard and anyone cares for her is if she lashes out, and someone will just throw money on the problem) what reason does marinette have? She was raised by perfectly loving and doting (maybe too doting) parents, who from day one have taught her to be kind to others, and to do good.

Both characters did an awful thing, just one character has a genuinely compelling explanation for said behavior, while the other is pure jealousy and wanting the guy for herself by all costs.

So no, I don’t think the show will redeem Chloe for that reason: because it would force marinette to admit her wrongdoings and therefore force the plot to develop!

So this just makes no sense? It feels like a case of the show wanting to have its cake and eat it too, wanting the show to remain the same, Chloe to remain awful for no reason, and for marinette to stay the hero by comparison, but also have the bragging rights to say “we write complex character you guys!”

It makes no sense is my point.

Anyways besides these huge inconsistencies, leaps in logic, and bad writing, I don’t really have anything else about this episode to say? This show has officially come to the point for me where I genuinely think nothing will ever change or be able to fix how wrong everything is (from characterization of everyone except for marinette, the plot, the rules of miraculouses, the LOVE SQUARE)

#miraculous ladybug #mlb fandom #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #chloe bourgeois #ml rants #ml season 5 #every time I saw Chloe/Lila/Gabriel be super unrealistically evil for no reason #I was like that meme of mermaid man from SpongeBob going “Evil!!!!

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stackthedeck · 5 months

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i need someone who understands to commiserate with me.

WHY are people marking spider-man - all media types when they mean "twinky tiny teeny baby tom holland and papá stark and ooh sometimes big hulking predatory gay teen fucker deadpool (i think thats his name ive never read a comic but i know he hears voices oooOohooH)" thats NOT ALL MEDIA TYPES THATS THE FUCKING TOM HOLLAND MOVIES

they can like that! i dont CARE. what i care about is intentionally obfuscating your fic premise, thereby making ME read it 😭😭😭

i know spideytorch is your fav flame but at least many torch knowers know about smth besides the movies 😔😔

(have a good day, i needed to bitch and i was like. he is the only one who will truly understand 💛)

Anon I feel you I bitch about this every day lmao the exclude mcu button on ao3 is my best friend! Like listen mcu fans can do whatever they want but like fandom etiquette dictates that if I don’t like I shouldn’t read so it’s common courtesy for them to say exactly what the fic is so I can know that I’m the type of fan who doesn’t like it so I won’t read it. Like I’ve been 5k words into pretty alright Spider-Man fic and then I’m hit with the “mr.stark” and I’m like god where’s my Spider-Man that doesn’t respect billionaires it’s crushing every time. And like hey mcu fans, y’all are the majority here if people want Tom Holland Spider-Man they’re searching that fandom tag so use it so more of your intended audience can read your fic!

I’ll be honest with you anon the reason I’m so into spidey torch is because 1 it’s a semi popular ship and 2 spidey torch fans tend to be obsessed with the comics sometimes for both the boys but they’re a super fan of at least one. The fantastic four have had nothing but shitty adaptations so their comic fandom is bigger than their movie fandoms it’s wonderful. I don’t really ship Johnny with Peter beyond like oh they probably were a friends with benefits situation or a Johnny is way more hopelessly in love situation. Nah the real goat of Johnny Storm ships is Johnny and Wyatt Wingfoot that is a power couple that can stand the test of time. But unfortunately it’s a very small tag and there’s quite a few writers who don’t know how to be normal about Native Americans. But my diehard spidey ship is parksborn and that tag is such a mixed bag! Sometimes it’s like the perfect replication of the comic dynamic, sometimes it’s the Raimi movies (functionally two different characters but also fun), something to do with the cartoons (not my thing because they’re kids doing high school drama), whatever the fuck Andrew Garfield had going with that dying Victorian orphan, or Harry is the evil ex but like evil the same way Norman was like fuck off!

Anyway spidey torch is the only spidey dude slash ship that has like consistently good fics but all the other ships you’ve gotta sift through a lot of bull shit but it’d be so much easier to find what I want if people would just tag their shit correctly!

Anyway thank you for bitching with me anon. Reminder: fuck the mcu until Sabra is removed from captain America 4, pirate your movies and comics and don’t buy shit from them. Pirate spectacular Spider-Man comics and every single Wyatt Wingfoot appearance

#asks #don’t even get me started on the struggle to find anything decent for fm spidey ships

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simonalkenmayer · 1 year

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This is just so absurd I can’t not talk about it, so please read this short political analysis, even if you don’t usually read these, because this is…hilarious.

This election, almost 70% of the vote below the age of 21 went to democrats. Single women by a margin of 30 points voted Democratic. Minorities (particularly black women) broke for Dems overwhelmingly, black women mobilizing over 95% of their members in some constituencies.

The GOP is taking time to analyze this, running numbers, wondering how they can appeal to young people and women instead of only angry racist old white men…and these are their solutions so far as stated by multiple pundits on FOX, and why they are stupid:

Single women vote for Dems? Answer? Men, marry these women. Literally someone said “put a ring on it”. They said “it’s easy to see why single women vote Democratic—their policies keep women single”.

Why is this stupid? Well beyond the obvious misogyny of “we should just woo and marry women and then control them so they align with us politically”? There’s the fact that because women no longer need a man, to survive, men are now forced to bring character to the table, something many men (I’m thinking the alpha males of tiktok) never had to grow because of their privilege. You cannot just send men out into the world to literally conquer a woman’s heart. They’re not stupid. They can see when they’re not dating a decent guy. That’s why they stopped marrying them.

They’ve been, I kid you not,debating RAISING THE VOTING AGE TO 21.

Here is why that’s fucking idiotic, broken into many easy parts. 1. If they can’t vote, then they cannot be taxed, nor recruited for the military, nor jailed as adults. How’s that going to affect prisons, the military, taxes?

Well there’s over 600k active duty military below the age of 25 out of 1.35 million…you tell me.

16% of our tax revenue comes from the under 25 bracket

Oh right and what are they supposed to do? They can’t go to college, since….how are they going to be able to sign contracts for student loans if they aren’t being fairly represented or given adult status? Are they going to raise the legal age of adulthood since adults age 18-21 can no longer do anything of their own accord, extend high school again to stockpile them while they’re not being busy or just recruit them straight into the terrible service jobs in which the GOP hopes they remain?

I’m telling you…there is nothing to offer but no climate, rich billionaires, more debt, less freedom, less rights, and bigotry in that party. They want to destroy education to keep people stupid. They want to use religion to control. That party is not a party. It’s an evil conspiracy. Meaning the kids and the ladies will shy away. They have nothing to offer. Nothing. So they have to cheat.

Make no mistake the the abortion ban idea was specifically to encumber these two groups with crippling debt and dependency. That party has nothing to offer. Especially with trump running it. And this they well know. Most of his candidates lost. Most. And the red wave that was expected was nonexistent. One of two things will now happen:

My predictions:

Expect lots and lots of redistributing debates to cheat, I.e. gerrymandering but that’s a given.

1. Trump is a malignant narcissist. He doesn’t care about party or the country. During this election he said “if they win I should get the credit and if they lose I shouldn’t be blamed” a “head I win, tails you lose” if ever there was one. He will run again in 2024 despite the overwhelming repudiation by voters. He will (not?) win the primary, but he will take so much of the GOP base vote with him that it splits the vote and hands Dems a second Biden presidency.

2. If the house is taken by the GOP, they will bargain with him to shut down federal oversight of him (including J6 hearings) to convince him not to run. He will still likely screw them in meaningful ways.

Unless he ends up in prison because of other investigations they can’t control…so the first seems most likely.

TLDR:

The kids and women are alright. Death to the Boomers. Enjoy your avocado if you can afford it. Don’t get married. Keep voting for change and keep using these platforms to educate your peers.

#political #politics #vote

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zaceouiswriting · 2 years

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The smell of love

Character: Dick Grayson x male reader

Universe: Somewhere in DC

Warnings: Fluff

A quiet sound of a slight drizzle against the wide windows to your left. The little water pearls, running down the glass. Once in a while you looked out of it, to see the world outside of the place you were sitting in, slowly gettin wet. The slight sun breaking trough the rain clouds let the stones of the sidewalk glistening like diamonds.

The smell of nutmeg and cinnamon, laid in the hair, together with the aroma of coffee, all over the place. Almost silent whisper, gave the moment the extra effect. Telling that you weren’t alone, but that everyone despite it, looked out for the comfortableness of everyone else.

Your own coffee, sitting right in front of you, singing to you, to drink it, almost fall into oblivion, as you saw someone outside. Your hands clutched themselves as a man, slightly damped by the drizzle, walked to the small coffee shop you were in. Not one of these hipster places, who with every fiber of their being, tried to be different.

It was a mix of both of it. Some parts are like this, giving it a vibe of resourcefulness, while another part was exactly what you would think. The best thing, were the plants all around the place. Hanging from the walls, some even from the open staircase to the first floor.

The man was tall, incredible handsome and his muscles almost ripped his shirt apart. If you believed in love on first sight, that would’ve been the moment.

His open jacket, gave him obviously not enough protection from the weather outside, but he also did not seemed to care. With all the confidence a person could have. As he came to the front door and opened it, a whiff of the smell if freshly falling rain, mixed with the rest in the shop. A symphony of aromas filled the room. It was heaven on earth. Most other people, seemed to agree with your on that.

Most began to smile, while still talking about unimportant things. For a moment, the entire atmosphere seemed changed until the smell slowly faded away and the man walked to the counter.

You couldn’t hear his order. But soon after a big cup of coffee sat in front of him, for him to take. His eyes wandered over the room, silently trying to figure out, where he should sit. Finally, his eyes came to a stop at your table. A single blue withered rose sat on the table with you.

How a friend of yours, could get you to agree to a blind date, you still did not know. You had never dated someone before. Because of an incident in your school life. In one of the many shootings your school was targeted too. The guy you liked at the time and he obviously had feelings for you too. Died that day, protecting you from one of the shooters.

Somedays you could still feel his blood all over your body.

As the man came nearer to you, your heartbeat began to rise. He couldn’t be the one, you friend set you up with, right? He was handsome, a model even. Strong face, pronounced jaw, perfect formed nose and high cheek bones. Middle long hair, shortly falling into his face and a lazy smile on his full lips.

„(Y/N)?“, he asked you as he came to an halt in front of you.

You had no chance to say anything. Your body was completely tensed up in shock. So you simply nodded to his question. His lazy smile grew tenfold as you did.

„Thank god, I feared that Roy set me up again with a girl or someone outside of my attraction, like the last fifteen times.“ As he talked, the small dimples at the end of his lips came out stronger.

The entire time, starring at him out of widened eyes. Still not knowing, with what you deserved the presence of someone like him, Shouldn’t he be with models on his own, instead of you? Maybe billionaire or something like that?

He saw you insecurity immediately and grabbed your hand, „Don’t worry, I’m not as much of an asshole as I seem.“ Trying to get you nerves down, but that wasn’t the reason, why you were so aww struck.

„I never-never was on-“ Before you could finish up your sentence, he stopped you.

„Blind dates, normally don’t go this well.“ He again tried to ease your nerves. But this was the point you almost exploded.

„I never was on a date before.“ You were finally able to tell him. His wide smile did not falter. Eyes still glistening under the warm, yellow light of the lamp above you. Nothing on him seemed to have for a long second.

Not until his smile vanished and shock was there instead of it, „Never?“, he asked quietly.

You shook with your head. After you did this, his smile grew again, „Than I will make this one the best you will ever have, hopefully no one else than me, will be able to get the chance. I would hate for someone else snapping you away from me.“

His words made you blush. Maybe it was love on first sight. Not only for you? The butterflies in your stomach almost made you puke right then and there from stress. But the soothing aura, the man in front of you had was enough to keep you calm.

„A bit forward, are we?“, you asked with a smile on your own. Not knowing where this boost of confidence came from, but you just flow with it.

His already shimmering eyes, got a glint of confidence on his own after that, „My name is Dick. Dick Grayson.“ He finally told you.

A slight chuckle came from you, „Dick? I hope in more ways than just your name.“ At this point he took his hand away from you and folding them in front of himself, looking you up and down.

„I like you, when you are confident. And yes, in many ways than just my name.“ The last part he whispered over the table, while leaning over it.

Maybe this was fate or just a lucky accident. But you hoped you never needed to go on a date after that. He bar was already way too high after you met Dick.

„How about, we drink our coffees and after this, I show you around and decide on the fly what we will do? Roy told me a bit about you and therefore I know you don’t come from here. Neither do I, but I live here for a while. So what do you say?“

„As long as you don’t try to get me in a dark lonely alleyway and rob me, I’m in.“ A hearty chuckle from Dick later, you two just looked at each other.

His smile formed into a crooked smirk, „This would not have been, what I would’ve thought about you and me in a dark, lonely alleyway.“

A dark red blush formed on your cheeks. At his blatant forward sexual flirting. But you loved every second of his attention. And if you were honest with yourself. You would to a lot of shit to get him as your first.

But time will tell what happens. The smell of nutmeg, cinnamon, coffee and rain forever engraved in your brain.

#Dick Grayson x male reader #Dick Grayson imagine #dc x male reader #dc imagine #x male reader #male reader

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marvelstarker-mha98 · 2 years

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The Runaway Distance Life Of A Little Stark Chapter 1: The Beginning Of The End

Pairing: Tony Stark & daughter!Reader Summary: Being (Y/n) Stark was never easy. Your dad was famous, your mom never even got to hold you, and you were all but ignored for the entirety of your life. However, things started to change when you encountered your dad's Friend sending out a hit on him. That was when you run became a runaway. Only one question remains after that day...Would you ever come back home? A/N: hi sorry for posting any stories for the past month or so! so busy because I have my first job! So anyway this story will be long and its a collaboration between me and an amazing friend that I met on Wattpad, SlytherinsRebellion (look it up..in wattpad) aka callikc! so we hope you all love this! Warning: choking, father-daughter issue, neglect, threatened (not by tony) Next

Your name was (Y/n) Stark. And your story? It was a complicated one.

Your father was incredibly famous. A billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and a manufacturer of weapons. Stark Industries to be exact. And it was because of his playboy nature that you came to be.

He'd never told you exactly what happened, but, as you got older, it was easy enough to figure out that your mother was just another one night stand to him. She died when you were born so you never got to know her. Because of that, you were all but forced on your father and it was always easy to tell he didn't appreciate it.

Tony and you didn't have a great relationship. He was always away 'working', and, if he wasn't working, he was drinking or hooking up. You thought it was to get away from you.

You were sitting in your room now bored to death. Your dad was supposed to be heading to his plane for some trip to Afghanistan to unveil a new weapon or something. You didn't really pay much attention. He should've left over an hour ago but he was Tony Stark so of course he was never on time. You didn't know how long he'd be gone but you were sixteen and had learned to look after yourself from a very young age. Plus you had Pepper around so it's not like you wouldn't see anyone.

When you heard JARVIS saying he was about to leave, you got up and headed downstairs. You were about to say goodbye when you overheard your name being mentioned.

"Shouldn't you say goodbye to (Y/n)?" Pepper asked.

"Just tell her I'll be back eventually." You heard your dad say in response.

That hurt like a punch to the gut. Why didn't he want to say goodbye to you?

"Tony, she's your daughter."

"I'm aware."

"Don't you think-"

"-Trust me, she knows how to look after herself. She'll survive a day or two alone."

You heard the door shut and sighed. You debated going after him but decided against it, thinking that if he cared, he would have said goodbye. Clearly, he didn't. Instead, you just went back up to your room. You had a gorgeous view of the ocean from your Malibu home. You had a life of luxury, being the daughter of a billionaire, but the public didn't know much about you. Some people speculated about your name, but that was pretty much it.

You looked out at the beautiful horizon and wished more than anything you could get out and see the world. You were jealous of your dad in that way because his job had him travelling everywhere from Washington to Monaco, London to Tokyo, and so much more.

And now he was in Afghanistan.

But he'd be okay. It was just a weapons demonstration. He'd be home by the week's end.

-Four Days Later- -Tony POV-

Tony Stark was not okay. I mean, who would be after being kidnapped by a terrorist organization and having your life completely dependant on an electromagnet and a car battery?

They wanted him to build the Jericho missile, the one he demonstrated a few days before. But, despite the danger of not cooperating, he had other plans anyway. The man he was locked up with, Yinsen, was going to help him build their way out of there.

But, as night settled, the two sat across a makeshift table and played a game on the backgammon board Yinsen had fashioned from Lebanese cedar. They used bolts as pieces but at least had an actual pair of dice.

"Good." Yinsen nodded as Tony moved a piece. "Good roll."

"You still haven't told me where you're from." Tony responded.

"I'm from a small town called Gulmira. It's actually a nice place."

"Got a family?"

"Yes, and I will see them when I leave here. And you, Stark?"

Tony paused what he was doing, looking down. He thought about you immediately. His daughter. His little girl. He knew he was a terrible father and he never tried fixing that. It was his biggest regret at that moment. He wondered if you were okay, if you even missed him or noticed he was missing.

"I have someone." He eventually confessed. "But we aren't close."

Yinsen looked at him, almost curious, as if he knew exactly what he'd been thinking about. "So you're a man who has everything and almost nothing."

-(Y/n) POV-

Your leg bounced up and down, nerves overpowering every sense you had. It had been days and you hadn't heard anything from your dad. Usually that was normal, you'd assume he was just drinking senselessly and picking up some random girl from a bar, but something didn't seem right.

Part of you really didn't care anymore because of how he so easily left without a goodbye, but the part of you that secretly loved your dad was terrified. There had been rumors circulating, people already making up theories about how he was dead, kidnapped, or hiding out on some private island. It did nothing to help the anxiety.

And so you deemed it necessary to go to the Stark Industries HQ and talk to someone who knew what was going on. Your first thought was Obadiah Stane. He used to be a good friend of your grandfather, the legendary Howard Stark, and became an important part of Tony's life when Howard died and he took over. You knew him quite well since you'd talked a couple times.

"Sorry, miss, we can't let you pass." One of the security guards said as you turned into the hallway that led into Obadiah's office.

"Why not?" You asked.

"We're gonna need some identification."

"(Y/n) Stark."

The two guards stared at you in confusion before looking at each other. You knew immediately they were skeptical.

"You got anything to prove that?" Guard two asked.

You sighed. "What, the Gucci belt and Louis Vuitton bag don't do it for you?"

"Miss-"

"-Let me through."

"We're under strict orders."

"I don't care. Just let me see Mr. Stane."

You were losing patience. Your dad had been radio silent for four straight days. That wasn't normal. Even by now you would have seen pictures on the Internet or some news article talking about his latest scandal, but there was nothing. You needed to know if he was still in Afghanistan or not.

"Listen. I'm tired, I'm fed up, and I really don't have the patience for your shit. Now, if you don't move out of my way, I promise I won't get physical, but I do have ways to make you sad for a very... Very long time."

You crossed your arms, waiting expectantly. The two seemed uneasy and for a moment you thought they would call security to have you thrown out. However, you were pleasantly surprised when they stepped to the side, looking anywhere but in your eyes. You couldn't help smirking a little as you walked past them and down the hallway.

Obadiah's office was at the end. Usually there was a secretary waiting to interrogate whoever wanted to visit, but she was gone. You walked up to the door and were about to knock when something you heard stopped you dead in your tracks.

"He's not dead?"

You froze, confused.

"What do you mean he's not dead? You were supposed to kill him on the road. What happened to the plan?!"

You flinched at the shout, assuming he was on the phone. You wondered what he meant by 'you were supposed to kill him'? And what plan? Did Obadiah want someone dead? Who?

"What do you mean, he's building a weapon? Listen to me, you cannot trust Stark to cooperate. He's like wildfire. Kill him while you have the chance. If you don't, I'll come over there and kill him myself!"

You looked up, wide-eyed. Your heart started to quicken and it felt like the world was spinning. Surely you misheard or misunderstood. Why would one of your dad's closest friends plan to kill him? Was Obadiah the reason he was missing? It sounded like it.

"Finish the job and I'll pay you what we agreed on. Nothing more, nothing less. Do we have a deal?"

You strained to catch what he was saying but yelled in surprise when something collided with the other side of the wall you were leaning against. You covered your mouth with your hands, terrified.

The door opened and when Obadiah saw you standing there, he looked angrier than you'd ever seen him.

The look in his eyes was almost outright murderous. Without so much as a word, he grabbed your arm and pulled you into the office, slamming the door shut and locking it.

"What did you hear?" He demanded to know, voice low and dangerous.

You shook your head, fear rooting you to the spot. "W-What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb, (Y/n)."

"I-I'm not. I didn't hear anything."

He sighed in frustration and began to pace around. "Tell me what you heard and maybe we can come to an arrangement."

You swallowed a large amount of air, your hands shaking as you watched the man get more and more aggravated the longer you stayed silent. He knew you were there so there was no point in lying. But if he wanted to kill your dad, did that mean he wanted to kill you too?

"What happened to my dad?" You asked.

Your voice was so timid and quiet that even you barely heard it. Obadiah continued to pace but slowed a little to look at you.

"Your father got himself into trouble. He's in danger."

You frowned. "Who's responsible?"

He thought about how to answer and that was when you knew he was lying. "Some local terrorist group. They want money for his return. A ransom."

"But it..." You looked down, your hands still shaking. "You said you would kill him yourself if they didn't."

"(Y/n), that wasn't what you thought-"

"-Then what was it?" Your mind was already on overdrive, assessing every little detail it could. "It sounded like you wanted him gone and you - you paid these... Terrorists to do the job for you."

He stopped and faced you fully, the murderous look back on his face. "Is that what you think?"

"You're the reason he's missing!"

You regretted the outburst immediately because Obadiah lunged at you, his arm pressed on your throat and holding you against the wall.

"And who's going to believe you? It's the word of Tony's mistake against his best friend. Who do you think the media will flock to?"

In the fight for air, your anger and desperation was getting the better of you. "You can't do this!"

He tightened his grip, making you whimper. "If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you. If you don't do what I say, I'll sell you off. You won't be able to walk out of these doors fast enough to save your life."

When you started turning purple, he stepped back. You collapsed to the ground, coughing and choking on the air you tried to get back.

"You can't do this." You gasped out.

He looked down at you, not a hint of sympathy in his voice. "You won't tell anyone. You won't go to the police, or Ms. Potts. Or Rhodes. You will shut up and go home or I will find a way to get rid of you."

You crashed through the front doors of your home breathless and paranoid. You'd run most of the way back, looking over your shoulder every ten seconds thanks to Obadiah and his threats.

You couldn't think straight and all but threw your bag across the room to run your hands through your hair. You couldn't understand why he'd pay people to have your father killed. In fact, you struggled to understand why you cared so much.

He was your dad, yes, but you hated him most days. He was always in his workshop blasting music and talking to anyone but you. He would promise to be there for your birthdays and yet somehow he'd missed almost every single one. You spoke to JARVIS more than your actual family.

"Miss Stark, your pulse rate is at 120 BPM and climbing. Would you like me to call someone?" The mentioned AI said.

You inhaled sharply, scared to death by the sudden voice.

"No!" You exclaimed, glancing at the front doors. "N-No, I'm fine. Thank you, JARVIS."

You put a hand over your heart and glanced around. You were alone because Pepper was at the office. But you were still scared. Petrified, even.

Obadiah had promised to kill you. And, by the sounds of it, he was more than ready to make good on that. If you told Pepper, Rhodey, or Happy about that, they'd be in danger too. Sure, they might be able to help, but you couldn't take that chance. They raised you better than your own parent and you would never forgive yourself if anything happened to them.

The only sane thing you could think of was running. You were sixteen. You were terrified. Nothing else made sense at that moment.

You ran upstairs, grabbing the biggest duffel bag you owned and throwing necessities inside. You didn't know how much time had passed, but it was near sunset by the time you finished packing.

Perhaps the only good thing about being Tony Stark's daughter was that you were somewhat smart. You used this knowledge to wipe the house footage so no one would know you'd taken off. Well, no one but your dad.

You had faith he'd get out of whatever situation he was in so, when he did, you left a gift and a note for him.

The gift was a pendant. You placed it on the table next to the note.

Dad, I don't know when you'll come back, but I know you will. I just do. Until then, I have to go. I can't say why, but I do.

I know it's not easy to raise a kid, especially when you're you. But just please don't look for me. Not that you'll try. But please. I'm sorry.

-(Y/n)

#Tony stark #ironman #Pepper potts #marvel #Avengers #marvel imagines #marvel imagine #avengers imagines #avengers imagine #tony stark x daughter!reader #mcu #pre-ironman #tony stark imagines #tony stark imagine

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bigxrig · 3 months

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Even though I’m not reading fan fiction anymore, I thought it would be fun to keep track of what I read each month. I bought a reading journal in November and it has changed me for the better lol it’s so much easier keeping track. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to track the books I DNF but I’ll figure it out eventually. Anyway here are the books I read this month! The title in bold is my favorite book of the month.

Wait For It by Mariana Zapata (4 ⭐️)

If anyone ever said being an adult was easy, they hadn't been one long enough.

Diana Casillas can admit it: she doesn't know what the hell she's doing half the time. How she's made it through the last two years of her life without killing anyone is nothing short of a miracle. Being a grown-up wasn’t supposed to be so hard.

With a new house, two little boys she inherited the most painful possible way, a giant dog, a job she usually loves, more than enough family, and friends, she has almost everything she could ever ask for.

Except for a boyfriend.

Or a husband.

But who needs either one of those?

Hans by S. J Tilly (5 ⭐️)

CASSIE

How to make the handsome, brooding man across the street notice me.

Step one: Deliver baked goods to his front porch, even though he never answers his door and always returns the containers when I'm not home.

Step two: Slowly lose my mind as a whole year passes without ever running into him, no matter how hard I try.

Step three: Have my boudoir photos accidentally delivered to his mailbox instead of mine. Have him open the package. Then have him storm into my home for the most panty-melting scolding of my life.

Step four: Still figuring out step four.

HANS

I'm a dangerous man.

A man who has spent the last two decades removing so many souls from this earth that it's a miracle my hands aren't permanently stained red.

I'm a man who belongs in the shadows.

I certainly don't belong in my pretty little neighbor's bedroom when she's not home, touching her things and inhaling her scent.

I shouldn't follow her. Shouldn't watch her. Because no number of cookies on my doorstep will change the fact that love isn't an option for me.

The only option left for me is violence.

The Perfect Fit by Sadie Kincaid (4 ⭐️)

One wannabe writer from Brooklyn.

Three insanely hot billionaires.

One very indecent proposal.

West Archer, Ezekiel Cavanagh, and Xander King. AKA The Unholy Trinity. Ruthless. Ambitious. Intimidating.

With dark tastes and even darker desires, they’ve been searching for the perfect woman to fit into their unique lifestyle for over a decade. But despite their best efforts, none have made it past three months. Believing they’re destined to never find the one, they swear to stop looking.

Until they meet Lily.

There’s something about Lily Sloane, something that captivates all three of them. For the first time ever, it seems like they may have truly found the perfect fit. But as we all know, there is such a thing as too good to be true.

Lily Sloane isn’t the penniless girl from Brooklyn they think she is. And with a past full of secrets and lies that she’s trying to escape, the unholy trinity might have bitten off more than they can chew. When trust is broken, is there any way back?

Knox by Kate Oliver (2 ⭐️)

Knox

When she came in to buy a gun, I knew she was in trouble. This isn't my first rodeo. What I didn't expect was to have my Daddy senses go into high gear.

Addie

My life was going well until I got the call that my past was coming to haunt me. Although I don't want it, I may have to accept help from a man who calls to my Little side. He's dark and dangerous and he would never understand my needs. But he says he will protect me and I can use all the help I can get.

Ash by Kate Oliver (2 ⭐️)

Kylie

In high school, he had saved her from a bully who had cornered her at a party that she shouldn’t have even been at. Then he called her Little Girl and threatened to spank her bottom if she wasn’t more careful with her safety. She was the dorky girl with glasses and braces, and he was her secret crush, the "bad boy" that all the girls swooned over. And even though they hadn't spoken since that night, she still fantasized about being put over his knee.

Ash

He was the “bad boy” then, and the label still fits. But now, he only did bad things to help those who needed his protection. He had been called Daddy many times over the years, but no one had affected him like the little girl from his past who was standing in front of him at the club, drunk and telling him that she had been fantasizing about him since high school.

Recipe for Love by Anne Malcom (4 ⭐️)

Nora Henderson is of the opinion that chocolate cures almost everything.

Which, among a few other reasons, is why she opened her bakery in the small town of Jupiter, Maine five years ago.

People come from miles for her chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. Customers almost come to blows over the last almond croissant. Some even say her chocolate chip cookies help ease the burn of heartbreak.

Nora’s life is good. On the surface, at least.

Underneath the frosting and the sweet décor of her bakery is a broken engagement, doubt and anxiety spirals.

In short, Nora Henderson is a mess.

Not someone Rowan Derrick would ever be interested in. He’s the gruff veteran who owns a construction company, who broods his way around town and can wear the crap out of a backward baseball cap.

He stars in almost every one of her fantasies. She expected him to stay there, to remain her imaginary boyfriend and customer … nothing else.

But Rowan Derrick has had his eye on Nora for a while. Little does she know, she stars in every one of his fantasies too. And now that the beautiful baker is no longer engaged, he’s going to make her his.

Nero by S.J Tilly (4⭐️)

Payton

Running away from home at 17 wasn’t easy. Let’s face it though, nothing before, or in the ten years since, has ever been easy for me.

And I’m doing okay. Sorta. I just need to keep scraping by, living under the radar. Staying out of people’s way, off people’s minds.

So when a man walks through my open patio door, stepping boldly into my home, and my life, I should be scared. Frightened. Terrified.

But I must be more broken than I realized, because I’m none of those things.

I’m intrigued.

And I’m wondering if the way to take control of my life is by giving in to him.

Nero

The first time I took a man’s life, I knew there’d be no going back. No normal existence in the cards for me.

So instead of walking away, I climbed a mountain of bodies, and created my own destiny. By forming The Alliance.

And I was fine with that. Content enough to carry on.

Until I stepped through those open doors, and into her life.

I should’ve walked away. Should’ve gone right back out the door I came through. But I didn’t.

And now her life is in danger.

But that’s the thing about being a bad man. I’ll happily paint the streets red to protect what’s mine.

And Payton is mine. Whether she knows it or not.

King by S.J Tilly (4⭐️) this was technically a reread but I couldn’t remember how it ended and since I read Hans and Nero, I figured I would read it again.

Okay, so, my bad for assuming the guy I was going on a date with wasn’t married. And my bad for taking him to a friend’s house for dinner, only to find out my friend is also friends with his wife. Because, in fact, he is married. And she happens to be at my friend’s house because her husband was busy working.

Confused? So am I.

Unsurprisingly, my date’s wife is super angry about finding out that her husband is a cheating asshole.

Girl, I get it.

Then, to make matters more convoluted, there is the man sitting next to my date’s wife. A man named King, who is apparently her brother, and who lives up to his name.

And since my date is a two-timing prick, I’m not going to feel bad about drooling over King, especially since I’ll never see him again.

Or at least I don’t plan to.

I plan to take an Uber to the cheater’s apartment to get my car keys.

I plan for it to be quick.

And if I had to list a thousand possible outcomes… witnessing my date’s murder, being kidnapped by his killer, and then being forced to marry the super attractive but clearly deranged crime lord, would not have been on my Bingo card.

But alas, here I am.

Gravity by Tal Bauer (5⭐️)

Bryce:

Hockey is my life. This game pulled me from my tiny Quebec hometown all the way to the NHL, and now? I’m the number one player in the league. Team capitaine for the Montréal Étoiles. I’m shattering records and packing arenas every night, and I’ve promised my team: we’re going to win the Stanley Cup this year.

But I’m keeping big secrets. I'm thinking dangerous thoughts, and dreaming about impossible things. Like how a man’s lips might taste, or how his body might feel in my arms.

I can’t go there. I’ve got to focus. Team. Hockey. Cup. What my heart wants doesn’t matter.

So why am I falling head over heels at the NHL's All-Star Weekend?

I can’t do this. I can’t fall for Hunter Lacey. He’s a hockey player. We’re both in the NHL. He’s on a different team. And, oh yeah, he’s straight.

Hunter:

I’m a middle-of-the-road, nothing-special hockey player. Good enough to be drafted into the NHL, and I’ve been on the roster for the past two years, but I’ll never make the Hall of Fame. I’m just trying to keep my head up and get through each day, until this wild ride comes to an end.

Deep thinking isn’t really my thing. Look inside myself? Lotta beer and burgers there.

I never thought I’d be invited to the All-Star Weekend, but here I am. And there’s my hero: Bryce Michel, league superstar.

Saying hello to Bryce turns into hours spent together on the ice, and then an invite to dinner, and then days at each other's side. I’m in heaven. He’s my hero, and this is the coolest—

Then Bryce’s lips land on mine, and the world turns upside down.

Ryder by Jacki James (1⭐️)

Having a meltdown in the local hardware store isn’t the best way to find the man of your dreams. Or is it?

Brennan Taylor is at the end of his rope, and the busted pipe under his kitchen sink was the last straw. He knows nothing about plumbing, or any of the other things his father says a grown man should know, but lucky for him he is about to lose it in front of the perfect man to help him.

Ryder Davis didn’t go to the hardware store intending to play hero. He went after a new faucet for his bathroom. But when he saw the angel in the plumbing aisle, it was obvious Brennan needed someone to step in and fix things for him. No problem, saving a beautiful man in distress was something Ryder was happy to do.

Fixing Brennan’s plumbing turns into fixing his employment situation, and then right on to fixing his single status. But will Brennan’s determination to be the kind of man he thinks he is supposed to be keep him from being the boy a Daddy like Ryder needs?

You Can Count On Me by Fae Quinn (3⭐️)

They say you should love thy neighbor, but I don’t think they meant it the way I want to love mine.

Miles “Rooster” Johnson: As a young single-dad with a teaching job, I haven’t had much opportunity to date. My son is my entire world, and though I would love to have a partner and someone to count on, the passing years have shown that it’s just not in the cards for me. So when the gorgeous lumberjack of a man—the same man that I’ve had a massive crush on since the moment we became neighbors—suddenly asks me out on a date, I’m completely blindsided. Trent could have anyone he wants. He’s charming, flirtatious, and outgoing—the exact opposite of my awkward, anxious self. I don’t know what he sees in me. All I know for sure is that I absolutely need to make this date go well.

Trent Montgomery: I know I have a playboy reputation in our small town, but there’s nothing wrong with playing the field. It’s worked for me so far, even if I have felt some discontent lately. My mama thinks I need to settle down and find someone nice. But she doesn’t understand that I’m just not ready. No matter how beautiful and tempting my neighbor Rooster is or how eager I am to get the silent mountain of a man to open up—no matter how adorable his little boy is, even when he’s threatening me at bat-point to take his daddy out on a date—I know I can’t be everything that they need. I agreed to ask Rooster out, but I think maybe I made a big mistake. All I know for sure is that I absolutely need to sabotage this date.

Bad Idea by Lily Harlem (1⭐️)

Roughneck Riders are not an MC club you mess with, least of all their rough and tough gang leader Heavy. But Heavy has a secret that has to be kept, no matter what—his heart belongs to a man. It shouldn’t. He’s supposed to be into women, like the other guys in the club. Junk is just too cute to resist, though. Add in his delectable body, his sweet submission and his willingness to accept Heavy’s sadism, and the couple are a perfect match.

Junk’s a probie, proving his worth to the club and demonstrating his mechanical know-how. He’s lived on the edge for a long time, flitting from one place to the next. But now that he’s settling in as a Roughneck, life is looking up. Not least because he’s in love—soul-eating, cock-thickening obsessive love. He can’t tell anyone about his desire for Heavy, but what he can do is push his lover’s buttons, all day, in full view of everyone, until he’s damned sure the night will bring a whole host of sinful delights and wicked punishments that will leave him marked, bruised and most of all, wholly satisfied.

Between Love and Loathing by Shain Rose (4⭐️)

Fake dating my enemy so I can design my dream bakery should be easy … as long as I don't fall in love with him.

Dominic Hardy might be an award-winning architectural engineer with fancy degrees and considerable accolades, but he doesn’t know a thing about baking.

He doesn’t even like sugar.

So when my late stepfather’s will states that Dominic Hardy is set to inherit the Pacific Coast Resort he’d painstakingly designed, as long as my bakery can be plopped in the middle of it, it’s no surprise he balks.

And my jaw drops when another stipulation requires us to mutually approve plans for my bakery’s design.

His stuffy taste will never mix with my whimsical vibe.

But then Dominic comes to me with a proposal I can’t refuse. He’ll give me everything I want in my bakery as long as I agree to one thing:

Fake date him for five months.

Keep his ex away by pretending we’re in love.

Smile and stare into his piercing green eyes at a gala or two.

Maybe share a kiss.

Nothing extreme.

Five months of acting in love when I really loathe him and his filthy mouth.

Even when he’s using it on me.

This should be a cakewalk.

Except there’s a fine line between love and loathing, and I think I’ve made the colossal mistake of blurring it.

Unloved by Marley Valentine (3⭐️)

We longed. We lost. We loved. Desperately.

I thought I had my life all figured out. But after a college football accident leaves me deaf, I was learning how to live all over again.

I expected the anger, the frustration, and the struggle to readjust, but what I didn’t expect to happen amongst the chaos, was to fall in love.

Especially not with two men.

Rough-edged puzzle pieces, Rhys, Samuel, and I were nothing but aching memories, painful realities, and hidden scars.

We were products of our pasts, abandoned and unloved, messy and complicated. Individually we had baggage; together we had mountains to climb.

But when the three of us were tangled up in one another, spilling secrets in the dark, hearts beating in sync, nothing else mattered but them.

We needed to break the cycle, because they deserved love… And who knows, maybe I finally did too.

On The Mountain by Riley Hart (3⭐️)

One feels he’s not worthy of love. The other fears he doesn't know how. But the sizzling chemistry between them has both tempted to explore the unknown.

Cyrus

I was intrigued by Crow at first glance. Who wouldn't be? He's a mountain of a man, who was raised in a cult, and now lives secluded in the wilderness. But the draw I feel to him goes beyond mild interest. When his intense gaze falls my way it feels like he can see into my soul, to my deepest yearnings and desires.

I took a bold chance venturing to his mountain uninvited. But I can't help myself. Despite Crow’s dangerous facade, I feel at home when I’m near him. I've never felt wanted or needed… until the mountain man took me in his arms.

Crow

The mountain is my home, the only place that truly suits me. I reveled in my solitude... until Cyrus showed up looking as lonely as I felt. The warmth in his gaze made me welcome someone into my home and my heart for the very first time.

The way he smells. The way he feels. I come apart with his every touch. The past haunts us both. Yet when we’re together the weight of them is more manageable. Cyrus is mine and I don’t ever want to let him go. Still, I fear eventually he’ll want to leave the mountain... and for the first time in my life, I don’t want to be alone.

Latte Darling by S.J Tilly (5⭐️)

I have a nice life - living in my hometown, owning the coffee shop I’ve worked at since I was 16.

It’s comfortable.

On paper.

But I’m tired of doing everything by myself. Tired of being in charge of every decision in my life.

I want someone to lean on. Someone to spend time with. Sit with. Hug.

And I really don’t want to go to my best friend’s wedding alone.

So, I signed up for a dating app, and agreed to meet with the first guy that messaged me.

And now here I am, at the bar.

Only it’s not my date that just sat down in the chair across from me. It’s his dad.

And holy hell, he’s the definition of Silver Fox. If a Silver Fox can be thick as a house, have piercing blue eyes and tattoos from his neck down to his fingertips.

He’s giving me Big Bad Wolf vibes. Only instead of running, I’m blushing. And he looks like he might just want to eat me whole.

Ruthless King by Sienna Cross (2⭐️)

Sold to the mob.

Four words I never thought I'd utter.

Worse, it was my father who did the unthinkable.

When the creditors come to collect, I'm handed over to the most ruthless man in New York City--Luca Valentino.

The head of the notorious Kings is as gorgeous as he is lethal. Dark, possessive, and violent. Nothing like the boy I grew up with, my dead brother's best friend.

And now I'm his…

The longer I spend in this gilded cage, the more certain I become he will ruin me for anyone else

One click now to devour this spicy, enemies-to-lovers mafia romance. I dare you not to fall for Luca Valentino!

Omega for the Mafia Boss by Aria Grace and Jena Wade (1⭐️)

Forced marriages usually aren't fated. Except for those that are...As the eldest alpha in his family, Andro is expected to take over control of the family when his father retires as the patriarch. But before that can happen, tradition dictates that Andro must be mated. And not just mated, but married. Only problem is that Andro has zero interest in taking a mate...or husband.Joseph is the youngest son of the Santoro family...and the only omega. He's treated like dirt but he dutifully manages the books and does what his father asks of him--legal or otherwise.When Andro gets the bright idea to kidnap the mistreated Joey Santoro and force him to become his mate, he has no idea what that could possibly lead to. Both of their lives are changed forever...and their priorities quickly shift away from the families they were raised in to the family they are raising together.

Viciously Yours by Jamie Applegate Hunter (3⭐️)

When Rennick was thirteen, the gods bestowed upon him the name of his fated mate--a human (italics) girl. As the sole heir to the Mountain Kingdom, magic bound him to his kingdom until he ascended the throne on his twenty-fifth birthday, and as a human, she couldn't cross the magical barrier separating the humans from the fae. Heartsore and consumed with thoughts of her, he did the only thing he could and sent her anonymous letters and gifts…

Until he crossed the barrier into her kingdom to claim her as his own.

Six months after Amelia's thirteenth birthday, she received a strange letter from a fae boy claiming her as his mate. Humans weren't taught much about the fae, and one look at the horrifying doll meant to be her belated birthday gift solidified her suspicions that someone was playing a cruel joke. Except the letters and odd gifts kept coming. Against her better judgment, Amelia fell in love with her mysterious admirer throughout the years, certain they would never meet. But on her twenty-fifth birthday, her walk to work was interrupted by two familiar words she'd read a million times.

"Hello, love."

#January books #reading journal #amelia reads #I clearly have a type #I love fun books

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god-mouths · 6 months

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I NEED TO HEAR EVERYTHING YOU CAN TELL ME ABT THE LAFAUX FAMILY

Will do! this one got long

First off I want to start with the name. LaFaux —> La Faux, which literally translates to “the faker/the false” in French. This of course applies to Casper more than anyone else for a myriad of reasons, but still overall. The whole family.

I’ll go in chronological order— first, the patriarch of the family, micheal lafaux. (Died age 70) He built this business from the ground up! World’s worst eccentric businessman.

Here he is. Fun fact! Every aspect of his personality and character design corresponds to each of his four children— except for Casper. Anyways I have been figuring out his character and boy has it been a genuine fucking delight. He’s such an asshole. He does coke but like. It doesn’t *do* anything to him he just likes putting stuff up his nose. He is always honest (ironic and a direct contrast to his last name)— but he is not kind. He has endless, boundless energy, at least in the prime of his life. The minute he hits fifty it all goes downhill. He loses his energy and his spark.

But, in the 60s or the 70s or whichever, he was a force to be reckoned with. He’s good at macguyvering inventions using random crap, which was how he built and maintained his business. Also he’s sort of a bigot, but not like actively it’s just a side effect of being an important guy in the 60s

A personal rule I have for drawing this thing is that his pupils shouldn’t touch the outlines of his eyes. Adds to that crack-addled look of his that he’s so keen on maintaining. Fun fact about micheal, he cannot wait to die. Not in a bad way, he just genuinely thinks he has it in him to kick the devil’s ass and rule hell. He thinks he’d have fun down there.

Next, Delphina LaFaux (neé Alta-L’Estandares. That’s “high standards” in Spanish. I think I’m funny.) aged ~68 or so at death

She is an assassin who is trying to kill micheal for his money and instead ends up in the world’s most miserable marriage as the man just won’t die. She is absolutely trapped in a hell of her own making.

To put it nicely, she needs micheal like an alcoholic needs a drink. She ends up taking care of the children, because lord knows micheal isn’t doing that. “The prodigal wife, the woman with so much hatred in her body that she's turned it into a living. She faces a challenge in her husband, him being the one person she can't kill. She'd switch gears and try something new, but....something deep in her mind begs her to stay here. Maybe it's destiny, or fate, or....just a prison of her own design. She's doomed. She knows she is. She's procrastinating getting out of the way of the moving train. she's not even tied to the tracks -- she's just standing there.

What's it like to be the dead wife before she dies?”

^ blurb I wrote for an are pee

Now onto them kids those rascals.

This is the firstborn, Peter. (38) He grew up when his father was still in his prime, so he knows the most about how the man actually thinks and talks. When his father dies Peter gets the house. He has no idea how to take care of the huge mansion, and sort of lets it fall into disrepair. He’s a bit frazzled and hides himself from the public eye, because he grew up in the eye of the camera due to being the son of a multi billionaire. He really just wants to live his life alone in peace. Definetly the most chill out of the lafaux family. He got that eyepatch because when he was a kid he looked directly into a bottle rocket just as it went off.

Old ass comic he really is just a fun guy

Onto Vivian, the second oldest. (35) She emulates her father the most, and caught the end of her father’s prime growing up. She is the favorite, and if she were a boy, micheal would have stopped having children literally right then and there. However, micheal wanted a man to inherit all his money. And since the inheritance goes to the youngest we simply can’t have that. The story of LEM is the story of a spy op consisting of criminals. VIVIAN is the one who creates this spy op in the first place, to rival her brother Casper. I haven’t draw. Much of her at all . This is the best image I have of her

I think this is like…2020? Art?? 2019? Still. She’s cunning. A fun gal.

Onto Casper. We all know Casper hi Casper (he’s like 26)

When his father dies, he is 16, putting him in charge of the estate as his sister at the time was too young to do so (13.)

His sister does not make it past age 13. He murders her—supposedly— for the inheritance, and blames it on a faked home intrusion. The rest of the living lafaux siblings are completely silent on this. They’re aware it happened, but have no way of proving it. Peter becomes more of a recluse as a result, and Vivian launches her spy op offensive.

Anyways, Casper renames the company business from “LaFaux Corporate” to “Blue Fox (Faux)”, merging all of the companies his father had dominion over into one giant conglomerate.

The lafaux last name applies to him the most. All he does is lie. His whole personality is a farce to a hidden maliciousness underneath. He is trying to emulate his father, and in doing so has made a suit out of a dead man’s skin. Don’t be mistaken, however. Casper doesn’t live in his father’s shadow- Casper is more famous than his father ever was. What Casper is doing here is making himself a grave in the shape of his father’s corpse. He’s much calmer, though.

Lastly, Beatrice LaFaux. 13, died. Sucks to suck.

#about ocs #oc asks #writing #asks

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hopeymchope · 1 year

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This is why America is completely, utterly fucked.

HALF OF AMERICA: Democracy is good, and we must fight to preserve it. Also, wouldn’t it be cool if we kept on having public schooling for kids and maybe everybody had access to health care? It’d be easy to pay for it with just a little bit of taxing on BILLIONAIRES who have more money than any of us will ever even dream of during our lifetimes. Also, what if we treated everyone respectfully regardless of their gender or sexuality? Wouldn’t that be really nice? And there’s literally no reason anyone needs an assault rifle in America unless you’re planning to slaughter a bunch of innocent people so uh maybe we should curtail those. When assault rifles were illegal for a while in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, mass shootings dropped WAY down y’know? Also, y’know, the media should really be free to report on FACTS instead of being control—

OTHER HALF OF AMERICA: Teacher are brainwashing your children by making them accept homosexuality and transsexuality as something “normal.” And what do you call it when you teach kids about types of ‘sexuality’? That’s right — GROOMING. Public school teachers are groomers now, because the public school system is corrupted by the liberal agenda. We need to switch to private schools ONLY. You’ll have to BUY your child’s schooling, but the important thing is that it will be your CHOICE to do so. Don’t you want to CHOOSE your kid’s school? Besides, why are they teaching kids about trans people when these trans individuals are so often rapists and pedophiles or just deeply mentally unwell?! Because again, the LGBT+ community is full of GROOMERS. They’re probably working with the teachers to corrupt our youth. Who’s going to finally deal with these gay and trans activists? Their “transitions” shouldn’t be supported by health care workers or doctors. Besides, health care is only for people who can afford it - that’s the only reason it even works in this country! I don’t want to hear about the health care systems in other countries - this is AMERICA. We do things our own way here. We don’t need all these IMMIGRANTS who come here seeking asylum. What are they running from? Probably just running because they’re CRIMINALS and DRUG RUNNERS themselves. Do you really want to see them allowed in here? Shouldn’t we send them back to the places they fled from? This would all be so much more clear to people if WE controlled the media. But so much of the American press keeps reporting “evidence” that disagrees with us. Because the media has a LIBERAL AGENDA. Every reporter, in every type of media, at every single outlet NATIONWIDE is part of this agenda — EXCEPT the outlets we own and control, of course. That’s why WE should control the press completely. And if they report anything we don’t like? We’ll have the reporters imprisoned and raped daily until they give up their sources to us. Because those sources are guilty of TREASON for speaking against us. By the way, ever notice how women are trying to take over your media?! For that matter, why are there so many fictional heroes who are WOMEN or people of COLOR now?! Heroes should be WHITE MEN like YOU and ME! And why do these women want to have so much BIRTH CONTROL? If they want so much birth control, doesn’t mean they just want to have a lot of sex? And what do you call women who just want to have a lot of sex with no consequences?! They’re sluts and prostitutes! But we can stop that! We should consider outlawing birth control. But first we must ban abortions nationwide. I don’t care what these “doctors” say - there is no medical necessity for ANY abortion! Women have to live with the consequences of their actions! But you know, man who rapes a woman just once shouldn’t have his whole life ruined by that one mistake. That’s too cruel. Don’t worry — If we are elected, we PROMISE that no one from the other party will EVER be elected EVER AGAIN in your state, because we will control the state’s elections. And if this week’s election doesn’t go our way? ARM YOURSELVES.***

*** Everything in here is something a Republican politician and/or prominent conservative media figure has actually said during the past four years.

#politics?

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smtown-tourist · 2 years

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Post Jonghyun’s Passing Thoughts:

I always see people talking about how much of a Taemint Jonghyun was before he passed - going to his concerts, knowing his choreography, the infamous crying while wine drunk over Taemin’s latest music video, etc. - and I always have mixed feelings about that. I’m not hating on any of that because it shows how much Jonghyun cared about their maknae, how much he supported Taemin’s solo career because he knew personally how much it took for Taemin to get to that point, but it makes me sad to think that he never got to experience the other SHINee members’ solo careers.

Like can you imagine? Jonghyun would’ve been at every concert, every showcase, dancing to every song, belting them out on instagram live, wearing all the merch, taking selfies with every advertisement he came across, hyping up that member’s comeback look, playing their songs on Blue Night and then gushing about them right after. Jonghyun loved his members with all his heart and it breaks my heart that he’s not around to do that anymore.

I am a little biased when I say he would’ve especially been losing his shit over Key’s solo work, and while Taemin might be his baby, Key is his best friend and “soulmate” according to Jonghyun himself. And he would’ve been doing the same for Onew and Minho, too. He would’ve been the first one saying how much he enjoyed Dice and seeing Onew not just doing ballads like we’re used to from him. He would’ve been teasing Onew, asking him how an old man is able to dance that well and joking about ruining SHINee’s image when he just laid down on the stage at his first solo concert. For Minho, he would’ve been complimenting him on how handsome he looked in his music videos, teasing him about looking like a billionaire, and congratulating him on releasing songs that don’t really have any rapping lines in them.

My heart goes out to the other SHINee members, too, because I can only imagine how they must feel. There’s no doubt in my mind that those similar thoughts cross their minds every time they release something new. How much they must long to hear what their main vocalist and master lyricist thinks of their albums. How much they wish Jonghyun could’ve written a song just for them that they could include on their albums. How much they secretly envy Taemin for something they will never have. And I’m sure part of Taemin feels guilty that he got all of Jonghyun’s support and the other three didn’t get that, even though he tells himself he shouldn’t feel that way because Jonghyun loved them equally and Onew, Key, and Minho’s solo careers just came a little too late.

I like to think that that’s the reason the other three jumped right into releasing solo work not even a year following Jonghyun’s passing. The lyrics in Key’s I Will Fight sum that up beautifully because I do think that, in a way, they are doing it for Jonghyun. Taemin made his solo debut 4 years before the other three did. They could’ve solo debuted in that time, but my gut tells me that there can’t be a coincidence that they did it after Jonghyun died, especially since they continued the pattern of having their album titles rhyme. He is never not on their minds and everything they do, they do for him in some way. They are living for him. They are continuing and expanding their music careers for him.

I know a lot of what I said is speculation and can’t be taken as fact, but I thought I should share these thoughts because I’m sure a lot of you are feeling and thinking the same things, especially since Key just recently talked about Jonghyun on Living Alone. I’m glad that he and hopefully the other SHINee members are getting to a place where they can freely talk about him and how that affected their lives. I don’t want any of us Shawols to pressure them to do so because it is a sensitive topic for them and if they don’t want to talk about it that’s perfectly acceptable and understandable. I’ve made posts like this in the past because I follow the same logic that a lot of other Shawols follow: talking about Jonghyun, sharing our thoughts and feelings about him and SHINee is our way of remembering him. I don’t want to ever forget Jonghyun and I know all of you don’t want to either.

This post kind of got away from me, but I want to end it with this: if you’ve ever hesitated to post something about him, something like this, because you’re afraid of what others might think or are afraid that it’ll affect the other SHINee members in some way, I want you to know that it’s okay. I highly doubt the other SHINee members could hate that (as long as it’s not slandering him). They want us to remember Jonghyun in every way we can. I think it makes them happy to see that we haven’t forgotten him. It will make them sad, that part of it will never go away, but it’s better if we do talk about him and continue to show our love for him than to never do so at all. Make those Jonghyun related posts, create fan art, reblog his old photos, share your thoughts and feelings. You’re not alone, and if we ever want to get the other SHINee members to feel comfortable in sharing these things about him as well, we have to remind them that they aren’t alone and we’re right there with them. And if they don’t want to share, we have to support that, too, and show them that no matter what we love them and they are doing well.

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itsmyroadroller · 1 year

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i hate how my dad and stepmom make fun of me and act like i’m ridiculous for like. caring about people. “where would the money come from for universal healthcare?” “higher taxes, especially on the billionaires that shouldn’t have existed in the first place” “well the money has to come from somewhere and the billionaires money came from exploitation so where are you getting it?“ I JUST TOLD YOU AND WHY IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT I CARE ABOUT PEOPLE OBVIOUSLY I DONT FUCKING THINK AMAZONS PRACTICES SHOULD CONTINUE. “i think if it’s something you need to live it should be free” “but it’s not free” THATS WHAT IM FUCKING SAYING IS WRONG. and i used some general “we” and my stepmom was like “ok white man whats ‘they/we”? god? we’re not religious” THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT. YOURE BEING OBTUSE ON PURPOSE. GO FUCK YOURSELF. YOU TRIED TO TELL ME TO INVEST IN BITCOIN.

#rzr speaks

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halorocks1214 · 2 years

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the law of vibration

Word Count: 6113

Summary: The Law of Vibration states that everything in the Universe moves, vibrates, and travels in circular patterns. The same principles of vibration in the physical world apply to our thoughts, feelings, desires, and wills in the Etheric world. Each sound, thing, and even thought has its own vibrational frequency, unique unto itself

im not entirely sure how accurate the avalanche is here but im going to blame google because i TRIED getting concrete information on how an avalanche sounds and looks like but essentially ended up with nothing outside a few details

also this series was a giant tag wall and i am very sorry for that. i recently edited the tags to be less beefy. nothing important was deleted, just unnecessary rambly ones

also also if it wasn't obvious this series is going to be updated slowly agsgsdfgsd (what gave that away i wonder). ill just leave this little blurb here as one last warning instead of being self-deprecating in the notes of every new one. i gotta be better about not being so harsh on myself, ya know? as always, i hope you enjoy! :D

cw for sad ending, character death, and natural disasters

"Have you heard the news? Little Lucille has a secret admirer."

Lucy rolled her eyes as she put her long, ginger locks into a ponytail at her desk, "It's hardly a secret when the guy keeps running into the doorframe whenever we're in the same room."

Chantelle squeezed her pillow closer to her chest, “C’mon Lucy, cut the guy some slack. It’s pretty adorable, all things considered.”

“Yeah, it’s not every day you get someone that is so infatuated with you that they act like a cartoon character!” Juniper laughed from the corner of the room where she was getting dressed behind a privacy cover, letting out a little growl like she was rolling her R’s, like one would when they were insinuating that something very adult was happening between two people.

Lucy stood up from her desk, refusing to look at her roommates, “Whatever, you two are ridiculous.”

Chantelle finally threw the pillow she was holding, but Lucy expertly dodged it in the process of falling into her own bunk. Chantelle scoffed, “Lucky.” Chantelle then proceeded to yawn as she fell backward to lie on her back and stare at the ceiling, “I don’t know about you, Luce, but if a rich somebody like that was giving me goo-goo eyes, I would be running and leaping into their arms before the new jet prototype could even break the sound barrier.”

Jeff Tracy, billionaire entrepreneur and First Man to set foot on Mars, acted like a silly goose just because she looked somewhat pretty.

“If anything, that should make you find this all stupider,” Lucy pointed out. “Guys like that always fall over themselves for trophy wives. I care way too much about myself to go down to that level.”

“Preach it, sister!” Juniper yelled, climbing the ladder on Lucy’s bed to get to the top bunk. “By the way, have the two of you heard from our new roommate yet? Shouldn’t they have shown up by now?”

Oh, right, that was happening tonight. They sent their last roommate off quietly with a nice dinner at her favorite restaurant. The pressures that came with rescuing civilians got to her, and she decided it was better to quit early than potentially risk lives. It was respectable, and no one judged her for it. Hell, Lucy might have even smacked her if she didn’t just go through with it because that was not a decision to be fifty-fifty on, especially not while active. She made sure to send pictures from her new job at a local mechanic’s shop occasionally, so they were all happy to see her joyful and well.

But that failed to explain who her replacement was. Swear to god, if they got put with some lazy slack off that was always late-

Light knocking came from their door, making them all sit up and stare at it. Then it slowly opened, and stepping inside was a woman with a duffel bag, her hair tied back at the top of her head in a short, frizzy ponytail. With reasonable assumption, that had to be their new roommate, showing up right on the dot. It was as if she personally heard Lucy gritching and appeared exactly then to make her shut right the hell up.

“Hello?” the newcomer said. “This is Room B509, right?”

“Yep!” Juniper immediately answered, moving so she could slightly hang off the edge of her bed. “I’m guessing that question means you’re our new roommate, yeah?”

The woman stepped inside and shut the door behind herself with one of her feet, “From what it sounds like, yes, I am.”

Lucy got up from her bed to walk over to properly meet the lady, “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Lucille.”

Lucy held out a hand for the woman to shake, to which the woman happily returned, “The pleasure’s all mine. I’m Valerie. Valerie Casey.”

“Ugh, you’re all so formal,” Chantelle groaned from her bed, turning over to sleep facing a direction away from them. “Stop caring about all that prim-and-proper horsecrap; we’re all gonna use the same shower anyway.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, giving Valerie an apologetic smile, “Sorry for my friend. That’s Chantelle. She gets cranky at this time of night.”

Chantelle grumbled, and it was just humorous enough to get Valerie to sigh fondly, “Don’t worry, I get it. I’m not all that chipper myself, right now. It’s no fun being uprooted randomly so the higher-ups can make last-minute adjustments to you and your roommates’ dorm.”

Ah, so that’s what this hullabaloo was about, “Yikes, that certainly sounds like no fun.”

“Hang on, did you say your name was Valerie Casey?” Chantelle had a lightbulb moment, interrupting their conversation and suddenly sitting up, very much not going to sleep. “No way, aren’t you besties with Jeff Tracy?”

Oh no.

Valerie cleared her throat, “‘Besties’ is a bit of a strong word, but yes. We are good friends.”

Chantelle smiled as if she figured out how to take over the world while Juniper placed her hands on her cheeks excitedly. “What perfect timing!” Juniper exclaimed, completely ignoring Lucy’s fervent headshakes telling her to knock it off. “We were just talking about him!”

Please no.

“Really?” Valerie questioned in a tone of voice that said she was challenging them to prove their words true.

Juniper giggled evilly, “You bet your bottom dollar we were! My name’s Juniper and your buddy pal friend amigo has got the biggest honking crush on Lucille over here!”

Uuuuuuugghhh.

However, Valerie seemed to be just as unenthused as Lucy was, “Ah, right. His little puppy-love moment he’s currently having.”

Lucy was caught off guard a little bit, “What do you mean by that exactly?”

“Oh, it’s nothing to do with you,” Valerie said honestly, walking over to the empty desk to get her stuff set up. “It’s nothing to do with him either, really, he’s a good man. It’s just that when you hear over and over again how he’s finally going to bite the bullet and finally approach her like a normal human being every day for two weeks straight, you go a little nuts.”

So Jeff was one of those types. Lucy wasn’t sure if that made the situation more relieving or more irritating.

“Did you catch that, Lucy?” Chantelle purred, now hanging off the edge like Juniper was previously. “Jeff’s a ‘good man.’ What’s stopping you from walking over to him right now and knocking him on his ass? Either physically or emotionally, but I won’t complain either way. Neither will he from the sound of it.”

Lucy made movements like she was going back to her bed, “Even if the man made a living off of rescuing orphaned kittens, that doesn’t mean I’ll magically want to-”

Someone knocking on their door interrupted them, making them pause and stare at it.

“Private Traile?” a voice came from outside. “Someone is requesting you speak with them over the phone.”

Valerie glanced over at her with sympathy, “Traile? As in Callahan Traile’s daughter?”

Who hadn’t heard of her father at this point? “Yep, and I’m guessing you’re already assuming who’s the one making the phone call by that alone, am I right?”

Juniper’s teasing gained an air of pain behind it as they all watched Lucy leave the room and shut the door, “Ouch. And tonight was going so well too.”

Valerie was about to receive what was hopefully the biggest tonal shift of her lifetime. Callahan Traile, while not one of the Founders of the GFD, did a lot to get it off the ground and be as big of a spectacle as it is today. It was no surprise the singular kid he had followed in his footsteps.

If only they realized it was less “following” and more “being walked on a leash.”

Once she was fully situated in a call booth that allowed maximum privacy, she took a deep breath as she stared at the phone. She felt her fingers strain as they bunched up her sleep pants between her knuckles, and it took everything in her power to not just rip the damn thing off the wall and pretend she was busy.

It would be worse if she ignored it, though, so with a lethargic exhale, she picked up the phone and dialed, “Hey Dad.”

For a moment, nothing came through the other side, and Lucy was about to sigh in relief and say tonight was just a false alarm, but then, “Lucille, I saw your recent simulation scores.”

Oh yay, straight to the point was the theme for tonight, “Yes, I’m aware I underperformed and already have plans to rectify it.”

She went from consistently receiving Top 5 scores to now having two weeks in a row where she got 12th and 13th respectively. Really, the whole situation was just one cycle of feeling bad. She felt bad about technically underperforming compared to her usual level, but then she would feel bad about feeling bad because she was still one of the top performers in the entire GDF, why the hell should she be groveling about needing to do better?

Clearly, her father didn’t see that.

“I would hope so,” he spoke matter-of-factly, “but to make things easier, I’ve already worked up some new training regimens for you to begin starting as soon as possible. You should get them within a few days.”

Lucy felt her face heat up from embarrassment, “Dad.”

He tsked so loud she heard it over the static, “No complaints. You should be thankful none of these were real scenarios. Can you even imagine the number of lives you might put in danger if you’re not at your best?”

Lucy could feel her fingers tighten, one set around the phone and the other around the edge of the counter, “Yes, Dad, I’ve thought about it in great detail.”

“Good, I’m happy we’re on the same page,” her father finished the conversation. “Now, it’s off to bed for the both of us. Next week is going to be rough, and I want you in tip-top shape.”

She took another deep breath, this one shakier much to her displeasure, “If that is all you needed, then I hope you have a good rest of your night.”

She could hear him fidget with whatever deceive he was calling with, “I hope you have a good rest of your night as well, Lucille.”

With the sound of the phone call abruptly hanging up ringing in her ears, Lucy shakily put the phone back into the receiver. Could she have one day that wasn’t somewhat of a nightmare? Turning around leaving the privacy booth, she-

Froze, because standing in the doorway staring at her was Jeff Tracy, who seemed to have the same amount of belief as her in terms of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Uh,” Tracy stammered. The booths were soundproof, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see the almost-raggedy state she was in, “Everything… okay?”

Welp, it wasn’t like anything could get worse for her tonight, “Just family stuff. Having a bit of a tizzy at the moment.”

Tracy’s fingers fidgeted, like he wanted to grab something but since there wasn’t a thing to grab, he could only grasp the open air. Much like how he couldn’t find the proper words for this conversation, “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s never fun fighting with your family.”

Fighting with your family, what a joke, “I guess you could call it that.”

She was tired, she was cranky, and not even Jeff Tracy being in the room prevented her from sitting down at one of the tables outside the booths for a moment of rest. She leaned back a little, silent and not giving Tracy any kind of attention. He was even about to shrug his shoulders and leave her to her business when she whined and pushed her wrists into her eyes.

“I’m just so sick of it,” she exclaimed to empty silence.

That is, until Tracy's voice sounded out, "Do you still want me to walk away or?"

Looking up from her hands, she was met with Jeff Tracy's concerned face. He seemed to be genuine, not creepily invested or anything. She could also just be tired as hell and exhaustion is ruining her decision-making skills.

"Probably won't matter," she decided. "I highly doubt you can change anything."

Jeff took slow steps forward, testing the waters and making sure he won't get bitten, before sitting down next to her. With the way she was positioned, it made it so he was mostly directly in front of her, "Well, having an ear to vent to never hurt anyone."

She let out a shaky exhale, rubbing her palms against her pants to get rid of the sweat on her palms, “Recently, one of my roommates retired from being a Cadet, and it’s making me realize that I may or may not feel a similar way. I think that this job is not something I’m cut out for.”

Jeff blinked, expecting there to be more that she wanted to say. When there wasn’t, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion, “Why? The job is incredible! You get to use all this amazing technology and even save lives-”

“That’s the point!” she exclaimed, not angrily. Just exhausted, “It’s so much pressure. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so constant, but it is and it’s gotten to be too much. I thought I could handle it at the start, and I did for a little, but now…” she drifted off, sighing, “It’s a lot.”

Jeff relented to that, “Fair enough. Then why don’t you just quit? They have systems in place for this kind of stuff, don’t they?”

She turned to give him an apathetic yet also displeased stare, “My father is Callahan Traile.”

No immediate response.

“Holy shit,” Jeff whispered before abruptly and loudly clearing his throat. “Right, right, but still, wouldn’t that make it easier? No one can tell his daughter no, yeah? Not unless they want an ass-kicking to Sweden and back.”

Lucy wanted to be irritated, she did, but she couldn’t quite get there. She could tell Jeff simply hadn’t had experience with an overbearing parent, which was a good thing. Fewer situations like hers were genuinely great, but, “He’s the reason I started this job in the first place. I always had a knack for athletics, and being his only child he obviously wanted to capitalize on it. Without consulting me, of course. Now I’m here, getting late-night phone calls from him that do nothing to help my high blood pressure levels.”

Jeff was finally grasping the picture, “He forced you into this career?”

All Lucy could do was nod, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders now that she was finally able to admit this to someone.

You could see the exact moment Jeff had a lightbulb appear in his head, “Oh, yikes, I never thought a man like him would become a parent like that. I would have hoped someone who looked out for others would know how to look out for their own kids, especially in a task as big as the GDF, but my mother always said I was a wishful thinker.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow, subconsciously appreciating being believed immediately without the need for extra explanation, “I’m surprised you’re against him. You’re an accomplished man, I would have thought that you would try to get your hypothetical kids involved in those accomplishments as well.” Why wouldn’t he? If she would admit to anything, it was that they were legitimately amazing feats.

“If they showed interest in my stuff, then yes,” Jeff said with no hesitation. “And if they were good at it too. If they didn’t care then I wouldn’t even think about trying. I’ve been in business for a long time, and after a while, you find that someone somewhat good at their job is just as good as someone who’s really good but doesn’t want to be there. There needs to be a balance, even more so in risky things like this and your father should be aware of this most of all.” He shook his head, thinking, “This needs fixing, starting with you.”

Wait, what?

Jeff looked back at her with the most serious look of the night, “Would you like me to try and get you out? Not for the GDF’s sake, but for yours. The whole point of this operation is to prevent preventable deaths, but that means jack all if they aren’t doing the same for their own goddamn people. What do you say, wanna give your father the biggest wake-up call of his life?”

Lucy was completely caught off guard by the direction this took, “Thanks for your concern, but I highly doubt anyone else is getting my special kind of treatment. We don’t need to make a big stink.”

Jeff shook his head, not accepting that answer, “That’s not good enough. Having one exception to these kinds of things leads to more and more until there’s so many that the rules were obviously not the important part in the first place. Besides, disregarding any safety violation or any other by-the-book reasoning, you simply don’t need to go through this. You don’t ‘deserve it,’ you don’t need to take it to save others, no nothing.”

Okay, Lucy had to question why he was so insistent about this now, “Sure, yes, I’m going to trust the man who’s been interested in me and is super theatrical since forever to look out for my best interests. I was already a good find, but now that you know I’m Callahan Traile’s daughter, I’m absolutely can’t-let-go material, right?”

“I promise, I swear on my career, that I am only doing this because it’s the right thing to do,” Jeff said sincerely, bringing his hands around to hold one of hers. “I don’t care if you don’t talk to me for the rest of our lives after this, I just want to make sure you have the same opportunities as everyone else does, and you can’t have that when you’re being forced into a life you don’t want.”

Lucy slowly started to believe him, but you couldn’t blame her for being pessimistic, “How do I know you aren’t just pulling stuff out of your ass?”

Jeff took a deep breath before choosing his words very carefully, “Back when I was in college, I had a nasty falling out with a friend. I’m talking ‘we never spoke afterward’ falling out. He disappeared for a few weeks, but I was still concerned about him, because I would have hated for him to have gotten hurt. Eventually, our dorm caught on fire, and with the help of some other friends of mine, we got everyone out. In that process, we learned our ex-friend was inside where the worst of the fire was, and that he was the one that set the place ablaze.”

Lucy gasped.

“But I still attempted to save him,” Jeff continued. “Because he needed to answer questions, because dying in a fire sounds awful, because he was still human and deserved a chance to live a better life the next day. I was able to get him out, but he disappeared again soon afterward. We haven’t heard from him since, and we only hope that it was to start a new life and not plan to try something so dangerous once more.”

Lucille stared at Jeff Tracy in silence, unable to say any words.

Jeff sighed after a few seconds, squeezing her hand reassuringly, “I have no way to prove this to you. For all you know, I’m just making myself out to be the big and grand upstanding hero looking for hot women to fawn all over me. The point wasn’t that. The point was that I think everyone deserves to be offered help no matter how I personally feel about them. Positive or negative, everyone needs someone in their corner.”

Lucy finally came up with her answer, “I believe you.”

Jeff blinked, “Really? Wait, that came out wrong-”

Despite the odds, Lucy found herself giggling, “Don’t worry, I get it. If you’re serious about wanting to help me, then I’ll take it.”

Now it was Jeff’s turn to be nearly speechless, “Are you sure?”

Lucy made a noise that was between a laugh and a cry, “At this point? Yes. I love my dad, I really do, but I don’t want to be ambitious like he is. I don’t have grand and upstanding dreams like he wants me to have. I want to just settle down somewhere, maybe even garden a little. The life where you can end up on the news every week is just so… intense.”

Jeff paused for a moment to fully grasp that he wasn’t being turned down. “That’s understandable,” he said genuinely, humming after as he thought hard about something. “Alright, I think I have a plan.”

Said plan included getting the two of them away from the GDF for a week on an unplanned vacation. Turns out, Chantelle might have had a point about having a rich person help you do what you wanted. She was never told the details, but she knew it had a lot to do with Jeff’s crazy amounts of “influence.”

“Is this legal?” she asked only when they were on a plane flight to Kansas.

Jeff chuckled as he leaned back in his seat, “Maybe not, but don’t worry. I made sure our places in the GDF were covered by people who would treat them with the highest level of care. I would never dip out on such an important job like ours for no reason, and especially not if I don’t have something to make up for my absence.”

Hmm, maybe he wasn’t the complete and total flaunty caricature she thought he was.

As for why they were going to Kansas for some reason, Jeff finally explained during the taxi ride away from the airport.

“Whenever I’m overwhelmed,” he began, “I always find that going back to my roots makes me feel better. Considering your ‘roots’ probably won’t provide the same feeling, I figured I could share.”

She was taken to an average-sized farm, surrounded by lush trees and beautiful rolling hills. Waiting on the porch was a middle-aged woman, blonde hair falling straight down to her shoulders. She held her arms open for Jeff to flop into them, “Ah, Jeffie, I was getting worried you were forgetting about me.”

Jeff grinned, leaning out of her hold, “Of course not. I’ve just recently gotten a little busy.” He gestured to Lucy, “Mom, meet Lucille. She needed some time off and I thought I would provide it.” He then turned to her, “Lucille, meet my mother, Sally. She’s been the one-woman-show running this operation of a farm for the past ten years.”

Lucy finally felt comfortable enough to walk up the steps to stand on the porch, holding her hand out for Sally to shake and instead getting met with a giant hug. In any other scenario, Lucy probably would have sweep-kicked her assailant. However, this time she simply hugged back, and not just because Sally was an older lady.

“It’s such a joy to meet you,” Sally said, breaking the hug but leaving her hands on Lucy’s shoulders, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Huh?

Before Lucy could ask about that, Jeff cleared his throat obnoxiously, “Well, I do believe both of us are tuckered out from the flight. If you don’t mind, I’ll show Lucy her room and then order dinner. How do you feel about that one Mongolian place we enjoy?”

With that, Lucy was shown where they would sleep and given takeout food unlike anything she had ever tasted. A few days into her stay and a missed call from her dad, Jeff elaborated on his plan a little more. Lucy was already okay with staying at his place, but hearing extra details never hurt anyone.

"Obviously, your father can't do much now that you're an adult," he elaborated, "but I do worry his level of influence and power won't help in making your life easier. I figured if he wanted to risk getting petty, not only would he be overstepping your authority as an adult-"

"-he would be going after you, a random person who doesn't have the excuse of being a family member," Lucy finished.

Jeff smirked, "If he wants to come onto our property to talk, then, by all means, he better be here to just talk. Any more than that and he has the threat of a lawsuit bigger than the entire GDF, and knowing him he's smart enough to not try anything on that level."

Lucy knew deep down that her dad wasn't that bad, but she also knew that every day he was getting more unpredictable. Maybe it was selfish, but it was nice to finally feel like someone was willing to put their life between hers and her father's. Especially at a time like this.

Eventually, more missed calls came into play, and Lucy realized that if she wanted this to be finished she would need to put her foot down. She agreed to meet at a neutral location, a local bar in town. She hoped that being in public would be the last little bit of influence her dad would take into consideration to keep things civil.

Throughout it all, Sally and Jeff stood by her side.

Sally stayed out in the car while Jeff went into the bar with her, never overstepping into what was her fight. She never truly realized just how much she appreciated his silent but present support. He was standing slightly behind her and her booth as she hashed it out with her dad once and for all.

She always wanted to go back to that bar and ask the regulars what it must have been like seeing Jeff Tracy and Callahan Traile in the same room.

"-s out of character for you!" Her dad thankfully kept it civil, but not calm, "You've been nothing but well trained since forever, and now all of a sudden you get a rich boyfriend and everything has gone kaput! I was hoping when you found someone, it wouldn't be a sleazy money bag who-"

"You don't understand a single thing about this situation," she found herself getting more offended on Jeff’s behalf than her own somehow. "Jeff Tracy is a good man who offered his help after I realized I was getting tired of your antics, nothing more, nothing less, which you might have understood if you had ever taken ten seconds out of your day to ask me how I feel!"

(If she turned around at all during the convo, she would have seen a flustered Jeff, not prepared to hear someone call him her "boyfriend" so abruptly.)

She preferred not to think about much of that week anymore. All she knew was that she was able to scrounge up enough respect (or at least pity) from her father to loosen the reins. She agreed to finish out her stint at the GDF because she liked the job, just not the constant pressure, and then her father would back off. She would be free to continue her life however she wanted.

Her father would sometimes reach out to her, which she appreciated, but ultimately their relationship stayed strained. Too much worry about things going back to being the way they used to be prevented her from fully closing the gap. It was unfortunate, but she supposed that's how life tended to be as well.

Once she and Jeff went back to work, she was surprised to find herself missing him. He stayed true to his word, not demanding anything from her as some kind of "payment." He was genuine in his want to help her at most and leave it at that, though he did wave hello at her when they occasionally crossed paths.

He was a funny guy and had lots of stories to tell and advice to give. She didn't have many friends outside her roommates, and the week she spent at the Tracy Farm convinced her that she wanted more. So she ended up being who sought him out. It was mind-boggling to the other Cadets, that stone-faced Traile was actively wanting to hang out with dorky Tracy. What could she say to that? He was nice. Certainly, she made exceptions like this before?

It wasn't until Chantelle gave her a look and Juniper said "Eyo, honey, I thought you said you would never like him" did Lucy finally have her oh moment.

A few weeks into their blooming bud of a relationship, Lucy still wasn't sure what was more of a surprise: her being the one to initiate their first kiss, or Valerie being the only one that believed she would eventually and excitedly agree to put a ring on her finger.

---

A lifetime of hearing babies and children cry led to Lucy absolutely hating the sound.

But now, here on her and her husband’s farmhouse? It was possibly one of the best noises ever. A sweeter medley than even the most talented of orchestras could play.

Because the one making the noise was a pudgy little thing, just born into the world thanks to Lucy’s determination and her mother-in-law’s assistance. If you asked Lucy all those years ago that she would give birth to a healthy baby boy, then she would have given you the stink eye, assuming you were trying to flirt with her. Not that she didn’t want to, but considering her circumstances at the time, you couldn’t blame her for being less focused on that particular dream compared to others.

“Welp, now that the hard part is over,” Sally sighed, wiping her head with her forearm, “I should go and get that giddy son of mine in here to help you out with the rest.”

Lucy sighed happily, vaguely listening to Sally get up and leave the room. She was too busy focusing on her brand new baby boy in her arms and getting him to relax. With careful rocking and motherly shushes, the baby’s sobs slowly petered away into simple sniffles.

She somehow managed to achieve quietness right as rapid but gentle footsteps made their way into the room, followed by a man’s voice, “Oh. Oh wow.”

Lucy smiled, still looking at their son, “Glad to see you finally join us. I was starting to think you were having second thoughts.”

“Well, forgive me for knowing my strengths and weaknesses,” Jeff playfully retorted back, “and realizing I would not be the best at handling childbirth and didn’t want to hurt you or the baby.”

Lucy rolled her eyes as she felt a chest press against her back, and it was here she finally glanced away from the baby for the first time so she could turn and press a kiss to her husband’s lips, “You could never hurt me.”

Jeff leaned into the kiss with a grin before breaking off, letting Lucy go back to staring at their son. He would be lying if he said he didn’t want to stare a little bit either, “He’s beautiful, Luce. You did an amazing job as always.”

Suddenly, taking both their breaths away, was the baby opening his eyes for the first time. A radiant blue color absorbed their attention completely. Lucy cooed, “I’m struggling to think of what to name him. There are just too many choices.”

Jeff reached forward so their new son could reach out and blindly grasp his finger, “I was thinking something like Malcolm.”

A moment of silence.

“Absolutely not,” Lucy decided.

Jeff sputtered, “What? What’s wrong with that?”

Lucy shook her head fondly, but her eye roll did have a hint of annoyance, “I heard you talking to your mother a few weeks ago about your ideas on the naming convention for our family. I’m sorry, but Malcolm is a name I refuse to touch with a ten-foot pole.”

Jeff, instead of being chastised, smirked, “So you’re saying that you’re not objecting to naming them after famous astronauts?”

Lucy huffed, almost indignantly refusing to answer that question. “You know, Scott would be a nice name.”

Another moment of silence.

“Yeah, that does sound nice,” Jeff agreed. “Welcome to the world, Scott.”

Lucy knew her husband enough to easily picture the full name. Scott Carpenter Tracy, the newest addition to the family bloodline.

“He has your eyes,” Lucy quietly pointed out.

Jeff hummed, “He kind of does.”

Lucy made a similar hum, “So are you just going to steal all the ‘they look like you points’ from me, or will I get a turn?”

Jeff laughed, shaking his hand a little, making baby Scott gurgle happily, “Don’t worry, if we have another, I’ll make sure you’ll have your moment.”

“I think you mean when, Jeff,” Lucy corrected.

Jeff froze for a second before lightly shaking his head, unable to comprehend how he got so lucky to have her in his life, “Of course, honey. When the next one comes, which I may or may not be looking super forward to, they’ll be sculpted exactly to your liking as much as you want.”

Lucy loved the sound of that.

---

“You two need to calm down,” Lucy tried to play the diffuser. Quietly, so she didn’t wake Alan—who she was holding—from his much-needed rest. The moment he gave her his puppy-dog eyes combined with his flushed cheeks from his fever, well, she was always soft toward her children.

Scott and Gordon were hanging out, having fun playing a board game, when it seemed like Scott brought up the small elephant in the room that was Gordon’s feelings toward the newest Tracy. Now the two of them were locked in a glaring contest only to be interrupted by their mom. Scott was indignant, “But it’s been three years! He needs to get over it!”

Lucy giggled, “I seem to recall you feeling a similar way toward John when he was born.”

Scott immediately became chastised, and Gordon’s grin way more smug.

“Scott does have a point as well, though,” Lucy reasoned. “Sweetie, I don’t know how many times I need to say it, but a new baby in the family doesn’t mean you’re being replaced. Look at all your brothers before you; we didn’t stop giving attention to Virgil when you were born, did we?”

Gordon puffed his cheeks and crossed his arms, “But what if it’s different?”

Lucy sat down next to Gordon on the couch, sandwiching him between her and Scott, “Different how?”

“I don’t know!” Gordon exclaimed. Then, he was much quieter, “I don’t know. I just feel like it will be.”

Lucy pulled him in closer, carefully adjusting Alan so they each took up one side of her, “I know Alan was a surprise for all of us when I found out I was going to have him, I get that there were some life-long plans we had in mind that we needed to readjust when a sudden fifth came along, but you know your mom and dad are experts at handling surprises, yeah? Things are different, but nothing is new. We are the Tracys, we are a family, and no one gets left behind with family.”

Gordon let out squeaky laughs as she pinched his cheek and playfully pulled, and it was hard for Scott to not smile at the sight as well. However, something felt… off. He looked around, and when he was able to put his finger on it, he asked, “Hey, mom? Do you hear that?”

Lucy paused and proceeded to do the same sort of prairie dog movement as her son. She lifted her head and glanced around the cabin. At first, nothing came across as weird or wrong, and she was going to try and soothe Scott’s worry, but then her ears finally caught the vague noise of rumbling. Things in their building seemed to vibrate more and more the longer she stared at them, and it was with sudden, horrifying clarity that she realized what was about to happen to her kids.

She turned back to them, and the last thing she saw was her two sons looking at her with fear, “Boys-”

A lot of it was cold, a lot of it was dark, but at the very least, she was able to take comfort in a voice telling her that her kids would be taken care of and kept safe.

#thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #lucille tracy #lucy tracy #jeff tracy #grandma tracy #scott tracy #gordon tracy #my post #my fic #series: rules of alchemy

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unethicalexperiments · 2 months

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SOOOOO this post has been in my drafts since i watched it, so i think dec 18-19-ish? and has been (mostly) unedited since so these are still my immediate reactions.

okkkkk actual archer post now. spoilers for the entire show and into the cold under the cut

i think the ending was like. i don’t wanna say “cop out” but, kind of out of left field? it felt very disconnected from the seasons leading up to it but i honestly can’t say i’m mad about it because i don’t think the post coma seasons were very good comparatively speaking to seasons 1-5. yes i know adam reed stopped writing for the show during/after season 10. i know he got tired of the setup after season 4 and that’s why we got that mess that was seasons 5-10 which was VERY up and down in terms of writing. i do, overall, like the ending and i don't think they really could have gone in another direction.

the agency was always going to have to be shut down. we’ve known since season 2 there were issues with keeping ISIS afloat, so i don’t think people really should have been surprised by that. i do appreciate that lana got the top job in the end, i don’t think archer himself would have enjoyed that job. her whole post-coma storyline with the other man i never really cared for, like yeah it does make sense for her to move on, especially with her young daughter, but robert was absolutely not the type of man lana would have been with and i thought that was bad writing. creating conflict and a solution (him being a billionaire) for the sake of creating conflict and a solution. i’m glad that ended when it did but it shouldn’t have been there in the first place imo lmao. i also want to say that while i’m not against the idea of lana and archer having a baby, i think they were destined to have some permanent tie in some way, but the way the show went about it was god awful. lana taking archer’s sperm from a bank gave fans another reason to hate the one black woman in the show, and then to give aj little to no screen time or story line after made it all feel like it was all just there to make people hate lana more. but also, what the fuck are you gonna do with a baby in a show about spies? it should have been saved for the end of the show and again i feel like this was adam reed just trying to get out of writing spy stuff (which he said regularly in interviews he grew tired of it, which, fair, but come on).

throughout the entire show pam’s character has changed so fucking much but she remained relatively consistent with regards to who she is as a person throughout. from very early on (at least season 2 if not 1) we’re shown how physically strong she is and how she actually makes a good agent. there were weird things thrown in about her personal life that i found very inconsistent with regards to her romantic/sexual relationships though. our first look into pam’s sex life is… very uncomfortable to say the least. she’s written as a sexual predator and commits assault on screen at least once in the early seasons for a “haha sexual assault is funny” moment that is never brought up again. on top of that, we’re also introduced to her being “undesirable” sexually which very quickly changes to “she fucks and she fucks WELL”. we’ve also known from the start she’s bisexual as she comes onto lana like episode 3, but then there’s a random moment in season 11 or 12 or whatever of her asking a random one off character to “be her polyamorous primary” and then this is never seen or talked about again and it feels like diversity for the sake of “oh look at us we have diversity” which i fucking hate. she’s a woman who fucks well and often and forced moments like that feel forced. sorry.

i do not actively participate in archer “fandom” bc let’s be real there isn’t really one lol HOWEVER the way other fans talk about cyril is fucking bizarre to me. ppl on here act like hes "uwu innocent cinnamon roll baby" when he's just as complicit as everyone else. we know he’s not a very good person from the start and that has been consistent throughout the show. i really don’t have much to say about him here he’s always been a pathetic character (and that voice actor whose name i can never remember is very good at those types, i really like him in what i've seen) and the kinda guy who is always going “but what about meeeee?!” and i think his personality brought a nice balance to the gigantic egos he shared the room with, as he still has a giant ego but he can’t really voice it, and he turns kind of incel-y because of it. i really enjoyed that about him, he was shitty in a different way, y'know? i will say the finale was kind of weird with him, i keep going back and forth on whether or not i like him not really getting a clear ending.

now to talk about cheryl. this has to be one of the most bizarre character story arcs of all time. she goes from a timid secretary who wants to fuck archer to a billionaire with (and i hate this word but i cannot think of a better one atm) psychopathic behavior causing destruction for the sake of causing destruction. she has this really interesting and crazy backstory that we first hear about in season 2 that develops over time, but starting like, season 5/6ish, it’s a slow flanderization of her character from a kind of hidden evil who is smarter than she lets on to a total idiot who likes to set things on fire. and oh! look at that she hears voices sometimes too! haha isn't psychosis funny! aren't people with psychosis terrible and evil? isn't that funny? anyway. this gets SIGNIFICANTLY worse post coma (same with krieger, i’ll get to that later) to basically someone who shouldn’t be outside of a hospital. it was really disappointing and even in the finale a few characters outright say “has she gotten worse?” pointing out in universe the flanderization (or possibly intentional writing?) which just feels shitty. also, her being a country music star for one season and then outright forgetting about it the next (explicitly said in the show she has no memory of it!) is just bad writing.

as for krieger, i feel very much the same way as i do about cheryl. he started off as a weird, kinda background character who turns out to be this mad scientist with ties to malory since childhood. some of his inventions are successful, some aren’t, but he did actually do stuff. as the show went on (post season 4) you also start to notice the degradation of his character like with cheryl, turning him into a bumbling idiot. he got a moment of his old self in the finale which was nice, and the little nod to him and cheryl possibly working together after was fun, but it’s no where near enough to make up for the way they both were treated for the past like 10 years in the show.

as for the man himself, i think he remained the most consistent throughout the show. we see character development, but not a lot, and i think that felt realistic. he’s still an asshole, he’s still a bad person, but he’s not as bad of a person anymore. i think he truly did remain the same character from the pilot to the finale. there were some moments in seasons 12-14 where i felt like he was getting more.. childish? almost? but the finale was him through and through. he always loved lana, he always loved katya, he always loved his daughter. i don’t think lana/archer could ever really be a viable endgame. we’ve seen them try, but they really shine as people, as parents, and as professionals when they have that cat-mouse dynamic and i think it was a good mirror to malory and nikolai from seasons 1/2. another thing, i know he said he didn’t care who his father was, but FUCK i wanted to know! i’m choosing to believe it was nikolai because adam reed had said that at one point that was the plan.

i also just realized i forgot to talk about zara completely. zara felt like, in ds9 when jadzia was killed because her actress had enough of rick berman, but they had one more season to do so they tossed ezri in there for the sake of having someone fill the spot. since malory was gone, lana took her spot, and zara was created to fit lana’s spot. i feel the same way about her as i do ezri dax, which is i really don’t care. sorry LMFAO. i understand why she was there but she didn’t add anything to the show to me.

now the finale itself. the whole “one last mission” thing was nice, it wasn’t mind blowing or anything but it was fine. i will say, i never felt like slater was archer’s real rival, i always felt like (pre coma seasons at least) it was barry. i think the ending of archer vs. barry would have been better but that’s just me. i think they fucked up a little going the route of making them friends in the end. and the whole both katya and barry being in the same cyborg body for some reason felt very weird and last minute, katya and barry didn’t end their relationship on good terms lol. AND THEN. archer having sex with the barry-katya hybrid caught me SO off guard. don’t get me wrong! i’m glad they put that in there but it was very 👁️👄👁️. unexpected to say the least lmfao was nice to confirm his bisexuality though? i guess?

while the finale covered a lot of recurring and repeat characters and storylines, i feel like there were some BIG ones that were left out. like, what the fuck ever happened with veronica dean?? the woman who shot archer, the reason he was in a coma for 3 years?? they mentioned her ONCE in season 11 in an off handed comment that “they were still looking for her”. ok so did they find her?? maybe it’s because i didn’t think the recent seasons were that great, but i thought the finale being centered around a fabian (was that his name? i genuinely don’t remember i’m not watching or reading wikipedia or anything while writing) storyline felt kinda lame too. whenever malory had something going on with a rival agency it felt fun but the whole IIA thing was incredibly boring to me. unfortunately no one could ever compare to malory's character in her terrible diva ways that i could never get enough of. and of course no one could do it besides jessica walter.

another thing is a nod to other early season stuff would have been nice. save for barry and katya, it was all post season 5. like woodhouse. or even a one off line about popeye. what about len trexler. rona thorne? was she ever mentioned again? they were relevant in the early seasons! idk. though i do wonder if we're better off without it, maybe the new writers would have fucked it up too much. the new writers probably don't even know who those characters were fghjfkdsgf. in short i feel like the ending forgot a lot about the beginning, and i think most fans would have enjoyed being reminded of the beginning.

anywayyyyyy this was long and ramble-y and probably incoherent but there we have it. after 14 years there goes my favorite stupid little show of all time. seasons 1-4 i can rewatch infinite times (and i'm not kidding when i say i've watched each episode no less than 30 times either actually fully paying attention or as background noise and somewhat paying attention) and will never get tired of. i enjoy season 5 and some of season 6. from there its a very mixed bag and i find it a little disappointing that a show that started off that strong went out kinda weak. i think i personally would have preferred the show ended after season 5 but i know that is not my choice to make. i don't even think they're (the later seasons) that bad, but they could have been so much better. in terms of adult animation this is still the one. and i don't even think i ever said anything about how much i always loved the art style. in the end, it will continue to hold a special place in my heart and be a shitty comfort show and i'm ok with that <3

#talking to myself #archer #archer fx #there. finally!

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