I'm gonna move to the southwest, and, I don't know...

When it came to emergency precautions to jump out of the Thanksgiving weekend at home she was guilted into this year, Summer figured just her portal gun wasn't going to cut it. So she lowered her spaceship carefully against the curb in front of the modest suburban home where she'd grown up, because there were already two other space ships crowding the driveway.

"Oh, good!" she remarked. "Space Mom's already here, too! Being the first to show up is so annoying."

She then gave a smile to her passenger, trying not to feel a certain sort of dread over the fact that she'd also been blackmailed (threatened, really, to have her reluctance to ever bring Stark home with her brought up in family therapy) to have him finally make an appearance.

"Think you're ready for this?"

It was okay if you said no, Stark! They could totally just leave now and claim there was a portal glitch and go to somewhere not lame instead!

Like Boob World! Or something...

[[ nfb for distance, obviously, and mostly from the beleaguered boyfriend, but also open for calls, texts, or also dropping by got whatever reason~ ]]

Dinner that evening had gone...surprisingly well. There were no explosions, no alien attacks or bizarre side-character that would never make another appearance again causing mischief, the glares had been kept to a shocking minimum and no one even fell asleep while trying to pretend to actually be interested in beekeeping, horse surgery, or documentaries about migrant workers.

Which of course meant that everyone's eyes shifted immediately over to Beth when her phone started to ring, with the bated-breath anticipation that came along with something having gone just a bit too smoothly. "Hello?" Beth answered the phone, the hyper-focus of everyone in present in the room was palpable, as was the rush of disappointment and frustration that followed when she pushed back her chair, stood up from the table, and walked into another room to take the call out of earshot.

( CW Warning for Invisibility Belts, Vegetarian Lasagna, and....oh god...PUPPETS. )

[[ NFB for distance, NFI for TBC, OOC ok! Part one of....several! Taken and modified from Rick and Morty S04;E10 "Starmort Rickturn of the Jerri" with a little badassprodigy slipped right in there. SURELY, there's no way this could possibly go pear-shaped, riiiight? ]]

It was just a regular, boring, uneventful evening in the Smith household that Thursday, and Rick and Morty were pissing away the time, channel surfing through the interdimensional cable. You'd think, with infinite realities and infinite possibilities, it would be a little easier to find something to watch, but the pickings seemed pretty slim that night, and Rick was almost passing through them with a mechanical boredom that meant not a whole lot on the screen was registering.

Morty, however, seemed a little more perceptive.

"H-hey," he stuttered, leaning forward a little, "w-wait, Rick, go back. I-I think....was that...was that Summer?"

"Probably, Morty," said Rick, interrupting the words with a burp in between. "Infinite dimensions, remember? If there's..." Another belch. "If there's realities where your loser father is a hot shot celebrity, there's probably a least...at least a few where your sister's probably on some lame reality show."

"Go back!" Morty insisted. "I want to see."

With a groan of irritation and a roll of his eyes, Rick reluctantly switched back a few channels and blinked. "Holy shit, that is Summer."

"D-do...do you think that's our Summer?" asked Morty.

"Could be," said Rick, who then slipped a device out of his pocket and pushed a few buttons. "Let's see. Increased levels of seratonin, cortisol and...ew, Summer...dopamine, a very weird, stupid, and confusing fixation on jello...yup," he slid the device back into his pocket, "that checks."

But Morty's attention had shifted away from the TV and toward Rick's pocket. "H-hey," he said, frowning, "what was all that? W-what was that thing?"

"Don't....don't worry about it, Morty," said Rick.

"W...wait a second," Morty continued, "h...how could have known that? And h-how would that apply, anyway, don't they tape these things way in advance? A-actually, the more I think about it, there are some really big flaws in this whole concept--"

"S-shut up, Morty," said Rick, "it's interdimensional cable, it doesn't need to make sense." He finished it was another impressive burp. "Now just...just sit back and...watch your sister lose at this dumb reality game show. I gotta tell you, we've only been watching this for a few seconds, but I'm already really rooting for this Chip guy."


[[ establishy and all that because this is literally just me being a giant fucking nerd. ]]