Despite the fact that his coarse, parse fur was singularly unsuited to the cold, Rocket liked Contraxia. It was loud and often violent and best of all was filled with the type of people who didn't bat an eye or scream or call animal control the second they lay eyes on him. Sure, he was still a freak even by their standards, but anyone who frequented Contraxia had little in the way of moral high ground. They also had killer discounts on illegal tech, half a dozen casinos on every street, and made a kind of frozen treat that was inexplicably warm on the inside, which were all good reasons to drop in every once in a while.

"Hey, we're here!" he called over his shoulder, pointedly ignoring the fact that those were the first words he'd said to Cosmo in roughly seventy-two hours.

"Cold planet," she observed, padding over with a resigned look on her face. "My favourite."

"I can't control the weather, Cosmo," Rocket grumbled, fists tightening on the controls as he tried to hold back his temper. "And do not make me bring up Korravan and it's five inch mosquitoes. Still trying to wipe that place outta my memory."

"Bounty on Korravan was your idea," the labrador retorted icily.

The raccoon's mouth opened and closed as a dozen half-hearted protests/complaints/arguments shot through his brain.

Cosmo heard them all and sighed. As annoying as her way of communication was, it often meant they got to the point pretty fast. "What do you want to do this time?"

"Well we've got some spare units," Rocket explained. Technically the eighteen units they had left were Cosmo's, but sometimes possession was an abstract concept. "But not nearly enough to do anything with." The ship needed a new engine, a new heating system and a better air filtration system because Rocket was sick of having to smell dog everywhere he went. "So I thought we'd spend a few and earn a bit more."

"Please don't tell me we're robbing bank."

"Close!" Rocket chuckled. "Casino! We've got the pick of the-" He noticed the look she was giving him and felt a lump drop into his stomach. He masked it with a growl. "Oh c'mon! It's what they're there for! And we ain't robbing it. Well, not technically…" Rocket had thought up the plan a while ago, while they'd been sweating buckets on the desert world of Hoppopplee. As good a telepath as Cosmo was, she was still a dog and most people didn't notice a random stray even if they were wearing an old spacesuit. So it'd be all too easy to play a game of poker and-

"That is good plan," Cosmo admitted, before the raccoon could put his strategy in words. "Likely to work and low risk." She still looked reluctant about it, but Rocket knew by now that where Cosmo was involved, all that was needed was a little incentive.

"I promise this time will be different," Rocket dug into his satchel and pulled out a wad of dried jerky. He had no idea why she liked them so much but, as always, the treat did the trick. Cosmo perked up immediately, her tail involuntarily thumping the ground behind her as her mouth dribbled.

That was step one. Step two was picking a target, and Rocket had been to Contraxia before.

"Hey Gaffer!" Rocket hailed the eight-foot tall, snow-white Contraxian leaning under a brightly lit neon sign welcoming the raccoon to Gaffer's Gamble. "Been a while man. Haven't seen you since-"

"The last time you were here." Gaffer cut in, glowering down at the comparatively tiny mammal while taking a long drag out of his cigar. "When you dumped me unconscious on that filthy backwater, Terra."

"Add him to long list of people entirely justified in their loathing of you," Cosmo muttered as the raccoon winced.

"Nova Corps fined me for that," Gaffer went on. "But you know that wasn't the worst part. A bunch of the hairless savages saw me and you know what they called me? Bigfoot!" He slammed a hairy leg into the ground besides Rocket, smashing the thick layer of ice that had built up over the threshold. "Do my feet look big to you?"

Rocket shrugged. "I mean, relative to mine?" The raccoon raised his arms placatingly to ward off a closer look at the underside of Gaffer's frankly colossal beans. "Hey, hey, hey, hey! I'm just kidding. And don't be like that man, it was your own fault for gambling eight bottles in."

"That's fair," Gaffer grunted as he pulled out another cigar and fumbled with an undersized lighter.

"My treat!" Rocket chirped, pulling out a tiny pistol and hitting the edge of the cigar with a concentrated blast of heat. Because of course any lighter Rocket owned also served as a gun.

The Contraxian took a drag and went back to leaning on the doorway. Had Rocket been expecting any kind of thanks he'd have been sorely disappointed. Of course, Rocket knew better. Contraxians weren't big on gratitude.

"So, how's the wife, how're the kids?" the raccoon pressed on, folding his arms over his chest as a small gust of wind set his teeth to rattling. One of these days he was going to get something with sleeves on them…

Gaffer snorted smoke. "Short on units, are we? Only time you pretend to give a shit."

"I'm hoping to change that. The units part, goodness knows I'll never care about your family crap."

The Contraxian squinted at him, and then more importantly, at the labrador currently chasing her tail behind him. "What's with the stray?"

"Can't get the damn mutt to quit following me around." Rocket shrugged. He said it so casually Cosmo stopped abruptly and gave him a hurt look. Suck it up! thought Rocket, not making eye contact with her as Gaffer raised an eyebrow at the scene. You know I didn't mean it!

"I'm not as sure about that as you are," Cosmo muttered, her ears drooping and her tail tucked between her legs as she half-heartedly resumed chasing it.

Making a mental note to make it up to her later, Rocket tapped an impatient foot against the ice. "So can I play? Or should I find some other place to spend my units at?"

Gaffer took a particularly long drag as he mulled it over. "Come with me," he finally grunted, pushing the doors open and ushering Rocket inside. "I wanna show you something first."

Cosmo, true to her act as a dumb dog, bolted in ahead of the raccoon and bounced into the lap of a particularly inebriated Kree. Who, from the sound of things, liked dogs. Rocket rolled his eyes as half-a-dozen gamblers rushed over to bombard her with headpats and ear scritches and belly rubs.

"Now, now, no needs to be jealous. Plenty of pets to go around," Gaffer chuckled, following the raccoon's gaze and gesturing for him to follow behind.

"Like I'd want a bunch of stinkin' drunks touching me up." Rocket spat. "We've had this discussion before. I ain't some frickin' pet."

Gaffer shrugged and lead him down a short flight of stairs and into the equally-bustling casino basement- instead of being spread out across various games, most of the crowd surrounded a large glass dome housing a gnarly, bulbous root with two dozen tendrils writhing about like great, fat worms as they hunted down numbered orbs.

"Latest attraction!" Gaffer boasted, shoving half-a-dozen patrons aside so that Rocket could get a better look. "You get payed based on how long your ball lasts. Last one standing hits the jackpot."

"The hell?" was all Rocket could say as he watched the root swallow up 'thirty-six' and 'seventeen', before giving a crude little burp.

"Kronan plant! Know what it eats?"

The raccoon snorted at that. "Metals, ores, stones? Give us a hard one next time, everything on that planet's made of rocks.

"It's a pretty nasty pest, major pain in the ass to transport- this beauty can chew up a cruiser in a matter of weeks. Nearly impossible to get rid of too, has some kind of regenerative power. Luckily, it ain't dangerous to most life-forms, even if you do get eaten the acid's not strong enough to do more than itch. Worst case scenario you go bald and spend a week or two cramped up in plant gut. But on Kronos this thing's the stuff of nightmares." Gaffer grinned, and squatted down so that he could slap a hairy hand on Rocket's back- shoving him closer to the glass. "Good thing most of us don't have metal sticking out of our skin, right?"

"Right. 'Play nice or I'll feed you to my plant', I got your point." The raccoon rolled his eyes to play it casual, only for a tentacle to ruin it by slamming into the glass in front of him and drawing out an involuntary yelp as he flinched backwards.

"Look at that!" Gaffer grinned as a few of the surrounding patrons snickered at Rocket's expense. "She already likes you."

Try as he might, Rocket couldn't quite shake the plant out of his head as Gaffer lead him back upstairs. Which, naturally, meant Cosmo got a pretty good look at it. Her eyes went wide and her tail went stiff.

"Way too risky. We should go. Maybe try other place if you still want to gamble but-"

If I walk out now he'll know I was planning something. Rocket shot back, plopping down on a stool besides a pair of identical Spartoi. "What does a guy have to do to get some service around here? Hey! Waiter!"

There was a good reason most telepathic races were banned from casinos throughout the galaxy. Playing cards with a mindreader was about as fair as bringing a rifle to a fistfight and made winning just as easy. With Cosmo reading out his opponent's hands to him, Rocket knew when to raise, when to fold, who was bluffing and who had a decent hand, and before an hour had passed the eighteen units he'd gotten from Cosmo had turned into a thousand.

"Dammit!" yelled a kree, slamming his fist into the table and storming off significantly poorer than he had been a few moments ago.

"Those were his life savings," said Cosmo, and Rocket could practically feel the guilt oozing off of her.

Then he shouldn't have gambled them. The raccoon retorted. You're just mad he's done pampering you. Now tell me what this flarknard's got- I know he's bluffing.

"Actually he has full house."

"Normally I'd try and bluff my way out of this," Rocket sighed, revealing his hand to be a pair of twos. "But I kinda need to pee. I fold."

He was pretty sure the dealer was actively handing him out shitty cards- Cosmo confirmed this to be the case and telekinetically spilled a hot beverage on his lap in retribution- but that didn't matter too much. A few well-timed all-ins and Rocket would be up to his nose in units. Having no intention to be plant food, the raccoon figured it was safer to take it slow. Spread his earnings over the course of a few days instead of all at once…

To avoid drawing suspicion, Cosmo stayed behind at Gaffer's which meant for once Rocket had the Bibroaclite craft to himself. Their partnership was marred with occasional bouts of long silences, but still the quiet felt almost eerie. Cosmo was still new to her telepathy, so sometimes thoughts leaked out into Rocket's own mind even when they weren't talking to each other- and most of it was dumb but it was still better than the dull whir of the new heating system.

To distract himself, the raccoon spent his days humming. He had all the parts he could ever want, and before long the ship was boasting an engine worthy of the gods, a miniature weapons system and a functional shield. He had invested in sleeves for himself, and had even taken the risk of buying Cosmo a few spare space suits so she didn't have to go around in her fur everytime hers was in the wash. They were all set, ready to head off into warmer climates and new adventures.

And had been for nearly two weeks now.

Gaffer's was easy income, sure, but that wasn't the real reason they were still on Contraxia. Rocket returned to the casino each day, ready to inform Cosmo that the ship was done and they were ready to go and leave this dump behind them. And he'd failed thirteen times in a row.

Every day he would walk in and find her lying on her back with some idiot rubbing her belly, or she'd be leaning into someone scratching her ear and he could tell from the way her tail was wagging that she had never been happier. It had become something of a tradition to pat the dog for luck and most regular patrons brought her treats of their own. Next to that, Rocket's sharp tongue and occasional grudging scritch seemed laughable.

"Hey, ship's ready," said Rocket, in his mind's eye. And in his nightmares Cosmo laughed at him, and asked why on earth she'd want anything to do with some freakish thing that had never given her a fraction of the warmth and affection she was now entitled to

So what Rocket actually said whenever he returned to Gaffer's was some variety of 'we're still short. Need a few more units.' Telepath that she was, she probably knew he was lying. But she never called him out on it, which all but confirmed his fears.

Well, whatever. Rocket didn't care and pointedly ignored the uncomfortable weight in his gut. He just needed to install a new filtration system, get rid of the lingering scent of dog and then he'd be-

"So we are ready to go?" chirped Cosmo, padding over to Rocket and giving him an obligatory sniff as he walked into Gaffer's Gamble, ready for another long night of conning suckers.

Not yet, thought Rocket. Need to rewire the mainframe.

Cosmo cocked her head to the side. "I thought you did that yesterday?"

Rewire the carbonetrix core then. And stop doing that you'll give us away.

"You already rewired carbonetrix core. Ten days ago." Cosmo sat on her haunches and reached a leg over to scratch behind her ear. "What's going on?"

Nothing's going on! Rocket stormed towards the machine where units were traded in for chips and checked in the decently large sum of two hundred units.

"Okay, I'll stop hounding you." Cosmo padded over to a Xandarian who instinctively reached a hand down to pet her. "No rush of course, ship repair is difficult job, but Cosmo would prefer if we can leave sooner." She leaned into the touch. "I miss you. And is my turn to pick spaceport!"

Nearly done, the raccoon promised. Then, when he was pretty sure she wasn't looking, he kicked himself. Stupid, dumb, idiot. Rocket bit back a growl and pointedly ignored the feeling of relief as his insides untwisted. She missed him. Of course she did. They were comrades, whatever that meant, and Cosmo was just as much, if not more of, a freak as he was. It made sense to stick together. It was the smart thing to do.

No doubt she was sick of Gaffer's shitty music and the drunken flarknards. Frankly, as successful as the con was, Rocket was getting tired of it himself. There was no thrill, no excitement and by now the other gamblers were beginning to cotton on to the fact that he was unbeatable and were giving him a wide berth.

It was time to move on.

The door burst open, and in strolled a familiar pile of sentient rocks- now complete with a horribly-deformed, half-melted face- and an overgrown bug. Standing directly in their line of sight, Rocket could only sigh.

"You're dead, rat," promised Bigby, as Zafersly drew his blaster in the blink of an eye… and shot a stunner round into the chip machine besides the raccoon.

"OI!" Gaffer roared, storming over and tearing the weapon out of the insect's hands before he could try for a second shot. "You got a problem, you take it outside. I don't let you in here to shoot up my casino." The Contraxian gave all three of them a long, hard glare.

Rocket bristled. "Excuse me!? I was shot at!"

"Look what he did to Bigby's face!" Zafersly complained, gesturing at the furious kronan.

"I don't doubt the little shit deserves it," snapped Gaffer, with a dismissive wave of his hairy hand. "But you deal with your beef in your place, not in mine. Understood?"

"Always getting your ass saved, aren't you?" Bigby sneered, cracking his knuckles as he shouldered past the Contraxian. "First the telepath. Now this monkey!"

"Who are you calling a monkey?" Gaffer demanded, grabbing the kronan by the shoulder and whirling him around so that they were facing each other.

Cosmo, thought Rocket, with some degree of urgency. Time to go!

"You do not need to tell me twice," the labrador replied, slinking along the wall in an effort to stay out of sight.

"And what's this about a telepath?" Gaffer snapped, glaring down at Rocket from over Bigby's head.

The raccoon shrugged. "Hell if I know."

"He's got a telepathic dog with him!" Zafersly explained. "Or telekinetic?" He reached a hand to scratch behind his head. "Whichever one means they can read minds and move objects and stuff."

There was a long, drawn-out pause as every eye in the casino turned, first to Cosmo, who tried too hard to play dumb and left her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, and then to Rocket, who chuckled nervously and shrunk behind his armful of chips.

With a sound like shattering glass, Gaffer roared and tossed Bigby aside as if the kronan were a paperweight, The scum of the casino lurched forwards like one baleful wave. Rocket threw his chips into the air and tried not to think about the two hundred unit's he'd just traded them in for. Sliding under a table that Gaffer proceeded to obliterate behind him, the raccoon's mind scrambled for an escape route. A dozen diving fists and outstretched hands narrowly missed him as several gamblers ran into each other in their haste to grab him.

"Cosmo! Meet me at the ship!" Rocket yelled, unable to spot the telepath over the crowd and not sure she'd be able to hear him over the no-doubt violent thoughts of everyone else in the room.

The labrador made no reply, which scared Rocket more than the casino full of gamblers trying to nab him did. Whatever, he could think about her later. He'd get to the ship, then double back and give the new weapon's system a test run.

Rocket shot towards the door, only for a stone hand to close on his tail and slam him into a snooker table that broke from the force of impact. As dark spots clouded his vision he caught sight of Cosmo, a telekinetic suppressor strapped to her neck. Oh crap.

A hairy hand closed over Rocket's scruff and lifted him clear off the ground. The raccoon could only swallow as Gaffer glared at him with unbridled rage. "Well," the Contraxian spoke slowly, his face splitting into a grin that was, if anything, even more terrifying. "Deal's a deal."

A short while later, clad in a bib with the number 'thirteen' on it, Rocket found himself on the wrong side of the Kronan plant's glass dome. He ducked as a tendril of bark blindly swiped at him, and scrambled sideways in a desperate effort to stay off the menu.

It had evolved on Kronos, where everything was made of rocks, and by extension, everything was food. So all the plant had evolved to do was grab anything that got near and eat it. It couldn't see him exactly, but it likely felt vibrations in the air and in the ground so there was no question of hiding, and very little space to run.

Gaffer had been nice enough to leave the raccoon with his lighter- mostly because it was useless. A few well-placed shots could sever a tendril, but the Contraxian hadn't been joking about the regenerative factor and for every one Rocket shot off, two more grew in it's place.

To add insult to injury, and by extension make escaping that much harder, the entire casino had crowded into the basement to watch, and bet on, his demise. Zafersly had his face pressed against the glass, while Gaffer provided unnecessary and condescending commentary. Bigby at least had the decency to keep his distance, although that was likely because he was a kronan and this thing was the bane of his race.

"And there goes another round!" Gaffer roared, as the crowd cheered in delight. "Thirteen and Eleven are still in play- but for how much longer?"

"This is humiliating," Rocket grumbled, as a fresh batch of numbered orbs rained down from above, giving him and Cosmo a moment's respite as the plant feasted.

"And could have been entirely avoided if you had quit while ahead and just told me ship was finished and we were ready to go," the labrador sniped icily. "How many times do you need to nearly die before you decide to stop being idiot?"

Rocket balked. "Two weeks! We keep the con going for two weeks but somehow it's my fault the second it falls apart!?"

"Ooooooh! What's this?" Gaffer cut in, with an unnecessarily dramatic voice. "Dinner and a show!"

"That wasn't funny!" Rocket snapped as the gamblers hooted in unison.

"It was not even little funny," Cosmo agreed, momentarily hitting the Contraxian with a glare before returning it to Rocket. "Con was your idea. We do con to fix ship. Ship was fixed two weeks ago and don't say it wasn't I saw you thinking it. We are still here because idiot that you are, you think Cosmo prefer company of stupid, smelly, frankly perverted gamblers to giant, mudak Rocket. Am I wrong?"

Struck dumb, the raccoon's mouth opened and closed. Which was all the confirmation Cosmo needed to know she was right.

The labrador dropped her glare and went on in a low growl. "You are not nice. You are mean. You say things that hurt, all the time and frankly too much. You are self-destructive, selfish creature so scared of being alone that you do everything to make sure you stay alone!" Cosmo sighed. "But a scratch from you is worth more than some Contraxian, because you are my comrade."

Rocket's mind hit a blank as his ears went flat. Before he could even think of what to say to that, a tendril of bark slammed into the side of his head and grabbed him by the tail.

"Rocket!" cried Cosmo, as another root closed around her middle. "O boje moj-"

"And there they go, ladies and gentlemen!" Gaffer was barely audible over the roar of the invested audience. "Hang onto your hats, Thirteen and Eleven are about to be plant chow!"

"Gaffer!" Rocket snapped, as behind him the bulbous root shoved a kicking Cosmo headfirst into it's widened maw. The raccoon's claws had drawn long gashes along the ground in an effort to stave off his fate, but even he knew he was just delaying the inevitable. "I swear, when I bust outta here I'm gonna-" before he could finish his threat, the root abruptly changed tempo, drawing out an involuntary scream as Rocket flew through the air and into the plant's waiting 'jaws'.

Having evolved to eat kronans (who hit six feet before the age of ten), the weed had little difficulty swallowing him. The sickeningly fleshy insides compressed over him, shoving Rocket deeper as the whole plant shook from the force of a particularly nasty belch.

"This is humiliating," Rocket repeated as the compact space pressed him against Cosmo's rear end. His nose wrinkled and his whiskers twitched against the stink of dog and acid. There was a thump as his lighter was unceremoniously dumped on top of his head.

"And again, your fault," Cosmo grumbled, trying to shift into a more comfortable position and further smooshing the raccoon in the process.

"You're the one that got me caught!" the raccoon retorted, in no mood whatsoever to be mature and admit to his many, many issues. "All you had to do was keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself- but no! Cosmo just had to talk about her feelings-"

"I was talking about your feelings, mudak," the labrador retorted, giving Rocket a kick for good measure. "Because you never do and it always ends up biting us."

"Does not!" Rocket scoffed, trying to shove her rump away.

"Really? So opening fire on that sovereign because he called you fox was rational thinking? And trying to outrun Nova cruiser on Ixban is rational thinking? And-"

"Shut up!" Rocket snapped, muzzle quivering with emotion as Cosmo flooded his mind with images of his more monumental screw-ups. As if he needed her to tell him he was stupid and an idiot and no matter what he did, he always screwed up. Korrovan and it's killer mosquitoes was his fault. It was his fault Gaffer wanted them dead. He'd ripped the eye off the warden on Tharvis K-8 because he'd been stupid and panicked. And he had as good as killed Teefs and Floor, and Lylla too, because he was a little monster and anything he cared about crumbled to dust in his freakish little claws. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Cosmo relented, and the two squirmed in silence until they managed to squeeze into somewhat standard sitting positions. "Whatever," said the labrador, taking a deep breath and presenting the suppressor for Rocket to bypass. "Now we skip to the part where you come up with escape plan, we get out of here and you start leaving treats out because that is easier than saying 'sorry'."

Instead of going for the collar, Rocket reached for his lighter. "I got a plan," he grumbled, ignoring the way her tail immediately shot into a wag. He grabbed a stray orb from the pile sitting beneath them and fiddled with it until it opened to reveal a battery. "I'm gonna blast my way out," he explained, opening a second orb and pilfering it's battery too.

"The usual then," Cosmo rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "With you is always firefight."

"Plant's harmless to most biological lifeforms and I know you ain't a cyborg, so you should be good," the raccoon went on, more to himself than to her. Better off than with me, he added as a thought, but Cosmo heard it all the same.

"What?"

"See you never," Rocket growled, pointing the lighter up and firing.

"I don't- Rocket, wait!"

He didn't and scrambled up and out the rapidly-healing flesh.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" Cosmo yelled in a panic as she failed to follow him up the slick, greasy walls."What did I do? Rocket, please! What did I do?"

Rocket ignored her, ducking under a swinging tendril as behind him, the plant regenerated and muffled the sound of her whining.

"Number thirteen's back out again!" Gaffer cheered, completely oblivious to the danger he was now in. "How long do we think he lasts this time, folks?"

A second shot from the buffed-up lighter cracked the glass dome and wiped the smile right off the Contraxian's face. The third shot shattered it completely and the fourth was overkill, but then, Rocket liked his overkill.

He fired the lighter on repeat, laughing maniacally to drown out the guilt, the distant sound of Cosmo begging him to come back and the small voice in his head that wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and cry.

Footnote: I imagine, for the record, that Gaffer and by extent native Contraxians look a bit like Wookies, hence the 'Bigfoot' line. Not too important a detail because I'm not entirely sure we'll see him again. Like most of the OCs of this fic they're there to flesh out the scene. But then, Zafersly and Bigby returned so maybe he shall pull a Palpatine and somehow return.

Woof, Rocket sure knows how to be a dick when he wants to be! A significantly more drastic solution to the problem that is 'friendship' than the approach he took in Vol 2- although one that I think is fairly in-character for a Rocket pre-Groot (and I don't really think Rocket stealing the batteries was him trying to push the Guardians away- having watched the movie one too many times my analysis is as follows- he steals the batteries because he wants to/sticky fingers- then he fights with Quill over piloting the ship because he wants to fix the problem he caused- the one bit where he actively *does* try to push Quill away is his 'orphan boy' line, but one could argue that from his point of view he is already being abandoned at that point- left on some random planet to fix the ship while Quill and the others buzz off to Ego. Might as well get the last word in while you can, right?). I also think it fits with the way I write their relationship in the current timeline of the fic. I'm not a shipper, but I can't help but think of them as being 'bitter exes' for lack of a better term. The break-up is a case of classic miscommunication, coupled with Rocket's self-hatred. Coming up with a reason for Cosmo to want to give him a 'big bite on backstabbing backside' while keeping Rocket likeable was ever-so-slightly challenging (some earlier drafts had him selling her to the Collector but I didn't really like that because it feels a bit *too* evil, y'know? It also had to be something Cosmo would want some good-old off-screen retribution for *and* something she would be willing to forgive him for (because if what Rocket had done to her was so horrible it wouldn't make sense for her to want to be on a team with him).

Enter, carnivorous, kronan plant! Deadly danger for Rocket to evade, check, not dangerous for Cosmo so she should be fine in the long run and Rocket doesn't become a total dick by leaving her in one, check, and it also serves the bonus of feeling creatively whacky in the way Guardians films can sometimes be (battery-eating aabilisks, everything in Orgocorp etc etc etc), check!

Had a lot of fun writing this chapter, hope you all enjoyed, lemme know what you think yadda yadda yadda- next time more of Quill and Rocket's heart to heart/dance-off. Very excited to write it because it starts off pretty meta XD