#(but at this point I'm also basically just like)

[clockwayswrites]

Bird Cuddles Part 26ish

Masterpost

This is hardly a full scene, though a stopping point. But I'm feeling positively dismal today so wanted to share something. Enjoy, hopefully!

-

Bruce sighed.

It was all that he could do when his two oldest were standing in front of him, both trying to laugh as quietly as possible. Dick’s fist was basically stuffed in his mouth to keep quiet where as Jason was using sheer force of will (and a good amount of smugness) to stay quiet.

“Be nice,” Bruce mouthed silently.

“No.” Jason mouthed back gleefully.

Bruce had the distinct urge to bury his face into the soft wings and simply ignore his sons even being in the room with him. He didn’t give into that urge because he was sure if he did, neither would ever let him live it down. Even as he was thinking that, Dick pulled out his cellphone and snapped a photo.

Bruce felt his phone vibrate a moment later.

He sighed again.

Luckily, Cass swept in a moment later (apparently it was to be a full house at dinner), kissed Bruce lightly on his temple, and went over to her brothers. She looked at Dick’s phone, nodded at the picture, and then took each of the boy’s hands and led them out of the room.

Jason left with one last smirk, but at least the door was closed behind them with a definitive latch.

Bruce still waited a long moment before he picked up his phone and unlocked it.

The picture certainly looked incriminating.

When Danny had fallen asleep, likely exhausted from soothing the boys, the panic attack, and the general drama of the day, he had nodded off sitting upright. When the boys had left, Damian had tasked Bruce with ‘seeing it that Dr. Fenton stayed well’. It was shortly after that when Danny had started shifting, as if trying to get comfortable with the wings, and ended up tilting over.

Once he had settled, Danny had ended up curled across Bruce’s lap with his knees on one side of Bruce and his head on the other. One of the wings was tucked up against Bruce’s chest while the other wing, limp with sleep, stretched out along Bruce’s leg and down to the floor.

Bruce ran his fingers lightly over the white feathers. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his horde of children, but Bruce was completely unbothered by having someone nap on him. The thing that he was bothered by, despite his best efforts to separate himself from the nightlife, is how comfortable he was about that someone being Danny.

Really, there was relatively little that they knew about Danny. The biggest point in Danny’s favor was that Lucius trusted Danny—trusted Danny enough to consider bring Danny in to work with the Bats. The biggest point against Danny were the same wings that Bruce was running his fingers over.

Not that Bruce would ever judge someone negatively for being a meta. Almost all of Bruce’s closest friends were or became metas, after all, even if some of them were now also rogues. The meta status was almost easy to handle. The concerning part were all of the little details that Danny had hinted at about how he had become a meta: neglectful parents, a lab accident at a young age, extensive scaring. Bruce touched the faint Lichtenberg scars lightly. It made Bruce worry about what had triggered the change in Danny. After all, some of Bruce’s closest friends where now also rogues.

It was unfair to compare Danny to Harvey.

It was hard not to.

The fact that it was hard not to compare Danny to Harvey was concerning in itself. Bruce’s track record in the people that he found alluring was far from ideal. It felt almost like dooming Danny simply by the fact that Bruce had taken note of him. Already Danny was getting caught up in the turmoil of their lives and suffering for it.

That was perhaps too harsh. Danny had handled himself more than admirably, wings and all. Danny’s actions made sure that the boys had time to get to the safe room, stayed safe once there, and that the assault ended with minimal bloodshed. Bruce just wished that the change it caused hadn’t left Danny in a state of panic.

Bruce sighed. Maybe he had to remember that Danny wasn’t someone that Bruce was responsible for; Danny was a competent adult who could clearly protect himself from at least lower level threats. It wasn’t fair for Bruce to try and make decisions for Danny, even in an effort to protect him from the craziness of being near the Wayne family.

[absolutelyhereticalthoughts]

I suspect that it's slower because students are forced to basically re-learn how to write with a new system, while also keeping pace with regular classwork. Yeah the letters are similar to regular letters but that is not how the brain processes it. Past a certain point writing becomes more subconscious reflex than conscious effort (probably not the correct terms but I'm not a psychologist or a neurologist so w/e.) So suddenly having to put conscious effort drawing out the letters slows students down (ever try writing with your non-dominant hand? It feels kinda like that.)

So everyone is back to square one slowly penciling out letters that they can kind of read but not very well because they aren't used to it. Combine that with the fact that its really hard to convince a kid why writing like this is in any way useful when they never see it outside of the classroom and they actually slow down when writing with it despite people claiming otherwise.

So students merely just put up with it. They learn cursive because they don't have another choice, but they don't excel at it. It becomes another arbitrary hoop they learn to jump through, and only that. They may even end up resenting it because of how it was forced upon them with all classwork required to be in cursive. So they never get good enough at it to write faster than standard print.

On one hand I understand not teaching cursive in school anymore, because it actually is slower than regular handwriting and almost everything is typed on a keyboard now anyways.

On the other hand, so much of our (even recent!) history was written in cursive, and having a whole generation of kids who can't read letters written by their grandparents, momentos saved by their great-grandparents, or even photo albums from theur immediate family seems like a dangerously quick way to detach us from previous generations.

And on the third, related but slightly malformed hand, I feel bad that yet another form of small, everyday art that brings joy in the middle of mundane tasks, which celebrates personality and individual style and self-expression, is about to fade into obscurity because it wasn't efficient enough for today's world to put up with.

Like... if we continue to whittle away the small arts out of every day life, what's going to be left except stark, ruthless pragmatism?

Maybe writing a grocery list is less mundane when you get to feel elegant for a moment. Maybe you're a little more proud of what you write when you see it flow together like a painting

[seat-safety-switch]

Who among us can say that they haven't gritted their teeth while gingerly driving a stolen truck full of illegal, hair-trigger fireworks through a bumpy construction zone? If the city really cared about keeping people safe in traffic, you'd think they'd find some workers who can make a smoother bridge. I got places to be.

A lot of the super-cranky, angry-at-government tinpot microfascists are really mad at the current city government for reasons that they can't accurately describe. Same as always, basically. For me, it's very easy to explain why I'm mad: I'm tired of spending perfectly good money on suspension parts, so they should make the roads smoother.

Sure, the news will tell you that it's normal to have to replace shocks, ball joints, tie rods, bump stops, and motor mounts if you are driving a fifty-year-old car. Here's the thing, though: I don't want to, and it's the city government's job to indulge every stupid whim and fix every booboo that my dumb ass collects. That's why me and my hammered U-Haul were going to City Hall, where I expected to give an inspiring speech to kick off my candidacy for Mayor. And then I'd let loose like $750 worth of pirate incendiary devices to underscore my point. My cousin from Longueuil brought them up last week, with all the barcodes on the boxes spray-painted over.

Why the U-Haul? Simple. Their fancy computerized smartphone-driven fence locks have no security hardening against the classic "cut them in half with an angle grinder" attack. And I surely wasn't going to fill my 1976 Volare (see? not even fifty years old, haters) to the brim with mid-grade explosives. Plus, the extra weight would probably be real bad for the rear shocks (Delco Pleasurizers, you can't get those anymore) and I did not want to replace those prematurely. I wanted to use them up, all the way.

Unfortunately, my campaign did not kick off as expected. A bigger, meaner boy was also waiting in line at Crackpot Corner. He shoved me and took the truck full of fireworks to announce his candidacy for Mayor. Really, it's for the best, because I didn't realize that the aforementioned angle grinder had thrown a couple of errant sparks into the box of the truck. If you ask me, it's just more evidence of municipal corruption: I bet the street in front of City Hall is gonna be glass-smooth once they fill in the giant crater. Nothing but the best for the silver-spoon set.

[alexanderwales]

One of the things they went over when I took linguistics was the "euphemism treadmill", the tendency of initially-clinical or neutral words to undergo pejoration to the point that someone felt the need to replace the pejorated word with one that was clinical or neutral. And then of course the process of pejoration would start again.

The best example of this were words related to what we now call intellectual disability. In the past, "idiot", "simpleton", "moron", "feeble-minded", and "imbecile" were all relatively clinical terms. (This is one of those things that's often repeated, but if you go looking at newspapers from the 1920s, you do kind of wonder whether the negative connotations were just completely acceptable then, especially when they're talking about the successes of sterilizing the feeble-minded.)

The reason that pejoration happens is that while the word changes, the societal attitude toward the underlying thing most often does not, and so if they change the word and declare that this new word is totally neutral, then society's negative view is just going to keep making those words take on bad connotations. This will happen even with the most anodyne descriptions, like "mentally handicapped", which Google will inform you with a little warning is offensive and dated.

The linguistics class I took in the early 2000s spent a little time on the word "retarded", which by then was well on its way to complete pejoration (federal law was changed in 2010, from "mental retardation" to "intellectual disability"), but had not reached the point when it was "the r-slur". If I recall correctly, this was when "mentally handicapped" was still relatively in vogue, and sitting in that classroom I had thought that "retard" was going to go the way of "moron", a word that was used exclusively in a disparaging way. I thought it would be about as acceptable as calling someone an imbecile, I guess, which is impolite but which doesn't rise to the level of "slur".

But no, I was wrong. The euphemism treadmill will probably continue because we have not done anything about the underlying condition (that people with intellectual disabilities are less valued and looked down on), but "retard" has now become a slur, even if every other fucking word for low intelligence is still in common use as a disparagement.

It's wild how much you can see people dancing around this. I said above that Google gives an "offensive and outdated" tag to the term "mentally handicapped", but they also give that to "retarded". However, if you go to "imbecile" they don't give that tag. To save you the trouble of looking it up:

noun: imbecile; plural noun: imbeciles

a stupid person.

archaic a person of low intelligence.

Ah, lovely. So it's okay, because it just means "a stupid person", it used to mean "a person of low intelligence", but it doesn't mean that any more, so ... not offensive, I guess?

Except hold on, what does "stupid" mean again?

adjective: stupid; comparative adjective: stupider; superlative adjective: stupidest

having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.

Oh, okay, I see. So in the archaic sense "imbecile" meant a person of low intelligence, but now it means a person who has a lack of intelligence. Totally different, very understandable. Nevermind that "imbecile" was pejorated in the same way that "retard" was, and that using a negative word to refer to someone who is lacking intelligence is basically the same thing.

I think if you want to fight against the pejorative use of the word "retard", you should probably be fighting against a lot more words, and you should definitely be fighting against the societal view that people with lower intelligence are lesser. You can fight the language issue all you want, but it's just going to lead to more cycles of pejoration. There's no way that switching over to saying "person with a learning disability" (as it seems the UK bureaucrats now favor) is going to somehow end it.

Personally, I'm the kind of person who just goes with the flow. I think people with intellectual disabilities are just as much people as anyone else, deserving of care and compassion, but I also value intelligence at least as much as my surrounding society does, and while I do make attempts to temper my language, saying that an idea is stupid rather than casting contempt on a person who is stupid, that's a mighty fine line to tow, and ... people just don't care. If I call a politician a moron, no one will bat an eye. I will refrain from saying the r-word, because people get mad at you when you do that. I think if I got hit in the head tomorrow and became intellectually disabled, I would be more or less happy with this.

I don't have a strong principled stance, more a stance of "come on, what are we doing here". Euphemism treadmill goes brrrr, language gonna language, I just wish the whole linguistic and social process didn't feel like some out of control machine that wasn't actually doing anything for anyone, and that people would pay more attention to the underlying mechanisms for how/why pejoration actually works. Changing the word is not going to usher in an era of understanding and equality, we've proven that, haven't we?

[blitzs-largest-horsiest-dildo]

MASTERMIND SPOILER WARNING.

Edit: Also, sorry for the terrible quality screen grabs, lol

I've seen a lot of amazing discourse on Mastermind, and wanted to add my own. The scene that really wrenches my heart is Blitzø fighting to get to Stolas. Trying to keep him from doing the exact same self sacrificing shit he's about to do

Here, he's literally pulling against golden chains, a metaphor we've seen before. The chains usually lead to Stolas, but now they're keeping him away from the birb. I feel like the chains are a sort of metaphor for the societal pressures surrounding their relationship. Instead of feeling like Stolas has all the power (holding the chains), Blitzø's perspective has changed, and he can see past the class difference. He can see that these pressures cause Stolas just as much harm by keeping him isolated from the love and help that found family provides.

Then the absolute instant he can, our lizard man is rushing to his birb. We can see the desperation, but most importantly, he's still unable to actually touch Stolas. Clinging to his cape (another symbol of his class/status), Blitzø literally begs Stolas not to do this, essentially to let class and systemic oppression win just this once. He loves Stolas so much that he is willing to let go of his most basic principles (stick it to the upper class/change things for the lower class) just to save him.

And when that doesn't work, he just goes feral, screaming for Stolas and fighting with every fiber of his being just to get back to the love of his life. Blitzø's desire to get back to Stolas is so powerful that hyper strong cop/security demons can barely drag him out of the courtroom. It's a completely unmasked, painfully genuine reaction.

I'm not sure what my point is other than the two idiots love eachother so damn much, and holy shit that scene wrecked me emotionally. Good Job, Spindle Horse.💖

[rancidslime]

Hold on I'd actually love to talk about Archie comics and the forces behind Riverdale for a second because they're legitimately fascinating.

So, before we talk about why Riverdale's so bonkers, we gotta talk about Kevin Keller. Archie's cast and those of its spinoffs being thrown into Situations of wildly differing tone and periods is a time-honored classic of the series, but that started to mean more than just "here's a story about the gang finding out what kissing is in prehistoric times" after the successful introduction of Kevin in 2010. For those who may not know, Kevin was the first openly gay character in the Archie comics, and his release was kind of a huge deal - Archie had always been seen as this squeaky-clean symbol of (white) Americana, so something like that happening in the new 10's - to fucking Archie - was legitimately groundbreaking. (He's since been followed up with characters like Toni Topaz and Eliza Han, but Kev was the first.)

Remember, Archie is the kids' comic book in America, for better or worse. Superhero comics can vary wildly in tone and intended audience, but if a parent grabs their kid an Archie comic from the shelf at a grocery store, they basically know what they're getting and don't have to worry about someone's neck getting ripped out on-panel. Getting something like Kevin in the "safest" comic short of Family Circus was kind of a watershed moment.

(As an aside: some have pointed out that Kevin isn't a terribly interesting character, being something of a masc everyman All-American Boy™, but I would argue that that's basically all Archie is, and at a time where all the "gay representation" kids were getting were horrible caricatures of fem men as envisioned by straight people, whitebread masc guy Kevin is kind of exactly what the doctor ordered. I would go so far as to argue that presenting this gay teen as unquestionably part of the gang, slotting into Archie's idealized 50's aesthetics perfectly, was one of the best moves they could have made for the era and surrounding climate. This was a time when "Gay men are just as capable of performing masculinity as straight men" was a legitimately transgressive statement. I'm a Kevin apologist. A Kevin defender.)

So, Kevin's release is huge. He's very popular with kids and adults alike, to the point where his introductory comic and miniseries sell out faster than any other Archie comic in history. He got his own spinoff within two years. People love Kevin.

So what does this have to do with Riverdale, beyond Kevin being a character in it? Well, Kevin Keller proves to the leads behind Archie that modernizing the series has the potential to be very lucrative indeed, and this is where Archie starts to get shockingly experimental. (Relatively speaking, anyway.) The new 10's see the release of Life With Archie: The Married Life, (a dual-timeline soap opera exploration of his married life with either Betty or Veronica) Afterlife with Archie, (a zombie story incited by Sabrina trying to bring Jughead's dog back after he was struck by a car) and of course, the infamous Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. (This one got a Netflix adaptation, but in case you need the cliff's notes, basically it's Sabrina the Teenage Witch only the witches get the power from worshiping Satan.)

These series were also well-received. Enter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the guy behind the aforementioned Afterlife with Archie. After the success of the title, he was made Chief Creative Officer, and he's also the showrunner of Riverdale, and here is the reason Riverdale is Like That.

So while Riverdale is undoubtedly an incredibly weird cultural object, I think a lot of people who aren't familiar with the show or franchise get the wrong idea about it. I think the biggest point of confusion among onlookers is "How in on the bit is Riverdale?" and I would respond: extremely. Are you kidding? Why is there even any doubt about this? Sacasa is a gay guy who got cease-and-desisted for writing a play that reimagined Archie as gay in 2003. This dude got promoted specifically for playing with genre and making Archie weird as Hell back when it used to be considered a dull, whitebread relic. You think shit like the "I'm weird. I'm a weirdo." speech and "That means that you haven't known the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school football." happened by accident? You think it just stumbled into doing an entire Hedwig and the Angry Inch episode? Oh, no, my friend. That shit was the result of a demented fag writer doing what demented fag writers do best; produce camp masterpieces. Everything about Riverdale is completely intentional.

Now, is it good? No, of course not. It is, however, great fucking television. I don't really watch the show outside of a few isolated episodes, but I am really glad it exists.

Gritty sci-fi webcomic where partway through the third major arc the protagonists get trapped in some sort of utopian false reality by a mysterious godlike being, except they never escape and the comic just changes genres to quirky coffee-shop slice of life until it's unceremoniously cancelled six years later.

[warblogs17282]

Satan, the courts and classism against imps.

My mind is going through 50 different thoughts right now, so I thought I'd make a post on the classism seen within the courts.

Short answer: Satan and the people within the courts are quite classist, with there only being a few examples of people not being classist within the court sequences.

Long Answer:

Let's start with the first instance of classism we see within the courts, Loona gets treated differently because she's a hellhound. Sure while they share a few rough similarities with dogs, and people do put muzzles over dogs to prevent them from biting, that really isn't needed here in the slightest, it just really feels like Loona is getting degraded here, being treated worse than the imps, with Loona having more restraints than the imps purely because she's a hellhound and nothing else.

Blitz objects to what Andrealphus is saying, and he's almost instantly told to shut up, having a magical gag or whatever that this placed over his mouth, not letting Blitz make his own arguments, with the courts instead letting the higher-up Goetia speak his mind without allowing Blitz to object to any of it.

Same thing happens again with Moxxie, Moxxie objects to what Andrealphus has to say, and he also pretty much instantly gets told to shut up as well, by Satan himself.

Even further unnecessary restraints on Blitz, because he's naturally objecting to what Andrealphus is saying, further showing that he doesn't really get a voice in the trial, not being allowed to speak his mind and object to what Andrealphus is saying.

A bit of corruption as well, what this shows is that deals like this can be made with witnesses to give testimony, which just opens up a whole can of worms of corruption, considering Andrealphus knows that the witness is lying here, he's basically told Striker to go against Blitz in exchange for immunity, when they both know Stella hired him.

So, while I do admit only Striker and Andrealphus were the ones that knew Striker was told to commit perjury, it still proves the system is inherently exploitable for the people of higher-class, screwing over the people at the bottom in most cases. The court system is rigged for the upper-class. Hell, everything I've mentioned so far shows that the system is rigged against the lower-class, and I'm getting back to this point later in the post.

This scene is the only example of anyone who actually speaks up in favor of Blitz, the only one, and it's incredibly short-lived as Mammon very quickly interrupts the two to make a classist statement.

Mammon instantly proceeds to interrupt them by saying they 'enjoy slumming it with the lower class plebs.', and calls Vortex a 'mutt', purely because he's a hellhound, more casual classism in the court, although they both do fire back at Mammon because well, Mammon is being a cunt here.

Satan calls Blitz an 'Imp bastard' and instantly proceeds to ignore any possible due course that should come with court proceedings, aka, the 'hours of testimony' purely because he's hungry and wants to eat lunch. Instead being completely willing to execute an 'imp bastard' with zero due course because again, he's hungry and wants to eat his lunch. Only Bee, Asmodeus, Moxxie, Millie, Loona and I presume Vassago as well actually want the due course to happen, with literally every other demon in the room (with most of them being Goetia members) voting to prematurely execute Blitz, an 'imp bastard' as Satan puts it. (Yet another example of how the court system is rigged against imps and the lower-class)

'You should've remained in the place that is expected of a low-class imp.' is basically what this scene amounts to. 'When lesser demons try to step out of line.'

And we having people literally celebrating the execution of a few imps and a hellhound, which really gives me the vibes that they're being incredibly classist here as well.

'To remind all imp-kind why you should never challenge the people above you in the hierarchy, why you should never challenge the more powerful people to you, why you should never challenge our authority.'

This screams of authoritarian behavior (is that the right word in this context?), to attempt to scare the imp-kind into being little obedient creatures to them, to scare the imp-kind into staying in their expected place in hell's society, which is obviously very much classist.

Even if Satan is completely lying about this claim, it is still incredibly fucked up and classist that he says he created them to be obedient, just straight up admitting that he expects and demands obedience from imps, not being afraid of using his powers to do so as well.

Outside of Satan just straight up saying he doesn't give a shit about Blitz's final words, Blitz drops a mention of the hierarchy, the hierarchy enforced by the Goetia and above, the hierarchy that forces imps and such into the place that the Goetia and above want them to be in, and that Blitz was trying to rise above that place that them all forced him into.

This alongside Satan admitting that he doesn't care about Blitz's final words, just further shows us how little Satan, and by extension, how little the court system cares about what the lower-class have to say, with that being something I've shown multiple times throughout the post already.

Stolas does lean into the inherent classism the Goetia has during the song, although he's not being classist here to be a dick, it's all an act to save Blitz from execution, but it does to add the general classist vibes of the court, and you clearly see Blitz getting quite pissed off during this part of the act as well.

And Satan quite literally just says that he's the judge, jury and executioner in the courts, leaning further into the authoritarian behavior that I mentioned earlier, because he literally says that Satan himself is the law, which is obviously quite authoritarian.

'You are demon royalty, sooooooooooo... your life has actual worth.', which quite heavily implies that Stolas' life only has actual worth because of the fact he's royalty, a prince. Which also implies that anyone below demon royalty, such as imps and hellhounds for example, their lives don't have any actual worth as Satan calls it. Plus, Blitz gets executed for the same crime Stolas took the blame for, and Stolas' punishment is lesser, only losing his powers, title and such for 100 years instead, and while you can't apply Stolas' punishment to Blitz, the fact the punishment is different for the two of them shows a clear double standard, all because Stolas' life has actual worth, while Blitz's does not to Satan.

Finally, we have the news article Blitz pulls up on his phone, "making them the first hellborn to ever survive after being sentenced to death by a deadly sin.", Blitz is a historical exception, a true one-of-a-kind here, but the fact Blitz is the first, purely because Stolas took responsibly for it still speaks volumes to the lack of care and lack of due process within the courts, and further speaks to Satan's ruthlessness and classism as well. With this further backing up my point that the system is generally rigged against lower-class demons, like imps.

In conclusion: I have shown in multiple ways how Satan, and most of the people within the courtroom contain very classist views, making the court system extremely classist as a result, and I also believe I've shown pretty well that the court system is generally rigged against against lower-class demons, and generally rigged in favor of higher-class demons, like demon royalty for example, with me showing exactly how Andrealphus' and Striker's deal inherently makes the court systems exploitable and corrupt, again, generally in favor of the higher-class demons.

Yikes, even Phoenix Wright couldn't save this kangaroo court, and that's saying something if you've fully played through Spirit of Justice.

[insanescriptist]

Flip the Table

Casually eavesdropping on what should be highly secure frequencies, Jason sipped his beer in a sleezy saloon style sports bar somewhere on the Vegas strip, nominally watching college(?) football; he's a hockey fan because baseball's boring as shit to watch and he's never got the appeal about American football. Football to the rest of the world was at least worth watching for the drama. Something had the Justice League in a tizzy and Zatanna -the one who normally covered Vegas when it came to the costumed crazies- was off world; Jason didn't have the details exactly but it sounded like Zatanna was dealing with some magical planar stuff and was not expected back for at least six more days. Assuming all went well.

So like any reasonable person who's going away for a time, she turned on her home security, had the alerts wired over to a friend -in this case Justice League Dark- gave a list of what was needed to be done and when -the pick up my mail and mow my lawn equivalants- went on her trip, trusting that the JLD were watching over her city and it wouldn't be on fire when she got back.

Such glorious hope.

And thus something happened so when Jason pulled into Vegas proper to investigate a desperate -read last hope- lead on a missing person's case, Jason happened to spy one of the lesser members of the JLD losing their shit in the sky. And so in a moment of civic duty, Jason started spying on them.

Magic was not something anyone trained by the Bat really ever got comfortable about, but chances were magic bullshit was going to intervene in his case. Justice League shit spilled over everything, all the time. Ghost cultists tripping Zatanna's necromancy alarms or whatever they were, was not Jason's business. Not unless the presumed cultists -those that had survived- had the person he was looking for.

No, he was looking at a missing person's case and his lead was 1. cold and 2. a longshot and 3. in a city full of tourists and catering staff, where "seen anything unusual lately" could be "there was this trio of tourists arguing how sex with your best friend doesn't count as cheating," or "someone having a meltdown over the delayed shipping of organic blueberries to the hotel," or "Sarah Maria got murdered a couple weeks ago on the job, but I haven't seen any notice about her funeral stuff on her social media, why yes, I do know she's dead, oh, she's dead and I'm an idiot for expecting someone dead to post on their socials their funeral deets."

Point was, he could look and ask all he wanted, beat feet for days, but the chances of this lead panning out were basically so minuscule that Jason could treat this more as a hobby case while on vacation. He still did his due diligence, asked the staff a few questions, called the guests on the same floor during the time period of their stay about how they found their stay, ran into the dead end of shitty business practices -they recorded over their own records every two weeks- and so unless Jason got the ability to do magic and do a "point me!" spell, the case would turn cold. It sucked when it happened but sometimes the evidence wasn't there. Or wasn't noticed or was destroyed before it could be collected. Sometimes people just didn't remember shit until three weeks later, which with some follow up digging gave him the lead to the hotel. Which got him nothing after that.

As Jason Todd didn't gain an innate ability to do magic that he was aware of that actually counted as magic bullshit magic instead of a couple cantrips, all he could do was get a beer and some food in a Vegas style Texas saloon bar. Which not his first choice, but it was full enough no one really paid attention to anyone. Technically a sport's bar but also very much was not. It was also busy enough that Jason ended up getting asked if someone could set with him at his table -which real Jason said hell no to, but cover Jason did agree to-

Oh. Meta. Jason realized quickly. Oh no, he's hot.

His hair is on fire!

How did the server miss that? Most metas don't casually out themselves like that! Too many people willing to target them for whatever power.

That hair was flaming, tied back in a low tail; Jason blinked and the hair flickered color, looked like normal hair -black- and then back to white fire, then black fire, some tv static abomination of color, white hair and then black hair. Another blink and it appeared to be black flames for hair and yeah, Jason closed his eyes. Pointedly ignored the hair thing. If the meta asked, Jason was judging him for the stupid little goatee.

The rest of the meta was built along the same lines as Jason himself, tall, broad and built. Packed with muscle, which was something to make note of; metas usually were more durable and could hit harder, so Jason casually made note to not get hit if a fight broke out.

Which it might, or probably would.

That's just how Jason's luck ran. To shit.

Said meta also ordered food and a beer, didn't even get asked for ID -unfair bias- and judging by the sound, turned in the seat to look at the American football screen that Jason had been ignoring. His hair had at least settled to black flames instead of the glitchy hair.

Of course as this was Vegas, people gambled on outcomes of games too. Which is how Jason learned the meta was rich enough to blow a couple grand -not expensive in the world of supers- but more than what the average person would be comfortable betting.

There were better ways to piss away money than gambling on sports. Like on over priced burgers and onion rings with an order of mozzerella sticks. The burger was good, admittedly Jason's had better and then some party of guys was yelling at the ref on a screen. And yup, that's some altercation with another table but the barman broke it up with a couple of words.

His tablemate muttered something about the ref having made the right call if one of the players wanted to continue a career professionally and Jason used that as social leverage to get a name -Dan, no last name given- and a bit more in-depth explanation on what stakes were going on; he's a hockey guy, not a football guy.

Some time later, Dan had caught him up on the football drama -nothing compared to the hockey drama- and conversation had drifted significantly from sports, lightly touched on family -Dan had siblings he shared little about other than they existed, which fair, they could also be metas and at risk- much like Jason did -he had siblings that existed, no further details- and parents weren't mentioned. Instead a lot of engineering talk, a slide into ethics -Dan's opinion on killing super villains was very much that some people needed Ended- and some small talk about how Dan's high school English teacher cursed in classical book titles.

Soon the easy joy of potential friendship ended when his phone rang; that was the Batman ringtone and Jason felt no guilt hanging up on him. And again. And again.

Then Dick rang and nope. He was not dealing with their shit. Dick would just sweeten up whatever shit B wanted to shovel.

And then Oracle's ringtone rang. Oh, now that was serious. Justice League shit spilling into his life again. No fucking doubt about it.

"Uh-huh, so what's up? Because I gotta say, I am a couple drinks in and the whole bar is waiting for one of the football teams to fumble or foul up their next play so they can throw down."

"Jay-" She started because much like Bruce, she would rather go straight into the mission, and Jason absolutely had wrong-footed her. Because instead of making excuses to leave, Jason had absolutely stayed. So now she had to rephrase things on the fly because who knows who might be listening in. "Hey, it's on the news that the Justice League is showing up in Vegas; something about investigating something magical showing up."

"Uh-huh, that's not a surprise. There was some magic ninny flying in a panic earlier. I decided it wasn't my business."

"I hadn't heard that," -bullshit, she just hadn't double-checked that herself yet- "but what I did hear that some cult might have succeeded in bringing something over."

"Uh-huh. Well, no one's praying to Cthulu yet, there's been no troublemaking beyond the usual human malice and nothing's on fire."

"We were just concer-" And Jason hung up on Oracle.

He'd pay for that later, but petty was satisfying now.

"Sounded important."

"Was bullshit."

"So an entity summoned by a cult that tripped a bunch of magicians into a tizzy-"

Yeah, those sharp ears were not for show. Enhanced hearing check. "That's a bunch of incompetents panicking." Time for his good guess to hit or miss. "You're not going to decide to destroy Vegas, are you?"

"Done it before, doing it again seems pointlessly petty." Statements Jason wasn't going to prod further right now.

"And what if Wisconson University loses?"

"Might flip the table." Dan shrugged.

"More beer?" Jason asked.

"Sure."

[althaiareads]

“The carnitas are my weakness, and the gringas.” He points to two dishes on the board.

Girllll, carnitas? Ik it's basic, but I love them. The first time I met one of my (now) best friends, who is mexican, she cooked a whole assortage of tacos: birria, tinga, pastor, carnitas, everything you can imagine and I just fell in love with them. Actually,I'm gonna have them for lunch today, in honor of Frankie.

“Good name, great name, very solid.” Sophia smiles, “I approve of his mother’s choice of name.” 

Okay, I just fell in love with Sophia, she and I are besties now, I don't make the rules.

The night is a disaster. As you let the door to your place slam shut behind you, you slip down to the floor, tugging your heels off as hot tears start welling up.

Nooooo, wait, noooo. What happened, everything was going so well :(((((. SOPHIA HAD ALREADY APPROVED HIM.

In all honesty, though, I, too, would run as far away as possible from a man who got, like, physically violent in front of me, even if it was to "defend me". Just the one experience with a violent guy is enough for me, lmao. But, then again, our boy has his load of trauma and it's not like he's not taking actual steps towards changing those violent default patterns. Also, he has a pretty good grasp of who the "bad guy" of the situation is, which is not nothing.

Girl, this was so good, I live for how in love they are already, the neediness, is so so good. Hopefully they make up quickly. I get the feeling there's a deeper reason behind her reaction too, so a very long and honest conversation between them both is due!

The Pilot and his girl - ch. 3

So I have a clear plan for where this fic is going now, yay! I've outlined about 13-14 chapters and we're gonna do a little bit of TLoU crossover down the line so expect a Joel/Tommy cameo at some point :) I also decided on a title finally so it's now offically The Pilot and his girl

I'll add warnings as needed but there's only fluff in these first few chapters, playing around with our sweet Frankie.

(oh, btw, for anyone who notices, I know "chamo" is Venezuelan, but I love the expression, maybe the chef is from Venezuela :) )

Taglist: @pimosworld

Chapter 4

It’s not until Denny drives past in his truck and honks loudly that Frankie and you finally break apart, you’re giggling into Frankie’s neck as he waves at his boss and from the corner of your eye you see Denny give Frankie a gleeful thumb’s up through the window.  

“Maybe I should take you somewhere nicer than an airfield,” Frankie says and pushes back a strand of your hair. He’s got his hand hooked around your shoulders, behind your head, and the other still on your cheek. He’s warm and solid pressed up against you, the warm metal of the car at your back and him in front. 

“I don’t wanna break the mood,” you smile at him, “but I’m really hungry. Do you wanna have lunch since our breakfast was cut short?” 

“I’m fucking starving,” Frankie confesses with a grin. “There’s a small place nearby that does really good tacos if you like that? They’re really good and they’re usually quiet during the day.”

“Tacos sounds awesome, I haven’t had any in ages.” 

“Ok then, let’s get some tacos in you,” Frankie pulls you in for a final kiss, which turns into another long, slow exploration of each other's tongues until Frankie’s stomach rumbles loudly in protest and you start giggling pressed against his lips. Frankie reluctantly lets go of your bottom lip and glances down at his small belly. 

“Traitor,” he scolds it and reaches behind you to open the door to the truck, giving you a hand inside. 

…

The taco place really is nearby, less than ten minutes later Frankie pulls into a small parking lot next to a green park. Across the road is a small cluster of buildings, one sporting a big chilli pepper and the sign “El Chibiski” in bright colours. 

“I thought we could get some food and then eat in the park if you want?” Frankie asks as he parks the car and pulls off his hoodie, you copy him and leave his green one in the truck. 

“You’ve got this all planned out, it sounds like a great idea,” you say as he jumps out of the car and quickly comes round to your side to open the door. “You’re never gonna let me open this door, are you?” you smile as he takes your hand and you step down. 

“No, never,” he grins and closes it behind you. 

The taqueria is almost empty, the lunch rush over, and the smell that hits you as Frankie opens the door is mouth watering. As if on cue your stomach rumbles and he chuckles as you look at the menu over the counter. 

“Got any recommendations?” you ask him, “I definitely want some pastor but it all looks good.” 

“The carnitas are my weakness, and the gringas.” He points to two dishes on the board. “I say we get all three and some bistec ones too and just share everything, seeing as they don’t have fries on the menu.” He says the last thing with a grin and a quick glance at you. 

“I guess that means you’re getting a second date, Morales,” you huff in fake exasperation, “should’ve known you had ulterior motives.” 

“Oh no, you’ve seen right through my clever plans, cariño,” he giggles as you give him a playful slap on the shoulder. He gives your hand a quick squeeze, smiling under his cap, before stepping forward to order, adding a couple of bottles of water too. 

You watch Frankie chat in Spanish to the guy taking the order, exchanging jokes as he relays the order back to the kitchen. It sounds like Frankie comes here a lot by the way the chef greets him too when he spots him through the open order window. It’s an easy atmosphere and it’s nice seeing Frankie’s relaxed manner with the staff. You can only see him from behind but his head falls back as he laughs loudly at something the guy behind the counter says, and the chef yells a response from the kitchen, making them break out into more laughter. There’s something about seeing a guy you’re dating be liked by others, like a little green flag popping up. But to be fair, so far you’d seen no red flags around Frankie. He seems to be exactly what he looks like; a friendly guy, a little bit shy sometimes, but easy to like and easy to be around, a warm personality that seems to shine when he’s comfortable and in his element. You find yourself smiling as you hear Frankie laughing again, he makes you feel good, even though you’ve known him less than twenty four hours.  

When he comes back over he's got a big grin on his face, still chuckling from the jokes at the counter. 

“They always tell the dirtiest jokes,” he says, “I’m too embarrassed to translate them,” he smiles as he sits down in the chair next to you. 

“You know I speak Spanish, right?” you smirk at him and his eyes widen in shocked surprise and his neck immediately starts turning red, his cheeks tinged with pink. 

“¿Tú hablas español?” 

“Not a word, but seeing you blush was totally worth the lie, you’re so cute.” You can’t help touching his flushed cheeks. 

Frankie bursts into rumbling laughter as he grabs you and pulls you closer, chair and all. “Cheeky girl,” he grins and takes hold of your chin before kissing you softly. You kiss him back with a smile and his scruffy beard tickles your cheek when he moves his lips and presses a soft kiss just below you ear. 

“Maybe I should teach you some Spanish,” he murmurs, his breath hot against your skin, “so I can tell you exactly what you do to me when you’re this close.” He presses his lips to the thin skin under your ear again, letting his tongue slip out for a taste of the salt before kissing it again. Your breath catches in your throat as a shiver runs down your spine, heat pooling between your legs, creeping up your neck. When Frankie leans back he gives you a cheeky smile. “Now who’s blushing, hermosa?” 

You hook a couple of fingers into his t-shirt and pull him in for another kiss and he comes willingly, still with a cheeky smile. 

It takes a few more minutes, you’re lost in your own bubble with Frankie, but when someone loudly clears their throat next to you, you reluctantly lean back and look up. 

“Chamo, enserio?” The chef is holding out a take away bag for Frankie, grinning down at him, and Frankie gives a little embarrassed shrug and takes the bag while the chef gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder, smiles at you and retreats into the kitchen, waving at Frankie’s “Gracias”. 

Frankie calls out a goodbye to the guy behind the counter as you leave the restaurant, his hand seems to automatically fall to the small of your back now, and you cross the street to the park. The park isn’t big, but big enough so that when you walk towards the middle the noises from the street and the city are muted. Frankie stops by his truck and pulls out a blanket from the backseat and when you find a shady spot under a big leafy tree he shakes it out for you both to sit on. 

The smell from the take away containers makes your stomach rumble as Frankie pops them open and when you finally get to bite into a taco with pastor meat you moan and let your head fall back. 

“This is so fucking good, Frankie,” you groan and go for another bite, missing how Frankie’s hands stops trying to pick up one of the carnitas as his eyes go dark, fixed on your mouth. He swallows and shifts on the blanket, looking down at his food again. 

“Yeah, they do the best Mexican in town, we go there for lunch a lot since it’s so close to the airfield.” He grabs his taco and keeps his eyes on it as he takes a big bite, trying to ignore the way you moan again at the taste. 

“I can see why you like it, I’d be here every lunch if it was this close to my job,” you say, trying to catch some juice that’s running down your hand. 

“I go too often to be honest, I think the carnitas are directly responsible for my old man’s belly,” Frankie looks down at his midriff and pats the small soft swell under his t-shirt, “definitely not as flat as it was in my 20’s.” 

“I like it,” you say, “can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but…it’s kinda sexy on a guy, something soft when you’re all hard angles and muscles everywhere else.”

“You think my old man’s belly is sexy?” Frankie is looking pretty pleased about your confession. 

“Yeah, I do. And stop calling it an old man’s belly, you can’t be that old?” 

“34, and I’m already going grey,” Frankie scrubs at his beard, where there’s a few strands of grey with the dark brown. 

“Oh yeah, you’re ancient.” you smile and touch your fingertips to his few grey hairs. “A whole two years older than me.” 

“I nearly had a panic attack when I saw the first grey one,” Frankie says, “but my friend Pope has loads and he’s younger so I try not to worry.” 

“I think you look really good, Frankie, with or without grey hair,” you reply and he looks over with a warm smile, his eyes crinkling in that way that makes him look so soft and sweet. 

“Thank you, hermosa, and I think you’re probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” 

“Frankie…” you blush and can’t even make yourself look at him as he continues to smile at you. “I’m serious,” he says, “you made my heart stop when you smiled in the bar last night, and you weren’t even looking at me.” 

You’re too overwhelmed by his attention to even find your voice and just blush even more like a fool while you pretend to pick another taco from the boxes. Your heart is racing at a hundred miles per hour and you can still feel Frankie smiling at you, his half eaten taco in hand. 

“Fuck!” Frankie suddenly sputters out. You look up at him and see a large drip of juice from his taco trickling down his white t-shirt. “Damn, I guess I was pushing my luck with the tacos after the cherry pie,” he grumbles and gratefully takes the napkins you hand him. Wiping at the stain only makes it worse, spreading it out, and Frankie soon gives up, accepting his now stained appearance. “Can’t take me anywhere,” he gives you an apologetic smile and finishes off his carnita. 

It’s easy to hang out with Frankie as you share the remaining tacos, sitting close to him on the blanket, talking about movies. He’s making a list of horror movies for a future date and your loud protests make him laugh as he lists one movie gorier than the other. Finally you force him to have the last carnita, your stomach already full, and as he bites into it you tip backwards onto the blanket. 

“I’m so full, Frankie, I’m never eating again,” you groan as you put your hands over your belly, laying flat on your back. You can hear Frankie chuckle with his mouth full and you glance up at his profile. The air is warm in the shade under the tree, the light filtering through the leaves makes a dappled pattern over his body and cheeks but his nose and eyes are still shaded by the peak of his cap. 

“Frankie, come here,” you beckon him and he turns to look down at you as you put your hand on his shoulder. He wipes his hands and his mouth on a napkin, before stretching out next to you, propping himself up on his elbow.

“Can I take your cap off?” 

“Sure,” he replies with a smile, and you reach up and pull it off him. The sun immediately creates a halo of unruly curls around his head and you can see the dark brown of his eyes change to something more amber. Looking at the way the sun turns his dark brown curls golden you reach up and push your fingertips through them, your nails scratching along his scalp as the smooth strands slip underneath your hands. A shiver runs through him and he closes his eyes, leaning into your hands, as you play with his curls, letting them wrap around your fingers and watch how they bounce back when you let go. Frankie sighs and drops down on your chest, resting his head just above your stomach. “Please, don’t stop doing that,” he pleads and you continue to run your fingers through his hair, hearing him moan gently as his breathing slows down. 

You’re not sure when he actually falls asleep but when you hear a soft snore from him you realise he’s in a deep slumber on your chest, one arm thrown across your stomach. Continuing to caress his curls, making them stand on end even more, you close your eyes too and enjoy the feeling of his solid body pressed against your side and warm breaths against your t-shirt. It doesn’t take long before you’re asleep too. 

…

Frankie wakes up first, blinking at the bright light and feeling disorientated before turning his head and seeing you sleeping with a hand in his hair. Your head is tilted sideways, your mouth slightly open and he can feel your chest rise and fall with your gentle breaths. Carefully he pushes himself up so that he can move his arm and slide the back of his hand across your cheek. Sleep and sun has made your skin flushed and he relishes the silky feel of it as he caresses you lightly. 

The movement must have roused you because he sees your eyes move as you slowly blink, turning your head to focus on him. 

“Hi,” he says gently with a smile and you smile back at him, “Hi, Frankie.” 

You yawn, clamping a hand over your mouth and giggling as it makes Frankie yawn too. He scoots up further so that he can prop himself up on his elbow closer to your head and his hand leaves your cheek, caressing down your neck, stroking random patterns over your skin. 

“I guess tacos make us sleepy,” he smiles and you nod, slightly distracted by how close he is as he leans over you, blocking the sun. His curls are even more unruly, sticking up all over his head, and you run your hand over them again, lacing in your fingers into the curls at his neck and pulling him down towards your mouth. He comes willingly, his lips finding yours easily and when he parts them for you, his tongue is soft and eager against yours. The cool tip of his nose brushes against your cheek as he moves closer, deepening the kiss when you let out a low moan against him. Your fingers wrap tightly around his neck and your other hand finds the side of his chest, the warm cotton soft against your palm as you touch him properly for the first time. He’s firm under your touch, bunched muscles as he holds himself up over you and you caress further up his back. You relish in being able to feel the curve of his shoulder, the way his spine dips between his shoulder blades and disappears down towards the edge of his jeans, wishing there was no fabric under your hand. 

You feel his hand leave your neck, graze across your throat and softly brush against your breast as Frankie lets his fingertips trail down along your torso, finding the sliver of skin between your jeans and t-shirt. With a soft grip he runs his thumb along it, grabbing your waist and pulling you closer. 

“Is this ok?” he whispers close to your mouth as his hand caresses under your t-shirt. 

“Yes, Frankie,” you murmur and push your lips against his, tasting him on your tongue as your need for him grows, a louder moan escaping you. Your response makes him bolder and he pushes you into the blanket with a growl, buried against your mouth. His large hand is flat against your torso and you can feel how he wants to move it further up under your shirt, to feel more, grab more, but you’re still out in the open, still in public, and with a groan he pulls back. He slumps down beside you, burying his face in the crook of your neck with a sigh. His hand leaves your skin, instead he rests it modestly on your stomach, over your t-shirt. 

“Tan suave, hermosa,” he mumbles, “When can I see you again?” He pushes himself up on his elbow again, looking down at you with eyes that seem darker. 

“I’m busy next weekend, the wedding,” you explain with an apologetic smile, “but after that I’m all yours.” 

“All mine, huh?” Frankie grins and you wink back at him. “I wanna take you out for dinner, properly, but I also don’t wanna wait two weeks to see you again,” he says, “maybe we can catch up for drinks or something before then? Or dinner if things aren’t too crazy at the airfield, depending on when I can get away.” 

“I’d like that, Frankie, “ you smile at him, “I’ll check with the bride what the plans are for this week so I know what evenings I’m free, I know she had some sort of social events planned and then the rehearsal dinner on Friday.” 

“Wow, she’s going all out with this wedding?” Frankie raises his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, full on everything, rehearsal dinner, actual wedding day and then spa day and brunch on Sunday. I’m going to work on Monday after the wedding to relax…” you sigh, thinking about how drained you were going to be after three days of socialising with a crowd mostly made up of strangers. “Speaking of next week,” you say with a glance at your phone, “I should probably get home and get everything ready for it.” 

“Yeah, sounds like you’ve got an intense week coming up,” Frankie smiles and pushes himself up to his feet before giving his hand to you, pulling you to your feet. “I’d love to see you soon if you can but don’t stress it, there’s time.” 

He pulls you in for a kiss as you stand, wrapping your arms around his neck before sliding his hands down your waist, stopping to tug you closer to him. You press up against him, feeling his belt buckle dig into your stomach and his mustache tickles you as he gently makes you open your mouth to him again. Kissing him feels addicting and when he starts pulling away you slip your fingers into the curls at the back of his head and slowly let your fingernails run along his scalp. He immediately moans and pulls closer again, melting against you. 

It takes you a while to get back to the truck, stopping for more kisses, Frankie’s arm wrapped around your shoulders, and his soft lips so easy to reach up to, his hand sliding up to hold your neck, grabbing your hair and pulling you in for another long kiss while the afternoon slips away. When you’re finally by the passenger door he cages you in against the truck, his hands on either side of your head as you pull him closer, needing more of him. It leaves you both breathless, Frankie shifting his stance when his obvious hard on becomes uncomfortable but it does nothing to hide it. 

“Sorry,” he mutters when he pulls back a little from you, giving you an embarrassed little grin, “it’s difficult to control when you’re so close, hermosa, you feel so good.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” you mumble, pulling him back, “mine’s less obvious but just as out of control.” Frankie groans and drops his head to his chest before taking a deep breath, “Ok, I need to get you home before you say more things like that.” He opens the door behind you, “Get in before I change my mind.” 

…

Frankie drives back to the coffee shop where your car is parked and pulls up next to it, again jumping out and coming around to your door to open it. You stay in your seat until he puts out his hand for yours this time and he gives you a warm smile. 

“You’re learning, cariño, never letting you touch this door.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you smile back and take his hand and step down. He holds onto it as you walk over to your car, parked just down the street. After you unlock it and put your jacket inside you turn back to him. He’s smiling down at you, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his face is so handsome and warm it makes you wish you could call off all the plans for the week and just spend it with him. 

“I’ve had a really good time, Frankie,” you say as his hand comes up to cup your cheek, his thumb smooth over your skin. 

“Me too,” he says, “call me about next week, I’ll make sure that Denny lets me leave on time any evening you’re not busy. I really want to see you again soon, hermosa.” The last thing he says as his thumb caresses your lips, tracing the outline of them, his eyes flitting between your eyes and your mouth. 

“I’ll see if I can get out of some of all the social events, maybe Wednesday’s…” You close your eyes as Frankie’s beard tickles the side of your neck, his lips moving slowly over your skin. “You’re making it very hard to concentrate, Frankie,” you protest weakly and you hear him chuckle before he pulls back. 

“Ok, I’ll let you go,” he gives you a grin, “I need to start planning our movie date, need to get my dvd of The Shining back, I thought we’d start with that one.” 

Your face pulls into a grimace, wrinkling your nose at the prospect of a horror film and it makes Frankie laugh. 

“Un-wrinkle your face, hermosa,” he rubs his thumb down your nose with a grin, “I won’t really make you watch it if you don’t want to.” 

“Let’s start with something less scary, please.” 

“Anything you want, really,” he replies and you lean into him, kissing him one last time before getting in your car. “Thank you, Frankie, for today.” 

“See you soon, hermosa,” he smiles back at you. 

…

Your week turns out to be more hectic than anticipated and as Friday rolls around you still haven't been able to see Frankie. Between your work, his work and the looming wedding, all you’d managed was a few phone calls late in the evenings when you got home. You’d hear Frankie’s sleepy voice assure you it wasn’t too late when you called him and then his rich baritone would keep you company as you got ready for bed. On Thursday you’d crawled into bed and facetimed him, his dimly lit bedroom making his eyes black as he smiled at your big yawns. You wish you could ask him to come over and just sleep next to you, the ache for him almost physically painful. When you said goodnight and turned off your phone you rolled onto your side, trying to imagine what it would feel like if you had Frankie’s warm body curled around your own as you drifted off to sleep. 

Friday morning you put on your office clothes and pack a bag for the rehearsal dinner; a dress and heels to swap into after work before heading to the very upscale restaurant booked by the groom’s parents. Frankie has sent you a sweet good morning text and you reply as you wait for your coffee to drip down, smiling at his usual lack of capital letters, punctuation or any apostrophes. You’d asked him about it during the week, thinking maybe his phone was broken, and after a few awkward chuckles he’d confessed; he just hadn’t figured out how to do them on a smartphone and now he was too embarrassed to ask anyone. You’d tried to not laugh, his flustered huffs down the phone made you want to hug him tight, and you’d promised to show him how to do it the next time you met. 

“Didn’t realise I’d need a college degree just to type on the phone,” he’d chortled. 

…

You manage to leave work a little bit early and change into your dress and heels, touching up your make-up and hair, before heading out. As you arrive early to the restaurant you find one of your best friends, Sophia, at the bar. She’d missed the bachelorette party and had only just flown in for the wedding weekend, her suitcase still next to her bar stool. She waves both her hands over her head when she spots you and you all but run over to her with your arms outstretched. 

“It’s so good to see you, sweetie,” Sophia says after you’ve both stopped hugging and squealing, tucking her arm under yours, squeezing it tightly. “I miss having you around.” 

“Well, that’s what happens when you move to another continent and decide to marry some random Welsh girl,” you reply. Sophia had married Carys three years earlier and moved back with her to London a year later. “Speaking of, where is she? Not here for the wedding?”

“She is, but she had to wrap something up at work, she’ll be here in time for dinner.” 

The bartender comes over and you both order champagne, seeing as it’s the groom’s parents who will be footing the bill for the open bar. Sophie grabs her suitcase and glass and motions you over to one of the booths. 

“So what’s going on with you? I hate to be the one that asks the obvious question but…anyone new in your life? It’s been ages since..you know who…and I’d love to see you happy with someone.” 

You take a sip of the champagne to avoid answering straight away. You didn’t like talking about the people you were dating too soon, preferring to find your footing and know where it was heading before fielding a hundred questions from your friends. But Sophia was different, she wouldn’t start planning your wedding or pester you to introduce him to her, and she was a solid judge of character. 

“Ok, so…” you start slowly and Sophia lights up, her smile like a thousand watts, “I did meet this one guy last Saturday.” 

“I fucking knew it!” she exclaims, “you looked different, happy different, sweetie.” 

“We’ve only had one date so far, but it was really nice,” you say, smiling at the memory of your Sunday with Frankie. 

“What’s his name?” Sophia asks, sipping her drink. 

“Frankie, Francisco Morales.” 

“Good name, great name, very solid.” Sophia smiles, “I approve of his mother’s choice of name.” 

“Dumbass,” you chide her with a snicker. “He was at the last bar we went to with the bachelorette party, he was there with some friends, and he was so sweet and handsome and kinda shy that I gave him my number, despite swearing to never do that again.” 

“Sweet and handsome is good, what does he look like?” 

“I won’t do him justice at all, but he has brown, curly hair, dark brown eyes and an adorable scruffy beard with a dimple. But his face is just perfectly sweet and soft and when he smiles his eyes go all warm and I feel like I can’t move when he looks at me.” 

“Girl, you have a crush on this man, I can tell…” Sophia giggles and clinks her glass against yours. 

“I do, I can’t deny,” you laugh with her. “We kissed on Sunday and, oh my god, I just wanted to take him home and keep him in my bed for a week, maybe two.” You lean back, sighing as you remember how Frankie’s body felt pressed up against yours, his eager tongue slipping against yours as his hand slipped under your t-shirt. 

“So do it, what have you got to lose?” 

“Nothing, but this week has been crazy and the entire weekend is packed. He knows I’m busy so we’re gonna try to meet up for drinks some night next week. But definitely dinner next Saturday,” you take another sip of your champagne. 

“Ok, but what are you doing here tonight, babe?” Sophia looks at you with a frown. “It’s not like you have to be at the rehearsal dinner, bail and go see him instead.” 

“Lizzy would kill me, and if not her than Steve’s mother, they’re paying for this thing.” 

“Lizzy will not kill you if you ditch her for a guy that makes you smile like that,” Sophia points a meaningful finger at your face, you can’t seem to make the corners of your mouth go down. Talking about Frankie has you longing for him and as Sophia pokes you in the side you start giggling, wriggling away from her. “Go see him, call him right now, see if he’s free, and then you go fuck his brains out and come to the wedding as a new woman.” She pokes you again, “Go now, call him. If he’s available I’ll talk to Lizzy.” 

“Ok, ok, jeez, woman, I’m going,” you laugh and push yourself out of the booth. 

You leave the bar area and wander out to the patio in the back, away from the crowd that’s starting to congregate in the restaurant, as you pull up Frankie’s number on your phone. 

“Hey, hermosa,” his warm, rich voice comes through the phone after two rings and you feel yourself smiling. “What’s up, I thought you were at the rehearsal dinner? 

“I am, it’s just about to start. I just wanted to talk to you, I wish we could’ve made time to meet up this week.” 

“Yeah, me too, cariño, I’m sorry I was so busy at work.” 

“No, I’m the one who’s had the crazy week and all the stuff planned this weekend. But I was thinking, maybe I can sneak away from this dinner early and we can meet up, unless you already have plans?”

“I do, I’m meeting the boys for a couple of drinks, but I will most definitely ditch them for you any day.” You can hear the smile in his voice as he gets eager about the idea. 

“Maybe if I stay for the actual dinner here and leave when that’s done? So you can hang out with your friends first and then we can meet up for a drink or something?” 

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, we’re going to some new place downtown that Will wanted to try out, and I think it’s pretty close to your restaurant. Send me a message when dinner is done and I’ll come and meet you there, ok?” In the background you can hear someone yell, “Come on, Fish!” and he calls for them to give him a sec. 

“Go Frankie, go with them, I’ll message you when I’m done.” You feel heat rising in your cheeks at the thought of seeing Frankie again so soon. Frankie’s voice is softer and lower, you can hear him walking, his boots scuffing across a hard surface as he replies. 

“Can’t wait, hermosa, I miss you.” 

“Miss you too, Frankie.” 

…

True to her word, Sophia pulls Lizzy to one side during the dinner and explains why you’ll be disappearing as soon as her uncle Herb has wrapped up his rambling speech about Steve mowing his lawn. Both women shoot you wide grins and thumbs up across the room as you excuse yourself while the coffee and dessert is being brought in, fumbling in your bag for your phone to text Frankie. 

You wait for him to arrive just inside the entrance of the restaurant and can’t help but laugh as Sophia’s head pops out from behind one of the large potted plants, looking like she’s in a bad spy movie. 

“What?” she giggles, “I just wanna see this guy who’s got you all smiley. I’ll be totally discreet.” 

“Come here, dumbass,” you say fondly, and she wraps her arms around you in a big hug. 

“Sweetie, I hope he’s all you want him to be, you deserve this.” 

“Thanks, Soph, you’ve always got my back,” you peck her on the cheek and she gives you a smile before glancing over at the big windows on either side of the glass door. 

“Please tell me that’s him,” she mouths, her eyes widening slightly. 

You turn and spot Frankie walking towards the door and your breath catches in your throat at the sight of him. He hasn’t seen you yet and as you watch he smooths his large hands down the front of his dark red button up shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off his strong looking forearms. He’s ditched the cap and the evening breeze ruffles his curls, making them escape the attempt you can see he’s made at taming them. He’s got dark jeans on, hugging his thighs and showing off his ridiculous shoulder to hip ratio. Spotting you through the door his eyes crinkle and he gives you that sweet nervous smile. You smile back at him as his hand shoots up and rubs the back of his neck, his ever present awkward little gesture that makes your heart clench. 

You’re about to turn and say goodbye to Sophia when she swiftly steps forwards and opens the door to the restaurant for Frankie. 

“You must be Frankie,” she beams at him, ushering him inside. 

“Uh, yeah, I am, hi,” he stutters, taking the hand Sophia holds out. 

“Hi Frankie,” you say, “this is my friend Sophia, she’s just leaving.” You give her a stern look that she ignores.

“Really nice to meet you, Frankie, I’m so happy I convinced my darling friend here to ditch this dull crowd and call you instead.” She’s still beaming at Frankie, unashamedly looking him up and down as you step closer to him. He seems to find himself a little and gives Sophia a friendly smile before turning his attention back to you. 

“Hi, hermosa,” he says in a low voice as he drops his head and kisses your cheek, his hand landing on your waist and pulling you closer.

Sophia gives you a quick thumbs up and an excited grin before Frankie looks up again. 

“Alright, Mr Morales, take my girl out and show her a good time, you have my blessing,” she croons and starts ushering you both out the door. “Now get going before you get roped into this damn wedding again, sweetie.” 

“Bye, Soph, I’ll see you tomorrow.” you call out as you leave, Frankie’s arm still around your waist. 

You both laugh as you walk down the street, getting away from the restaurant. “I’m sorry about the ambush,” you giggle, “She’s a bit of a whirlwind but she’s my best friend, I can’t deny her anything.” 

“She seems like a good friend, looking out for you,” he smiles. 

“Yeah, always.” You tug lightly at him, making him stop as you turn, looking up at him. “Hi,” you whisper and his arms wrap around your waist. 

“Hi,” he mumbles, dropping his head to your forehead, his eyes warm and soft. He stays still for a few beats but when you reach up for his lips he almost makes you stumble back with how fiercely he kisses you. His arms come up along your back, pulling you in as his tongue frantically licks into your mouth and you moan against him, his fevered advance making your body ache. A few moments pass, his body hard against your own as he seems to need to pull you as close as possible, his hot breath over your skin as he kisses you acutely. Only the loud whoop from across the street makes you break apart. 

“You’re so gorgeous in that dress, hermosa,” he murmurs as he reluctantly pulls back, letting his eyes slide over the black wrap dress and down your legs on display. “You’re always gorgeous but that dress on you…” he trails off, his hands slipping from your waist, down over your hips. His eyes are dark and you feel your own need mirrored in them as he looks up at you again. 

Eventually he takes your hand and starts walking again, “About that drink, yeah?”

You nod and let your breath slip out, slowly exhaling to calm your nerves, squeezing his hand tightly.

…

The night is a disaster. As you let the door to your place slam shut behind you, you slip down to the floor, tugging your heels off as hot tears start welling up. All you can see when you squeeze your eyes shut is Frankie’s furious face as he slammed the man against the wall, the dull thump of his fist against his face, the blood pouring from the battered nose. Sweet, shy Frankie suddenly dealing out violence, dropping the man with two swift punches and then turning back to you, taking hold of your arms, his knuckles still coated in blood, another man’s blood. 

You’d barely heard him as he tried to make sure you were ok. It had been nothing. The man had groped you as you left the ladies, you’d slapped his hand away and he’d grabbed your arm, pulling you around with a leer. Frankie had appeared at your side out of nowhere, the man slumping on the floor a moment later. But it was Frankie’s transformation that scared you, his face had been furious, but as the punches fell it was cold, emotionless, and he didn’t even flinch as blood spluttered from the man’s broken nose. When he took hold of your arms, looking down at you, he had blood on his shirt and you couldn’t look away from it. Frankie’s face was still impassive, only a slight frown, as he asked you again if you were hurt. You stared back at him, pulling your eyes away from the blood, it was on his skin too. Suddenly, severely aware of how little you knew Frankie, you pulled away from him, scared of the man in front of you, of the violence he’d shown. 

Who could be that violent? 

Who would punch a man so hard he didn’t get up again? 

You’d stammered something, telling him you needed to think, to not follow you, seeing the shock on Frankie’s face turn to despair as you backed away, his hands still on your arms, slowly letting go. Turning your back on him you heard him speak your name but you ignored it, the adrenaline in your system was spiking, making your hands shake and your legs move quickly. 

You hold it together in the Uber home but now you’re on the floor of your hallway, sobbing at the unfairness of everything. 

Chapter 4

[unpretty]

this is unsolicited advice, i know, but my 12+ years of terrible ibs and hypersensitivity to things that were 'spicy' (had any capsaicin or cayenne pepper) turned out to just be mcas the whole time and taking cromolyn/antihistamines means i can eat like. ice cream and pizza and peppers without wanting to die about it. might be something to look into!

i don't think it's anything that serious since it's all just minor annoyances and i don't think i've ever experienced anything that suggests a life-threatening condition

however it has also been brought to my attention that i've got a 5-7 beighton score (the knee situation is unclear because my thighs are huge and i was just doing this at home for funsies) so my ability to be like "well that's probably not weird enough to worry about" is pretty high i guess

and i do have the self-diagnosed rosacea making me flush red like crazy all the time

and i've always had the weird asthma thing making me wheeze and cough for hours after trying to run (they tried giving me an inhaler at one point and it didn't help and it never got investigated further)

and i've had ibs basically since i was born and got diagnosed with acid reflux in elementary school

and lately i've been getting extra annoyed at how hot my legs but specifically my knees and the tops of my feet get after running/walking/whatever. especially my feet, the weird heat rash thing is obnoxious.

so! who knows!! maybe in the aggregate there's Something. once i've finished paying off the thousand or so they charged me for the last bloodwork they did to tell me i'm fine i might mention it to someone, at some point.

[happilyghostlyarie]

I made a comment on a tiktok video from a creator I like who basically said people not focusing in CaitVi was kinda lesbian erasure. Sure I got what they meant but in comparison to the other couples CaitVi really suffered from the show being rushed.

The jail scene was great but the other couples got gorgeously animated scenes with wonderful music that left me sobbing.

Cait committed war crimes and got no repercussions. I'm not against her being evil or morally grey but they went nowhere with that plotline but also didn't bother to really redeem her. Sure she faced her grief but didn't get shit for what she caused which made me feel weird with her character. A scene showing her the effects of her gassing could have been good or helping out personally with the people of the underground due to what she caused. Also my memory might be wrong but did she apologize to Vi for the shit she said when she hit her?

Vi also is just such a depressing character. I love her to pieces but her and Cait ending up together felt like a consolation prize for having a shitty life.

Their love didn't move me which is fine. It really doesn't need to but not liking it as much as others is fine.

I loved them in the first season and they started great this season but the just ended very okay.

I have other points but I just wanted to get this out of my system because some tiktok comments yelled at me and told me I didn't understand the show because of my own opinion?

[amxrany]

!! CHAPTER 7 / DIASOMNIA ARC SPOILERS !!

I'm so excited for this part (Leona's Dream):

So Leona's dream also takes place in Afterglow Savannah, and we find out that Ruggie didn't suffer from any side-effects because he's used to being dizzy from Magift. Azul, on the other hand, is already close to dying and clinging to Sebek; so Ruggie offers to get him something to drink.

But something strange is going on, the street has lesser people than usual and when Ruggie tries to talk to one of the shop owners she proceeds to yell at him that there's no food for hyenas. Residents start scrambling when they see Ruggie and yeah it's pretty much discrimination. Sebek finds this an odd jump from the two previous dreams.

So they head to the palace to look for Leona, but notice that there's no guards. Ruggie notes that the palace is usually guarded by female beastfolk because they're known for how strong they are. So he assumes that something must have happened inside, that's when a group of hyena beastmen approach them.

So Sebek and Jack ain't buying shit with the beastmen's behavior, Azul and Ruggie try to stop them; but the hyena beastmen reveal themselves to be shadows and proceed to attack the group. We reach the throne room where we see Kifaji and Leona. This is where we get the Kifaji voice reveal and HOLY SHIET LEONAAAAAA.

So Leona's dream is basically just the Lion King if Scar succeeded in getting rid of Simba for real. Leona's Father died, Farena and Cheka died due to an "accident", this leaves Leona as the heir to the kingdom.

But the kingdom proceeded to fall into shit once Leona took over, because they tried fixing the slums with technology that was too advanced, which resulted in pollution, food scarcity and the animals leaving. Kifaji and Leona are seen arguing, with Leona telling him that the plan was perfect and that the people are to blame with the kingdom's downfall. Kifaji argues back by telling him that people aren't chess pieces and as a king, he should know that by now.

That's when we hear commotion outside, it's a mob of angry people lead by Dream!Ruggie, he claims that Leona isn't his king for giving them nothing to eat and the mob demands him to give the country back to them. That's when Leona's like "if ya'll hate the country so much why don't you leave."

The group couldn't do anything at the moment so they find a place to stay at the moment. Ruggie takes the group to Sunshine Villa, a luxury hotel, Sebek wonders if we can even pay for all of this and Ruggie's like it's fine since we have the Shrouds. He found out that the Shrouds are under the Jupiter Company and can pay for the food.

Oh yeah wanna know how bad the food scarcity in the country is? It's to the point that when they try to order food the waitress tells them that there's no ingredients.

That's when Ortho brings up the fact that Leona is usually the type of person to know when he's dreaming. But then Idia butted in that, sure Leona can notice things faster than a regular person but what if he isn't aware of it, considering this is Malleus' magic we're talking about.

Silver then asks why is Leona's dream so painful if Malleus' intention was to give them happy dreams? That's when Idia brings up the possibility that Leona's dream operates like a sandbox game, where you can pretty much do anything and everything (yes, even cause destruction). Ortho adds that it's possible for Leona to go for a realistic simulation of him becoming the King.

That's when Jack asks: If Leona knew the risks of his choice, why would he still do it? Ruggie says that it Leona wanted it to go on anyways. Then Ortho uses a scenario where Idia would sneak out in the middle of the night to get ice cream, even though he knows that Ortho will get mad, he still does it anyways. That's when Sebek's like I wouldn't do such a thing! Until Silver exposes him for eating 2 baguettes in the middle of the night which led to him receiving a scolding from his mom 😭(Silver is Sebek's opps fr). Azul also brings up how tempting fried chicken is in the middle of the night (food really does hit different in the middle of the night huh?).

Ok going back to the topic, Leona's imagination is the whole reason why the dream is so complicated, which makes it a challenge to wake him up. So Azul suggest that we find a way to ake the control off Leona. The idea was leading a revolution, but they need a leader who can take Leona's place, Ruggie mentions Cheka so they all go along with him.

But the problem is Cheka is considred "dead" in this dream, so Ortho creates a 3D model of him but he can't get it to move because they lack the data on him. That's when Jack realizes that they can use Ruggie's UM as a way for Cheka to move, which is actually brilliant. They also let Ruggie do Cheka's voice through speakers, basically turning him into a Cheka Vtuber.

Things start to get worse in the palace, with the guards starting to get violent with the people. So Azul, Sebek and Silver stay behind to fight the guards while the rest rush to the throne room.

When Leona demands Kifaji to bring him meat, Kifaji told him that there's nothing left to eat and none of this happened with Farena. Leona did not like that statement, so he uses his UM on Kifaji. THAT'S WHEN RUGGIE CONTROLLED CHEKA JUMPS IN LMAOOO.

JACK JUMPS ON HIM TOO BWAHAHAHAHA

Kifaji's surprised that Cheka is alive. Cheka (controlled by Ruggie) tells Leona that he's a bad king and that the throne belongs to him but Leona's UM causes the hologram to break blowing their covers up. That's when Leona chokes Ruggie again, not recognizing him. BUT KIFAJI COMES IN WITH THE SAVE AND USES MAGIC AGAINST LEONA.

Ortho doesn't understand why Kifaji is siding with them when he's literally in Leona's dream, but Kifaji tells the group to escape. But there are too many shadows so we have no choice but to fight. Jack's impressed that Kifaji's strong and by the time the battle's over, we find out that Leona managed to escape. The group theorizes that the reason why Kifaji is on their side must be because of something deep, that Leona wants someone to stop him.

Jack manages to pick up Leona's trail and they find him outside being swallowed by the darkness and the group jumps in to follow him.

We land in a different scenario this time, it's basically a "what happens if Savanaclaw succeeds with stampede from Book 2" and Ruggie found it so awkward since Silver and Sebek are in the group right now 😭. But Diasomnia gets crushed and Savanaclaw's celebrating.

Azul expresses that they're terrible for doing that but Ruggie also tells him that he's in on it too with the potion he gave them. Azul defends himself that the contract stated that how they use the potion won't be his responsibility 🤷‍♀️.

Jack notices that Leona doesn't seem satisified even if he got his way. When he became King, he wasn't satisfied; seems like getting what he wants doesn't truly satisfy him.

So we repeat the events of Book 2 where we confront Leona but with Azul leading the group. Silver and Sebek tell him that the plan failed and that no one was harmed. That's when Leona noticed that there's 2 Ruggies that he starts to think if he's dreaming or not.

The shadows start asking the group on what they're doing with their "king'. but Jack tells the shadows that Leona isn't their "king", but their Dorm Leader. He tells Leona to remember everything, and that's what caused him to wake up.

But then the darkness comes back and tries to grab Ruggie but Leona runs to grab him and use all his strength to pull him out and throw him at Jack; sacrificing himself and giving into the darkness. Silver had no choice but to use his UM while Ruggie frantically screams Leona's name.

Now Leona's facing his inner demons (his overblot). His Overblot Self tells him that he could be a better king than Farena (as if we didn't what happened awhile ago). So they start fighting.

After the fight, Leona ends up back in Afterglow Savannah being blessed with rain. That's when Kifaji appears, both are aware that they're in a dream that Leona must wake up from. They converse for a bit until Leona says goodbye, and to Kifaji's laughter, he uses his UM to dry the place. He declares trhat he will choose where he belongs and how he lives.

The group finds Leona with the help of Ortho. Then Ruggie asks Leona why he helped him that time, he just responds that it's normal for him to help because he's a "true friend." Ruggie just replies that he has a lot of nerve for saying that after the events of Book 2 (but as a joke).

FUCK JACK CRIES YA'LL, HE SAYS THAT EVEN IF THEY AREN'T GOOS PEOPLE HE'S GLAD THAT THEY'RE SAFE 😭AND RUGGIE LEONA COME TO COMFORT HIM 😭

When Ortho explains to Leona what's going on, he already knew that Malleus was mysterious and had a feeling he would pull stuff like this but at the same time he's just tired and plans on taking a nap, telling us to wkae him up when the fight starts.

But they managed to convince him to join the group after telling him that Azul, Ruggie and Jack have used enough of their magic and need to rest for the big battle.

And this is the end of the Savanaclaw update, but for a moment can we talk about Leona's dream in contrast to Ruggie and Jack's dreams? We see that Ruggie and Jack both see Leona as someone dependable, a leader, someone who can change their country for the better. But when Leona becomes the king in his dream, everything just falls into shit. The amount of self-doubt he holds against himself reflects into his dream, he believes that he couldn't become a greast king for his people. That even if he went for something realistic for his dream, the country would just fall into ruin. Because of the ongoing battle he has with himself, he thinks that everyone has it out for him; but in reality, it's the opposite.

But we can also see that Kifaji is such an important figure in his life, even if Leona caused the downfall of the country; he still continued to stay by his side. He shows that he loves Leona by going against his schemes, telling him that he must wake up from this dream. This just goes to show how deep of a bond those two share and it kind of makes me emotional yknow 🥹.

Anyways enough of my rambles hope you guys enjoyed this update, we're getting the Heartslabyul this December (what a nice christmas gift) so stay tuned then!

Previous: Ruggie's Dream

(Note: This post is a summarized version of the update, info and pics comes from @/LBucchie, @/WitchDrug, and @/MoonlightEquin1 on x/twt, give them some support if you can)

[plumpybread]

Asking because of the previous ask, are you not a fan of Ethan anymore? If so, why?

It's complicated, I suppose (rant where i talk abt ethan but then also my OCs in general)

I really do not like the first version of Ethan I made like 3 years ago. Obviously I like indulging in devilish ideas but I don't know, it ended up turning into something I didn't really end up liking too much.

Then I revisited and sort of rewrote his story a bit a while back when making the OC archive site (I'm aware the site is not available anymore for the people who asked, I took it down myself) and was much happier with it for a while.

Don't get me wrong, I like Ethan, I know he's the OC people seem to like the most, but it's still like a personal mental battle of like maybe it's too effed up? Even when I draw characters going through unwilling/accidental extreme weight gain, I make them either ambivalent or accepting of their situation, but for Ethan it's kind of like torture, and I can't bring myself to get like..aroused and excited to draw more of that *personally*.

Changing up his lore wouldn't really work either since his story is based on helplessness and stuff, and it'd be disingenuous to make him be happy with his situation, so I've just sort of subconsciously decided to leave him as is and treat his content as its self contained story more than nsfw art to goon to, if that makes sense. I don't know, maybe I'm just thinking about it too much, but just wanted to say what goes through my head.

I also don't really revisit Ethan for the same reason I don't tend to draw much of all the past OCs I've made, as I see each of them as a way to explore different facets of how weight gain can manifest and adapt into a character's life to create a story around it, and I feel like I've covered most of the ground around them already.

All of my OCs come from a sudden short prompt that pops up in my head, usually out of nowhere. I suddenly wanted to make a big-hearted southern farm guy who was super massive and I immediately ran to draw Rudy, for example.

I draw them a little reference, with my typical bullet points next to them with basic info to get an idea of what their dynamic is like, and a more lengthily written backstory or description if I'm feeling fancy under it, and then for the next week or two it's all art of them and answering questions about them... and then another idea pops up, and a new OC comes in.

It's not that I get tired of them, but I just simply do not know what to draw with them. Ethan is the biggest outlier in this case, since he is my fattest OC and half immobile, you just don't really know how else to bring something new that's not him laying on his bed at a slightly different angle.

I guess that's why I always do OC asks, I sort of need them to be able to know what to draw with them, since I struggle coming with things like that by myself, and you know I always like avoiding drawing a character in a void with no context.

The Genshin Obesity AU is my longest running like "project"?? thing just because there is an endless amount of content I can pull from since there's all these characters, places and possibilities I can write from. My OCs are obviously much more self-contained and moreso serve as individual experiments to explore different people and scenarios, so after the 10th drawing of them... I genuinely do not know what else I can add to them.

I hope that was a bit insightful. I know most of you guys love Ethan, and I love him too! But I don't know, I guess this is why I don't tend to have immobile/near immobile OCs, since the potential art ideas for them drop to just them sitting on a mattress or sitting on the floor and I'm just left confused on what to do with them.

Maybe Ethan in his college days is something you guys might be interested in? Or I don't know, I'm just writing this post as my thoughts enter my head.

Sorry for the rant, I sure do love typing, hope this clears up some questions people might've had

[spiderb00]

Teach me - Megan Skiendiel

Megan Skiendiel X Reader  Synopsis - You've always liked football, so your girlfriend surprises you with the Rams game.  Genre – Fluff  a/n - I don't know MUCH about football, but I think my basic knowledge saved me here. Enjoy. <3  (request)

Sitting and watching the Rams game was relaxing, after days of work you just wanted to sit back and relax. Usually, this was one of the times when Megan wasn't with you, most of the time she would be out with the Kats, or doing something else while you were watching the game.

Today, however, the girl had sat next to you, and asked you to explain in detail how a game worked. You were confused, Megan had never had any interest in games or anything involving sports. But of course you explained everything she wanted to know, after all, all this just gave you more time with your girlfriend.

"So they basically kill each other?" Megan said, looking at the guy lying on the ground.

"They don't kill each other, they just have to stop the other team from scoring points." You said, eyes glued to the television.

"I never asked why you like these games so much..." Megan said, leaning on the couch and laying snuggled against your chest.

"I used to watch a lot when I was little. My family always liked sports, so we always got together to watch the games" You said, putting your left arm around your girlfriend, stroking her back, making the whole environment feel cozy and warm.

"Oh, what is he doing now?" Megan said, pointing to the screen, where the player was positioning himself.

"Ah, he's Kicker, he is responsible for field goals, extra points and kickoffs. He's very important to the team." You said, calmly explaining to the girl who was clearly confused by all the terms.

"Look, not that I'm complaining, but why did you take any interest in all this? You've never seemed this interested before." You said, giggling.

"Well, me and the girls were kind of invited to watch the Rams game, so I kind of wanted to understand at least a little bit..." The red-haired girl said with an embarrassed smile.

"Oh my god, Meg, this is amazing, baby. You're going to love it, it's really cool to be in a stadium, the energy kind of gets to you." You say, happy for your girlfriend.

"Well then I think you'll also like to know that I can bring a date, and I want to bring you." Megan says with a smile on her face. Your face lit up, Megan knew how much this meant to you, and she was happy she could make you feel special.

"No way, babe! Oh my god I love you so, so, so much." You said, as you spread kisses all over the girl's face.

Megan just laughed, the tickling that the kisses made on her face made her heart warm. After exchanging kisses, Megan looked at you smiling.

"Do you know who else will be there?" Megan asked, a teasing smile on her face.

"Sophia's girlfriend?" You asked, your excitement growing even more as you waited for the answer.

"Sophia's girlfriend." Megan stated with a smile on her face, it was really cool to her that you all were friends.

Even though Sophia's girlfriend is a little older than you (you're 19 and she's 21), you've always gotten along really well.

Oh my god, I love that girl, I HAVE TO CALL HER!!!" You said, forgetting about the game temporarily and going to grab your phone to call your friend.

In the end it seems that Manon was right.

The energy in the stadium was uplifting, having Megan by your side made everything better, and being in the presence of the girls definitely made you feel like the little girl watching the game with her family.

Everything seemed perfect, and when the game started, you made sure to watch everything alongside your girlfriend, commenting on everything and answering every question that crossed her mind.

"Thank you for bringing me here." You say into the shorter girl's ear.

Megan, who was clinging to your bicep, lifted her head from your shoulder to look into your eyes.

"You deserve, baby. I love you." The red-haired girl said, standing on her tiptoes and reaching his lips.

bending over a little to get more comfortable, you gave the younger girl another kiss on the lips, that moment was perfect, and every day you knew you fell even more in love with the girl.

I think you've noticed that I love making references to "Fam out", but you can't blame me, I'm kind of obsessed with them

[callistocalavarni]

Shifting and using LOA with OCD

I feel like it's important to talk about how harmful it can be to ignore this subject. So if you have ocd or anxiety and still want to shift or use loa this post is for you. I want to stress that it is ok to worry about intrusive thoughts. Just because you dwell on an obssesion does not mean its going to manifest. However, I still feel the need to share ways you can prevent your intrusive thoughts from making you stress while shifting and using loa. First we need to fully know what we are dealing with and then how to fix the issue.

If you are not aware, OCD has four stages:

Obssesion - Unwanted, intrusive, and distressing thoughts, images or urges. (sometimes these thoughts are not clear and can just feel like impending doom without reason.) These intrusions are unwanted and are sent from your areas of your brain including the prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortexes), basal ganglia, and thalamus. !!!

Anxiety - Intense fear and discomfort triggered by the obssesions. Dwelling on the thought, worring that you are a bad person by thinking a certian thing ( you are not ) or stressing that the intrusive thought will happen.

Compulsion - Repetitive behaviors or mental rituals performed to reduce the anxiety caused from these thoughts. ex; counting in your head, doing something untill it feels "even", washing your hands a certian amount of times, or even yelling and shunning the thought out of your head.

Temporary relief - The compulsions provide temporary relief from the anxiety, reinforcing the cycle. Once you do your compulsion it tricks your mind into thinking that these obssesions pose a real danger, and that compulsions are necessary in order to be safe. (these are what we want to stop so we can break the cycle.) And yes, telling the thought to go away and cursing at it is also a compulsion.

I'm going to start this of by saying, compulsions are bad. Please try not to give into them. I know it's hard at first and you will feel scared and uncomfortable but thats the point. You have to undo the cycle to build a new one. Compulsions give the intrusive thoughts meaning. We don't want this. If you give the thought meaning or show feelings to it your brain is going to think its important therefore it will keep sending you the thought. There is two ways to stop this, Ignore the thought, or decunsruct the thought (aka ERP.)

Ignoring the thought can go like this: Label the thought as intrusive but do not add emotion to it. But also don't push it away Ex; "This is an intrustive thought, I am going to think about something else now." If the thought becomes overwhelming and you can't get away from it, start manually breathing. This will distract your brain. We want to act like the thought is like any other thought you would have. The avarge human has about 60,000 thoughts a day. Do we remeber all of these? Of course not. This is because we dont attach any emotion or dwell on them. It's kind of ironic because this method is basically using loa. If we act like the thought is usless and not important it will become just that and our brain will stop sending us the thought.

Decunstructing the thought or exposing and response prevention (erp) can be a little more difficult. The goal here is to overcome the fear and expose our selves to the intrusive thoughts completely. I know it sounds scary but remeber if you have no intention of manifesting said thought then it simply won't manifest. (an intrusive thought saying you have intention does not count don't worry) I also use this to re script traumatic events or nightmares. Imagery rescripting is what I am going to call this method of moving away from your intrusive thoughts. Imagery Rescripting is a technique that is often used in therapy to deal with upsetting or significant images that occupy our mind and play a part in keeping our anxiety going. The problematic images that people often struggle with can be memories of the past, nightmares, or intrusive thoughts. You have probably noticed that with all of your intrusive thoughts or images, the common response is to try to avoid the image, to push it away, to shun it out of our minds. This is a very understandable reaction, unfortunately avoiding these thoughts and using a compulsion usually makes it worse. It makes us very fearful of the thought itself, giving the intrusive thoughts power over you, and therefore the thought becomes something more than a "just a thought." By rescripting you are no longer avoiding them. Instead you are actively approaching them. You run the full image/thought in your head and then re write it. You can do this however you want. Rescripting it can range from complete fantasy or staying in the guidelines of this reality. Ex; Inflating the image and adding different hues to it. Making the scary thing in the image look silly; this takes away power from it. Do you want Hatsune Miku to start e dancing on your fears? She totally can! Adding a comfort character or a s/o to the image and letting them change it for you/comfort you can also work. If it is just a thought I would try and see the full sentence of said thought and then change the letters in your head to make it say something else. Or you can make the letters change into silly little characters..make them dance! Important note - You have to first deal with the intrusive thought/image. You cannot skip over this part or else it will just be a compulsion. If it is to triggring have someone else in the room while you do it so they can wake you up from the visualization and help you ground yourself. I would only do this method if you know for a fact that you are ready to face your intrusive thoughts head on.

Crying or experiencing hard emotions while doing ERP is normal. Though, I did this alone, I would recommend someone you trust is there while you are doing it so if things get too overwhelming they can help you. I as well have ocd so most of this is from my personal experience.

If you have any questions about this my asks are open. :)

<3

[bubblewhale]

I'm just now finding out that people did not like my villain academia arc.

I truly watched bnha for the LOV (besides bkdk).

The main cast is nice and all but if i put on my critical lenses i honestly don't see the hero society as a viable option. Economically and structurally i just don't get it - it's a cult that creates celebrities/heroes who are obviously used as both propaganda and tools of war, under the guise of fighting crime. At this point, heroes serve as either military special op forces or double-agents, or even as nuke level power holders. Either way, they are totally dehumanised soldiers. On the other end, the hero cult itself triggers people becoming villains. It does so by blaming individuals for becoming villains, even when it's obvious that they are direct results of wider structural societal problems. It's shown many times how hate can manifest in families as perfectionism, abuse, obsession, suppression, phobia (Shoto, Dabi, Shigaraki, Toga), poverty and human trafficking (Hawks) and xenophobia and racial (?) discrimination with mutants (Spiner).

The only moment i was hopeful they're gonna address the structural problems was the liberation army attack on the hospital in the war arc. But what was crazy to me is that the hero society held a war prisoner in the basement of a public hospital - using a civilian shield tactic, which is considered a war crime. Spiner's character arc is also extremely sad and unhelpful. Even the school itself becomes a military stronghold.

For the question of family dynamics we get Endeavor atonement arc. But we also get a scene which implies that he sa'd his wife (as if the fact that she was sold to him wasn't enough). The one scene that wasn't believable to me at all was Rei coming to visit Endeavor in the hospital. God bless Shoto, that kid is so strong, understanding perfectly Endeavor is to blame for all that. But it shows that in case of powerful men, sa and child abuse are not treated as crimes, as they should be.

Hawks is another great example of literally being sold and used, similar to Lady Nagant - and nothing is gained from their arcs in the sense of revealing the hidden corruption. Both of them side with the "hero" side in the end, the side that made them do their dirty work for them. He even becomes a murderer because of this but still manages to keep in the public’s good graces by acting as if killing is something he had to do for the greater good, same reason he sided with Endeavor.

Toga is a brilliant representation of discrimination towards a sexual minority but then she dies to save a hero she loves. It's tragic, honestly.

Deku is the only one trying to do something and helping (Shoto, Bakugo, All Might and Shigaraki are some examples) people change their mind and views on heroism/what it means to live righteously. I haven't read the manga so i don't yet understand what Deku losing his quirk could mean but honestly this AFO-OFA tug of war is the most boring part to me.

The show still mostly puts everything down to individual level and blames the villain or makes it somehow personal responsibility of heroes to deal with it.

Thus the league of villains becomes the focal point of the show - their double bind with AFO on one end and heroes on the other.

It just bugs me that the whole show could be read as cop/military propaganda and that our protagonists are basically glorified cops. This is why vigilante Deku arc was so exciting, finally! And this is why the whole concept of the show would be very different if it was made from LOV's pov from the start.

As it is, there's lots of bright and shiny feathers but not much substance in the show. The biggest stars of the show are personal tragedies, sometimes out-shining the main plot and gloriously failing to tie into the bigger picture.