#Gets dunk by a pony

[jhonnyhotbody]

What! Indeed

A crossover.

[carolmunson]

6✨

'i'm still here, and i'm still high and i'll still meet you in the middle of the night, but if you lie to me, lie to me, lie to me, i'm gone.'

exboyfriend!eddie from this laundromat blurb.

Tobacco wasn't the problem, it was the smoke. The smell it left on your clothes when you left the trailer, when you got out of his van. You had to go to Wash 'N Suds so often that you got bold enough to ask Marge for a discount and she laughed in your face.

"That's what you get for seeing that boy!" she shrugged.

Seeing that boy. Smelling that smell.

Sharp in your nostrils when you make your way out toward the pool at Steve Harrington's house -- Memorial Day bash that went real late into the night. Eddie always made a killing, pockets fat with cash that he'd hide in a box under the tattered tweed couch when he got home later -- unless he ended up passing out in the pool house, which happened more often than he'd like to admit.

Most people had left for the night, the singing of the crickets filling the air of the backyard with the soft woosh of the pool water being pushed by the breeze. Robin's raspy laugh echoes from the kitchen through the cracked sliding door.

And the flick of a lighter.

You head picks up and you see him on one of the pool chairs, sneakers and socks to the side of him while he pulls a drag of his cigarette. His hair is pulled up in a half pony-tail in a loose scrunchy -- you don't know whose it is. It's yellow -- yellow isn't really his color.

"Hi," he drawls out, blowing the smoke toward the pool.

"Hi," you mumble back, slipping your own lighter from your pocket and sitting at the edge, letting the water envelope your bare legs and feet up to just under your knees. You pluck the pre-rolled joint from your ear and hold it in your fingers to light the tip before bringing it to your lips.

"I didn't bring pre-rolls tonight," he questions, you can hear him shift on the plastic seat, "Where'd you get that?"

"My house," you respond, not turning around. Not that you need to, before you know it he's next to you, dunking his feet into the water haphazardly.

"Christ, Ed," you groan when the water splashes up past your knees, "Be careful." "Whaddya mean, your house?" he asks, taking the joint from your fingers and examining it closely, "You rolled this?"

"I rolled this," you nod, taking it back from him, "And if you don't mind, I'm gonna smoke it. In peace. By myself."

"Well excuuuuse me," he mumbles, hands up in surrender. He takes another drag of his cigarette while you finally get a hit, holding the smoke. You both exhale at the same time, the clouds catching in the light of the moon. The blend and dissipate over the the gentle roll of the water.

"So is this how it's gonna be now?" he asks quietly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees in contemplating, "Us just igorning each other all night and arguing?"

"I dunno, Ed," you shrug, "Is it?"

You both take another drag, your exhales dance again.

"I dunno," he mumbles back.

The crickets sing and a new darkness settles over the backyard when the back porch lights go out and the kitchen light is flicked off. Steve, Rob, and Nancy likely getting ready to settle in for a movie after the last party patron left.

Eddie puts the cigarette out on the cobbled pool deck by his thigh, leaving the left over tucked in his ear, covered by stray curls that made their way out of the scrunchy.

"I miss you," he whispers.

You swallow, looking down at his cut off jean shorts and his ringed hand resting on the edge of the deck. The water nearly lapping up to kiss his fingers.

Warmth fills up in your chest, sliding down to your belly, legs, and arms. You aren't sure if it's from the first hit or from the shots you took earlier. You aren't sure if it's the light of the moon and the way the crickets sing on the eve of summer. You aren't sure if it's what he says, or the smell or smoke, or the way his curls fall around his face.

But your hand settles over his, fingers tangling up with each other.

"I miss you, too."

[mayblossomss]

Whumptober Day 2: Trust Issues

Darry was exhausted after a long day of working on roofs. He woke up before the sun had risen, spent all day in the beating hot sun with only one half hour break, and got back only a little before the sun would set.

Before he'd left, he made a list of chores he expected to be finished by the time he got home. For Soda, he asked that he'd do the laundry and the dishes. For Ponyboy, he asked that he took out the trash: that was all that he'd asked him to do.

Yet, when Darry parked his truck on the side of the road in front of their house, he didn't see the bins pulled to the curb like he'd asked. Annoyance brewed inside him at once as he realized that his little brother hadn't done the one very simple task he'd given him.

When he entered the house, he saw Soda lounging on the couch, sprawled out as he watched TV. Sighing, he dropped his work belt and kicked his boots off, glancing around the house.

"Hey, Darry," Soda called from the couch. "How was work?"

"Fine," Darry grunted in response, heading straight for Ponyboy's room. He pushed the door open to reveal the younger teen sitting with his legs crossed on the bed, his nose buried in a book. "Ponyboy!"

Ponyboy's head snapped up, eyes widening at the sudden commotion. At once, a guilty look flashed through his eyes as he recognized what he'd forgotten to do. "Darry--"

"Did you forget to take the trash out? Seriously?"

Darry and Ponyboy had promised to stop fighting after Soda blew up on them, begging them to quit it since they were all they had left. In the months following, they'd been doing well, but Darry was tired and not in his right mind. If he were thinking rationally, he'd try letting Ponyboy explain himself, but he wasn't, and Pony was his last straw of the day.

"I didn't mean to," Ponyboy defended weakly, dropping his book onto the bed and getting up. He pushed past Darry and into the kitchen, passing Soda who was watching them with a nervous look. "I got distracted. I'll do it now."

"You got distracted?" Darry huffed, shaking his head and following his younger brother into the next room. "That's your excuse? I gave you one simple task and you couldn't even do it!"

"I said I'll do it now!" Ponyboy snapped, pausing by the trash can. "Isn't that enough?"

Darry stared down at his brother, jaw clenching with irritation. "No, Pony, it ain't. I've had a long day of work and the least I can ask is to come home and see that you've done what I asked!"

Sodapop walked into the room, trying not to seem too troubled as he looked between the two brothers. "Come on, Darry. He's going to do it now, right, Pony?"

Glaring at Soda, Darry huffed, "It don't matter that he's 'doing it now', the entire point was that he'd do it while I was at work!"

"Who cares when I do it, so long as it's down. Get off my back, Darry!" Ponyboy hollered, taking a step closer to Darry.

Annoyed, Darry raised a hand to run through his hair. As soon as he lifted his arm, however, Ponyboy flinched away as though he'd striked him. Any fight left in Darry died on his tongue at the sight.

Ponyboy looked embarrassed at his overreaction, glancing down at his feet, but Darry felt like he'd been dunked into freezing cold water. His own brother had flinched away from him, thinking that he was going to hit him.

"Ponyboy--"

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, grabbing the trash from the can, tying the top, and pushing past his two older brothers toward the front door.

The front door slammed shut and Darry licked his lips dully, throat painfully dry. Soda beside him shuffled nervously, hands clenching and unclenching helplessly by his side.

"He doesn't trust me," Darry finally managed. "He thinks I'd hit him again."

"No, he doesn't," Soda assured but there's a hint of doubt in his voice. "It was only instinct."

Darry's jaw clenched and he sat down in a chair, gripping his hair and shaking his head remorsefully. "An instinct that I created."

Sitting beside Darry, a hand on his shoulder, Soda shook his head in disagreement. "Don't say that. He trusts you: he won't act like this forever."

"How can you be sure?" Darry questioned, sighing. "What if Pony never feels safe around me again?" Soda couldn't respond and they sat in silence, waiting for Ponyboy to return.

[sparklingcid3r]

r u a darry/paul shipper like seemingly the rest of the fandom is becoming (good)? what are ur hc for them?

This is long, bear with me 🙏 I def think there was something going on in high school between those two and you can pry that hc from my cold dead hands. But here’s how I think their relationship goes, for better or worse (particularly, worse):

- They’re hardcore pining for each other in high school but never actually do something about it because it’s the 60s and both of them have reputations, albeit two different ones, to maintain. They aren’t exactly about to out themselves to their seemingly hypermasculine crush/best friend, no matter how attracted they are

- Eventually, though, they get drunk enough at some Soc party and Paul happens to have looser lips than Darry, and lets it slip that if Darry were a girl (a risky statement on its own but inhibitions are out the window atp), he would absolutely kiss him. He actually thinks Darry is real pretty and has always wanted to find out what kissing him is like

- Darry, still having somewhat of a head screwed to his shoulders despite the alcohol, drags Paul to the nearest bathroom with a lock and dunks his head under freezing shower water (not a foolproof cure to intoxication but it helps for clarity ig??). He asks Paul to say what he just said again

- Paul starts apologizing, saying he was drunk and doesn’t know what he was talking about

- Darry’s first kiss with a man is in the pearly white bathroom of a Soc he doesn’t even know the name of, surrounded by more Socs, of whom he only knows half the names of

- They go steady in private of course, but neither of them can shake the knowledge that they have the darkest blackmail on each other, even during their most intimate moments. Although simultaneously there is a sick comfort in knowing “If I go down, you’re going down with me.”

- If that’s the foundation, though, you know it starts to seep through. Paul’s always been a Soc, and what he forgets is that even though Darry can clean up real nice, he’s always been a greaser. When Paul’s laughing with their buddies about how some greaser freshman’s got tape around the toes of his converse, Darry’s silence is so heavy it’s tangible. It just brings the mood down

- What they have I think can only slightly be called love. But who else are they supposed to be in love with? That drunken accident was probably the best moment of their lives, finally realizing that they’re not alone. They have each other and no matter what, for better or for worse, they’ll always have each other.

- The dynamic changes when the Curtis parents die. Paul’s got money and suddenly Darry is poorer than dirt. The money came and went with the funerals, the gravestones, the bills. Suddenly Darry’s dipping into his college fund, then he’s draining it for the sake of keeping his brothers together under his roof. There’s no time for Paul anymore

- Darry knew immediately that he was risking not only his life, but Soda and Pony’s lives just by existing. If he got caught, it’s over. So he breaks it off with Paul, because he was never capable of loving anyone more than he loves his brothers

But honestly that’s just my immediate thoughts about them, I can totally imagine them being pretty happy together in some parallel universe. But the way the story portrays them, they fell apart and ended up on opposite sides of the tracks.

If you want some happy hcs hit me up I gotchu🤙 thanks for the ask! Sorry I went overboard, I got excited lmfao. They mean a lot to me🫶

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Just wanted to say that i shared your post about Miraculous being a cross between magical girl (team) and rom-com genres and the failings of it.

It spawned a fun debate as we tried to think of other shows who tried the same thing but stayed in the mid-zone of both genres. All we ended up with was Teen Titans (as you mentioned) and Inuyasha which don't quite fit the bill as they aren't exactly magic girl shows in the traditional sense before we swerved off to try to find examples of other genres that don't mess well but should.

Anyways, just wanted to thank you for the analysis. It spawned a fun discussion.

Thank you for this lovely ask! It really made me smile. I love knowing that my stuff is getting people talking about storytelling! The main reason that I run this blog is not to dunk on Miraculous, but to talk about writing.

I'm a big fan of the saying that "failure is the greatest teacher," but I also like to point out that it doesn't need to be your failure! Talking about the things a piece of media did wrong and comparing it to media that did those things right is one of the best ways to learn about writing and far more helpful than just looking at good stories as there are thousands of ways to tell a good story.

To give my two cents to your debate (without knowing the fine details) the first two seasons of Digimon have some similar dynamics of romance between various leads, though it's also not a magical girl team show and the romance is certainly not focused on like it is in Teen Titans. One magical girl team show that did a great job of having a romance plot play a big role in a story is - strangely enough - My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

While it's not really a rom-com (though it could have been and worked just as well), the second season ends with a two-part episode called A Canterlot Wedding and it's very cute. The couple that's established in that special goes on to have several episodes focused on them and their romance.

The reason this worked so well was that the romance was between ponies outside of the core team, so you didn't have to figure out how to make friendship the most important thing while also making romantic love the most important thing. By making both forces important in their own ways, the writers were able to let the couple be extremely close and passionate about each other while also allowing friendship to have a key role.

That's the issue that you have to keep in mind if you want to try to blend the genres: figure out a way to add in a romance without messing up the core team and creating a setup where romance is making friendship take a back seat. You also need to figure out how to deal with someone external to the team warring with the team for narrative importance.

My two cents? Just make some of the magical girls lesbians, bi, pan, or any other sexuality that allows for same-sex attraction. That should allow you to have romance in your team without the nasty complication of trying to make a person external to the team super important. After all, what is a good romance if not a friendship with bonus features? I wouldn't be surprised if there's a story out there that has already done this (not sure if Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon count since I don't think that their romance gets a major story line around it, but if it does, then just mirror that!)

And if there's not a magical girl team show that has done this? Then I'm certain that you can find fanfic that has. After all, people tend to ship the characters who get the most screen time together no matter who the canon love interests are supposed to be. That's why shonen anime is dominated by yaoi ships. Those shows rarely develop the hetero love interest the way that magical girl team shows do and so people ship the guys together. Meanwhile, magical girl team shows assume that the audience wants a good romance and so the hetero love interests tend to feel more fleshed out.

[princess-of-the-corner]

So, like, after 1-A begins the "casual blood donors" thing, I imagine they get one (1) nasty comment from another student. They only get 1, cause Bakugou decides to deal with it by pulling out the spiciest bottle of hot sauce known to man & chugging it while maintaining direct eye contact. She washes it down with a few of Tsuyu's crickets. Monoma somehow gets in on this, cause Dickhead also managed to insult Poni, who is the 1-B version of Koda - make her cry, & the whole class is hunting you.

1-A and 1-B might have their rivalry beef but they stick to each other like hell are they going to let anyone else try to dunk on them for anything and especially not for their Quirks.

[queenimmadolla]

Hellguard spicy headcanons?🌶

Oh man, imma give you spicy and somewhat sweet.

Hate sex.

Except it’s hate sex in that they’re super into each other, like crazy in love and they hate that so they fuck it out on the regular. Pretend it doesn’t mean anything even after they’re sweaty, sated and plastered to one another on his shitty mattress and his fingers are stroking over her skin, nose nudging her sweat soaked bangs out of the way so he can press his lips to her forehead or when he’s kissing her wet shoulder after they’ve just gone at it in the locked showers at the pool, helping her get back into her swimsuit since she can barely stand on her shaky legs. Anytime they have a snarky interaction in public—guaranteed to be fucking afterwards. True enemies to lovers.

Eddie also goes to the pool during its open season to rile her up with both antagonistic comments, and his lack of a shirt. Knows how much of a sucker she is for his tatties, can still feel her tongue tracing over them—even when she’s posted on the lifeguard chair. And god—does her swimsuit fuck with him. He tries to stop by to mess with her (and mess around with her) a couple of times a week, but he can only see her in that red swimsuit so many times and not fuck her in public. He is only a man.

And billy—oh Billy’s a fucking problem. Eddie has never wanted someone dead that badly before because he knows Hargrove has no real interest in Heather, she’s pleasant to him (as she is to anyone who isn’t Eddie) but he doesn’t really talk to her. Unless Eddie’s around. Eddie knows he’s trying to provoke him, trying to get Eddie to punch his fucking face right into his skull for looking at his girl, who’s not his girl. That’s when Eddie has to whisk her away for a quickie that’s so rough, Heather will still feel him inside of her the following day. She’s always a little off of her game afterwards, still dazed and cum dumb, so Curtis might be under the water for a sec when he gets that cramp after over exhorting himself from dunking people into the pool since Heather had been too busy thinking about the way Eddie pressed her into the outside wall of the community pool building—on the side hidden by trees and rarely ever passed by if the overgrown grass was any sign—and held up as Eddie fucked into her with hard thrusts that sent her sunglasses flying off her head, ruined her high side pony, and had her crying out in pleasure while salivating against Eddie’s palm to keep them from being discovered. When she snaps out of her daze, she’s jumping in to save Curtis (he’s always fine, gets yelled at by Heather for dunking people’s heads in the first place and sometimes he pretends to drown just so he can get her attention).

Heather hates and loves it when he makes an appearance at the pool. Loves that he gets to see her showing some skin—she’s grown out of being insecure, something about wearing the lifeguard bathing suit and the fact that she’s an authoritative figure at the pool fills her with confidence, Heather also knows Eddie likes what he sees whenever he looks at her, and it makes him mad because she’s got such a smart ass mouth on her, and she loves how that makes her feel─hates that she has to watch the few girls brave enough to approach him in public, hates seeing him flirt with them because he knows she’s watching from behind her sunglasses. He’s trying to make her jealous and she HATES that it works.

My gorls hit me with some good headcanons too, Heather teaching a water aerobics class for the elderly and Eddie signing up because he’s the devil in her life (he wants to be around her). Eddie intentionally tries to annoy her, keep that back-and-forth banter they’ve been doing their entire high school careers going to ensure she knows summer break is for a break in school and not a break with him. It works, Heather’s annoyed but the elderly can see things neither wants to acknowledge. It took a while for some of the older ladies to get used to him, always making comments about his metal like appearance—but when he’s a sweetheart to them, helping them out of the pool, he’s got all the golden girls ready to go up to bat for him—or rather, ready to help him get the girl (the gorls have also decided our golden girls try to hit on Wayne through Eddie and some even try to flirt with Eddie themselves lol). But now whenever Heather is going around to make sure they’re all doing good forms, they’re chatting her up about how sweet Eddie is, how much of a catch he’d be and Heather, dear, you wouldn’t happen to be seeing anyone would you?

I see Heather as trying her hardest to be taken seriously, to keep that feeling she got a taste of during her first summer as a lifeguard, so she pursues class politics and campaigns for class dances and their attached monarchy (she will be prom queen one day, mark her words) and we all have an inkling to what Eddie does in response to everything she does. He’s the fire to her water. They shouldn’t get along and that’s ingrained in them, so they don’t know how to handle it when all of their moments together prove that while they may be opposites, they compliment each other in ways they cold never have imagined.

(Eddie always votes for her in anything and everything she does, has the Hellfire club do it too, This shit bites but if we gotta do it, might as well get Holloway up there so she can publicly choke during her speech—would pay BIG bucks to see her run off that stage, he lingers in the back of the crowds, small smirk on his face when she effortlessly makes her way through public speaking—because she’s good at it even if he knows she’s shaking in her shoes and rehearsed a billion times before. He’s proud.)

I can literally go on and on. You know what Hellguard does to me!

[crediblebombthreat]

Elden Ring DLC Build -- Democracy!

Non-Fromsoft people encouraged to vote. I want to be able to blame as many people as possible.

Considerations for each option:

Dexterity: Lean hard into parries. Do four-digit criticals with the Miséricorde. Ruin people's evenings by being smarter than them in PvP. Probably has the most options of the new weapon types in the DLC (notably the goofiest ones). A lot of people will be playing DEX, so I'm not gonna get hipster points...but I can make up for it by not using katanas. Biggest downside is that

Strength: Dunk with overwhelming force. Scare the shit out of people on elevators. The DLC adds throwing weapons, and one of them is a great hammer that you swing around Super Mario 64 style to throw. Doesn't look like it'll have as many new toys, unfortunately. Might be wrong.

Faith/Intelligence: Notably undercooked archetype in the base game, looking to actually be fleshed out in the DLC. Makes use of most magic systems in the game, but excels at evil stuff (skeletons, evil, curses, etc) and -- paradoxically -- high-utility and holy damage miracles. Kinda' ass in PvP, but that won't mean too much until about a month in; most of the people who play this game panic when they're invaded. The closest I'll willingly go to a mage build, and it's on thin ice -- casting spells is boring, especially considering the new weapon archetypes they're going to drop.

DEX/STR: Allows me to dip my toes in both weapon archetypes and find out what I like the most for my 2nd playthrough. Will probably be great for light greatswords, a new archetype that makes your character move like a warrior princess. Not very exciting, but there's a chance it's the best build for the new martial arts weapon type. In which case it's super exciting!

Dragon Cleric: Ultimate glass cannon build that can nevertheless ruin people's evenings by one-shotting them. Has a suite of offensive options, ranging from "biting really hard" to "vaping in the enemy's face to give them tuberculosis." Has something for basically every situation. Kind of a one-trick pony, though -- it relies on a lot of buffs, and if you don't kill something in like two hits you are basically forced to scoop up your own balls and run.

Arcane Scum: Utilize various status effects to irritate people and boost my damage. Or go bleed and just win. I don't see them nerfing statuses in the DLC, but I really hope they do. It's not even fun using bleed to burst down people and bosses anymore. Can be combined with STR or DEX to make some interesting builds, but they're both scummy in their own ways. Bloody Helice is probably the only honorable weapon to use.

Faith: Faith alone is actually kind of boring, only a few steps up from 😪Mage😪. However, mixing it with DEX or STR is dope. DEX/FAI opens up a lot of lightning options, inluding the absolutely wonderful Bolt of Gransax. DEX/STR offers fire, and has an entire class of incantations designed around it. Faith is flexible, which is great since a lot of enemies have immunity to faith-based damage types (fire, holy, lightning, tax evasion, etc). There are always different options when you make a faith build...and this DLC will offer even more. Really, there are a few too many options, and unfortunately a lack of focus can make Elden Ring exhausting. Since I want to relax and enjoy the DLC, I'd need to pick a few solid weapons and stick with them. Ironically, this is kind of limiting.

[tooneys-russo]

Hi how are you and are we still going to get a fic for deyna castellanos

Hey Anon!

So sorry this took so long! Life kind of got in the way and the news of her transfer has been quite exciting as well so I thought it would be great to write about a new team and interest in a new teammate. Hope you enjoy :)

Welcome to the Bay

It was an exciting prospect for Deyna, moving all the way to San Francisco to play for Bay FC. The transfer deal set a new record and she had already received a few messages from her new teammates. She had been set to room with a teammate, another big signing Samantha Kittner, a player who had been the number 1 draft from UCLA. Deyna was flying into LAX and being picked up by Samatha who would drive them to San Francisco and an apartment they would be sharing for a bit until they had gotten settled. Deyna listened to her music trying to think about the new start, it would give her a chance to make an impact on a new team in a new league but in the back of her mind a record breaking transfer fee was daunting. She got off the plane, picked up her bags and headed towards the exit. Her eyes caught a sign with her name written on it and behind it stood a blonde girl with her hair in a high pony wearing a pair of ripped blue jeans, Nike dunks and a white tank top. Deyna walked over with a smile. “You are Samantha?” She asked nervously. “You are spot on, but please call me Sam. Nice to meet you Deyna, welcome to California.” Sam held out her hand to shake, their hands lingered a moment longer than what would normally be acceptable, but neither seemed to mind. Sam and Deyna chatted about the WSL and what it was like as they walked to the car, Deyna noticed that it was packed with a few suitcases already but plenty of room for her two suitcases. “I would love to play over there but I would struggle being so far from home.” Sam said as she easily lifted the suitcases into the spaces in the 4WD, Deyna let her eyes linger on the girl as the packed the car. “Yeah it is nice being here though, lot less travel to see my family.” Deyna got in the car and saw a couple of grocery bags at her feet, there were drinks and various snacks filling them. “Oh sorry, I had no idea what you liked so I grabbed a couple options.” Sam blushed as she got in the car. “Thank you, I appreciate it.” Deyna smiled at the nervous girl. 

The drive began normally, they exchanged stories of their experiences in football and how they ended up at Bay FC. “Yeah so with the draft we don’t get a choice, we just get picked and we go.” Sam explained. “That is crazy, but I guess a massive compliment, you were number 1. You must be incredible.” She smiled at the American. “I mean I would say there are better players, I am just a striker, you midfielders do way more work than me. You make me look good.” Sam smiled softly. After three hours into their five and a half hour drive they pulled into a petrol station to refuel and use the bathroom. They sat and had a quick meal, Sam had some sauce on the side of her mouth, Deyna smiled and reached over to wipe the sauce from her teammates face making Sam go bright red. “Thank you.” She said softly. “You’re welcome, can’t have you walking around with sauce on that gorgeous face.” Deyna cleared the table and walked towards the car, Sam followed quickly still blushing. “So do you have a partner?” Sam blurted out as they began driving again.”Um no, I have been single for a while, what about you?” Deyna looked over at Sam. “My girlfriend and I broke up when I went number 1 and she went number 2, she is currently in Utah with the Royals.” Sam’s face dropped at the recollection of what had happened just two months ago. “That is sad, she couldn’t handle being second?” Deyna examined the girl’s expression. “No she couldn’t. Told me she couldn’t believe that I would even be drafted.” Sam scoffed and Deyna furrowed her eyebrows. “She sounds like an idiot. You are lucky to be away from her, I can’t wait to see what you can do.” Their eyes locked for a second before sam focused back on the road.

They arrived at their apartment and looked at the view, they could clearly see the Golden Gate Bridge. “Wow. This is gorgeous.” Deyna smiled, she was joined by Sam whose mouth fell open. “Holy shit!” Deyna laughed and bumped Sam. “Such bad language from such a beautiful girl.” Sam went bright red from Deyna’s compliment. Sam quickly busied herself getting her room set up and unpacking, after a few hours the two were done for the day with unpacking. They were relaxing on the couch watching tv, neither of them were paying much attention to what was going on. They were sitting close together, their knees against each other unable to move further apart as the couch was only a two seater. Deyna kept glancing at Sam, noticing her jawline and the way her eyes were so expressive during the movie. She knew having a small crush on her housemate and teammate was a terrible idea, but she could always look, there was no harm in that. 

The following day was their first day of training, Deyna got to see first hand just how talented the number 1 draft pick was. Deyna tried to shut her down a few times but was caught out as she thundered shot after shot into the back of the net. Deyna grabbed Sam’s hips trying to stop her. “You are frustrating. Can see why you are number 1.” Deyna laughed and laid a tackle on Sam as soon as she got the ball, finally winning the ball off the striker. “You finally got me.” Sam said at the end of training as they walked back into the changerooms. “I am blaming it on the jetlag.” Deyna laughed. “Oh sure, I think you were too busy trying to keep up. I think today was a win for me.” Sam winked as she headed to the showers. Deyna sat at her locker trying to slow her heart, Sam was clearly flirting with her it was easy to see. As Deyna finally headed to the showers, she saw Sam coming out wrapped in just a towel, her hair dripping and a smile on her face. “When you are done we can go home.” Sam smiled softly and headed to get dressed, home with Sam sounded perfect to Deyna.She had a cold shower to calm down her rushing blood, wanting to try and get the images of Sam in a towel out of her head. 

Deyna got dressed into her sweat pants and a hoodie as she met Sam by the car. Sam was leant against the car and she was playing on her phone. “Ready to go?” Deyna asked and Sam nodded. “Yeah, let's go. Also, you and I are enemies.” Sam said matter of factly. “Wait why?” Deyna asked, completely confused by Sam’s comment. “FSU Seminoles just beat UCLA.” Sam drove them back to their apartment. “Oh…we have to be enemies? We can’t put that aside?” Deyna raised her eyebrow. “Star crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet?” Sam laughed. “That sounds like it could be fun.” Deyna smirked and looked out the window. 

They had fallen into a routine together, after training they would cook together, there would be lingering touches and their bodies brushing against each other as they passed. They would watch a movie, tv show or a football game, both of them ending up in each other’s arms after around half an hour using the excuse of being more comfortable on their small couch. Then every day off they would go and ‘explore’ San Francisco, they went to all the tourist attractions and took pictures together, anyone looking at the two would have thought they were on a date. They would hold hands naturally thinking that it was just easier so they wouldn’t get separated. The Bay FC players would have a team dinner once a week, Deyna and Sam would always sit next to each other, Deyna’s hand always resting on Sam’s thigh, they would whisper to each other and as soon as it was socially acceptable they would head home together. They were inseparable and incapable of admitting they were head over heels for each other. Their favourite moments were being cuddled up in their apartment watching college football, their alma maters were in different conferences thankfully, so they would share their college sweatshirts when their respective teams were playing. They would analyse each game and try to implement some different tactics together on the field in training. It was as if they had known each other for years, but in reality it had been three months.

They sat back on their too small couch, nice and close together as they put on a random game, using it as merely background music as they chatted. “How are you feeling after training?” Deyna asked. “Bit tight on my quad but other than that I am fine. What about you?” Sam smiled. “Yeah good, tight in my back but I guess that was to be expected.” Deyna twisted slightly. “Want me to give you a rub?” Sam asked casually, Deyna replied incredibly quickly. “Yes. That would be perfect.” The two went to Sam’s bed as she grabbed some massage oil. “Do I want to know what you use that on?” Deyna raised her eyebrow. “Hey this is a new bottle!” Sam slapped Deyna’s arm gently. Deyna took off her shirt and laid down on Sam’s bed, the blonde was standing by the bed staring at Deyna’s exposed back, the only downside was the bra she was wearing covering part of her back.

Sam sat beside the midfielder and pouted the oil into her hands and began rubbing Deyna’s back. The midfielder let out a small moan as she felt the blonde’s hands loosening her sore muscles. “That feels amazing Sam.” Deyna moaned out, Sam bit her lip at the sound she was making. Sam struggled to reach the other side of her back, she moved to straddle Deyna’s bum so she could cover her whole back. “You like being on top then?” Deyna laughed. “Hush you.” Sam smirked and pressed harder making the midfielder groan. Sam continued massaging her for another 20 minutes before pressing a kiss between her shoulder blades. “How is that feeling?” Sam asked. “That was incredible.” Deyna flipped them so Sam was on her back and Deyna was on top staring into her eyes. “Thank you. Now it’s your turn.” Deyna’s hand moved down to Sam’s left quad, their eyes not breaking their intense staring contest. The Venezuelan’s fingers loosening the tight muscle beneath them, Sam biting her lip to stop the moan from coming out. “You can let it out.” Deyna said softly, Sam let out a moan and gripped onto the girl above her’s bicep. “God that feels amazing.” She closed her eyes, Deyna stared at Sam’s lips desperate to feel them. Sam’s eyes opened to see Deyna looking back, the world around them stopped as Sam took her opportunity to lean in and finally kiss the lips she had been dreaming about. The brunette kissed back with the passion of three whole months of them teasing each other. “I have wanted to do that for so long.” Sam finally said as they pulled apart. “Why didn’t you do it earlier?” Deyna rubbed her thigh gently. “You are so gorgeous and perfect and kind I just didn’t think you would want me.” Sam said nervously. “How could I not? You are so phenomenal.” Deyna planted a gentle kiss  to Sam’s lips. “Want to maybe go for dinner? Our first official date?” Deyna laughed as Sam quickly agreed and got dressed. 

[shadowpeachyuri]

Asks are getting kinda long so. Mostly, I wonder why Reddit is so ticked off at Mac lmao. Everywhere I go, it's either insane villain apologism by making the hero pathetic and wrong, or extreme villain antagonism by overblowing consequences. Bud got dragged out of hell after centuries, got a super snack out of MK's powers, vented in a theatre before a trauma flashback of MK coming to whoop his butt reminded him of SWK and couldn't even skedaddle before Not-Mayor forced him into a symmetrical wardrobe, I mean. an unwilling henchminion arc, and proceeded to get his butt whooped by the gang who love to target his trauma eye and get looney tunes whumped by electrocution in a giant lantern, tossed over a ship, and my little pony friendship is magic style song blasted in his ears. and whatever hell portal Not-Mayor dunked his head in while chained up, a few times over. he was about to throw up with that face he made when LBD semi-possessed him. I think that's enough consequences, he already got The Talk(tm) tied up again w MK, (a compliant hostage) and mostly keeps vagueing warnings to the squad, being very idgaf about LBD. Not much villain behavior compared to others I've seen. He's not even an anti-villain, he's just a self-driven traumatized survivor who vents to people in ambiguous closed off ways and tends to cross over into jerk territory. So I'm here like, are half of tumblr/reddit posts out-dated, bc if someone isn't salty about S1 Mac (rare) they are TICKED about past!Mac (frequent) to which I ask, what did bro DO. I have never seen fandom run on such hypothetical anger before. What I miss, because past!Mac's issues are just vocalized as "never made his own choices." which, is NOT a thing to apologize abt? if anything, it would fuel the fire? It sounds like a reason to ditch your friends instead of following along and passively complaining. A lot of it is also abandoning SWK, but. he visited the mountain? I see a lot about Flower Fruit burning taken from JTTW which is interesting (so yeah, I think fandom relies on the book a lot for their character feelings) bc SWK learns that after beating LBD three times WHICH IS INTERESTING because Mac says "looks like OUR OLD FRIEND The Lady Bone Demon is back" our old friend?? OUR?? by osmosis I thought their break up happened because they couldn't beat her together, and then I watched the show and there was nothing on that. but since learning the twitter post theory about memory manip, well. ShadowPeach just got more tragic. its too bad tho, I would've loved a story of accidentally killing your best friend and realizing after instead of another oh no it was this other villain behind it. but alright. it makes too much sense tho based on SWK's reactions.

OH I DIDNT EVEN CATCH THAT “OUR” bit!! it does beg the question a little bit of “why did she resurrect him then,” but at the same time, it’s a very interesting theory!!

[countrymusiclover]

10 - Billy Sparks

Part 11

The Texas Tire Family

Tags just ask - @supernaturalgirl30 @bvbwestfall @bubble-blu @patriciaplictisita @liesanddreams

It had been a whole week of us house sitting for Amy and Sheldon while they were gone and everything went well except for Amy’s father wandering into the place when we were gone out to breakfast one morning. Thankfully Penny and Leonard found him with the help of his wife Amy’s mother and nothing was damaged. Aurora and Evelyn were sitting in front of the tv looking through pictures on my phone. “So what do you guys want for dinner tonight? I think Penny and Leonard are going out to get Chinese food.”

“Just got off the phone with mom and Missy. She said they are heading back with meemaw. Should be back home in a few hours.” Georgie came out of the bedroom shrugging a green tea shirt over his head. He tucked the rest of it inside his jeans wearing one of his belt buckles and some dirty boots.

I was wearing some ripped blue jeans and some cowgirl boots with deer antlers engraved on the sides. Wearing a yellow shirt that had a picture of our state Texas designed on the front. My hair was falling over my shoulder in a loose ponytail. “That’s good. Missy said that the newest baby is given her trouble unlike the other two.”

“Mommy, who is that in the picture?” Evelyn turns around on the couch sitting on her knees with her sister showing me a picture on my phone. Taking the phone from her hands I recognized the picture from years ago when Aurora and Eve were still very young. It was the four of us out at a carnival with Missy and Billy Sparks.

Georgie came over, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “Oh I remember that was the chicken kid from across the street. I’m still surprised that they got divorced.”

Aurora sent him a confused look. “Who was he mommy?”

“He used to live in the neighborhood your daddy lived in. His family owned a bunch of chickens and would live off of their eggs. But this picture was when your aunt Missy was going into high school and she started to realize that she actually liked him.” I plopped down in between our two girls on the couch with Georgie leaning over the back of the couch watching our conversation.

Eve bounced back down beside her sister. "So what happened to them?" Georgie and I shared the same look with a half smile remembering that his sister did like the boy but he wasn’t the best husband.

Carrying baby Eve in my arms we decided to go to the church fair this time to let the kids tire themselves out. Georgie was letting Aurora drag him through the crowd by the sleeve of his jean jacket. "Daddy, daddy. I want the pony!" She giggled pointing to one that was at a booth.

Missy was following behind us seeing that Sheldon was at college. We moved through the crowd seeing that pastor Jeff was doing the dunking booth again this year. "Hey Cooper's. Would ya'll want to take a try?"

"Sure I think little Eve can." I held her up to the level of the target, giving her a ball. She made a noise throwing it where her ball hit a little underneath the target button. "That's a good try.

Paster Jeff recognized Missy standing beside me. "Are you going to see if you can dunk me like you did last time?"

"Nah I think my aunt Y/n can handle that." Missy nudged me with her elbow where I handed her Evelyn.

Georgie and Aurora came walking up as I gripped the baseball in my right hand. Aurora was gently holding a pink pony stuffed animal close to her chest. "Mommy, played baseball daddy?"

"No but if you make her angry she will almost knock you on your butt with a baseball…trust me I know the feeling." He rubbed the back of his neck chuckling nervously in my direction. Missy and I smiled remembering when I was angry with him when Rora was a baby.

Drawing my right arm backwards I launched the baseball at the target. The ball hit dead center causing the pastor to drop into the water tank. "Oh yeah!" I jumped up in the air with Missy and the girls cheering alongside me. Georgie put a hand on my shoulder kissing me.

"Hey Missy. Mrs. Cooper, that was a good hit." Glancing over my shoulder I saw that the Sparks boy Billy was watching us. His mother Brenda used to be involved with George Sr before he passed away from a heart attack.

Missy waved looking between her brother and I slowly walking over to the boy. “Hey Billy.”

“Pastor Jeff, did Missy knock you into the water?” Billy asked, seeing that the pastor was crawling out of the water. He reset the game so he was sitting back on the platform soaking wet from head to toe.

He cleared his throat pointing in my direction seeing that I was now holding my daughter again. Little Evelyn was falling asleep on my shoulder since standing in the sunlight always makes her sleepy when I hold her. “Uh no Billy. It was Y/n.”

“Y/n is a nice person.” The boy who had chickens smiled at me. “Are you going to throw one, Missy. You are still good at baseball.”

She shrugged her shoulders picking up a ball. Pulling her arm back I saw the pastor’s eye go but before he got launched into the water the second time. “Oh lord, please help.”

Missy smiled walking up to Billy who smiled back at her. “Do you wanna go get some ice cream with me?”

“Sure.” He replied before she waved bye to us.

Georgie sent me a smile watching Aurora dancing around with her pony in her hands. He wrapped one arm around my waist tugging me into his side. “He’s a good kid. Y/n. I think they will work well together.”

“I think so too, Georgie.” I replied leaning up on my toes kissing him.

Georgie came around the couch rushing the girls off the couch and to get dressed so we could go get food with Penny and Leonard like we wanted. “Alright now we can talk about your auntie Missy later. Go get your clothes on so we can get some food.”

“You know somethin’ darlin’ I thought that they would have worked things out. Like you and I did. I mean people didn’t think we would work it out.” Aurora and Evelyn quickly ran off leaving us alone where he draped his arm over my shoulder. He rested his chin on top of my head softly.

Lifting my head up I nuzzled my nose against his smiling softly. He smiled, leaning his forehead against mine. “Well we’ve been through much worse than they ever dealt with. Thankfully they can still be friends if I remember right.” He nodded wrapping his arms around my waist until the girls came out fighting over who got to wear their new boots I had bought them for Christmas first making us both laugh at their innocence even though they would be turning teenagers in a few years.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

[bearofohu]

me playing 4D chess by taking my old hogwarts mystery OC who i unfortunately still love dearly and want to write about again and dunking him and the other hphm characters in bleach to get the shitass mobile game storyline off of them and then dunking them again in dawn to get the shitass joanne stench off of them and then turning them all into ponies and putting them in an MLP AU because i still love ponies dearly and i am an innovator and quite frankly the smartest man alive

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #28: Double-Crossed!

January, 1988

Happy New Year, West Coast Avengers!

Zero Hour for Zodiac!

Hal Jordan is going to try to reboot the universe on them?

Good.

Anyway, Zodiac. They’re still happening.

Last times in West Coast Avengers: the Zodiac comprised entirely of Life Model Decoys that aren’t decoying anyone killed the Zodiac that was comprised entirely of the Venn Diagram between crime lords and astrology nerds. Except human Zodiac Libra who faked his death by taking a nap. And human Zodiac Taurus who ran off to go get the (West Coast) Avengers to fight the LMDs for him.

The West Coast Avengers, on Taurus’ advice, interrupts LMD Zodiac’s robbery of a cattle auction. Hawkeye accidentally shot LMD Sagittarius in an archery duel because someone jostled his arm. Zodiac ran away and their leader Scorpio made a new Sagittarius that was identical to Hawkeye.

Zodiac ambushed Hawkeye when he was on his way back from seeing Wonder Man’s movie. He dunked on them for a while but he got coldcocked and LMD Sagittarius Hawkeye went back to the West Coast Avengers’ Compound to infiltrate the team.

Sagittarius Hawkeye learns that Taurus is working with the Avengers and passes the information onto Scorpio. But then he runs afoul of a subplot. Mockingbird killed Phantom Rider in the past times and lied to husband Hawkeye about it. But Sagittarius Hawkeye being cold to her (because he doesn’t want to have to pass as a devoted husband) has her convinced that Hawkeye suspects. She gets some advice from Nick Fury and decides to confess to Hawkeye. The LMD undersells the confession so Mockingbird slaps him - DISCOVERING HE’S MADE OF METAL!

Mockingbird and Tigra who shows up destroy the LMD Hawkeye but unbeknowst to Mockingbird, Tigra is ALSO an LMD, the new Zodiac Leo.

Hah, I like that Double is written over Star-Crossed.

Not knowing that Zodiac knows that the Avengers know their crime plan, the West Coast Avengers bust into the Denver Mint.

Bust in through the ceiling.

Iiiiiiii’m sort of wondering whether the cost to repair that giant hole in the ceiling is more or less than how much money the Avengers are going to prevent Zodiac from stealing.

Hank Pym even thinks that they’re going to have to pony up the rest of their operating budget for the year for the damages.

Leo (not Tigra, the dude Leo) crows that Zodiac outnumbers the Avengers two to one. But. C’mon man. You have twelve man team and get consistently stomped by smaller groups because you all suck so bad.

Iron Man flies right on ahead and tries to zap the Zodiac Key out of Scorpio’s hands before Scorpio can block the zap. But again fails.

And Mockingbird swoops right on ahead and demands Zodiac tell her where Hawkeye is.

Scorpio: “You mean Hawkeye’s missing, Mockingbird? What a shame!”

Mockingbird: “Don’t give me that! You kidnapped him and substituted one of your lousy LMD’s!”

Virgo: “Hey! We’re LMD’s!”

Mockingbird: “Yeah! And I’ll trash you the way I trashed your ringer unless you talk!”

Hah.

Fun interaction.

Virgo wishes people wouldn’t be so vitalist at her. Anti-vitalist? What do you call being racist but against robots?

Leo tells Scorpio to just admit that he kidnapped Hawkeye so Scorpio does but refuses to say where Hawkeye is now.

Mockingbird gets real angry at that but Scorpio don’t give a care and doesn’t scare... that easily. He’s been dead before so, like, whatever, lady.

And now that Zodiac has enough silver from the mint piled on their escape... ship? Scorpio decides to use the Zodiac Key to transport Zodiac away.

It. It, uh. It has a slow start up.

But it does kick in and Zodiac teleports out, leaving the Avengers to bemoan that they had been kicking ass.

Leo Tigra jumps in to say yes, she was kicking ass too, you bet!

Hah, if you look through the pages between the Avengers arriving and Zodiac leaving, Tigra is never really fighting anyone. Good touch.

As the narration reminds, Tigra has been replaced by a Leo LMD and the Avengers have no idea.

Leo Tigra suggests that the Avengers go consult human Taurus Cornelius van Lunt since he keeps predicting what Zodiac will do.

As the Avengers leave the mint, Iron Man complains that the problem is the Zodiac Key. And then makes the baffling comparison that when the team was lost in space-time, finding a second (working) time machine was how they won. But there’s no second Zodiac Key that will counter Scorpio’s.

Because. TWO DIFFERENT SITUATIONS, TONY.

The whole problem in the lost in space-time arc was that the Avengers were lost in space-time! Like it says on the tin!

If you’re bringing this up like this, then this story better end with there being an inexplicable second Zodiac Key, that’s all I’m saying!

Leo Tigra asks Iron Man to exposition dump about the Zodiac Key to her. Which Tony is happy to do!

I assume Tony is happy to explain a variety of things.

So he explains how once he, Daredevil, Madame Masque, and Nick Fury (what an odd collection) were sent to another dimension by the Zodiac Key, a dimension ruled by a group called the Brotherhood who created the Key.

And this is wild. The Zodiac Key thrives on conflict but their dimension became too peaceful so they yeeted it to Earth where there’s conflict to spare.

While the Avengers West Coast go into the Quinjet where Taurus is chained to a chair that’s just a little too small for him, Moon Knight hangs back.

He wants to use his own astrology knowledge to see if he comes up with the same answer.

And... yes! Both of them predict Zodiac went to Death Valley because of “the positions of the Moon and Pluto.”

Meanwhile in Death Valley, Zodiac teleports in.

Scorpio crows that he’s got the West Coast Avengers chasing his tail without their leader but non-Tigra Leo decides that its time to get on Scorpio’s case again. He decides that Scorpio sucks butts because his secret substitute Hawkeye was discovered.

Since Scorpio isn’t telling the other Zodiac about his also secret substitute Tigra, he tells Leo to stfu.

Leo: “That’s easy to say! But even though Scorpios like places called Death Valley -- death comes here through the power of the Sun, which is my orb!”

Virgo: “And it’s a Virgo sun, which empowers me -- and puts me on Leo’s side in this!”

These astrology nerds make me so mad.

Scorpio actually agrees, regretting that he made them all “so responsive to [their] particular astral influences” which means ‘base every thing they do on astrology. Every thing. EVERY THING.’

But just as he’s winding up to the ‘I brought you into this world, I can take you out’ the Avengers’ Quinjet shows up overhead.

Scorpio prepares to shoot down the Quinjet with the Zodiac Key... but Iron Man hopped out of the Quinjet on approach so he could fly in from the back while the Quinjet made an obvious appearance.

He finally traps the Zodiac Key in a grape-flavored magnetic beam before Scorpio can counter it.

The Quinjet lands and the West Coast Avengers rush out to start punching.

Non-Tigra Leo goes to fight Wonder Man, saying he’s been wanting a one-on-one with him. Scorpio, Virgo, Aquarius, and Capricorn attack Iron Man to try to free the Key. Libra and Gemini go to fight Mockingbird. Aries attacks Hank Pym and his amazing pockets of holding. LMD Taurus and Cancer attack Moon Knight. And Leo Tigra pretends to fight Pisces.

Despite being outnumbered four to one, Iron Man is Iron Man. In contention for strongest guy on team. Wonder Man can punch harder but Iron Man has a lot more variety. And with the Zodiac Key neutralized, he doesn’t have to be watching his back for it.

So he punches Capricorn into robo-goat chunks. Aquarius accuses Iron Man of being robo-racist and tries to short out his armor but Iron Man just throws him at Scorpio. And Virgo tries to sneak up on Iron Man with her energy siphon like she did when she was working for Quicksilver but he was expecting that.

Truly, Iron Man rocks.

I do wonder. These dudes are robots. Why do some of them have innate powers and others have external tools they need to work with? Fine and fair enough for the Zodiac Key. That’s a special case. But why does Virgo have a big blocky energy siphon she has to carry around? Why does Aquarius have a gun attached to a tube on his back?

Scorpio sucks at making Zodiac-themed Life Model Decoys.

Meanwhile, Wonder Man has no trouble fighting with Leo. Mockingbird beats Libra and Gemini by jumping out of the way so they run into each other... I swear, these guys suck so badly. Do these two even have any superpowers?

Leo Tigra shows up with a ‘defeated’ Pisces in tow and tells Mockingbird she’ll watch the defeated LMDs. Dr Pym kicks another one over - Aries in a big clear hamster ball. And Leo Tigra tells Iron Man she’ll grab the ones he beat as well.

But instead, she grabs Virgo’s energy siphon and connects it to Iron Man.

TREACHERY! Also, perfidy!

With Iron Man being drained, the magnetic beam holding the Zodiac Key dissipates and Scorpio is able to grab it and send the Avengers sprawling.

Since he loves a good gloat (and since the literal cat is out of the bag?), Scorpio gloats that Tigra is actually the new LMD Leo!

The old Leo isn’t thrilled to learn that he’s been obsoleted though.

Scorpio: “That’s right! I don’t have to take your abuse any longer! You’re finished!”

Abuse meaning any second-guessing whatsoever.

Also, this was a really stupid move of Scorpio, telling one of his allies he was going to betray him before he was actually ready to betray him.

But Leo isn’t going to sit back and just accept being replaced. He tackles Scorpio and wrestles over the Zodiac Key. And then Wonder Man jumps in too and now all three of them are wrestling over the key.

(Fucks sake Wondy, you’re supposed to be able to punch as hard as Mjolnir hits and you can’t win a tug of war?)

Scorpio keeps hold of the Key and tries to use it... but once again, the Key has performance issues and nothing happens.

Not-Tigra Leo: “Replace me, will you? Replace your backside!!”

Wonder Man: “Replace -- EVERYTHING!!”

And Leo and Wonder Man do a one-two combo, which voids Scorpio’s warranty.

Also, kills him. ‘Kills’ him?

Good thing we’ve already established that it doesn’t really count if you kill an LMD because they’re not Real People.

I love that Aries is still stuck in the hamster ball. That’s great. You’re doing an amazing job, Hank.

But the Zodiac Key suddenly floats into the air and resurrects Scorpio and the other LMDs that have been deactivated.

Dammit, Zodiac Key! People die when they’re killed!

Scorpio gloats that the Avengers can’t kill what isn’t alive. Which is more of a self-own, really. But the Avengers are ready to just never stop punching these dudes.

But Scorpio has a slightly different and much dumber plan in mind. He commands the Zodiac Key to transport them all to the Zodiac Key’s original realm.

The Key does not do this so Scoprio yells at it to get with the program.

The Zodiac Key: “It would not be a good idea, Scorpio!”

Scorpio: “What do you mean? You love conflict and you’ve taught me to love it! If we stay here, we’ll kill the Avengers eventually because we can’t be stopped, but it’ll just be the same fight over and over! Let’s make their murders interesting!”

The Zodiac Key: “Scorpio --”

Scorpio: “Listen, I’m tired of your balking! I know you saved my life, but I’m not your lackey! If you want some conflict with me, you’re going to get it!”

Never before have I seen a hoisted petard so laboriously foreshadowed and also earned by the one about to be hoisted.

There’s a special kind of hubris to talking over the magical reality-altering vaguely-Ankh shaped ‘key’ that gave you life.

They Zodiac Key does give into Scorpio’s whining and Zodiac and the Avengers both disappear from Death Valley.

Leaving human Taurus Cornelius van Lunt alone, unsupervised, and immediately ready to misbehave. The chain the Avengers chained him up with is long enough that he can reach the radio, so he uses it to call some of his old mob flunkies to come set him free.

Meanwhile, the Avengers (and also Zodiac) have a crazy-ass journey through the pink dimension.

The narration tries to sell it on being more trippy than that but, look, this isn’t the kind of wacky scenery that Kirby used to do on Fantastic Four. It’s a pink void with some debris.

Anyway, upon arriving in the Zodiac Key dimension, all the Zodiac LMDs immediately drop dead, like the Zodiac Key was trying to tell Scorpio.

The Zodiac LMDs can’t function in this dimension because they’re all so obsessively themed after the Zodiac, they can’t function in a universe without those same stars.

And nothing of value was lost.

God, Scorpio was an idiot.

The Zodiac Key goes on to say that the reason why it didn’t seem to work sometimes is that Scorpio was trying to get it to do something that would end conflict. And that the Key was not inclined to do.

(Makes you realize how shitty an ultimate weapon the Zodiac Key is. It won’t let you beat your opponent.)

But with the Zodiac stupided into nonfunctioning, there needs to be some new conflict. So the Zodiac Key blasts a mountain and reveals Hawkeye and Tigra fighting the Brotherhood!

So that’s where those two wound up!

Convenient that they were right nearby!

Dr Pym realizes that if they go to help the two Avengers, the Zodiac Key will assist the Brotherhood and decide to take out the Key first.

Leading to the embarrassing fight sequence of the West Coast Avengers failing to stop an inanimate object.

Wonder Man tries to grab it, it just zaps him. Mockingbird catches it through the hole with her stave and Dr Pym with an unshrunk net but it drags them into the sky. Iron Man tries to catch them but it CLANG!s into him hard. It dodges Moon Knight, who attributes his distance from the Moon as the reason he sucks.

After this whole page of embarrassment, the Zodiac Key flies over to the Brotherhood who immediately forfeit the fight.

The Key actually tips the scales too much. Hawkeye and Tigra gave them a good fight but the Brotherhood were better and had numbers. They let Hawkeye and Tigra live to get as much fight as they could.

As we just saw, the Key by itself just wiped the floor with most of the team. With the Key and the Brotherhood, they’d easily wipe out the team.

But then they wouldn’t have conflict again.

Mockingbird: “Only the Whackos could end up in a war where we win because we’re sure to lose!”

Iron Man: “I don’t accept that we’d lose -- !”

So salty, Tony.

The Brotherhood says they’ll return the West Coast Avengers to Earth. Annnnnd then sometime later, they’ll send another Zodiac Key to fuck with them.

Iron Man: “I don’t like that at all -- !”

Hawkeye offers to do some more fighting here if they can get a better deal than ‘someday we’ll fuck you over’ but no dice. The Brotherhood have made up their minds.

The Brotherhood: “Then let this Key open the door betwixt dimensions one final time -- and let the Avengers begone!”

The Zodiac Key: “And let them wonder -- ‘when and where will Scorpio return?’”

Hopefully never and nowhere!

Why can’t the Zodiac be interesting???

Which is to say, this is not the Zodiac story that finally wowed me. Its funny that Scorpio basically seized defeat from the jaws of victory and stupided himself to death. But there were twelve of the fuckers and they only got interesting when they started be imposter Avengers.

Anyway.

The West Coast Avengers return to Death Valley.

Mockingbird tries to tell him about the murder or manslaughter she did do to Phantom Rider but loses her nerve when Hawkeye praises her as “too good an Avenger” to be fooled by a fake him and that he knew she’d never let him down.

Oof.

Inadvertent guilt trip.

So she tells Hawkeye never mind about the thing she wanted to tell him.

Annnd. Yeah. Van Lunt Taurus bailed while they were gone, just like he said on panel that he would.

Moon Knight: “He swore his vow -- to the Moon -- ! The Fist of Khonshu must now show him his mistake...!”

The Zodiac drama continues... this time with the last meat Zodiac.

Except Libra, who faked his death by taking a nap.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because it’d be a nice, encouraging thing to do. Like and reblog this post too. It’d be a nice, encouraging thing to do.

[smallerplaces]

Mama wants a new pair of knees!

Kylie meets her body donor. In this dystopian society, the penalty for having a great body but a boring face is to have your body taken for the use of dolls with more personality.

This morning I got up early to get my one time-sensitive project done before Target opened, then hied myself to the sole Target within a 30-mile radius that still had Black MTM at $16.99. With my 25% Target Circle discount, that's $12.75, which is more than I paid for Kylie. But Kylie's hair-oxidation issue had left me in an intense mood of You Will Become the Doll I Want You to Be.

Kylie came with me in my purse, to do the skin tone match. It's not perfect, but it's the best I'm going to do. I wasn't worried about being mistaken for a shoplifter, as Target never sold Simply Fresh (it was a collab with Family Dollar) and this Target doesn't carry The Fresh Dolls (the non-discount version) either.

Kylie is a much bigger girl, all over, including her head. She also seems to be wearing her bust higher.

While i like the idea of different Barbie body types (petite, tall, curvy), in practice it's been frustrating because of the lack of fashion packs for non-standard sizes. I'm not as sorry as I probably should be that post-body transplant, Kylie will be able to dig into my existing stock of Barbie fashions. (I'm also not a small girl with puberty ahead of me, so the body diversity, or lack of it, in my four adult Barbie-esque dolls isn't going to have much impact on anyone.)

So I boiled a big bowl of water, intending to use the steam to soften the heads. This intention lasted just as long as it took me to get MTM's pony tail wet. (Her hair quality, btw, is greasy and lank. WTH, Mattel?)

MTM's head came off fairly easily, despite the spike. Kylie's head was another matter. The one thing this line did thoroughly was make sure the doll's head will not come off during energetic play. I had to dunk her four times and squeeze a lot, before the head agonizingly peeled off its knob.

Getting heads back on was easier.

And it's done! After the moments of terror that Kylie's head would never come off, it seems unreal.

Both gals are drying upstairs, and Kylie got a hair masque treatment. MTM will go in the donation bag when she's dry.

Kylie has gone from having the least mobility of the four adult women dolls to the most! Teresa only has the articulated Fashionista body; Cinderelsa has a knock-off of it; and Kelsey has click knees with immobile chop-chop arms.

[dollsonmain]

OH right! I did pop into Goodwill again yesterday to look at the bins they had.

They were really nasty which would have been satisfying to clean, but were too small to put the strawberry trays into so I had to buy a larger one at Walmart for about double the price.

That says Goodwill is charging too much, really.

Anyway I will give the bebbs a good dunking today, which shouldn’t be too bad because I don’t have to mow.

I will try to get some ponies worked on, too. At this point all that’s left is a handful of deflockings, putting curlers in and setting their hair, painting, and minor hair replacements.

[quietwingsinthesky]

Question: cringe culture is 100% dead, but I'm curious what you'd pick as your most embarrassing fandom, past or present? I know some people consider supernatural to be a guilty pleasure but honestly there's some other fandoms that I'm way more embarrassed to still like

Generally, I’m not really embarrassed about any of the stuff I’ve been into. If I liked it, clearly it brought me joy at the time and that’s what matters. You know, how would I be the person I am today if I didn’t play Undertale or even if I didn’t read every creepypasta I could get my hands on as a kid? That plus my memory problems means no cringe for me lol. But I guess I could talk about a few.

MLP was back when the show was still airing — I want to say 3rd or 4th season? — and I just dove into the fandom because ‘woah guys did you know that people write stories about the ponies? That there are infinite amount of stories to read?’ Which, you know, ups and downs, you got your Keepers of Discord but you’ve also got your Cupcakes. (Though, to be honest, the fact that I had a reading of Cupcakes bookmarked on my computer to listen to to help me fall asleep? probably explains uhm. Some Stuff About Me.) Honestly, wouldn’t trade my time with MLP for anything, and I still love the show and a lot of fanworks dearly. I rewatch Lullaby for a Princess every few weeks, I reread Something Sweet To Bite every Halloween, and when I can’t sleep, I still find myself going to ObabScribbler or TheLostNarrator’s YouTube channels to find fic readings to calm my brain down.

Dream SMP is… more complicated. Obviously, if you know anything about it, you know all the shit that came out. I won’t get into that here because that’s not really a part of my experience? Just sort of a gross thing that overshadows it all, even though I was out of the fandom before any of that stuff was known. I actually got into it to bond with my little sister, she loved that stuff, and damn it all, but I got unironically sucked in by just the fantastic work that came out of a fandom surrounding a minecraft roleplay server lol. They aren’t wrong about the art that got made for those YouTubers, it’s all stunningly good. And it’s how I found Sad-ist’s animations on YouTube. Still subscribed to them, their work is always beautiful to watch, the old Dream SMP stuff and the new stuff. And I liked bonding with my sister over the bonkers minecraft lore. The end of that hyperfixation was when Technoblade died. Got too real, all of a sudden, too close to home, and I peaced out hard. It was good, though, while I was there. I liked having something to talk to my sister about.

Uhhhh okay out of that downer ending let’s talk about Sherlock. Yes hi hello original superwholock-er here, despite only seeing the first two seasons of doctor who but IT COUNTS. I can’t even be mad at past me for liking Sherlock because I probably wouldn’t be as close to my friends as I am if we hadn’t all been watching s3-4 live. And dunking hard on s4. I was never a johnlock conspiracy person, so that helps. There was the time my friend read us outloud some Johnlock mpreg ass birth fanfic in math class. That was… an experience. I give this a “I can’t plug my phone in without being haunted by his voice”/10

And finally, back to serious town, Harry Potter. I don’t even have anything good to say here, really. The whole “mourning something important to my childhood” phase is long over, the damage continues to be done, and. And nothing. I just don’t want to see it anymore. It’s not shame or cringe, I guess, it’s more like… disappointment. Not at myself, because fuck it, dude, I was a kid, I knew everything there was to know about the books, I waited for the mail when I turned eleven, I wrote “Hogwarts is my Home” on the inside of my closet like a ward to keep me safe. The first thing I ever read about being trans was a damn Harry Potter fic, one of the first podfics I ever made, too, though I was too chicken to post it. So what’s left except disappointment, even the anger long gone because it just keeps happening. I just don’t want to see it anymore.

Anyway, uhhhhm. Hope that suffices as an answer lol, I rambled on way too long.