#I got it because I like black caps and I like propeller hats

[dirkv2]

Hey, what the hell? I've got this exact same hat.

how fucking sinister is this. i cant imagine the emotion i’d feel if i saw someone wearing a jet black baseball cap with a propeller

[purrpletiger]

FRESH DRAWING GUIDE:

Hello everybody, I've come to give you all this absurd reference guide for drawing Fresh. yep. I decided to spend hours slapping this together.

If I got anything wrong or should add anything PLEEEASE lemme know! All ideas welcome!

If you want to see my "research" on this character, let me know in the replies, because there's so much to talk about with him and I'd love to do a character analysis or two, I couldn't put much about his personality or source posts in this because it's just a drawing guide!

Link to all the full images

Transcript and close-ups of the text on the image: (May be in a strange order)

Fresh was created by @loverofpiggies (CQ)

Main Outfit:

YOLO sunglasses

Backwards propeller cap

Pink Polo shirt

Crayola Jacket

Gold Tooth

SWAG fannypack

Convertible Zip-off pants

White Heelie shoes

Pink socks

He has thick eyebrows to emote! (The eyebrows are usually depicted with black hair but one human design has eyebrows that match the pink hair color!)

The bag says SWAG on it

His glasses say YOLO by default, but the letters can magically change mid-scene...

this design for Fresh is Tall, we dunno how tall but taller than CQ's Sans characters (or just Geno since he's literally sans undertale with some added steps). But his height is just his host's height sooo it can vary.

those (cyan and yellow) shoe details are on the innerside but not outerside

HE HAS HEELIES!

Pink glove cuffs!

his skateboard is inconsistent dont worry about it

Glasses Off:

The host's soul shows up in their left eyesocket

- The soul tends to look unstable (cracks & a sortve stroboscopic effect.. i couldn't think of a better word.) but not in some cases...

It doesn't have to be a white upside-down heart, that's just a reference to an undertale monster soul.

He has a purple substance full of little RADs that emanate from his eyesockets (when his sunglasses are off)

"The soul in Fresh's eyes CAN be cracked. That soul isn't his. it belongs to his host. And.... after a while.... things go bad for the host, and he needs a new one." -CQ

(example of soul with unstable effect with no cracks) (example of soul with cracks but lacking the effect)

The purple aura(?) can glow and emanate from the eyes when his glasses are on too

i miss this one design specifically. the colors and the SK8 OR B SK8 shirt were peak

I miss the SWAG necklace...

Fresh leaves a rainbow cloud of smoke when he "poofs". Either teleporting him and his host body somewhere or leaving his host behind.

Human Designs:

Fresh can possess humans too.

They all look physically different because they're different people that he's possessing.

Fresh can possess pretty much any body, but I thought I'd show the varied examples of humans anyway

Don't forget the orange jacket flaps! or his hat propeller!

I dunno what's up with the multicolor tongue thing. I think it was extra parasites in the host's mouth? I feel like it was scrapped at some point... but I could be wrong

FURBIES!:

Oh yeah, he also does this: (no image for the bat tho)

"I mean when he fights he pulls Furbies out of his magical fanny pack. takes out a wiffle bat. and hits the furby at his enemies.

And then the furby explodes in a blaze of glory." -CQ

Despite using some furbies as explosives, he seems to 'care' about and treat these two like precious babies:

This one is potentially named McFreshby The Fresh Furbrah (Fresh is mentioned to have one named that, and this is the only other furby he's been depicted with)

It can also do THIS: (roll its eyes back into a spookier look)

This is DJ FurBs. that's all i know about him

The REAL Parasite:

Fresh is actually this little parasite controlling a host body. (if you didn't know that why are you reading this post rn!?! but nah I love new Fresh fans, welcome!)

The main parasite is this purple one with the eyemouth and four(?) tendrils, the other colored tentacles are prrrobably Fresh's offspring (freshmageddon moment?) (I'm not actually sure, I'm just pretty sure they're not part of the main parasite but are parasite tentacles)

You can also see Fresh's five or more purple tendrils here stretching out all over his host's body

All art from CrayonQueen/@loverofpiggies

Reference guide made by PurrpleParrasite/@purrpletiger

pls suggest changes or additions if u have ideas!

That's all!

[doyouneedmedicalwesistance]

Hi my name is Homestar Buzzer Michael Runner Jr. and I wear a beanie cap with a buzzer (that's how I got my name) with hydraulics and can play the Night Guard theme and ebony black eyes like quotation marks and a lot of people tell me I look like Tom Dover (AN: if u don't know who he is get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to John Linnell but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'ma noarm but I can still grab things with my mind. I have pale white fur. I'm also a terrific athlete, and I go to a school called KOTHS in Free Country where I'm repeating sophomore year again (I'm twenty-eight). I'm an athlete (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly primary colors. I love Bubs’ Concession Stand and Ibuy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a red craw with a white star on it and my long pants (they’re long pants), propeller hat and old sneakers. I was wearing gloves even though i don’t have hands. I was running outside KOTHS. It was sunny outside and not wet which was really great. Everybody everybody stared at me. Iput up my middle finger at them.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #237: Meltdowns and Mayhem

November, 1983

Pandemonium at Project Pegasus!

Oo, that might have been a better title! It’s just fun to say! Meltdowns and Mayhem is good too. And mayhem and pandemonium really does describe the cover.

Its one of those big mishmash fight covers. Just a big confusing scrum. And Wasp yelling at She-Hulk for some reason. Yeah, I dunno.

Hey, Spider-Man is still pretty front and center so this is still the Spider-Man Guest Stars, starring the Avengers book.

Oh, and the cool new logo is still here so I guess its the new thing. Rad.

Last time on Avengers: Spider-Man decided he was going to join the Avengers because money. He stowed away when the Avengers were called to an emergency situation at Project Pegasus, which turned out to be lava men. Captain Marvel’s presence accidentally released Nova villain Blackout who freed Moonstone. On her say so, he also freed Rhino and Electro. Captain Marvel also managed to resolve the lava men situation since they for some reason worship her as the prophesied savior the Lady-of-Light.

Avengers lead interesting lives.

This time on Avengers:

Captain Marvel tells the lava men to go home.

And they do.

Spider-Man grouses that he gets no respect from lava men. I’m not sure why he was expecting any?

Cap(tain America) has been briefing Plain Michael O’Brien - the once (and future? when he stops sulking?) Guardsman - on the situation re: the lava men invasion being a big misunderstanding.

Project Pegasus accidentally sent a magma tap right into the lava men village. Common mistake, could have happened to anyone. But O’Brien promises the magma tap will be moved.

Elsewhere in the facility, Moonstone’s quirky quartet watch Cap, O’Brien, and the lava men make peace. With different reactions.

Rhino doesn’t think its a big deal because he wants to pound ‘em. Electro is more hesitant because the Avengers outnumber them as is AND have Spider-Man and Spider-Man pretty consistently kicks his and Rhino’s asses.

Rhino still doesn’t care.

But if Electro doesn’t want to do the superhero fight then he can guard the rear and keep an eye on Blackout who Rhino doesn’t trust anymore than he would Spider-Man.

Because since Blackout is so new a villain (only previous appearance an issue of Nova), Rhino hasn’t heard of him. AND ISN’T IT CONVENIENT THAT A VILLAIN HE’S NEVER HEARD OF RELEASED HIM FROM HIS CELL SAME DAY THE AVENGERS SHOWED UP?

Pretty suspicious.

Blackout is hyperbolic and has a persecution complex even by the standards of supervillains.

Blackout: “How dare you accuse me of such a thing!! You’re just like all the rest! You’re against me... All of you!”

He uses his vague powers to encase Rhino in “solid black-light” and then waxes melodramatic.

I mean look at this shit.

Electro’s reaction to this in-fighting is more on the lines of scoffing at all this nonsense comic book science compared to his super cool normal electricity powers.

Electro: “Solid light? Black-star power? Moonstone, what’s he talking about? Anyone who’s had even a grade-school science education knows that he’s spouting gibberish! Black-light is just ultraviolet...”

Moonstone: “... And what he controls is much more. Yes, I know... But I don’t think that he fully knows.”

Wow. Co-villains be snarkin’.

Also, while Blackout continues monologuing about how anyone that stands against him will be merged with the light spectrum (???), Rhino just breaks out of the solid black-light, grabs Blackout, and goes to bounce Blackout against the wall until he blacks out.

But Moonstone and Electro separate the idiots and reminds them that they should be more mad at the Project Pegasus scientists who imprisoned them.

AND MOONSTONE HAS A PLAN, of course.

Back two levels down where the lava men plot is still wrapping up.

The lava men have gathered around the magma pit with the lead lava men chanting for the powers of earth to carry them home if they could kthx.

Spectating Spider-Man: This is screwy! He just keeps chanting and waving his arms over the trashed opening to the old magma pit, like he was some second-rate Dr. Strange! What’s he think he’s going to accomplish?

And then the earth blasts magma up from the pit and whisks the the lava men away home to Spider-Man’s great incredulity.

I mean, sure, the Avengers’ lives are weird but is this really weirder than your own life, Spidey?

Just a few years before this comic, Amazing Spider-Man #2 had to be retconned so you wouldn’t have dealt with aliens in only your second issue. Your life is weird!

Anyway, since the lava men are gone, Wasp decides its time to rip Spider-Man a new one for stowing away and interfering with Avengers’ business.

Spider-Man: “I’m sorry, Wasp. I...”

Wasp: “Sorry?! Is that all you can say for yourself? Well, I should hope you’re sorry! You might have sacrificed our entire mission!”

Spider-Man: I really blew it this time! “I only meant to help, Wasp. I just wanted to show you that I’d make a good Avengers... But I guess you’d never consider me for membership now, huh?”

Wasp: “I didn’t say that! If you promise not to ever do anything this rash again, we’ll see what we can do about making you an Avengers-in-training!”

(Good to see Wasp got over her inexplicable ‘ew spiders are gross’ phase from the 60s)

Much excitement until Spider-Man remembers that he didn’t want to be an in-training and protests what would he even need training for?

Captain America: “Well, for one thing, to learn how to follow orders!”

Hah!

Its like a criticism sandwich. ‘You almost fucked everything up!’ ‘But we still want you to join us.’ ‘But you need to learn teamwork dammit!’

I’ll give Spidey credit, after I was a bit rude last time, that he has learned to take criticism between the time in Amazing #1 and now. He didn’t immediately jump out a window rather than face embarrassment at fucking up. Part of that is probably that he’s underground in a government facility and there’s no good place to run away but still, some of it has to be growth.

Scarlet Witch backs Cap up that all the Avengers had to learn how to work together as a unit.

Wasp and Cap also mention that if he becomes an Avenger, he can keep his private life private but no secret superpowers. The Avengers need to know what each other can do in a pinch.

This is news to Starfox who begins musing about his own SECRET SUPERPOWER (which I’m pretty sure I’ve spilled the beans on repeatedly already). Since there hasn’t been a situation where his SECRET POWER would have been useful, he just hasn’t mentioned it but not wonders whether he should just tell the other Avengers or maybe lean into the omission and keep not mentioning it forever.

I feel option 2 isn’t a great idea but, hey, you do you spaceman.

Anyway, Spider-Man agrees that telling them about his cool powers is a fair trade for becoming an Avenger. And seriously, he’s prone to explain his powers at the drop of a hat anyway so this is no kind of huge task.

Wasp decides that they should return to the mansion so they can get this wrapped up and O’Brien shows the Avengers the cool and not at all dangerous vortex beam transport tube.

The vortex beam propels the passengers up and is apparently susceptible to irony. Because as soon as Spider-Man asks what would happen if the power went out, the beam fails and the Avengers start plummeting twenty stories.

Thankfully, Captain Marvel, Wasp, and Starfox can fly and Spider-Man catches the rest in a web net after catching himself against the wall of the tube.

Maybe stick to elevators and stairs, Project Pegasus.

But O’Brien protests that there are hundreds of failsafes and automatic safety systems that would have had to fail for them to plummet even if the vortex beam lost power.

This was SABOTAGE.

On Wasp’s order, She-Hulk punches them an egress into the side of the tube.

O’Brien gets over to a security monitor and discovers the breakout. The guy on the other end of the monitor informs him that the four escaped prisoners are on their way to the nuclear research dome.

Wouldn’t you know it! The Avengers just left and now they have to head back.

They find that the doors to the dome have been melted and Starfox and She-Hulk have to KRA-THOOM them open to pieces.

Spider-Man: Geez, next to those two, I feel like a 98-pound weakling!

Unfortunately, its one impediment after another. Past the doors into the dome, there’s a big black wall that’s not supposed to be there.

Spider-Man tries climbing it but slides right down, to his bafflement.

Spider-Man: “I can climb a wall of teflon if I have to! What’s this thing made of?”

She-Hulk tries punching it and finds that it breaks just fine but when she BAMs a hole in it, Electro zaps her with electricity through it. And the hole seals up when Spider-Man tries to web Electro.

Moonstone starts broadcasting through a monitor so she can gloat that her boys and her have taken over the nuclear research dome which means they’re in control of the whole project and the Avengers (plus Spider-Man) can’t do a thing to stop them.

And as a pretty vehement gtfo, Electro juices up with a backpack connected to the dome’s nuclear generator and electrifies the black wall.

So now the Avengers can’t even try to punch through.

Wasp: “Dangerous or not, we still have to get through and stop this madness! That wall has to come down... and you’re the one best equipped to handle that -- Wanda!”

And her probability borking powers are, as ever, a good do anything button.

Its not very probable for Blackout’s barrier to break down but it does! And its not probable for the electricity on the barrier to discharge into Electro but wouldn’t you know it, Wanda waved her hands a certain way and its happening!

Supervillains hate her. Her one weird trick for doing heroics.

But with the barrier down, Rhino charges the Avengers (plus Spider-Man), bowling over Starfox who was probably momentarily baffled to see a man dressed as a rhino charging him.

Captain Marvel dodges Rhino in her light form only to be immediately captured in a bubble by Blackout.

Alas, she had such a good showing this issue. I guess Stern decided that some other people needed time to look cool.

Spider-Man jumps on Rhino while he bowls through the Avengers and Starfox punches Blackout in the head for capturing Monica.

Blackout: “You think you can intimidate me just because you can fly?! Well, you’re wrong! Wrong! Blackout can also defy gravity!”

Starfox: “A challenge! Marvelous!”

Blackout sure is something. Like I said, even for a supervillain, he sure is something.

But its funny how Blackout and Starfox are on completely different wavelengths.

Electro recovers from getting Wanda’d and goes to fry Spider-Man but Cap(tain America) throws his mighty shield and severs the cord giving him extra juice.

Spider-Man, webbing the cord so its not a hazard: “Thanks for the quick save, Cappy!”

Captain America: “Don’t mention it, son! That’s just teamwork in action!”

It’s a teachable moment. Cap-style.

Electro tries to fry Cap for interfering but Cap’s mighty shield blocks... the... electricity. Okay, its metal though. Where is the charge going??

Scarlet Witch comes to ruin Electro’s day twice-over and waves her do-anything hands at him.

He scoffs that nothing happened and then immediately passes out.

Cap: “Wanda? What the blazes did you do to him?”

Scarlet Witch: “Basically, I tried to make all the carbon dioxide in the room cluster around his head, so he’d pass out from temporary lack of oxygen. Looks like it worked!”

Cap: “Uh... yes!”

Cap’s thinking ‘damn Wanda, you’re scary.’

The thing about do-anything powers like Wanda’s is that she really should be able to shut down most opponents like this but she probably won’t do this very often because it would be boring.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man blindfolds Rhino with webbing and lets him ram through a wall.

Rhino: “A few inches of steel don’t mean anything to me!”

She-Hulk: “Is that so? Well, how about a few knuckles of She-Hulk? Does that mean anything? Hmmph! I guess it does!”

I mean, you didn’t have to phrase it that way but good job, She-Hulk! You punched him in his rhino face.

And it was more good teamwork from Spidey. He set ‘em up, She-Hulk knocked ‘im down.

Also meanwhile, Captain Marvel is fed up with not being able to escape Blackout’s globe. And, hey, nice touch, from the outside we can see that the globe is wholly opaque so yes, it would be impenetrable to the visible light spectrum.

And no matter what energy she tries, she can’t get out. But she does a force-blast and that does bust the globe.

Whiiiiich distracts Starfox as he chases Blackout around the room and Blackout takes advantage of the distraction to blast Starfox.

Captain Marvel: “You devil! I’ll get you for that!”

Blackout: “Get me? Yes, you all try -- don’t you? You’re all out to get me!”

In this situation? Yes they are! Ya goof.

In the control room, Moonstone knows that Rhino, Electro, and Blackout don’t stand a chance to beat the Avengers but all she needs is for them to be a distraction while she uses the controls.

Wasp flies in but too late. Moonstone blasts not Wasp but the control panel.

Her plan all along was to destroy Project Pegasus for daring to study her powers like she was some kind of lab rat. And with the controls destroyed, she’s confidant that the Avengers won’t be able to stop what she started.

She blinds Wasp by doing a taiyoken with her chest and then flees out the evacuation exit, gloating that Project Pegasus is about to get very unpleasant.

What a goof.

Blackout also takes the opportunity to escape, sealing the exit behind him with one of his black light constructs.

Captain Marvel starts to blast through but Wasp tells her that there’s no time to chase supervillains right now, the reactor is going critical.

Spider-Man: “Critical? Is someone being critical again?”

Wasp: “This is no joking matter, Spider-Man! Moonstone’s left the reactor in an awful state!”

Spidey seriouses up immediately and goes to take a look, commenting that he has a little scientific training.

Oh, hey, another great reason to have Spider-Man join the team. He can be the new science guy and Starfox can get back to being the flirt. Everyone would be happier then.

And then Spidey even more seriouses up.

Spider-Man: “Moonie pulled all of the damping rods out of the power core! If we can’t get them back in place, we’ll have a meltdown that’ll leave the entire project uninhabitable for the new hundred-thousand years!”

Geez, Moonstone! You don’t half-ass revenge!

Moonstone broke the controls so they can’t just plunk the damping rods back into place. Wanda’s do-anything powers could do it, if she wanted to melt before she could do it.

Apparently her powers are reliant on direct line-of-sight (even though that doesn’t gel with when she fought the Wizard recently) but the radiation levels are so high in the reactor that she doubts even She-Hulk would survive it.

But Captain Marvel could.

Radiation wouldn’t affect her energy forms and she can get into the reactor through the circuity in the control room.

Spider-Man gets on a microphone and tries to walk Captain Monica through what she needs to do.

She needs to cut through all five supports on the damping rod assembly. If the assembly doesn’t fall as a unit, NUCLEAR DISASTER.

Captain Marvel zips about as a laser, I guess, cutting through the supports. One isn’t cut through all the way through, giving Spider-Man a startle, but Monica zips about lightspeed and finishes cutting through, allowing the assembly to fall into place with a WHUNK.

Spider-Man: “The reactor’s shutting down. Uh.. Can someone help me get my heart restarted?”

Ha, I like Cap(tain America)’s ‘whew�� gesture.

Y’know, the selling point of this arc seems to be ‘HEY LOOK SPIDER-MAN IS HERE’ but its been more of a Captain Marvel focused story. She resolves the lava man situation and she has a ‘this looks like a job for Aquaman’ moment with the reactor too.

Still, Spidey pulled his weight. He c-c-c-combo’d Rhino with She-Hulk. His spider-sense came in handy. And he got to be a science guy since Starfox was knocked out.

I tend to be iffy on Spider-Man as an Avenger overall but heck, lets have him on the team!

Later, after Spider-Man’s heart gets restarted and everyone has returned to the Mansion, Cap and Wasp call the Government (specifically their liaison Mr. Sikorski who doesn’t want to be here and hates dealing with superheroes. Its frankly amazing that Gyrich’s understudy is a worse Avengers liaison than him) to request clearance for Spider-Man to become a new trainee Avenger.

And over slightly to the left, presumably off-camera from the call Wasp and Cap are having, Spider-Man ponders whether this is actually something he wants.

He still doesn’t like the idea of being treated as a rookie. He’s been superheroing since he was in high school and darnit, he’s dropped out of grad school by this point! And he doesn’t know whether he’s a good fit for a team at all.

But on the other hand, he’s got a thousand good reasons (a week) to join. I’m sorry, I typed reasons, I meant dollars.

But what Spider-Man does and does not want becomes a bit moot as Mr. Sikorski shoots the idea down flat.

Mr. Sikorski: “Spider-Man?! Are you out of your minds? We have a file on him that’s a yard long -- and it still doesn’t tell us a blasted thing about him! The man’s a major security risk! No! I absolutely forbid it!”

God. He even wags his finger at Cap and Wasp.

The nerve.

The unmitigated gall.

Spider-Man takes this with all due sour grapes.

Spider-Man: “They’ll okay, Starfox -- a guy from outer space -- but my own government won’t approve me?”

Yeah, that’s a good point!

Cap offers to go over Mr. Sikorski’s head by going right to the president (which in FAIRNESS is kinda how Starfox got on the team) but Spider-Man tells Cap not to bother.

I’d guess a combination of bruised pride and ‘oh thank god now I don’t have to make a decision, I just get to be indignant about it.’

Spider-Man: “Naw, don’t put yourself out, Cap! Me joining the Avengers was a dumb idea anyway! But I’ll tell you one thing... my Congressman is definitely gonna hear about this!”

Sad Starfox with an icepack on his head: “Congressman? What on Earth is a Congressman?”

Hah.

Also, the tiny next issue box promises UNLIMITED VISION which is definitely not ominous at alllll.

So! Not a bad two-parter by any means! It is a shame that Spider-Man can’t join the Avengers, because of the government and probably writers and editorial, he has a fun dynamic with the team.

But in these times where Marvel tried to keep things consistent in the shared universe, a big guy with his own book like Spider-Man would be difficult. I mean, they’ve only recently written out Thor and Iron Man for having troubles in their own books and Spider-Man is constantly having trouble in his book.

Your time will come eventually, Spidey.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because maybe one day I’ll get to the point where Spider-Man is a reserve member. Also like and reblog because I like to feel liked.

[waywardbeanie]

A Man of Letters - Chapter Three

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female Reader Summary: It started as a simple hunt for Sam and Dean Winchester. Dean didn’t realize that this single case would change his life forever. Now they are on the biggest mission of their lives, and without the use of cellphones, the only way he can communicate with the love of his life is through old fashioned letter writing. He has done everything in his power to keep her safe, but will it be enough? Word Count: 3538

Series Warnings: Language, slow burn, angst, smut, alcohol consumption, fluff, SPN typical violence (individual chapters will contain relevant warnings) a little meta Chapter Warning: Violence, assault, humor (Is that really a warning?) and a little bit of sweet.

A/N: This series has been rattling around in my head for a while. It would never have made it to the light of day if it was not for my beautiful group of friends with whom none of this would be possible! You know who you are and I love you all!

Thank you to my beta @winchest09​​ without her none of this would be possible. If you’d like to be tagged, my list is open. Just send me an ask HERE: **Make sure you check out the playlist, it is updated every chapter and an essential part of the story**

Spotify Playlist : A Man of Letters

This series is ongoing!

No Gif’s are mine

“Weird,” Y/N huffed looking out the front window of her Main Street photography studio, “Photos That Rock”. That same black muscle car has passed by her shop window at least five times today. She feels like she should recognize it, but it is just out of reach. Pulling her hair back into a ponytail she began to straighten up around the studio. Last night was a late night, then tossing and turning all night thinking about Mr. Tall, Dark and Plaid. It was an early morning today with a full schedule of studio time and then she was set to go back to The Zoo for Blues night. “Thank God it’s Friday!” she thought.

Tomorrow she opens at 11:00 and only for a few hours. During the summer, the hours are reduced with people being on vacation or just busy. The last thing they want to do on a Saturday is to come in and have their picture taken. She had editing to do, but she could do that on her laptop at home barefooted, wearing shorts and a T shirt.

Y/N locked the door as she flipped the closed sign around. Walking to the back of the studio she grabbed her garment bag off the hook and proceeded to change clothes. She didn’t have time to go back to her house. Besides, once she went home, she wasn’t leaving.  Finding that charming little 2-bedroom bungalow was a blessing. 

Thinking back, she remembered driving around quaint little neighborhoods when Y/N saw the “For Sale” sign being put out. She pulled her black Jeep over to the side of the road and jumped out, clad in jean capris, her favorite white sneakers with a black  ZZ Top “Tres Hombres” mugshot picture on the front, hair in a ponytail and large sunglasses adorning her face.

 “Excuse me,” she said politely, as she approached the elderly woman trying to pound a sign into the hard dirt of the front yard. “May I ask you about the house?”

The old woman peered at her over her glasses. “Ya by yourself?” she almost shouted.

 “Yes ma’am.” Y/N smiled.

“Ya like strong coffee?” she questioned again, “it’s the only kind of coffee I make,” she mumbled. Y/N nodded her head agreeably.

“Well, come on then, come in and look at the house. You can have a cup of coffee with me and I’ll tell ya about it.” Y/N followed behind the slowly shuffling woman with slide slippers and a faded blue house dress.

Within 2 hours, Y/N learned that Hazel had lived in this house her entire married life. Her husband Everett built it when he returned from the Pacific after WWII. The house was a little run down she explained because she had a hard time taking care of things after Everett died 18 months ago. Hazel was ready to move into the senior apartments where all her “widow friends” live. By Y/N's second cup of coffee, she and Hazel agreed on a price and that Y/N could have the house in a month. They agreed to meet at the lawyers in town the following Monday. She had a bounce in her step as she returned to her Jeep after hugging Hazel goodbye. Her step stuttered as a somber smile pulled at her mouth. “This was the first good thing she could use her parent’s life insurance for.”  

Y/N shook her head to clear her mind of the past. Glancing at the clock she noticed that she needed to be at the bar in 30 minutes and it was 15 minutes away. She quickly stripped off her T-shirt and jeans and shimmied into her black leggings and pulled on her knee high, 5-inch heeled boots. Pulling her grey sleeveless flowing top over her head, tugging it down, it skimmed right at her mid-thigh. Focusing on her reflection, she quickly touched up her makeup and added lipstick. Yanking out the hairband, she returned it to her wrist, finger combing her hair.

“Well, that’s as good as it’s going to get today,” she said to herself. Turning around, she grabbed her backpack and keys and ran out the back door to her Jeep, praying she didn’t hit traffic.

The Jeep careened into the parking lot of The Zoo, throwing gravel as “My Kinda Party�� by Jason Aldean blaring from the speakers. She made it with 5 minutes to spare. The bar was busy already, so she had to park on the far end of the lot. She grabbed her backpack off the seat and sprinted to the front door just as it swung open.

Stepping inside it was apparent it was going to be a different kind of night. The place was packed just about shoulder to shoulder. People weren’t here to dance, they were here to have a few beers and listen to great Blues music. Y/N snaked along the edge of the crowd to the bar, carefully removed her camera from the bag and handed the backpack to Travis. Surveying the crowd she knew she would get the best pictures by positioning herself on the edge of the stage.

Painstakingly she made her way to the front as the band rambled out. . She motioned to one of the members to confirm she would not be a distraction and he gestured for her to join them while grinning at her. “Make sure you get my good side.”

As they began to jam, the crowd surged forward and Y/N was glad she wasn’t on the floor tonight. She focused on the band and the front of the crowd for their first set, capturing ecstatic faces as the music rose and fell. After a hasty break the band began their second set with “Got My Mojo Working” by Muddy Waters. Y/N steadied herself on the side of the stage and began to scan the bar through her lens, capturing bits and pieces of the enthusiastic and eclectic crowd. The camera halted at 2 men that didn’t belong. They were leaning against the back wall with their arms crossed in front of their chest. They were tall and seem to tower above the crowd. Even this far away they seem pasty and unkempt.  Y/N chucked to herself because one has a John Deere hat on and the other a Caterpillar hat, direct competitors. As she studied them, both snapped their heads up simultaneously. The look on their faces was so murderous that her stomach tightened, and she began to quake. Trying to settle herself her camera moved on instantly. As she wrapped up her shoot at the end of the night, she could still not shake the pit in her stomach.

She talked to the band for a few minutes as they were packing up their instruments and the crowd began to clear out. Jumping down off the stage, she went to the bar to gather her things.

“Thanks so much for tonight Y/N,” Travis pronounced handing her the backpack. “Do you need me to walk you out?”

“No, I’m good.” Y/N shook her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow night for the second blues show.”

Smiling, Travis toasted her with the glass he was polishing.

She hefted her backpack over her shoulder and with her head down, she headed outside.  En route to her parking spot, she observed a group of men congregating close to her Jeep. Slowing her pace she began eyeing them closely, spotting immediately the 2 men in ball caps that creeped her out earlier.  Giving them a wide berth she dug her keys out of her bag, kicking herself the whole time that she didn’t already have them in hand.

As she drew closer, the group began to watch her, making lewd remarks and vulgar gestures. She ran the rest of the way to her Jeep, jumped in, cranking the engine almost simultaneously. Y/N jammed it into reverse, throwing gravel, then ramming it into drive in one fluid motion, putting as much space between her and the group as possible. Her heart was thundering in her chest while her entire body began to quake. Her breaths came in short bursts as she propelled down the road, putting a few miles between her and the bar.  Y/N began to talk herself down, trying to remember her yoga breathing as she berated herself for thinking of yoga at a time like this.

Steering closer to her house she began to compose herself. As she pulled into her driveway, she put her Jeep in park resting her head on the steering wheel, breathing slowly, in and out. Yanking her keys out the ignition she threw them into her bag. Taking one last calming breath she hoisted her bag on her shoulder and got out, slamming the door behind her.

She had taken three steps when a vice like grip wrapped around her bicep swinging her around and slamming her against the side of the Jeep, hurling the bag out of her reach and knocking the wind out of her. Y/N was momentarily paralyzed, the disbelief so profound. A large hand gripped the back of her neck, pulled her away from the Jeep and crushed the side of her face into the driver’s side window.  He clenched her neck tighter as he pushed her face into the window. Tears are running down her face and she strains to hold in cries of pain and fear. She feels the weight of his chest press into her back, feeling his sticky hot breath on the side of her face.

“Did you think you could run?” he seethed. “Did you think we would not fucking find you?”

“W-W-What are you talking about?” Y/N choked out.

Spinning her around by her arm and tossing her back against the door, Y/N hit it like a ragdoll, sliding down the side of the vehicle as her fear incapacitated her mind and body. Looking up, she recognized her assailant from the bar with the John Deere hat. He gripped her by the throat, dragging her back up the Jeep. Y/N feet dangled off the ground, her right eye already swollen shut blood dripping from the side of her head and lip.

“Bitch, we’ve been looking for you for a long time,” he sneered. Y/N tried to shake her head back and forth.

“NO!” she struggled, “I don’t know you!”

He laughed as she tried to focus her one good eye. An index of faces flipping through her mind like a rolodex. He bent down, his fingers digging into her throat, leveling eye to eye with her.

“Oh, but we know you. You were supposed to be in the cabin with James and Diane. We should have been able to take care of all of you at once.” His mouth twisted, “Instead, we had to chase you ass across half the damn country.”

Uncontrollable tears were rolling down her face, blood pounding in her ears. The stranger straightened, his hand slightly loosening around her neck, feet still inches off the ground. “We usually like to play with our food,  but those fuckin’ Winchesters are in town. I’ve messed around enough.”

Y/N could not make sense of anything this lunatic was saying. He knew about her parents’ cabin?  He knew she was supposed to be there? Play with their food? Maybe she was blacking out from lack of oxygen. Winchesters?

She could feel herself weakening. She could hear screeching tires and yelling but it was so far away. She was opening her mouth to scream but only a raspy moan escaped. A look of panic crossed the strangers face. He looked at her, his features began to change. Sharp pointed teeth emerging from his gums. Y/N began to blink rapidly, attempting to process what she was seeing. She began to kick her legs in terror. Her brain was telling her what she was seeing was a hallucination, but her body was peaking at the fight or flight mode. The stranger's mouth was agape as a hiss left his throat. She stared at his mouth with what looked like hundreds of teeth made of needles

She opened her bloody lips to attempt to scream for the last time while looking into his eyes. His head completely disappeared, releasing his hold on her neck in which she crumpled into a heap on her driveway, gulping for air. She heard metal clattering on the cement and from her one working eye, saw a large hand grab the stranger’s body and toss it into the grass. In a flash, two strong hands grasped her shoulders and her flight kicked in. Thrashing around and trying to get away but he was holding on tight saying her name over and over, attempting to get through to her oxygen deprived brain. Shaking her shoulders as gently as he could, drawing his face closer to hers

“Y/N, Y/N look at me, just listen to my voice and look at me, look at my face.”

She peered up at him, the adrenalin beginning to dissipate as the tremors convulsed her body . She was trying to focus on what she saw but it was irrational. She felt like she was trying to put a puzzle together but none of the pieces fit. She squinted at his face and moved her lips to speak but nothing came out.  She stuck her tongue out trying to moisten her lips wincing as she swallowed. Trying again she croaked, “Hot Flannel Guy?”

Chuckling Dean gathered her to his chest, “That’s right, sweetheart, it’s me, Hot Flannel Guy.” He picked her up, as if she weighed nothing the uninjured side of her face rested against his chest and she could feel the rumble of laughter against her cheek. She closed her uninjured eye and tried to breathe deep. He smelled clean and woodsy with a hint of sweat. “A sexy smell for a hot man,” she thought. She remembered she had caught a hint of that same smell yesterday when they danced.

“Where are we going?” she whispered her head foggy, feeling so tired.  Dean started for her front door, Sammy not far behind. “We just need to get you in the house sweetheart”

“We only got three of them, the other two made it to the pickup and took off,” Sammy informed his brother, looking over his shoulder. 

“Damn it!” snapped Dean “We can’t fucking leave her here now.” 

Sam was juggling the machete, a bag and a first aid kit. “Let’s just get her in the house and then we can make a plan. It’s not like they are coming back tonight.”

Dean looked at Sam then at the front door. “Not to be a dick Sammy, but that door isn’t going to open itself.” 

Sam rolled his eyes. He looked at Y/N in Dean’s arms and immediately felt bad. “Right.” He dropped the armload of stuff behind him on the large front porch and opened the screen door. There was a keypad and a doorknob and sighed. “What’s the code?”

Dean carefully jostled Y/N in his arms. “Hey, Y/N?” he asked her softly, “we need to get in the house, what’s the code?” 

She had almost forgotten where she was, she hurt all over and could not stop trembling, but she was taking a small comfort in the feel of Dean’s arms around her. 

“Let me down,” she croaked, starting to struggle, “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just let me down.”

Dean’s arms tightened around her. “Sweetheart, just tell Sam the code, we’ll get you in the house, THEN, I‘ll put you down.” She slumped back against him huffing 

“8675309,” she rasped in the best sing song voice she could. Dean threw his head back and laughed as Sam smirked. “Jenny’s number? Your code is Jenny’s number?”

“I couldn’t help it, it’s the only number I could always remember.”

Still chuckling Dean leaned against the house as Sam entered the code. He pushed off, his elbow hitting the doorbell just as the door swung open. Robert Plant’s voice wailed from inside the house.

“Hey, Hey Mama said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove”

Dean’s eyes snapped to Y/N’s face. “Woah, Zeppelin? Seriously?”

One side of her mouth tilted up. “Nobody wants a boring doorbell.”

Sam shook his head as he gathered the things off the porch, holding the screen door with his foot so Dean could carry Y/N in the house. He was beginning to feel like he was stuck in some kind of kismet thing between those two.

As Dean entered her home, he looked around trying to figure out where to lay Y/N down.

“No way does a Dude live here.”

All the walls were white with dark grey trim. The furniture was white in the living room with grey throw pillows and a turquoise throw on the side of the couch. The floors looked like they were finished in a weathered grey tone and it opened up into the airy white and grey kitchen. Different sized vases filled with fresh daisies and framed black and white photographs were placed throughout the area. With all the white, one would think that it would feel sterile but something about it gave off a cozy, comfortable feeling, like a breath of fresh air.

Sam strode into the kitchen and placed his armful of gear on the kitchen Island. He turned to Dean pointing to the couch.

“Nope.” Dean shook his head and looked at Y/N, “no way Sammy, it’s too clean in here.”

Y/N began to wriggle in his arms. “Lemme down,” she whispered. He had held her in his arms for so long she began to feel embarrassed but Dean tightened his hold around her. “Shhhh,” he said looking around again.

“Dude!” she yelled, shocking all three of them. “PUT. ME. DOWN.”  Dean set her on her feet and her legs started to crumple from underneath her. He caught her again and hoisted her back up in his arms.

“Now what?” he ground out.

Sam pulled out one of the grey upholstered bar chairs from the kitchen island, “Put her here.”

 He opened the freezer and grabbed a bag of peas and pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Setting them on the island he walked over to the sink, tore some paper towels from the roll and saturated them with water.

Dean deposited her, none too delicately in the chair. Sam made his way back to her, walking around the island to stand next to Dean to face her. Her right eye was swollen shut and the right side of her top and bottom lip were busted covered in drying blood. As she looked up at her savior, they could see the purple handprint developing around her neck.  Looking directly into Dean’s steely green eyes, she visibly flinched at the barely contained anger. Inhaling a shuddering breath, she spoke quietly.

“Who are you?”

“Oh yeah, that,” Dean smiled. “I’m Dean and this,” he motioned towards the other man, “is my brother Sam.”

He raised his hand, “Hi.”

Y/N studied both of them. Her good eye ping ponging between them until she finally landed back on Dean expectantly raising her eyebrow with a grimace of pain.

“Winchester.” Both spoke at the same time.

She huffed out a breath. “Of course it is, that creepy dude said he couldn’t play with his food because of the fuckin’ Winchesters. But I think I must have imagined stuff from lack of oxygen or something because after that, it’s all a blur and isn’t rational.”

“Well,” Sam hedged, reaching for the wet paper towels, “why don’t we try to get your face cleaned up and you can maybe take a shower. After that we can explain it all to you.” He reached up to start to blot her battered face.

“Dude, I got this!” Dean hip checked him, knocking him off balance. Sam scowled at him. “Sammy, why don’t...you know…” he motioned with his head toward the front of the house, “handle that other thing we need to do.” Sam looked at him incredulously, sarcasm flowing. “Great, yeah I’ll take care of that right now.” Spinning around he headed out the door.  Dean knew he was going to hear about that later but he really didn’t give a damn. 

Turning his attention back to Y/N he grabbed the damp paper towels off the island counter and started to dab her face. Wincing she pulled back. “Dean,” she murmured 

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he began reaching around lightly, holding the back of her head so she would stop drawing back. “I need you to hold still for me for just a few minutes so I can get you cleaned up.”

She reached up, grasping his hand, meeting his eyes. Her bottom lip began to tremble, tears shimmering. “Thank you,” she breathed, “thank you for saving my life.” 

He tenderly touched his forehead to hers. “I’m just glad we made it here on time.”

“Me too,” she choked out.

Chapter 4

Tags: @winchest09 @katehuntington @whatareyousearchingfordean @emoryhemsworth @flamencodiva @superfanficnatural @deanwanddamons @janicho88 @talesmaniac89 @anathewierdo @compresshischest09 @supernatural-bellawinchester @jensengirl83 @this-is-what-im-reduced-to @ellewritesfix05 @moron225 @foxyjwls007 @hobby27 @unicornqu33n17​ @swinchester27​@4fareader @deans-baby-momma​ @squirrelnotsam​ @clumsy-nerd104​ @sarahbaker2010​ @supernatural-love14​ @akshi8278​ @lyarr24​ 

[sleepynegress]

Spoiler-Filled Reaction to the 1st Ep of TFATWS: ‘New World Order’ ...

Okay, so I may switch up and do weekly recaps via audio. Either way, I’m getting something out before the weekend is up... Still!...  It’s a been a few days, so I can go a bit more in depth with my thoughts on that pilot ep.

~ So, that opening was quiet and down-to-earth. For me, it was hammering home not only the humbleness of Sam (despite the bravado, the man is naive in his optimism and *not* superpowered), but being stuck in his initial thoughts about the shield.   ...That it didn’t feel like it belonged to him. Sam’s personality, has been established as super-loyal and almost childlike in his feelings that things will work out and doing the right thing because it’s right (which is why he didn’t get paid enough BTW naive pride). 

-which comes into play w/ his conflict w/ his sister later... I’ll come back to that.

~ We jump into a dangerous mission that shows off Falcon’s personality. He’s gonna get it done with style and optimism even when working with equipment that needs a few updates.  The stunt coordination here was fantastic!  I legit whewed! aloud at Balroc paragliding into *multiple* helicopters... Sam’s hair-pin turns milimeters from canyon rock, propellers, and rockets... ~ I *loved* Torres’ fanboying. It felt like a parallel to Sam fanboying Cap, in CA:WS and evoked the well-established superhero trope of a person *marveling* aloud at what you’re doing making it so. much. cooler. (as an oldhead, the random black dude emoting about Superman’s suit after he comes out of a phonebooth, in the Reeves movie, is my earliest memory of this trope). ~ Then we see the Tunisia titlecard, which yea! it didn’t just say Africa, but ehh, once again “yellow tint” is code for “exotic” country full of brown people. It did cut through the typically more alt-right-tinged military propaganda w/ the Tunisian man thanking Sam for saving his wife, the bare minimum of humanization... but it saved the scene from just “backdropping” the people/culture w/o any humanity, at all, as is typical... That and the way these two BIPOC spoke to one another (there is a certain kind of rapport we non-white folk have w/ each other) was my first hint...that this showrunner ain’t a white dude. The joking about him knowing Arabic...like cheering/teasing when we show our range to one another.  Mainly, this interaction was to show that Sam is to Torres what Steve was to Sam in some ways...with a bit more “brazen kid” on Torres’ part, along w/ introing the idea of the Flagsmashers. ~ Then, naive Sam decides to donate the shield to the Smithsonian...because he doesn’t feel like he’s earned it and because in his mind it still belongs to Cap and because he’s out here trusting this governement even after all the B.S. he’s done lived through.  Even Rhodey was having his doubts... Maybe being around during the blip makes a person more savvy and cynical, IDK. ~ So, then we see Buck in therapy and since I’ve been through trauma, I know that mindset.  Sticking to routine is a big “win”.  Not really caring about anything beyond the bare essentials (yall saw that man’s apartment). And the feeling of being displaced would be amplified by the fact that this man is more so than anyone who has existed(!).  ~ I noticed that Seb leaned into his Rom-Merican accent, which was a great acting choice, it evokes his sense of having traveled without a solid sense of self in a place, because he was essentially, asleep all those decades, while the brainwashed aspect of himself was enslaved to Hydra. I LOVE his therapist.   Fannishness for a cute guy, means a lot of people don’t like her being “mean” to him... But I’mma tell you, as someone who actually has been in therapy for a good bit, you *need* someone who will call you on your bullshit so you can properly work on it.  I love that she’s also a vet and there’s nothing cutesy and coddling in a male-gazey sexy or motherly way. She’s doing her fucking job and not letting his ass slide. To me, that read as a hat-tip to a woman drecting this. So, we see Buck manifest his trauma w/ profound discomfort in his own skin.  He doesn’t know how to interact anymore, how to swagger in this strange time and place (because dude had all kinds of 1940′s swagger and juice back in CA:TFA) So, he’s just awkwardly honest, and beating himself up for that. But... he’s still alive, so he totally perked up in the presence of this attractive server and Yori notices and like so many old people, just busted his chops and skipped all the what he wasn’t gonna do and did it for him, w/ Leah’s confidant acceptance -ahhh, I luv her!- as an assist. ~ Then we flip back to Sam in Delacroix and we meet his sister and his nephews and his community(!) which really nails down Sam the man, the person, the human apart from his underwritten assists to the Avengers. We see that Sarah knows and loves this naively optimistic ‘I will find a way to fix it because it’s the right thing to do’ hard-headed brother.... but good-God! he doesn’t know shit about real-world day-to-day struggle... If you’ve seen Anthony Mackie in The Hurt Locker... one of the big themes explored, is how tough it is for vets who have been through explosions and firefights in another country... to adjust to day-to-day struggle in “normal life”. THAT is what Buck’s therapist was calling out when she said BULLSHIT to him saying he wanted peace (lol, no he doesn’t, like Sam he wants that righeous kind of adrenalin only being in action for “good” gives) and what Sarah is frustrated w/ is regarding him not understanding or respecting the kind of struggle she had to deal w/. ~ As an aside I *loved* her *nose-scratch* “Can I talk to you for a minute??” Whew! That is a black-ass way to let you know someone is pissed w/ you and wants to hash all the shit out. That’s why Sam avoided it, lol... ~ So, the date with Leah, who does all the right things...Goes terribly, because Buck is still too deep in his trauma focus on anything about how great she is.   Note, that just about everything that happened on that date reminded him of aspects of his trauma to the point where Buck, (being an absolute dick!) just fucking, walks out on her!!  I NEED her to chew his ass out for that and I need him to *not* be able to make it up to her (and I’d also love some fanfic, where Buck actually does *ahem* treat her well... I know Asian women be shorted in fanfic too!) ~ So, he goes to Yori’s apartment and stares like an obvious knucklehead (still dealing w/ being stuck in his trauma) at the alter to the man who was just in the way of that brainwashed aspect of himself, pays for the lunch and walks off...AND, NOTE!!  YORI DID NOTICE ALL THIS. So, this will eventually come to a head...yikes! ~ Then we’re back to Sam, and Sarah who tries to have that talk, but old boy ain’t trying to hear it. Insisting that he’s the man to swoop in and save the boat and the business *sigh* by some magic (hanging with magical beings...will do that, I guess). And Sarah smartly is just frustrated and skeptical, but lets him go on and try and fail in the same ways she already did so. many. times... in those five years. ~ And then we see bb Torres being brazen kid stupid amateur spy w/ the Flagsmashers. I honestly thought old masked dude stomped him to death, at first... The camera pan showed the cliched dead-man pose, after all.  I guess he pulled that (super!)stomp, which means... Flagsmashers aren’t the lethal villians here IMO.   I think they escaped from the *real* villian. ~ And then comes some real world racist bullshit... This scene at the bank *nails* a particular kind of frustratingly infuriating racism that is common. Where they will act like they are doing you a favor because they like and want something from you... but still won’t serve you in the same way they would a white person. It’s this strange willfullly “I like you negroes, you entertain me! -but fuck you -but I still like you!” patronizing thing that we know all too well. *whew!* That was real. And then that heartbreaking scene where after Sarah rightly told-ya-so’s.  -Sam is working on that mess of an engine and reality *finally* sets in when the key  didn’t even attempt to turnover.

~ Then Torres messages Sam (and he’s alive!) and we all know Sam knows these Flasgsmashers got super-serum, but isn’t saying. Even TORRES knows (bless his heart). ~ And from there we go straight to the U.S. government rubbing salty dirt in Sam’s wound with the new/fake Cap holding the shield aloft and winking like “It’s mine now, bitch!”. ---And the credits, I won’t get into except to say if you want ALL the spoilers in the credits, watch that linked video, I posted earlier. But they are SIGNIFICANT spoilers.

[ameth18blog]

Unexpected Encounters. Chapter 10: The Search (Part 3)

Washimi and Gori were in the east of the city, they had just left Gori's apartment. The two friends reflected calm in their faces and ways of walking as when they were at work. They passed everywhere with their eyes fixed ahead.

"How long do you think it will take us to find them?" Gori asked.

"I ignore it. This city is very big, so they could be anywhere. We could take hours on this," Washimi replied.

"Well, if that's the case, then I think we should start there" said the gorilla pointing to the park, which was the same one they had visited the day before.

"And why there?" asked the eagle.

"If that was where Koka and Hana found the emeralds, perhaps we could find some clue of the others who came to this dimension because of them" said Gori.

Well, not a bad idea. Then let's go" said Washimi.

Both friends came to the park. It was not as crowded as the day before, and more considering what had happened the day before. It was noticeable that for that reason there were not many children, but there were few. Although it was noted that they were being cautious for some situation that seems suspicious that put them in danger.

"Washimi I have thought something" said the gorilla.

Her friend watched her without saying anything.

"Maybe those beings if they want to use my App when they find out about it."

"Don't tell me you've been thinking about that since yesterday."

"Of course, after years ago the app said that Haida and Retsuko were soul mates and it was 100 percent correct. And since it has come to unite other couples, I thought it could be extended to beings from other universes".

"Perhaps you think that the beings who are lost in this universe are at this time more interested in finding a partner than in going home."

"Of course there is, there is always time to find love and be happy with that other person."

"You never change".

Washimi lowered her head when she suddenly noticed that her communicator and Gori's were blinking.

"Gori, our communicators" said the eagle as she and the gorilla looked at her arms.

"That means they are close. I'm going to show you my application".

"Concentrate."

She could see those who were in the park were a lot of parents with their children, but she could see that some of them had unusual coat colors. They thought it must be them, so they calmly approached. There were a total of 5 families and each of them had children.

The first was a family of two male spouses who had two sons:

One was an orange bear and afro hair with dark orange sideburns. He wore a yellow disco shirt and pants and cream and orange platform shoes.

The other was also a bear, but he was cream-colored, wearing a red hat, a red robe, red pants, and red slippers.

One of the children was a cream-colored bear like the second adult bear. He wore a small yellow and red cap with a propeller on top, a long-sleeved yellow shirt, red pants, red and yellow shoes.

The other child was also a cream colored bear like the second adult bear and the other little one, although unlike the other bear this was a baby, it also had orange hair like the first adult bear, only this baby had curly hair and it was not an afro. He wore a long-sleeved red button-down shirt, yellow pants, and red and yellow shoes.

The second family if it was of two male and female spouses who had a son:

One was a green bear. He wore a green beret with a colored logo of varying shades of orange. He wore a button-down shirt and green military pants, black shoes, and a gray identification tag. On his shirt were orange stripes on his shoulders denoting his rank as a sergeant.

The other was a red porcupine, his quills were a darker red color which were full of flake-like dander. He wore a pink shirt and skirt and light blue shoes.

The boy was a red bear, which had a green abdomen. He wore a green beret with a colored logo of different shades of orange like his father's. He wore a white shirt, black pants and shoes, and a blue jacket.

The third was another family of two male spouses who had a daughter and a son:

The first was a green chameleon with three dark green lines between its eyes, above and below them. He wore a green beret with a colored logo of varying shades of orange. He wore a green military button-down shirt and cream pants, black shoes, and a gray identification tag.

The second was a cream-colored mouse with black ears, they had a stereotypical French-style mustache and black eyebrows. He wore a green beret with a colored logo of varying shades of orange. He wore a green military button-down shirt and cream pants, black shoes, and a gray identification tag. His ears were wrapped in white bandages.

The girl was a dark purple cat, she wore an orange long-sleeved shirt, a green skirt, pink socks and black shoes.

The boy was a green mouse with three cream-colored lines between his eyes and black ears, although unlike the girl, the boy was a baby. He wore a long-sleeved green shirt, blue pants, and black shoes.

The fourth family was another of two male and female spouses who had a daughter:

The first was a sky-blue boar, which had black hooves instead of hands and feet. He wore a dark blue sailor suit with white, including a white hat with a pink stripe, and black shoes.

The other was a purple sheep, with some white woolly hair on its head. She wore a white wool sweater, pants, and white shoes. She wore a purple bow on her head.

The girl was a hybrid, her fur was purple, she inherited her mother's nose, shaggy hair, hands and feet, while she inherited her father's ears, tail, and fangs. . She wore a dark blue dress, with a white ribbon at the waist, and black shoes.

The girl carried in one of her arms a green pickle that had arms, legs, eyes, a mouth and a stereotypical French-style mustache. She also wore a black top hat with a blue stripe. At first glance the pickle looked like a toy.

The fifth and final was another family of two male spouses who had a son

The first was a sea-water-colored sea otter, which had three whiskers on either side of its head. This otter was missing his right hand, instead he used a hook. Both legs were missing and instead had wooden legs. He was missing his right eye and instead had an eye patch. He was wearing a red and white striped shirt, which was ripped at the sleeves and bottom. She is wearing black pants and a black pirate hat with the design of a skull with white crossbones.

The second was a purple deer, whose antlers were pink. He wore white mime makeup, his cheeks were pink, over his eyes he had dark purple makeup. He wore a purple and white striped long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and purple shoes.

The boy was a hybrid, his coat was aquamarine, his cheeks were pink, he had a deer tail, but it was aquamarine on top and purple on the bottom. He had small horns that were beginning to grow on the top of his head and three whiskers on either side of his head. He wore a torn red and purple shirt on the arms and bottom, black pants, purple shoes and a black pirate hat, but without the skull and bones design. This child was a baby.

Something that all these families had in common was that most had rabbit teeth that protruded from their mouths, with the exception of the chameleon, the wild boar, and the hybrid between wild boar and sheep. They all had heart-shaped pink noses, except the chameleon and the boar. The irises in everyone's eyes were shaped like a pacman, except for the chameleon, the two mice, and the cat.

Just when they were about to reach the families, four of the children began to run in various directions while playing, while the three babies stayed playing with their respective parents watching the other children.

"Remember, you have to speak calmly with them, maybe they are still not used to being in this place" said Washimi.

"I understand" Gori said with all seriousness.

They both approached the adults. When they noticed their presence they were watching.

"Good morning" said the eagle.

"Good morning" all the adults replied.

"You come from another dimension and have been trapped in this universe for 3 months, right?" the gorilla said suddenly.

"Gori, I told you that we had to talk things calmly" said Washimi.

"Umm, excuse me. You know what that white light was that brought us here" asked the green bear.

"Yes, those who sent us to look for them explained it to us" replied the eagle.

"Well, before you explain it to us, wait a moment," said the aquamarine sea otter and then called the children who were playing.

When they heard them, they approached.

"Something happens?" asked the little cream-colored bear.

"These ladies are going to explain how we got here" replied the cream-colored mouse.

Really?" said the 4 children sitting on the laps of their respective parents.

Gori and Washimi told everything they knew to the 5 families in front of them.

"So we have to wait for the missing emeralds to be found?" asked the green chameleon.

"Yes, at the moment those who sent us to look for them have 3 in their possession" replied the eagle.

"Well, now that you know everything, you could tell us their names," said the gorilla.

"I'm Disco Bear and this is my Pop husband" said the orange bear with orange afro hair.

"Pleasure. And they are our two sons: Cub and Rory" said the cream bear, pointing first to the little cream bear with a hat on his head and then to the cream baby bear with orange hair.

"I'm Flippy and this is my wife Flaky" said the green bear.

"And this is our son Fluffy" said the red porcupine pointing to the bear with red color and green abdomen.

"I'm Sneaky and this is my husband Mouse Ka-Boom" said the green chameleon.

"This is our adopted daughter Denisse and our son Bomb" said the cream colored mouse pointing first to the dark purple cat and then to the baby green mouse.

"I'm Truffles and this is my wife Lammy" said the sky blue boar.

"This is our daughter Bella and this is Mr. Pickles" said the purple sheep pointing to the purple hybrid and the pickle.

"I'm Russell and this is my mate Mime. And this is our son Robby" said the aquamarine sea otter pointing to the purple deer and the aquamarine hybrid.

The purple deer didn't speak as it was a mime, but still he greeted them with a hand gesture.

After Washimi and Gori introduced themselves. They didn't find it strange to meet same-sex couples and with children, since they already knew several such families.

Then they asked how they got to that universe.

"Well, most of us had gone to pick up the children from school after classes finished, everything was normal. We are all neighbors, so we would go home together," said Lammy.

"Along the way they met Mime and me who were walking Robby and were on our way home. Everything was normal like any other day" said Russell.

"But when we were in front of our house, that strange light appeared that enveloped us all in less than 10 seconds" said Flaky.

"When we woke up, although we were separated, fortunately the children were not left alone, since Flaky and Lammy were with them when they got here," said Pop.

"It took us about two days to meet again, and since we got here we have stayed in a hotel with the money we have gotten by finding certain jobs that we can do," said Sneaky.

"Well, at least we know they haven't had a difficult time here," Washimi said.

At that moment Gori's communicator began to ring therefore he answered.

"Hi. Oh, it's your Retsuko. Yes, we have already found them. And you? How good! They left? Oh I see. Well, if we can meet there. Goodbye" said Gori after finishing the call.

"What was Retsuko saying?" asked the eagle.

"She said that she, Fenneko and Judy already found a group. She also said that they contacted Haida, Ookami and Nick and also found another group. I told them that we too" said the gorilla.

"That is a relief."

"But she told me that Sonic and his friends left, and Jack went with them. It seems they found the location of the master emerald and went looking for it before Eggman finds it."

"I hope they can find it in time."

"I hope so too. He told me that in the meantime we can go to my apartment to meet with the others".

They both turned to the 5 families.

"And what do you say?" Washimi asked.

"Do you want to come with us?" Gori asked.

They all looked at each other and agreed with a nod. The group left the park with Washimi and Gori in front, while behind them were the 5 families carrying their respective children in their arms.

"It's a shame" Gori said.

"What thing?" Washimi asked.

"That all of them are happily united, and they don't need my app and that the children are too young to use it."

"I think you need a new hobby."

After that they continued walking back towards Gori's apartment.

[igottheissue]

This Time Around 3

A strange woman Bucky is sure he knows but can’t fully recognize, picks him up after the fall of SHIELD. She claims to be friends with Steve and that she is here to help him. He can’t help but keep wondering where he knows her from; it’s definitely not through Steve Rogers. Can she help him be the man he wants to be or will the all too familiar struggles of being a super human overcome him?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X OC Rowan O’Connor Word Count:4,154 Rating: M Masterlist Chapter 2 Chapter 4

Taglist: @xmarveled @spidey-the-killer-queen

Rowan and Bucky had stayed one more night in the cozy Chicago apartment. Not much conversation filled the studio flat. Some awkward mumbles from Bucky asking Rowan how to work the shower was about it.

The next morning, they headed out the back door of the three story building. Bucky had his shoulder length brown hair mostly hidden under a Family Business Brewing Co. baseball cap, with the remainder of it sticking out the back in a small bun. He had shaved his face, giving him more of a five o’clock shadow rather than a bordering-on-homeless look. 

Rowan was dressed in green leggings and a pink tank top; a black oversized beanie covering up her auburn hair. She opted out of hiking boots, unlike Bucky, and sported a pair of comfortable running shoes instead. To any passersby, they looked like a young couple heading out to go camping for the weekend.

Rowan pressed a four digit code into a blue garage door and ushered Bucky inside. She grabbed a set of keys off a hook by the door. Bucky’s eyes scanned the low clearance ceiling, wondering which vehicle Rowan would choose. Bucky raised his eyebrows a bit at the car that Rowan led him to.

“Don’t judge me, I know its cliché. It’s not my normal choice but it’s the only one that has fuel in it right now. We don’t have time to stop for any until we get out of the city. I’m pretty sure by now Nat will have figured out which home I was talking about last night.” Rowan filled the back seat up with the few duffel bags she had carried downstairs, along with some empty ones. 

She had planned to find a clothing store on the outskirts of the city for Bucky. The raglan shirt and jeans she had given him were a bit too small. Luckily the boots were on the perfect side of snug for him.

Bucky wasn’t sure how, the information must have been hidden in a part of his mind from working for HYDRA, but he recognized the car. A blue Camaro. An older style with some rust. Had he driven one while on a mission?

“Where’d you get this?” His eyes wandered over the black leather interior as Rowan fished a cell phone out of a purple duffle bag and crushed it in her palm before letting the pieces fall to the ground.

“Souvenir from a mission.” Nothing more was said as Rowan and Bucky fastened their seatbelts and pulled out of the garage. Bucky stayed silent as Rowan shifted gears and slowly pulled out of the garage into the bumbling suburb streets. By the sun, he figured they were heading west.

-TTA-

“Got her.” Steve’s head snapped up, blue eyes following Natasha’s voice over to a group of large screens decorating the south wall of the room. They currently showed different angles of a back alleys and brick buildings. The location at the bottom right of the screen read “BUCKTOWN”. 

A small neighborhood hugging the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. Steve’s eyes roamed the different camera angles when finally, they landed on two figures walking casually to a garage down a narrow alleyway off of West Webster Avenue.

To anyone else, the couple appeared casually dressed, like they were running errands or going on a trip somewhere, if the duffel bags were any indication. The woman was tall, nearly six foot it looked like, even in running shoes. She had a black, oversized beanie covering her hair. 

The man was over six foot, wearing a baseball hat with brown hair sticking out the back. His stride was large and his stature was rigid. His head never moved much, but to trained eyes, one could tell he was skillfully scanning the area.

“Are you sure Nat? I’m not going to be running around on a wild goose chase every time we see a couple and the guy has long brown hair. The man bun thing is in now you know. We can’t even see their faces right now. And that woman’s hair could be any color. Hell we can’t even see it under the beanie she has on.” Nat blew a warm breathe of air out her nose in slight annoyance, or maybe it was scolding, Steve couldn’t really tell most of the time, but he knew an explanation of why she was right was on its way.

“When Rowan was in the Sector she was on a mission to eradicate a biochemical warfare research facility in Chechnya. The building exploded and her right leg was crushed at the knee. They almost had to replace it with an enhanced prosthetic. 

“It healed most of the way. If you know what to look for you can see that her right leg from the knee down swings out just a few degrees wider than her left leg as she puts her foot down, almost like she’s bow-legged.” Natasha rewound the footage of the couple walking from a brick apartment building to a garage a few meters down the gravel alley. Steve looked closely this time. His eyes widened for a moment before narrowing in frustration.

“She lied. God dammit why did she lie to us Natasha?”

“Language Capsicle. Princess Leia probably has a reason to keep your BFF to herself.” Tony strolled in casually, bag of blueberries in his hand. He popped one in and looked at a smaller computer screen sitting on the desk nearest to him. It had a small blinking red light on it, text zipping quickly across the screen.

“You know she hates when you call her that. And Tony is right Steve, like I told you earlier, there’s probably a legitimate reason for her not coming in with him.”

“No reason is good enough for him not to come back! Don’t you get that? He’s been gone for years and he needs someone he knows and trusts! I can help him through this; I know I can. I owe him that much.”

“You sure about that Cap? Because it seems like you wanting to find him has more to do with your inner demons than you think. You don’t owe him anything; what happened to him wasn’t your fault. He’s a soldier, he knew the risks when he signed up. ”

“He didn’t sign-“

“Not the point I’m trying to make here Steve.” Tony closed his eyes for a long moment before putting the blueberries on the computer desk and walking up to stand next to Steve and Natasha. His posture was no longer casual, but a bit pinched at the shoulders.

“After Afghanistan, hell even after New York, I had a lot of problems. You guys know how hard it was for me to be around everyone. Sometimes it takes being around a stranger, someone who’s been through what you have but doesn’t really know too much about you personally to really be able to get to the bottom of the issue and work it out. I know that’s what helped me, going to the Vet meetings at the church.” And talking with Rowan till all hours of the night at the top of Stark Tower. Though Tony left that part out. Rowan was adamant she “wanted to keep her badass black soul reputation fresh.”

Natasha kept reading the computer screens, typing fervently trying to get a better angle on the suspected Bucky and Rowan. She understood where Tony was coming from, and figured he might be able to get it through the super soldiers thick head about why Bucky might not come running home.  Steve looked down at his boots guiltily. Tony grabbed his blueberries and started for the door.

“And you both know how much I hate going to church. Oh and better get a glimpse of them while you can. JARVIS shows that the scrambler Rowan has on her car is about to finish calibrating.” Tony turned, posture casual once again, and walked out the metal framed door. Natasha slammed her fist on the desk as all the camera angles turned to black screens. Steve fell into a chair and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.

-TTA-

“How do you know we’re out of sight? We’re still pretty close to the city. There’s camera’s everywhere.” Bucky tried to remain casual in the passenger seat as Rowan struggled to find a parking spot outside of a Kohl’s on the southwest side of Chicago. It was busy for a Monday morning but Bucky needed new clothes and she’d rather get everything before they start their road trip than have to stop halfway through.

“All of my vehicles are equipped with Stark scrambling technology. Tony is aware but he won’t let Nat and Steve know about it. We had a little chat last night.” Bucky pursed his lips and gave a short nod as Rowan parked and turned off the car.

As they walked into Kohl’s, Rowan clicked a button on her key fob to lock the Camaro. As Bucky heard the car beep to signal its lock, all the store lights went out for a few seconds before turning back on. Bucky looked around cautiously as the employees mumbled about the systems rebooting.

“There’s a scrambler in my key fob too. Stark really likes me.” Rowan had a cheeky grin on her face as she grabbed a cart and strolled to the men’s section, grabbing Bucky’s arm along the way.

About an hour later they had checked out and were on I-80 heading west. Old school rock drifted quietly out of the speakers. It wasn’t necessarily an uncomfortable silence, but Bucky hated it. He found himself wanting to speak. About something, anything. He didn’t really care.

“So, uh Rowan, where exactly are we headed?” He kept his gaze shifted out the window, watching the gargantuan white windmills as their propellers gently lulled through the air, creating energy for who knows how many homes out here.

“Faith, South Dakota. After we load up on supplies we’ll head out to the Cheyenne River Reservation. I figure we camp out there for a couple weeks then head up to Vancouver. I’ve got a safe house up there no one knows about. We can grab my other passports and have some made for you. Then Juneau to a charter plane that will take us to St. Lawrence Island and last but not least I’ve got a friend who owes me a favor. He said he can get us as far west as Japan. 

“We’ll have to figure out the rest of the plan from there. It’s the third of April. I figure by the end of this month we should be touching down in Japan. That should be enough time for them to already do a big sweep overseas.” Bucky was impressed by how in depth Rowan had already planned their travel. He still had a few concerns though.

“Won’t they be searching everywhere until they find us? If Steve is still the same as I remember, he won’t stop.”

“You’re right Mr. Barnes, Steve isn’t gonna stop, and as much as Nat loves me I doubt she’ll actively try to stop him from finding us. Tony is pretty complacent for me to work with so if I need him to throw them off our trail I’ll call him. But it’ll be fun to see how long that’ll take.”

“Why are we camping out in South Dakota for half the month? Why don’t we just get out now while we have them scrambled?” Bucky figured she was going to answer the same way his own thought process was heading, but he just wanted to see how aligned their thinking was. 

His brain was still itching every time he tried to think too hard about how familiar Rowan was. He was getting better at ignoring the alarm going off in his head when he saw her face, though he still wasn’t confident that was the best thing to do.

“Barnes, seriously? I know you know why I’m doing this. Is this some sort of trust test? Wouldn’t it be more entertaining to do some trust fall exercises instead? I promise I won’t drop you.” The teasing in her voice deepened her accent. 

It was a pleasant sound Bucky decided; not like some of the other women’s voices he recalled from his time in HYDRA. The thicker accent and her playful banter lightened his mood. Rowan eyed him. From this view she could see the edges of his eyes crinkling up ever so slightly; a tell-tale sign that he was about to let out a smile.

“Letting you drive is enough trust testing I can handle for any twenty four hour period.” Bucky rubbed his chin with his flesh hand. The crinkles moved from his eyes to his forehead.

“Hey! I’m an excellent driver.” Rowan took her eyes completely off the road when Bucky didn’t have a response. She had been trying to come off as less edgy than she was accused of being in the past. Sometimes she got too into the mission on hand. 

She kept reminding herself this wasn’t technically a mission or a job. She was helping someone. When her emerald eyes met the downcast face of Bucky she turned off the radio. He was glaring at his left hand, rubbing his fingers from his right hand over the silver palm.

“I can’t tell if I can really feel anything with it, or if it’s just my brain playing tricks on me since I know what my other hand is doing.” Rowan could hear the disparity in the man’s voice. She hopped over a couple lanes to catch the visitor’s stop just in time, narrowly missing getting clipped by a semi. Bucky sat rigid in his seat.

“Come on, out we go.” The tall woman held Bucky’s door open expectantly waiting for him to emerge. She grabbed his flesh hand and led him down the dirt path into a small cluster of trees, hitting her key fob as they went. She slowed as they passed the cluster of young birch trees and turned, grabbing Bucky’s left hand.

“Close your eyes. Go on, we haven’t got all day you spoon.” Bucky raised a thick eyebrow at the odd insult before closing his eyes slowly.

“Take a deep breath. There you go. Just relax.” She released his right hand from hers and it dropped softly to his side. She only held his left hand. It was a weird sensation. He could feel her hand, the warmth. 

It was a little sticky with sweat. He grasped it and ran his thumb over her palm; softly at first, then a bit harder. He could almost feel the creases in her hands. He felt where the ridges from the plates caught on Rowan’s callouses running along her palm and fingers, hard from years of action, like his remaining flesh hand.

She took his arm and led him to a patch of day lilies. He outstretched his hand carefully. He could feel how delicate they were. He lightly brushed his hand through the patch of flowers and the edges of his eyes creased in an almost smile at the feather light sensation. They were cool to the touch. He was sure he could tell they were supposed to be velvety smooth. But again, he just wasn’t quite convinced.

“See, you can feel. It’s not your mind playing tricks on you. I reviewed all your files. They connected your nerves to different parts of the arm. It’s pretty much your own, just a different color... And material I suppose, but that’s all semantics. Personally I think you pull off silver over gold any day.” Bucky looked up at Rowan’s teasing voice. 

Her eyes were bright in the mid-morning sun. Her auburn hair fell over the right side of her face, she brushed it back and outstretched her hand to Bucky’s own. He took it with his left, the urge to try to feel everything with it stronger now. Rowan pulled Bucky up swiftly from his kneeling position and let go as he brushed dirt off his knees.

They walked silently back through the small wooded patch in a content silence. Rowan was staring ahead, in deep thought it seemed. Bucky wondered what she could be thinking about. Did she still not know if going all over the world with him until he regained his memories was the best idea? If she didn’t, he couldn’t argue with her. He didn’t even think it was a good idea. He was still on the fence about it himself. 

She seemed like she had good intentions, and she claimed to be a friend of Steve’s. Something he wasn’t entirely sure of, Steve and Rowan didn’t seem compatible. Steve was a straight-laced guy. Rowan seemed a little… off the deep end on some matters. But people changed. Last time he remembers interacting with Steve he was a bit edgier.

Bucky shook his head. He was starting to get a headache from all this thinking. He closed his eyes briefly as he walked, the warmth radiating off Rowan half guiding him through the small trees. He heard birds chirping, Rowan’s leggings making a soft swooshing sound as her thighs brushed against each other as she took otherwise silent steps next to him; a little further off he could hear the droning of the cars and trucks zooming down the interstate. 

How simple their lives must be compared to his. He wondered how that would feel; worrying about mundane things like how much it would be to fix the car, what to make for supper, how much the next doctor’s office trip would run him. He also heard a low male voice coming from their twelve o’clock. It seemed Rowan caught it a few moments after him.

Rowan looked towards Bucky, semi-alarm running along her features. There was no way any cameras pinged their location. No way would she or Bucky not have noticed someone following them. 

And while she was sure every agent of SHIELD, HYDRA, FBI, CIA, or any other flavor of government agency had been alerted to Bucky’s status, she doubted they’d have people actively driving cross country looking for them. The only person besides herself and Bucky who knew about the Camaro was Tony Stark. He’d helped her rebuild the engine a few years ago on a slow weekend.

Bucky rounded the corner first, putting himself in front of Rowan. Instinct he supposed, though he didn’t think it was from his Winter Soldier days. Rowan poked her head around Bucky’s shoulder, not having to reach much at all, already being almost his height already. They saw two men walking around the Camaro, trying to nonchalantly peek inside. 

Bucky assumed the black Jeep Cherokee idling in park next to the Camaro was what they pulled in on. The two men, who looked to be in their late twenties, wore dark hoodies, with beanies pulled tight over their heads. One had a handgun tucked into the back waistband on his jeans and the other had one on the side of his right hip, tucked into a holster, hoodie doing a poor job of concealing it.

Bucky rolled his shoulders and grabbed for the glock he had secured under the waistband of his pants. Gripping the gun with his right hand, the gears of his left arm whirred lowly as it calibrated, something he figured happened when he told his arm to flex when he was preparing for a fight. 

Rowan laid a firm hand on his forearm, effectively stopping him from charging the two men. She put a slender finger to her lips before she motioned for them to keep listening and watch them. Bucky took a deep breath and let it out quietly through his lips. He tried to stop the shaking throughout his hands.

“You sure it’s just been sitting here? No one has been here?”

“No dude, this chick and her boyfriend headed out to the woods like twenty minutes ago. Probably just fuckin’ around. Let’s get it and go before they come back.” The guy turned towards the woods, keeping an eye out for anyone walking back. Rowan and Bucky ducked behind the thick brush by the opening of the trail.

“Shit, okay let’s hurry then.” Rowan and Bucky exchanged a relieved look. Weight seemed to be lifted from both their shoulders as they realized the two men were merely low life car-jackers. No special agents from either side of the law coming to get them, yet at least. 

The day was young. Rowan pulled her fob out of the small pocket from the inside waistband of her leggings and hit a button. A loud, shrill alarm went off. Both men threw their hands over their ears and turned around quickly. Rowan stopped Bucky from coming out of the woods.

“Your face is all over social media and the news. I can handle these guys. I won’t even need your gun.” She winked his way then stepped out, conveying the posture of a scared woman. The men grabbed their guns when they noticed Rowan all alone. She didn’t even give them a chance to put their fingers on the trigger before she pressed the fourth button on the key fob. 

One Bucky hadn’t seen her press yet. A light blue surge of energy exploded from the undercarriage of the Camaro, knocking both men to their feet. Rowan turned slightly and motioned for Bucky to come forward. As he drew nearer he made the assumption that both men were unconscious.

Producing two sets of handcuffs from a hidden compartment in the truck, Rowan tossed a set to Bucky. He followed Rowan’s actions and pulled the man into the back seat of the Jeep. He cuffed one arm before looping the short metal chain through the ‘oh shit’ handle and securing the man’s other arm. Rowan produced a cell phone from somewhere Bucky didn’t want to focus too hard on and dialed a number she knew by heart.

“Hey Tobey. Yeah I got a couple of guys out your way who were trying to car jack me. No not the Impala. It’s still safely tucked away in New York. My Camaro. Yeah that one. No I’m not getting his autograph for you. I just need to make sure the cops get them but I don’t have time to wipe my prints and such. I’ll take care of everything else for you. Great! Thanks Tobes. Yeah I’ll get with you soon. Bye.” Rowan hung up and tucked the phone away. 

Bucky stood with his back to the Jeep, facing the woods. He was still trying to subdue the shaking in his hands. He almost jumped when Rowan sidled up beside him. She kept her gaze forward.

“Ya know if I didn’t know any better I’d say we need to get your blood sugar up some. My hands get shaky when I don’t eat often enough. There’s a McDonald’s at the next exit. Sound good?” Bucky knew his blood pressure wasn’t low, and he knew Rowan knew that too. But he still appreciated the gesture.

“Yeah, sounds good to me.” Truth was, he was itching for a fight. His body was shaking slightly, his head on fire. It was almost as if he could physically feel the painful urge to end those men’s lives. 

He was ashamed of himself. He wasn’t on the battle field, this wasn’t a professionally trained operative coming to kill him. This was an every-day petty crime event. Childs play compared to some of the things he was used to being around.

He took a small step towards the Camaro before he staggered a bit, a dull throb encasing his head. A dim memory made its way to the forefront of his brain. A little brown-haired boy, with a smaller brown-haired girl next to him, sat in a well-lit living room. Bucky felt himself stretch and pop his neck as he kept his eyes on the children. They were playing checkers.

“Haide, soldat, nu avem toata noaptea. Acesta este jocul copiilor. Finalizati-le.” The harsh Romanian voice cut through the earpiece, like gravel sliding across glass it ended the silence that had been surrounding him. He lifted his sniper rifle, eye piece easing into place a few inches away from his alert blue eyes.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of that memory, and moved to open the car door as a white hot pain travelled from behind his eyes down his spine. Lighting up every nerve ending as if they were being electrocuted individually. He opened his eyes wide and frantically searched for Rowan over the top of the blue car.

“Rowan, I… something’s wr-“ He tried to finish his sentence but everything went black.

[2ptonpt]

This Time Around Ch. 3

A strange woman Bucky is sure he knows but can't fully recognize, picks him up after the fall of SHIELD. She claims to be friends with Steve and that she is here to help him. He can't help but keep wondering where he knows her from; it's definitely not through Steve Rogers.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/ OC(Rowan O'Connor)

Word Count: 4,154

Rating: M

Masterlist

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Rowan and Bucky had stayed one more night in the cozy Chicago apartment. Not much conversation filled the studio flat. Some awkward mumbles from Bucky asking Rowan how to work the shower was about it.

The next morning, they headed out the back door of the three story building. Bucky had his shoulder length brown hair mostly hidden under a Family Business Brewing Co. baseball cap, with the remainder of it sticking out the back in a small bun. He had shaved his face, giving him more of a five o’clock shadow rather than a bordering-on-homeless look. Rowan was dressed in green leggings and a pink tank top; a black oversized beanie covering up her auburn hair. She opted out of hiking boots, unlike Bucky, and sported a pair of comfortable running shoes instead. To any passersby, they looked like a young couple heading out to go camping for the weekend.

Rowan pressed a four digit code into a blue garage door and ushered Bucky inside. She grabbed a set of keys off a hook by the door. Bucky’s eyes scanned the low clearance ceiling, wondering which vehicle Rowan would choose. Bucky raised his eyebrows a bit at the car that Rowan led him to.

“Don’t judge me, I know its cliché. It’s not my normal choice but it’s the only one that has fuel in it right now. We don’t have time to stop for any until we get out of the city. I’m pretty sure by now Nat will have figured out which home I was talking about last night.” Rowan filled the back seat up with the few duffel bags she had carried downstairs, along with some empty ones. She had planned to find a clothing store on the outskirts of the city for Bucky. The raglan shirt and jeans she had given him were a bit too small. Luckily the boots were on the perfect side of snug for him.

Bucky wasn’t sure how, the information must have been hidden in a part of his mind from working for HYDRA, but he recognized the car. A blue Camaro. An older style with some rust. Had he driven one while on a mission?

“Where’d you get this?” His eyes wandered over the black leather interior as Rowan fished a cell phone out of a purple duffle bag and crushed it in her palm before letting the pieces fall to the ground.

“Souvenir from a mission.” Nothing more was said as Rowan and Bucky fastened their seatbelts and pulled out of the garage. Bucky stayed silent as Rowan shifted gears and slowly pulled out of the garage into the bumbling suburb streets. By the sun, he figured they were heading west.

-TTA-

“Got her.” Steve’s head snapped up, blue eyes following Natasha’s voice over to a group of large screens decorating the south wall of the room. They currently showed different angles of a back alleys and brick buildings. The location at the bottom right of the screen read “BUCKTOWN”. A small neighborhood hugging the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. Steve’s eyes roamed the different camera angles when finally, they landed on two figures walking casually to a garage down a narrow alleyway off of West Webster Avenue.

To anyone else, the couple appeared casually dressed, like they were running errands or going on a trip somewhere, if the duffel bags were any indication. The woman was tall, nearly six foot it looked like, even in running shoes. She had a black, oversized beanie covering her hair. The man was over six foot, wearing a baseball hat with brown hair sticking out the back. His stride was large and his stature was rigid. His head never moved much, but to trained eyes, one could tell he was skillfully scanning the area.

“Are you sure Nat? I’m not going to be running around on a wild goose chase every time we see a couple and the guy has long brown hair. The man bun thing is in now you know. We can’t even see their faces right now. And that woman’s hair could be any color. Hell we can’t even see it under the beanie she has on.” Nat blew a warm breathe of air out her nose in slight annoyance, or maybe it was scolding, Steve couldn’t really tell most of the time, but he knew an explanation of why she was right was on its way.

“When Rowan was in the Sector she was on a mission to eradicate a biochemical warfare research facility in Chechnya. The building exploded and her right leg was crushed at the knee. They almost had to replace it with an enhanced prosthetic. It healed most of the way. If you know what to look for you can see that her right leg from the knee down swings out just a few degrees wider than her left leg as she puts her foot down, almost like she’s bow-legged.” Natasha rewound the footage of the couple walking from a brick apartment building to a garage a few meters down the gravel alley. Steve looked closely this time. His eyes widened for a moment before narrowing in frustration.

“She lied. God dammit why did she lie to us Natasha?”

“Language Capsicle. Princess Leia probably has a reason to keep your BFF to herself.” Tony strolled in casually, bag of blueberries in his hand. He popped one in and looked at a smaller computer screen sitting on the desk nearest to him. It had a small blinking red light on it, text zipping quickly across the screen.

“You know she hates when you call her that. And Tony is right Steve, like I told you earlier, there’s probably a legitimate reason for her not coming in with him.”

“No reason is good enough for him not to come back! Don’t you get that? He’s been gone for years and he needs someone he knows and trusts! I can help him through this; I know I can. I owe him that much.”

“You sure about that Cap? Because it seems like you wanting to find him has more to do with your inner demons than you think. You don’t owe him anything; what happened to him wasn’t your fault. He’s a soldier, he knew the risks when he signed up. ”

“He didn’t sign-“

“Not the point I’m trying to make here Steve.” Tony closed his eyes for a long moment before putting the blueberries on the computer desk and walking up to stand next to Steve and Natasha. His posture was no longer casual, but a bit pinched at the shoulders.

“After Afghanistan, hell even after New York, I had a lot of problems. You guys know how hard it was for me to be around everyone. Sometimes it takes being around a stranger, someone who’s been through what you have but doesn’t really know too much about you personally to really be able to get to the bottom of the issue and work it out. I know that’s what helped me, going to the Vet meetings at the church.” And talking with Rowan till all hours of the night at the top of Stark Tower. Though Tony left that part out. Rowan was adamant she “wanted to keep her badass black soul reputation fresh.”

Natasha kept reading the computer screens, typing fervently trying to get a better angle on the suspected Bucky and Rowan. She understood where Tony was coming from, and figured he might be able to get it through the super soldiers thick head about why Bucky might not come running home.  Steve looked down at his boots guiltily. Tony grabbed his blueberries and started for the door.

"And you both know how much I hate going to church. Oh and better get a glimpse of them while you can. JARVIS shows that the scrambler Rowan has on her car is about to finish calibrating.” Tony turned, posture casual once again, and walked out the metal framed door. Natasha slammed her fist on the desk as all the camera angles turned to black screens. Steve fell into a chair and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.

-TTA-

“How do you know we’re out of sight? We’re still pretty close to the city. There’s camera’s everywhere.” Bucky tried to remain casual in the passenger seat as Rowan struggled to find a parking spot outside of a Kohl’s on the southwest side of Chicago. It was busy for a Monday morning but Bucky needed new clothes and she’d rather get everything before they start their road trip than have to stop halfway through.

“All of my vehicles are equipped with Stark scrambling technology. Tony is aware but he won’t let Nat and Steve know about it. We had a little chat last night.” Bucky pursed his lips and gave a short nod as Rowan parked and turned off the car.

As they walked into Kohl’s, Rowan clicked a button on her key fob to lock the Camaro. As Bucky heard the car beep to signal its lock, all the store lights went out for a few seconds before turning back on. Bucky looked around cautiously as the employees mumbled about the systems rebooting.

“There’s a scrambler in my key fob too. Stark really likes me.” Rowan had a cheeky grin on her face as she grabbed a cart and strolled to the men’s section, grabbing Bucky’s arm along the way.

About an hour later they had checked out and were on I-80 heading west. Old school rock drifted quietly out of the speakers. It wasn’t necessarily an uncomfortable silence, but Bucky hated it. He found himself wanting to speak. About something, anything. He didn’t really care.

“So, uh Rowan, where exactly are we headed?” He kept his gaze shifted out the window, watching the gargantuan white windmills as their propellers gently lulled through the air, creating energy for who knows how many homes out here.

“Faith, South Dakota. After we load up on supplies we’ll head out to the Cheyenne River Reservation. I figure we camp out there for a couple weeks then head up to Vancouver. I’ve got a safe house up there no one knows about. We can grab my other passports and have some made for you. Then Juneau to a charter plane that will take us to St. Lawrence Island and last but not least I’ve got a friend who owes me a favor. He said he can get us as far west as Japan. We’ll have to figure out the rest of the plan from there. It’s the third of April. I figure by the end of this month we should be touching down in Japan. That should be enough time for them to already do a big sweep overseas.” Bucky was impressed by how in depth Rowan had already planned their travel. He still had a few concerns though.

“Won’t they be searching everywhere until they find us? If Steve is still the same as I remember, he won’t stop.”

“You’re right Mr. Barnes, Steve isn’t gonna stop, and as much as Nat loves me I doubt she’ll actively try to stop him from finding us. Tony is pretty complacent for me to work with so if I need him to throw them off our trail I’ll call him. But it’ll be fun to see how long that’ll take.”

“Why are we camping out in South Dakota for half the month? Why don’t we just get out now while we have them scrambled?” Bucky figured she was going to answer the same way his own thought process was heading, but he just wanted to see how aligned their thinking was. His brain was still itching every time he tried to think too hard about how familiar Rowan was. He was getting better at ignoring the alarm going off in his head when he saw her face, though he still wasn’t confident that was the best thing to do.

“Barnes, seriously? I know you know why I’m doing this. Is this some sort of trust test? Wouldn’t it be more entertaining to do some trust fall exercises instead? I promise I won’t drop you.” The teasing in her voice deepened her accent. It was a pleasant sound Bucky decided; not like some of the other women’s voices he recalled from his time in HYDRA. The thicker accent and her playful banter lightened his mood. Rowan eyed him. From this view she could see the edges of his eyes crinkling up ever so slightly; a tell-tale sign that he was about to let out a smile.

“Letting you drive is enough trust testing I can handle for any twenty four hour period.” Bucky rubbed his chin with his flesh hand. The crinkles moved from his eyes to his forehead.

“Hey! I’m an excellent driver.” Rowan took her eyes completely off the road when Bucky didn’t have a response. She had been trying to come off as less edgy than she was accused of being in the past. Sometimes she got too into the mission on hand. She kept reminding herself this wasn’t technically a mission or a job. She was helping someone. When her emerald eyes met the downcast face of Bucky she turned off the radio. He was glaring at his left hand, rubbing his fingers from his right hand over the silver palm.

“I can’t tell if I can really feel anything with it, or if it’s just my brain playing tricks on me since I know what my other hand is doing.” Rowan could hear the disparity in the man’s voice. She hopped over a couple lanes to catch the visitor’s stop just in time, narrowly missing getting clipped by a semi. Bucky sat rigid in his seat.

“Come on, out we go.” The tall woman held Bucky’s door open expectantly waiting for him to emerge. She grabbed his flesh hand and led him down the dirt path into a small cluster of trees, hitting her key fob as they went. She slowed as they passed the cluster of young birch trees and turned, grabbing Bucky’s left hand.

“Close your eyes. Go on, we haven’t got all day you spoon.” Bucky raised a thick eyebrow at the odd insult before closing his eyes slowly.

“Take a deep breath. There you go. Just relax.” She released his right hand from hers and it dropped softly to his side. She only held his left hand. It was a weird sensation. He could feel her hand, the warmth. It was a little sticky with sweat. He grasped it and ran his thumb over her palm; softly at first, then a bit harder. He could almost feel the creases in her hands. He felt where the ridges from the plates caught on Rowan’s callouses running along her palm and fingers, hard from years of action, like his remaining flesh hand.

She took his arm and led him to a patch of day lilies. He outstretched his hand carefully. He could feel how delicate they were. He lightly brushed his hand through the patch of flowers and the edges of his eyes creased in an almost smile at the feather light sensation. They were cool to the touch. He was sure he could tell they were supposed to be velvety smooth. But again, he just wasn’t quite convinced.

“See, you can feel. It’s not your mind playing tricks on you. I reviewed all your files. They connected your nerves to different parts of the arm. It’s pretty much your own, just a different color... And material I suppose, but that’s all semantics. Personally I think you pull off silver over gold any day.” Bucky looked up at Rowan’s teasing voice. Her eyes were bright in the mid-morning sun. Her auburn hair fell over the right side of her face, she brushed it back and outstretched her hand to Bucky’s own. He took it with his left, the urge to try to feel everything with it stronger now. Rowan pulled Bucky up swiftly from his kneeling position and let go as he brushed dirt off his knees.

They walked silently back through the small wooded patch in a content silence. Rowan was staring ahead, in deep thought it seemed. Bucky wondered what she could be thinking about. Did she still not know if going all over the world with him until he regained his memories was the best idea? If she didn’t, he couldn’t argue with her. He didn’t even think it was a good idea. He was still on the fence about it himself. She seemed like she had good intentions, and she claimed to be a friend of Steve’s. Something he wasn’t entirely sure of, Steve and Rowan didn’t seem compatible. Steve was a straight-laced guy. Rowan seemed a little… off the deep end on some matters. But people changed. Last time he remembers interacting with Steve he was a bit edgier.

Bucky shook his head. He was starting to get a headache from all this thinking. He closed his eyes briefly as he walked, the warmth radiating off Rowan half guiding him through the small trees. He heard birds chirping, Rowan’s leggings making a soft swooshing sound as her thighs brushed against each other as she took otherwise silent steps next to him; a little further off he could hear the droning of the cars and trucks zooming down the interstate. How simple their lives must be compared to his. He wondered how that would feel; worrying about mundane things like how much it would be to fix the car, what to make for supper, how much the next doctor’s office trip would run him. He also heard a low male voice coming from their twelve o’clock. It seemed Rowan caught it a few moments after him.

Rowan looked towards Bucky, semi-alarm running along her features. There was no way any cameras pinged their location. No way would she or Bucky not have noticed someone following them. And while she was sure every agent of SHIELD, HYDRA, FBI, CIA, or any other flavor of government agency had been alerted to Bucky’s status, she doubted they’d have people actively driving cross country looking for them. The only person besides herself and Bucky who knew about the Camaro was Tony Stark. He’d helped her rebuild the engine a few years ago on a slow weekend.

Bucky rounded the corner first, putting himself in front of Rowan. Instinct he supposed, though he didn’t think it was from his Winter Soldier days. Rowan poked her head around Bucky’s shoulder, not having to reach much at all, already being almost his height already. They saw two men walking around the Camaro, trying to nonchalantly peek inside. Bucky assumed the black Jeep Cherokee idling in park next to the Camaro was what they pulled in on. The two men, who looked to be in their late twenties, wore dark hoodies, with beanies pulled tight over their heads. One had a handgun tucked into the back waistband on his jeans and the other had one on the side of his right hip, tucked into a holster, hoodie doing a poor job of concealing it.

Bucky rolled his shoulders and grabbed for the glock he had secured under the waistband of his pants. Gripping the gun with his right hand, the gears of his left arm whirred lowly as it calibrated, something he figured happened when he told his arm to flex when he was preparing for a fight. Rowan laid a firm hand on his forearm, effectively stopping him from charging the two men. She put a slender finger to her lips before she motioned for them to keep listening and watch them. Bucky took a deep breath and let it out quietly through his lips. He tried to stop the shaking throughout his hands.

“You sure it’s just been sitting here? No one has been here?”

“No dude, this chick and her boyfriend headed out to the woods like twenty minutes ago. Probably just fuckin’ around. Let’s get it and go before they come back.” The guy turned towards the woods, keeping an eye out for anyone walking back. Rowan and Bucky ducked behind the thick brush by the opening of the trail.

“Shit, okay let’s hurry then.” Rowan and Bucky exchanged a relieved look. Weight seemed to be lifted from both their shoulders as they realized the two men were merely low life car-jackers. No special agents from either side of the law coming to get them, yet at least. The day was young. Rowan pulled her fob out of the small pocket from the inside waistband of her leggings and hit a button. A loud, shrill alarm went off. Both men threw their hands over their ears and turned around quickly. Rowan stopped Bucky from coming out of the woods.

“Your face is all over social media and the news. I can handle these guys. I won’t even need your gun.” She winked his way then stepped out, conveying the posture of a scared woman. The men grabbed their guns when they noticed Rowan all alone. She didn’t even give them a chance to put their fingers on the trigger before she pressed the fourth button on the key fob. One Bucky hadn’t seen her press yet. A light blue surge of energy exploded from the undercarriage of the Camaro, knocking both men to their feet. Rowan turned slightly and motioned for Bucky to come forward. As he drew nearer he made the assumption that both men were unconscious.

Producing two sets of handcuffs from a hidden compartment in the truck, Rowan tossed a set to Bucky. He followed Rowan’s actions and pulled the man into the back seat of the Jeep. He cuffed one arm before looping the short metal chain through the ‘oh shit’ handle and securing the man’s other arm. Rowan produced a cell phone from somewhere Bucky didn’t want to focus too hard on and dialed a number she knew by heart.

“Hey Tobey. Yeah I got a couple of guys out your way who were trying to car jack me. No not the Impala. It’s still safely tucked away in New York. My Camaro. Yeah that one. No I’m not getting his autograph for you. I just need to make sure the cops get them but I don’t have time to wipe my prints and such. I’ll take care of everything else for you. Great! Thanks Tobes. Yeah I’ll get with you soon. Bye.” Rowan hung up and tucked the phone away. Bucky stood with his back to the Jeep, facing the woods. He was still trying to subdue the shaking in his hands. He almost jumped when Rowan sidled up beside him. She kept her gaze forward.

“Ya know if I didn’t know any better I’d say we need to get your blood sugar up some. My hands get shaky when I don’t eat often enough. There’s a McDonald’s at the next exit. Sound good?” Bucky knew his blood pressure wasn’t low, and he knew Rowan knew that too. But he still appreciated the gesture.

“Yeah, sounds good to me.” Truth was, he was itching for a fight. His body was shaking slightly, his head on fire. It was almost as if he could physically feel the painful urge to end those men’s lives. He was ashamed of himself. He wasn’t on the battle field, this wasn’t a professionally trained operative coming to kill him. This was an every-day petty crime event. Childs play compared to some of the things he was used to being around.

He took a small step towards the Camaro before he staggered a bit, a dull throb encasing his head. A dim memory made its way to the forefront of his brain. A little brown-haired boy, with a smaller brown-haired girl next to him, sat in a well-lit living room. Bucky felt himself stretch and pop his neck as he kept his eyes on the children. They were playing checkers.

“Haide, soldat, nu avem toata noaptea. Acesta este jocul copiilor. Finalizati-le.” The harsh Romanian voice cut through the earpiece, like gravel sliding across glass it ended the silence that had been surrounding him. He lifted his sniper rifle, eye piece easing into place a few inches away from his alert blue eyes.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of that memory, and moved to open the car door as a white hot pain travelled from behind his eyes down his spine. Lighting up every nerve ending as if they were being electrocuted individually. He opened his eyes wide and frantically searched for Rowan over the top of the blue car.

“Rowan, I… something’s wr-“ He tried to finish his sentence but everything went black.

[welovepokernight]

What If This Character...? Episode 2: Dave Strider, Sans, Peacock, BLU Spy, King Dice, and Bubs

Now, we’ve already discussed Peacock on this blog, but as a dealer. I now realize this may have been a mistake; Peacock isn’t really patient enough for that sort of thing. So, without further ado...

What if

Dave Strider

Sans

and the BLU Spy

were all players at the Inventory,

King Dice

was a dealer, and

Bubs

was a bartender (and had dialogue)?

Playstyles:

Dave: Has little experience in Poker, but manages to play competently anyway (usually). Is the most honest player at the table, similar to Sam. Unlike Sam, however, he does sometimes tend to bluff, which he refers to as “trying to bullshit [his] way through the hand”.

Sans: Similar to Max’s random playstyle, only less due to an apparent lack of understanding the game and more because he simply doesn’t give a flip.

Peacock: Similar to Strong Bad’s reckless playstyle, albeit more due to impatience rather than a delusionally high ego.

Spy: The most competent and cautious player at the table. Being a master of deception, his tells are subtle and difficult to spot, making him good at bluffing.

Buy-Ins:

Dave: His 1/2-sword, usable by the Demoman

Sans: A replica of Papyrus’s cape/scarf, team-colored in TF2

Peacock: A replica of her top-hat

Spy: A fancy new revolver weapon (design of Valve’s choice)

Challenges:

Vs. King Dice: Once you have won all the other characters’ collateral, you will play a game of Texas Hold ‘Em against the dealer. The first time you win, he will reward you with a new weapon to use in TF2: A glove that acts like a pistol for the Scout and Engineer. The glove looks like Cuphead and Mugman’s gloves. You can select this challenge from the menu if you want to play against him again.

Beat the Bartender!: Face Bubs in any of the three card games. The first time you win, you’ll be rewarded with a little Sharktooth Bubs keychain that’ll dangle from your player character’s person in TF2. This mode will only be available from the menu if you beat Vs. King Dice the first time.

Poker Games:

Texas Hold ‘Em: The default Poker game for three Poker Night games now.

Black Jack: An interesting set-up that pits the players against the dealer. Try to get as close to a sum of 21 as you can with your cards. If you go over 21, you’re Busted.

Tripoli: This is actually three card games in one (hence its alternate name, Three In One). It starts with Hearts, shifts to Poker, and ends with Michigan Rummy.

Decor sets and effects:

Homestuck: The Inventory will resemble the meteor the Trolls played on, and that Dave and Rose ended up on for a few years. Dave’s outfit will change from his default white and red-sleeved shirt to his snazzy red Plush Tux. Those who are the first to be busted out are “escorted” away from the table by different characters from Homestuck. Dave, for example, might be chased away by hungry Nakadiles.

Undertale: The Inventory changes to resemble Grillby’s, and Bubs is even replaced by the soft-spoken Grillby himself. Sans’ jacket changes from blue to black, reflecting his monochromatic sprite in the battle screen. The first to be busted out in a tournament is sent away from the table by a different Undertale character. In Sans’ case, Papyrus drags him away to try a new spaghetti recipe he concocted, much to the shorter skeleton’s dismay.

Skullgirls: The Inventory will now resemble Lab 8, before its destruction. Peacock and her gang may get a little misty-eyed the first time they see it... Peacock’s outfit changes from her default dress to her “That’s All Folks” colors, her 8th palette, which is a reference to black-and-white cartoons. The first to be busted out is chased away from the table by one or two of Peacock’s goons. In Peacock’s case, however, she simply teleports away (via portable hole) and watches cartoons on a nearby tower of TVs.

Team Fortress: The interior of the Inventory now resembles a BLU base. The Spy’s costume change is simplest of all: he now wears a poker visor. That’s it. The first to be eliminated is chased away by another member of the BLU team, or in the Spy’s case, an intruding RED Pyro.

Cuphead: The Inventory is dressed up to look like the Devil’s Casino, undead patrons and all. Peacock’s appearance changes to more look like a Cuphead character (e.g. giving her the ol’ pie eyes). The first eliminated player will be chased away by one of the bosses from Cuphead, or in King Dice’s case, Cuphead and Mugman themselves. “Oh, applesauce, not again!”

Homestar Runner: The Inventory now looks like Club Technochocolate, and you can see various Homestar Runner characters partying in the background. Sans is now wearing a propeller cap similar to Homestar’s. The first to be busted out is forcibly escorted away from the table by Strong Mad, the club’s bouncer.

Sample dialogue:

Spy: So, let me see if I have this right: I’m playing Poker with an animate skeleton, a cyborg, and a time-traveler.

Sans: you’re on the right track so far.

Spy: Our dealer is a man with a die for a head.

King Dice: Who worked for the Devil before his casino went under.

Spy: And our host is a former pirate.

Winslow: Aye?

Spy: Do none of you find this odd?

(All the others respond in the negative.)

Spy: ...Hm.

Bubs: Hey! What am I, chopped liver?

Spy: To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what you are.

.............

Peacock: (first time winning a pot) Come to Mama, chippies!

Andy Anvil: Hey, boss? Are you gonna bring one o’ those chips to life? We could use more members in our mob!

Peacock: Nah, I’ve got enough mouths to feed.

Andy: ...Wait, we have digestive tracts?

..............

King Dice: (won a game of Black Jack) (chuckles) Gonna need to do better than that, folks. (singing) Hi-dee-hiii-dee-ho!

Skeletons: (popping up from the ground around King Dice; singing) Hi-dee-hiii-dee-ho! (retreat back underground)

.............

Dave: (won the Kitty in Tripoli) im more of a dog person, but shit, i aint complainin

............

Sans: (won a hand against Dave, who had a really bad hand) uh, i know you haven’t played poker in a while, but why’d you play cards with values that low?

Dave: ...honestly, i dont know; its like the fuckin uh...

Winslow: Perhaps we should move on to the next hand, before Mr. Strider goes off on another rambling tangent.

...........

Sans: hey bubs? where’d you say you were from?

Bubs: I came straight from humble lil’ Free Country, U.S.A!

Sans: so, if i ended up headin’ over there at some point, would you have any souvenirs at your concession stand?

Bubs: Glad you asked, Skele-man! I’ve got all types o’ souvenirs! Mugs, plushies, action figures, “I survived Free Country, USA, and all’s I gots was this crappy T-shirt” T-shirts; you name it, I just might have it!

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Chapter 1: Hard Reboot

This hasn’t been edited yet, but I wanted to finally post it.  I’ll update when it’s been looked over.

The first thing Evan realized was that something was halfway down his throat and he had no idea what it was or how it got there.  As he choked and spluttered, spraying the liquid and coughing saliva all over the table in front of him, he realized that he didn't know where he was.  He realized everything hurt to a startling degree and his gagging and retching weren't helping; in fact, he was pretty sure he was about to vomit.  Looking around desperately, he spotted a door adorned with a faded stick-man symbol and lurched to his feet.  What parts of his brain weren't trying to propel his uncooperative body forward dimly made the connection that he was in a bar, and a seedy one at that. Stumbling through the door on leaden legs, he fell to the floor in front of the nearest urinal and heaved something searing and foul into the shallow basin.  Vomit was sticking to something on his face.  What was stuck to his face?  Why did it feel like he hadn't eaten in days?  Why couldn't he remember yesterday?  How did he get here? And, most presently, why was he touching a stained-brown urinal with his bare hands?

“Uueurrghh.”  Evan had intended for it to be a groan of disgust, but a combination of confusion, exhaustion, and a wickedly sore throat resulted in a sound like a rusty gate with a drinking problem.   He shoved himself up to his feet and half-fell into the sink.  Was he drunk? No, this didn’t feel like drunk.    Was he on something?  He hoped it wasn’t coke again.  If that was the case this was probably the come-down.  No, that probably wasn’t it.  Sitting alone in a dingy bar—or just sitting still—was not a usual cocaine activity.  Could he have mixed a bunch of drugs and accidentally damaged his brain? Surely he was smarter than that!

He could figure that out later.  First things first.  The mirror was, unsurprisingly, a mess: cracks, stains, inane sharpie and/or car-key graffiti, stickers from shitty bands all around the edges.  There was enough untainted glass to provide a reflection of his face, though, and what stared back at him was a good match for the mirror.  

What he’d felt sticking to his face were bandages.  A lot of bandages.  Not a square inch of his face was free of gauze or cotton.  On top of that, he was wearing a very bulky pair of dark sunglasses, a black baseball cap, and a dark gray hoodie with the hood up.  He noted that the jacket looked like it had been sloppily repaired, but potential facial mutilation took priority.  

Maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way.  Maybe he’d finally had plastic surgery like he always considered doing.  Maybe the reason he felt so messed up was because of painkillers or something.  Great. Opiates.   He didn’t want to think about the intestinal ramifications of that. But wait…

No, he hadn’t gone under the knife.  Taking off the sunglasses for a closer look, he realized that, under the bandages, the shape of his face was still the same.  His nose—broken for the first time before he even hit puberty and at least four times since then—still stuck out over an inch from his face at the bridge, then continued downward, juking from left to right to left again before ending in wide nostrils just above his weirdly plush lips.  Said lips pursed in annoyance as Evan realized that his ‘aesthetic idiosyncrasies’, as his father had once called them, were still intact. He opened his mouth and clacked his teeth together, feeling around in his mouth with his tongue.  Nope.  Still didn’t close properly on the left.  He tilted his head to up and to the right, trying to see his jaw.  Yep.  Still crooked from where it hadn’t healed properly.  

Maybe he’d been in an accident.  A lot of other parts of him hurt besides his face.  He patted his chest gently, intending to feel if there were more bandages anywhere else on his body, and froze in place when something clanked.  He was suddenly aware of the weight he was carrying, of contact against his skin.  A sudden chill ran through him and he straightened up very slowly.   Glancing around nonchalantly to make sure he was alone, he slowly walked into the solitary stall and closed the door.

Surrounded by scratched-out phone numbers promising an ambiguous good time and cast in shadow by flickering fluorescent bulbs, Evan took stock of the rest of himself. First, he pulled down his hood, feeling his ponytail unfurl as he did so.  It felt greasy, which was no surprise, but it also felt like there was more of it than there should be.   The possibility that he’d lost a significant amount of time was looking more and more likely.  

Panic later.  Figure out the here and now.

Next, he pulled off the baseball cap, noting that it felt weirdly heavy.  He turned it over in his hands, examining it; it looked like a plain black snapback cap with a slightly curved brim, but when he moved it, the sensation of unbalanced weight and the slight sound of particles shifting drew his attention to the back of the hat.  His fingers found a strange mass at the back of the hat, just above the opening. Heavy, dense, discrete.  Just the right hardness and weight to break someone’s nose if swung correctly.

Why was he wearing a sap cap?  For what purpose did he even own such a gimmicky ‘weapon’?  That was the realm of the dangerously paranoid and the moronically edgy.  There must be a reason.  Had he been attacked?  He’d known that was a possibility, but he should have been well off the radar.  Had he gotten sloppy?  Somehow leaked his location?  More questions with no Goddamn answers.   A long, exasperated breath slid between his lips as he ran his hand through his hair.  A thought occurred to him mid-stroke.  He seized a few strands of hair at the root and tugged.  The strands between his fingers were at least a foot long, but what he was looking for was at the base.  He grunted disdainfully.  The last inch of his hair abruptly shifted colors from a nondescript medium-brown to a vivid corn-silk blond.  Shit.  That meant it had at least been a month.  He remembered getting touched up in early February.  

Christ.

So.  A concealed weapon, massive injury to his face, missing at least a month of memory.  This was going to get worse before it got better.  

Evan returned his attention to his clothes.  The hoodie had been roughly patched up on the left side of the chest, as he’d noticed earlier, but the damage was more extensive than he’d first thought.  The cloth had been torn all the way under his left arm and around the back, and seemed to have been repaired by stapling a deflated football over the hole.  Evan felt a surge of disgust at that.  Such shoddy, slap-dash, jerry-rigged ‘sewing’ was so far beneath his abilities as to be nauseating.  And he’d gone out in public like that!  Had he lost his mind?  

He unzipped the butchered garment and pulled it away from himself.  Ah.  That explained the weight, but for once it was something that didn’t fill him with a sense of panicked confusion.  He’d taken to wearing a bulletproof vest since taking to the road, but… it didn’t feel as heavy he remembered.  What was worrying was that it seemed to have actually seen some use.  There were scrapes, scratches, and more than a few patches (much more professionally done, he noticed with some pride) here and there. He patted the vest down; uneven rigidity and weight lead him to conclude that several of the plates had been replaced. He felt his jaw clench as he accepted the logical conclusion: he’d been shot at least once.

He’d have to figure out the who, when, and why later.  He was wearing something else, something hard and smooth, very close to his skin, under his shirt, but he couldn’t get to it with the vest on.  Back to that later, then.  

He was aware that he was being very systematic about something as mundane as looking at one’s own clothes, but he assumed he was in some sort of shock.  Maybe going through this weird checklist would calm him down enough to figure out what was going on.  He decided to just roll with it.  

The pants were a welcome sight.  Familiar and relatively normal.  He’d designed and sewn them himself; a decent amount of pocket space without the bulkiness of cargo pants.  Not exactly high fashion, but not something you’d glance twice at.  Apparently gray was the color of the day.  He was wearing some kind of hiking boot he didn’t immediately recognize, but that was nothing sinister.  He probably wouldn’t recognize the socks he was wearing eith—okay, what was that?

Something was strapped around his waist, right around his navel, and he realized that another was running up over his shoulder, which mean they had to be meeting somewhere in the back… twisting his arm around under his jacket, he patted the small of his back until his hand met…

Oh, Jesus.

That was a gun.

A really big gun.

Like, borderline anti-vehicular big.

Okay, that did it. This was too weird, too scary, too much to handle at once.  Screw personal inventory.  He needed to get someplace safe to wrap his head around this.  He had to figure out where he was.  Phone!  Phone, phone… he frantically slapped his pockets, trying to ignore what sounded like brass clinking against itself until her felt a familiar rectangular shape.  His fingers shaking, he fished it out of his pocket, heart racing at the prospect of understanding…

The screen had a hole in it large enough to fit his thumb.  It didn’t stop with the screen, either.  The back of the phone had blistered outward and ruptured from the inside, the metal flaring out like a sharp-tipped flower.  

Okay, fuck it.  He’d seen a few people in the bar while he was doing the 50-yard stumble.  He’d just have to get past the awkwardness and ask someone where the hell he was. The date would be easy enough to figure out, assuming he hadn’t somehow forgotten years and missed the death of print media.  A small part of him made a note to chuckle later about relying on a cliché in real life, but humor was being supplanted by panic.  It would have to wait.

Evan zipped the hoodie back up and left the stall, noticing as he moved that there were other weird weight distributions around his person.  He wondered how many other instruments of personal unpleasantness he had strapped to himself, and hoped that none of them were too explosive.  

Hesitantly, Evan stepped out of the restroom and surveyed the bar.  Boy, he'd really picked a winner.  The place was too depressing to even be called a dive.  Dives, at least, had character; this place had a patina. The few patrons at the tables looked even worse than he did, but public day-drinking tended to do that to people. None of them looked particularly friendly or like the kind inclined to help a man who looked like he'd fought his way out of a mental ward.  

There were two improvements on the scenery standing at the bar, however.  Two young women stood with their backs to him, but even from an impaired perspective they stood out amongst the grime and human detritus. Some nearly-necrotized part of his brain noted that they were both very shapely, but this concern was immediately drowned in the rising tide of stress.  Better to just get it over with.  

Evan quietly walked up to the bar, making sure to stand several feet away from the women, and cleared his throat softly.  "Excuse me, ladies, but--"

The hot asphalt didn't help the pain in his face.  He groaned and rolled onto his side, then groaned louder from the dull pain in his ribs.  

It had happened so quickly.  Before he’d even finished half the sentence, the closer of the two women had yanked a bottle off the bar and smashed it across his temple with such speed and ferocity that he was barely able to even start to flinch.  The hurricane force of the blow had knocked him against the bar and, disoriented as he was, he’d been unable to keep his footing.  He heard the bartender yell as he hit the floor, and then he heard the second woman say something about how he’d grabbed her friend’s ass, and then he heard stomping footsteps as two of the staff approached to drag him roughly to the door, toss him out into the parking lot, and kick him, field goal-style, several times apiece.  And then, while he struggled to breathe, the second girl had come out and rifled through his wallet, saying something sarcastic about ‘picking up the tab’ or something.  

He was not going to forget those faces. Anger had temporarily overtaken fear and confusion and seared every detail he’d had time to notice into his brain.

“Well.  I think that’s a vendetta,” he half-wheezed to himself as he pushed himself up on his knuckles and got to his knees.  God, it was hot.  He could see heat radiating off the pavement.  It was starting to burn his knees through his pants, so he forced himself upward into something resembling standing.   It didn’t quite take the first time and he stumbled sideways, catching himself on something metallic that scorched his fingers.

“Mother fu—huh.  How about that.”  

A newspaper vending box. Rusted and with what looked like a couple of spot-welded bullet holes in it, but still stocked.  Evan crouched down for a better look.

The Arizona Daily Star.  Tucson?  What the hell?  Last he remembered, he was bumming around campgrounds in Southeast Washington.  It had been sort of boring, but it was peaceful. He’d started working on a few personal projects during the relative stability; It was the closest to normal life he’d had since January.    Sure, it’d been barely above freezing most of the time, but he’d felt content.  What made him give that up?  

His eyes fell on the date and his heart seemed to pump backwards for a moment.  May 11th.  The last date-specific thing he could remember was from mid-February; he’d taken advantage of some cynical bar owner’s “singles awareness day” Valentine’s Day promotion and sat in the place for six straight hours, working on his laptop and drinking cheap liquor, surrounded by a strange mix of melancholy and manic patrons.  Nothing particularly interesting happened, but the specific date stuck in his head.  

“Shit, shit, shit.”

At least two months. A sizable fraction of a year, lost. Three states away.  Lots of injuries.  Weird clothes.   Above-average personal armament.  There were so many angles to the situation that he couldn’t even begin to try to put them together.  Everything felt like clouds floating around the periphery of his brain.  If he tried to focus on one, it would disperse and the others would engulf him, distracting him with suppositions, fears, and half-mad theories.  He bounced around inside his own head in a numb and ultimately futile attempt to make sense of things, until he realized that he’d been standing almost completely still in the parking lot with a vacant expression on his face for several minutes.  He looked like a homeless lobotomized mummy.  He was probably lucky nobody had called the cops on him yet.

All the confusion and mystery finally gave way to absolute panic.  Evan’s hands and lips were starting to shake, badly.  His pulse started to race and he started to have trouble catching his breath.  Desperately, frantically, he swung his head from side to side, trying to scan the parking lot while the color seemed to drain from his vision.  Security, privacy, familiarity; these things felt so far removed from the situation that they seemed almost abstract.  

Gotta get away  

find somewhere to hide

to think

After what felt like an eternity, he finally saw it, a beacon of hope and safety in his rapidly darkening world.  Heaven was a dented, dusty 2007 Gulf Stream Endura.  

Home.

Evan tried to run, but confusion had suddenly become exhaustion and all he could manage was a determined stagger.  He imagined he probably looked stone drunk, which was fine with him.  It’d stop people getting curious.  

His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t get his keys out of his pockets while walking, and could barely hold them when he stopped at the door.  Trying to get the key into the lock felt like he was drowning, just inches away from the surface…

When the key finally slid into the lock, he gasped with relief so hard that he almost choked.  He flung the door open and fell inside, pulling it closed as he collapsed.  The relief was instant.  

The smell was what brought him around the most.  It had overtones of things that he didn’t remember being there, but underneath it all, it had the same subtle odor of lived-in familiarity.  Facedown on the tile, he breathed in deeply, savoring even the disgusting undertones that came from having one’s nose pressed to the linoleum. This was an ugly paradise, but he’d take it.

After an interminable amount of time, Evan rolled onto his back.  Sheer relief seemed to have made the pain from his earlier beating subside, as it was significantly less agonizing than his earlier rolling-over in the parking lot.  It was surprisingly painless to push himself up and collapse onto the couch.  

Evan slowly gazed around the interior of what he’d come to call home (and apparently had continued to for several weeks), hoping he could take in any changes in a calm, reserved manner and not immediately jump to pants-pissing panic again.  

The first thing he noticed was a laptop, sitting on the kitchen counter.  It was one he didn’t recognize, but that was no big deal, he tended to cycle through them really fast in the course of his normal routines. Nothing scary there.  What was concerning was the piece of paper reading “EVAN: WATCH ME.  PASSWORD IS THE DATE”, written in his own angular handwriting, taped to the screen.  

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several more signs taped up around the cabin.  He was instinctively trying to focus on and read them, but he forced himself back to the floor.  With some adjusting, he was able to swing the carpeted panel up on a hinge, revealing a compartment below.  

All of that can wait.

The lock’s keypad beeped as it opened, and Evan swung the safe open, ignoring the unfamiliar and frankly frightening objects that now occupied the space.  

Only one thing matters right now.

He leaned down until he was flat on the floor, his arm extended all the way down into the safe. Things clanked, clinked, clicked, shifted, and on one frightening occasion, beeped twice, but Evan’s hand eventually closed around what he was looking for: a rough canvas bag.  

Out came the bag, closed went the lid.  Open came the bag, in went the hand.

And out came a weathered, worn, well-loved stuffed toy giraffe.  Evan ran his fingers across the fur, shortened and decolored with time, and looked into its dull, scuffed glass eyes before hugging the toy to his chest as though he were trying to push it into himself.  Still holding it, he turned himself to lie down on the couch, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

“It’s been one hell of a day, Mr. Nex.”

[ecotone99]

Los Dioses [SF] [CYBERPUNK]

Note: This is my first attempt at creative writing in general and I am looking for some feedback on what I hope to develop into a longer work. I'm brand new to this sub and I wasn't sure if this was a bit too long for what is typical. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

​

‘0504 District 7,’

The two men settled in the backseat of the cab. Their black hats sat low on their brows, the brims concealing their eyes to the shadows. The two of them were dressed almost identically in worn coffee coloured canvas jackets wrapped tightly under their legs, the collars flipped up. A stained white cotton shirt, glowing neon under the city lights, peeked through the undone jacket of the man seated on the driver’s side of the car. His jaw was chiseled like the blade of a knife.

‘And turn this shit off.’

The man sat with his legs crossed in the cramped back seat, his arm draped across the top of his seat. The smirk etched into his face withered as his gaze shown out of the side window. The cab driver paused before flicking his finger across the opaque glass dashboard in front of him. Illuminated numbers flashed upon the glass, changing before disappearing again, and filled the car with a dim white glow for just a moment. The ancient sounds of Bobby Caldwell’s What You Won’t Do For Love vanished, and the car was quiet.

The man sitting on the passenger’s side kept his head down. Larger than the man to his left, he sat cramped with his hands on his knees, gently fidgeting with the wrinkles in his pants. A briefcase lay on the seat between the two. The two men then sat in silence, broken only by an electric whir as the driver gently thrust forward on the joystick beside his leg. The men sank back into their seats as car accelerated ahead. Its motion was as smooth as the surface of a pond on a windless day. It was not carried by wheels or even touching the magnetic pathway that lay below it. Instead, it glided atop a cloud of air, propelled forward by the changing electro-magnetic impulses of the road below.

The road was wide enough for four cars though there was not another car in sight. It stretched on without bend as far as the eye could see. Alongside it, the road which it ran opposite of and a raised triangular median, pale white under the glow of fluorescent street lights, divided the roads. On either side of the road stood the decrepit metallic structures of the outer districts. Their windows caked in grime from years without care. Their walls adorned the graffiti of generations. Though these buildings were lived in, the residents held no pride for them. The occasional flickering of neon business signs above forgotten storefronts was merely a relic of days past.

The man on the left looked to his right before leaning in towards his partner. In a hushed tone, low enough to be nearly drowned out by the whine of the car, he said,

‘Loosen up a little, will you? You look like you’re about to shit yourself.’

He smirked as his partner did little to acknowledge he was spoken to, simply continuing to fidget with his pants.

‘You know how these things go.’

The larger man shifted in his seat before lifting his head slightly.

‘You know, even after all this time, I’m still queasy right before. It’s never gotten much easier for me.’

‘Well, you better snap out of it real quick because this one’s big. If we fuck up it’s not just your ass, but mine too. Hey buddy, ya got the time?’

The man with the chiseled jaw pulled his himself forward and around the driver’s seat. Without taking his eyes off the road, the driver responded flatly.

‘Half-past eleven.’

‘Can you hurry it up? We’re on a bit of a schedule.’

The buildings on either side of the road became sparse as the cab neared the edge of the city.

The industrial yards fenced in with electrical wiring surrounding the car grew smaller as the road began to rise into the air. The ramp curved and became one with the mega-highway that circumscribed the walls of the city. On the right side of the highway, the clean lines of massive brass support structures arched up from out of the blackness beside the highway. The occasional window overlooking the black reflectionless ocean rushed past as the car continued on its course. The larger of the two men gazed at the city’s neon reflection as it flew by as fleetingly as the lifeless image of the sea and the deep yellow-green haze that shrouded it. He could almost make out the vast fields great white monoliths capturing the malevolent gusts of the deep sea. This was the only image of the outside world known to the people of the city.

A cool blue hue came over the backseat as the snakish man’s wrist watch came to life. He glanced down before swiping his finger across it, the light dying away. He whispered.

‘The location just came in. The contact is going to be behind the complex at the address we were given. He’s not going to be alone.’

The larger man let out an inaudible sigh and continued to track the outer windows with his eyes as they came into view before being whisked away again. The cab was overcome by the trailing red tail lights of a few other hovercars as it began to descend down an off-ramp. As it rounded the bend, the striking gaussian skyline of the city came into view through the windshield. The low lying silhouette of the outer districts grew into a grand phosphorescent outline of the financial district at the center of the city. The jagged cityscape was nearly symmetric about its center, out of which rose an immense glass cylinder. The glass tube, though narrow in diameter, dwarfed the surrounding buildings as it climbed through the air until it met the ceiling of the great metallic metropolis. The tube was lit from the inside with bright white lights along its circumference every ten stories it rose. A small black dot could be seen rising through the tube, eventually disappearing along with its crystalline enclosure into the ceiling.

The men sat in silence as the cab slowly made its way back toward the heart of the city. About halfway to the center, the cab made its way onto a perpendicular road which curved in a gentle circle around the city. The cab continued alongside ten story high buildings until it slowed to a halt outside of what seemed to be an abandoned housing center on the corner of the block. The complex was sleek in design, but its age showed in its walls. The windows held nothing but shadow. The red metal front doors were no longer standing in their frame.

‘Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back. No questions, alright?’

The snakish man spoke in an ice cold tone. As his words pierced the air, he placed his watch against the glass backing of the headrest in front of him. The opaque dashboard, which had glowed red since the car stopped, turned green and the doors unlocked. The balance due, displayed on the dash, went from a negative number to a positive one. It was a large number.

The two men shuffled out of the cab, the larger of the two clutching the briefcase at his side. They walked down the sidewalk to the end of the building, and rounded the corner. As they went, the sounds of Bobby Caldwell’s What You Won’t Do For Love resumed once again, softly echoing amidst the whir and stutter of fluorescent street lamps.

The two men continued around to the back of the complex until it brought them to an alleyway, splitting the buildings down the length of the block. The alley was even more lifeless than the buildings bordering it. Lit only by the stray beams of light that were unlucky enough to die in such a dismal setting, the alley was dark and colder than the rest of the city. As the two began to meander their way down the alley, they took in their surroundings with extreme care, analyzing each detail to ensure there were no unwanted guests. Though the larger of the two men was breathing quickly and unevenly, his breath visible in the chilled alley air, the man with the chiseled jaw was calm, breathing deeply and smoothly. The alley stretched on for one hundred meters and three meters in width. The silhouette of a figure which blended in with its surroundings began to take form before the two men. As they approached the figure the larger man’s breath grew more rapid.

‘Is there only one standing there? Didn’t you say there would be more?’

The man stopped in his tracks, but his partner ushered him forward. They grew closer. It was indeed only one. She was a woman by her looks, but her age was impossible for the men to tell, as she was covered head to toe in various garments. Her hair was wrapped not so neatly under her cap so that a few strands of her straight black hair fell past her eyes. A scarf was tightly wound around her face so that only her soft black eyes were revealed.

‘Thought you were bringing company.’

The man with the chiseled jaw called out to her as though they were not only a few meters away. He motioned for his partner to look around the alleyway.

‘No, it’s just me. There was a change in plans.’

The woman’s voice was clearly young. She stood with her hands in her jacket pockets keeping her eyes on the two men as they stopped close enough to hear shallow breaths.

‘We don’t really like when the plans change.’

‘Do you have them? I need to see them.’

The man in front of her took the briefcase from his partner, placed it on the ground, and kicked it over to the woman.

‘Ammunitions too?’

‘Everything’s in there.’

The woman got down on her knees and clicked open the electronic latches on the briefcase. She opened it and her eyes relaxed, but fixated on what lie before them. In the briefcase lay two weapons, as sleek as polished obsidian. Their stocks were drawn with clean lines that flowed through to the end of the barrels. Their triggers were no more than pressure sensitive buttons, flush their metal grips.

Guns were the pinnacle of illegal goods in the city considering all forms of combustion were absolutely prohibited by the government. Their trafficking was left only to the most powerful of the city’s syndicates. Why the woman was in need of such weapons was not the concern of the two men. They had come with specific intentions, and they needed her to hold up her end of the exchange.

‘Satisfied? Your turn.’

‘Okay, but you’ll have to come here. This is too fragile for me to kick across the ground.’

Out of her pocket she drew what appeared to be a small black satin pouch. The man walked forward as she began removing a translucent sphere from the pouch. She did not touch it with her hands and continued to handle it with the satin cloth.

‘Whatever you do don’t touch this with your hands. It will compromise the sample.’

‘Don’t you worry miss, we’ll take good care of it.’

The smile out of the corner of his mouth was too dark to be seen. He grabbed it from her hand as she slipped it back into the pouch.

‘Pleasure doing business with you.’

The man turned on his heels and began walking away. He pointed his finger at his larger partner who had already drawn the gun out of his jacket before the woman had even noticed. The woman was keeled over on her knees before the sound of splitting air even registered in her head. With her hand now on her chest, she could feel the warmth of her own blood as it slowly trickled through her fingers. A few broken breathes were all she could get out before her consciousness could no longer fight its tireless battle with gravity. She slumped onto her side.

‘Never gets any easier.’

The large man turned around to see a body lying motionless on the ground. A moment passed in the dim light before his adrenaline shocked him into motion. .

‘Fuck! There’s another one?!’

The man raced for cover behind a dumpster on one side of the alley, his gun scanning the shadows around him. He took a moment to hopelessly try to slow his frantic breathing. His eyes darted back and forth from one corner of the alley to the other. He leaped from behind the dumpster and began sprinting down the opposite end of the alley from which he had entered. The light sound of agile footsteps paced him. He stopped. His arm shot around, blindly firing three rounds down the alleyway. The figure, however, did not fall, and continued its pursuit. The man had hardly begun to run again by the time he his knees buckled. His gun seemed to fly out of his hand as if under its own will. It bounced off of the wall and a another shot went off. Then, the man joined the two other bodies on the ground, motionlessness.

Those three bodies, only two of which still breathed in their peaceful slumber, were then alone. In between them the briefcase lay open, proudly revealing its untouched prizes to the world. At one end of the alley, red and blue lights slowly crept closer as the sounds of distant sirens reverberated off the metal walls. At the other end of the alley, a man with his hands in his pockets, his head down, walked slowly toward his cab. He got inside and drove away, leaving in his wake the faint sounds of Bobby Caldwell’s What You Won’t Do For Love.

​

** Edit: Sorry the tags aren't at the beginning of the title **

submitted by /u/Slothblood [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/30eaosI

[lindyhunt]

What Can We Learn from Gucci’s Cultural Appropriation of the Turban?

One of the stranger things about the Fall 2018 Gucci show was how the turbans got more press than the severed heads. Models carried their domes in the crook of their arms, like rugby balls. Even so, when it came to headlines, the headdresses trumped the heads. “Dear @gucci,” tweeted @SinghLions, Harjinder Singh Kukreja, “The Sikh turban is not a hot new accessory for white models but an article of faith for practicing Sikhs. Your models have used turbans as ‘hats’ whereas practicing Sikhs tie them neatly fold by fold. Using fake Sikhs/turbans is worse than selling fake Gucci products.”

Gucci’s calling out was swift and exacting. Gone are the impunitive days when Yves Saint Laurent turban-topped his ladies and Edith Head wrapped leopard-print scarves around Gloria Swanson’s head. Turbans used to convey oriental glamour; now they spell occidental trouble. Marc Jacobs accessorized with turbans a season earlier than Gucci and escaped critics’ beheading by a mere hair’s breadth. His were worn by a more ethnically variegated selection of models. (Jacobs had learned his lesson from dreadlock-gate. Alessandro Michele’s models, though, were as white and waxy-looking as zombies.)

Marc Jacobs S/S 2018 Photography via Imaxtree

Veronica Etro also blended cultural references into her Southwestern-inspired collection. She described the mélange as her vision of “ethnic futurism”—or an imagined post-identity world. Ben Barry, associate professor of equity, diversity and inclusion at Toronto’s Ryerson School of Fashion, has a different take. When designers confuse appreciation with appropriation, it “shows ignorance to the way in which power works in the world,” he says. “It’s easy for Marc Jacobs to put turbans on the runway and say he’s celebrating Sikh culture, but many Sikh men who live in the world and live in Western countries and walk down the street in turbans experience material consequences for wearing them. They experience marginalization, exclusion and violence.”

Some say the mood board makes fashion culturally tone-deaf. A collage of images compiled willy-nilly, like a magpie’s nest of bright and beautiful inspirations, the mood board functions as the guiding principle of what the designer wants to express. What it lacks is context. “It’s detached from the lived experiences of people,” says Barry. “True knowledge about culture and design and experience comes from people. We can learn a lot if we move away from this design board as a source of knowledge to engage with the people and communities who inspire us and wear our clothes.”

About Gucci’s turbans, Barry asks: “Which communities were engaged in the design process? Were Sikh communities engaged? Were Sikh designers part of the design team? How are profits being shared among the design team and with the communities, specifically the Sikh communities? When we see designers, specifically white designers, draw from cultures other than their own, these are questions that need to be asked.”

Cultural accountability and auditing, the kind that Barry advocates, may be the right thing to do, societally speaking, but do they sit well with the freedom and playfulness of designing clothes and crafting fantasy? Can the careful accrediting and footnoting of inspirations yield art that soars and sings?

Gucci F/W 2018 Photography via IMAXTREE

At Gucci, more than at any other house, there is a sense of a stupendous cache of theatre costumes stumbled upon in an old attic somewhere. Hence the tickle-trunk madness of turbans, pagoda hats, mitre Yankee caps and belly-dancing headpieces. Playing dress-up and dressing up are ways to escape, and fashion is the purest, most do-it-yourself escape from the drudgeries of life.

“I love clothing, and I was always connected to costumes from a young age and dressed in a bohemian, crazy way,” says designer-turned-artist Miguel Adrover. “I used to go to church dressed as a Mohican with a long skirt from my grandmother. I lived in Spain, under a dictatorship, under the Catholic religion.” Adrover paid a steep price for his escapism. A New York star during the late ’90s and early ’00s, he shone as brightly and as hotly as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. He was spending a great deal of time in Egypt then and had the Middle East and North Africa on his brain. Adrover designed a collection filled with caftans, turbans and veils and had the bad luck of showing it just two days before 9/11. The next month, he lost his financial backing.

Cultural insensitivity did not do Adrover’s business in; historical sensi­tivity did, and so did market sensitivity. But what if the attacks hadn’t happened? Would Adrover, who is Spanish, have been reprimanded for his Ishtar-inspired looks?

This is where we return to the severed heads. After the Gucci show, Alessandro Michele told a reporter: “We exist to reproduce ourselves, but we have moved on. We are in a post-human era, for sure; it is under way.” Michele had been reading A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, an essay written in 1984 by an academic named Donna Haraway.

Haraway believed that the boundary-blurring cyborg, who is both human and machine and therefore not really one or the other but something entirely new, was a way to escape the dualities that imprison us. In the case of the Cyborg Manifesto, whose concern is feminism, Haraway focuses on the essentialist dualism of male/female and man/woman, but cyborg thinking is a way out of other dualisms, too, like the ones that dog debates about turbans, dreadlocks and cornrows. We operate within increasingly narrow confines chopped up by innumerable fences: imperialist/colonized, dominant/marginalized, white/black, white/brown, religious/secular, you/me….

Haraway believed that if you are hybrid, a mosaic, a pastiche, a form of fusion—that if you are a human machine or a monster in the Frankenstein sense, patched together out of various dead body parts, whose existence pushes out the farthest limits of human experience—then you are in utterly new territory, unpopulated by the old binaries of powerful and powerless.

In the show, whose setting was a clinic, Michele was a self-proclaimed Victor Frankenstein and the models were suitably dead-looking. He was proposing them as new identity-free people with no allegiance or association to tribe, religion, ethnicity or gender. By extension, what they were wearing was similarly empty of meaning. “The act of cutting, splicing and reconstructing material and fabrics to create a new personality and identity” read a note on one of Gucci’s Instagram photos.

French designer Marine Serre, who has come under fire for the crescent moon motif—which is very much like the Islamic moon—on her clothing, told The Cut: “I’m really trying to push this hybridity by mixing things together…. I really tried to actually break these boundaries and borders and taboos. My work is about hybridity, and of course I do not wish to be associated with cultural appropriation. Today, the world is merging because of the media, because of Instagram.”

Is it coincidental that the designers who are proffering cultures of everyone and cultures of no one are white? Probably not. That futuristic “vision thing” comes more easily to those who do not battle with the everyday ignominies of missing out on an apartment because of the way they wear their hair or being passed over for a job because of their last name.

Still, it wouldn’t be right to end the article here and conclude that turbans on white-skinned models and Islamic moons on form-fitting bodysuits are dangerous decoys in the cultural wars. The identity conflicts we trigger when we “carefreely” co-opt the hair, clothing and symbols of exclusion—the daastar, the hijab, cornrows, the yellow star, the afro—are about infinitely just causes. But they often fracture the fight for an even more urgent justice, which is of the evermore poor and powerless many—the 99.99 per cent—against the invisible, self-perpetuating system of the wealthy and powerful few. It is a slightly different fight—economic, not cultural—and one that is propelled by indignation, which is what we feel when designers turn important cultural symbols into empty fashion accessories.

Yet if the bigger fish to fry is not cultural but economic fairness, winning it requires a coming together. It requires us to, even if temporarily, set aside or merge our different, diversionary you/me conflicts and join our affronted identities in the common cause of economic justice.

[njohnstonphotography]

I’m fairly new to kayaking, and have so far enjoyed a few afternoon paddles in the Hudson River near our home and in Goose Pond near Lee, MA, where we vacation in the summer. The more I do it, the more I enjoy the challenges it offers. It’s a great way to get alone time for a few hours, and maybe enjoy some non-work related photography. Or to just sit, bobbing up and down like a cork, watching clouds.

The Hudson River south of the Tappan Zee bridge. A timed exposure.

And so when Matt Kane of Prime Paddlesports invited me to join with him and a group of kayakers on an overnight expedition to the Execution Rocks Lighthouse, I was totally in. The longest kayak trip I’ve had to date was about 3 hours on the Hudson, so this was a big step up. We’d meet in Rye, NY, paddle 5 miles from the coast, south by south west, to a pile of rocks few miles north of Port Washington, NY, and back again the following morning, which happened to be Memorial Day.

Loading up.

Getting in.

Paddling off.

After meeting up at the appointed time and place, and getting our boats and gear sorted out in the Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary parking lot, we popped into our kayaks and shoved off into the setting sun. Despite the increasing clouds, the weather was calm and pleasant as we paddled, keeping a wary eye out for holiday pleasure boaters and quietly chatting about the lore of the Execution Rocks.

During the Revolutionary War, British soldiers were reported to have used the 9 foot tide at the island to execute prisoners, chaining them to the rocks during low tide. Additionally, Execution Rocks is where cereal killer Carl Panzram claimed to have dumped the bodies of his numerous victims. They say on starless nights you can tortured hear voices calling out as the water rises. This is where we plan on spending the night.

Using charts to navigate.

The sky gets darker.

Feeling very small in a very big place.

Matt Kane glides over darkening waters.

Sun comes out before going down.

We were running late, but thankfully the lighthouse’s beacon began it’s regular pulsing in the dark, and we were able to plot a good path using it and some nearby buoys. Our landing on the rocks of the island was going to be a technical one, and as we finally reached our destination, the ocean seemed to want to test us by picking up its energy. Our hosts, Craig and Linell, helped by shining flashlights down on us as we methodically lifted one heavy, packed kayak after another up the rip rap that makes the island, to safety.

One last navigational discussion before nightfall.

Execution Rocks Lighthouse beacon guides us in.

Craig and Linell, a welcome sight!

The lighthouse is a creepy, remarkable affair, feeling abandoned and ancient until you poke around a little and discover signs of the owners. Tables with glowing lanterns, food and water in the kitchen, a nice grill outside. Ironically, though Con Edison uses the island as a switching point for millions of volts of electricity and the Coast Guard is obliged to keep the lighthouse’s beacon flashing, there’s no electricity for Craig and Linell. Not yet, anyway. They’re in the process of raising funds to renovate the historic structure. So we bumbled around using flashlights and settled in to the smell of cooked meat wafting off Craig’s BBQ.

After a good burger, made fantastic by the long trip, I figured some photography was in order, and began setting up to the complaints of nesting seagulls. I normally do portraits of people, and since the lighthouse now had it’s own persona in my mind, I decided a portrait would be fitting. It being Memorial Day and all, I decided on a patriotic theme, and introduced red and blue light to compliment the white beacon at the top of the lighthouse. I left Matt’s silhouette undoctored because it’s so ghostly, a fitting addition to the image.

The Execution Rocks Lighthouse off the coast of Port Washington, NY.

Later, as I dropped into dreamless sleep, I kind of hoped I’d see a ghost, and at the same time, really wished I wouldn’t experience a haunting. Around 2am I was jerked from my sleep by a loud crash and howling wind. Somehow, a door had come loose and blown open as a storm moved into the area, rattling the living room I was camped out in. Assuring myself it was wind and not spirits that had roused me, I got up and walked outside. It was high tide. The waves that had earlier been yards below us, were now right at the door step, as if to remind me of the location’s gruesome history. Gusts of wind clawed at me and I watched waves roll in out of the east. Though no apparitions made themselves known to me, I felt aware and vulnerable as I realized we might have to paddle back in this.

Still kind of creepy in the daytime.

Aborting our long paddle back to Rye.

Group photo before we shove off.

In the morning we powered up on food and coffee. I had instant coffee in a pink sippy cup. Literally. What? I have 3 little girls at home. That’s how I roll.

After that we packed our boats, casting nervous eyes off the island. The seas, calm and serene yesterday, were now breaking on 5 foot swells, with winds gusting over 2o knots. The plan had been to paddle around, maybe to the north shore of Long Island, and then back to Rye by the afternoon. But that was looking less and less realistic. Matt called a meeting where the group decided the most prudent thing to do was head directly to Pelham, seeking shelter from various islands on the way. From there we’d figure out a way to get our cars and go home.

Some photos just read better as black and white.

Getting our kayaks off the island was just as tricky as getting them on, and once we were all safely bobbing up and down in the water, we paddled around the sheltered side of the island and into the oncoming swells, which were now topping out at about 6 feet. My kayak, a red Wilderness Systems Focus 150, is known for getting pushed around by the wind due to it’s higher stance, and for being hard to edge and turn. To my dismay, this turned out to be completely true. Going into the wind and into the oncoming waves was a cinch, and I found myself having a great time. Until we needed to turn at a right angle from it. That’s where my trouble began.

The only thing you have to fear is fear itself. So goes the saying. As I wrestled my boat to take the wind and swells broadside, it kept slipping even further away until I had the wind blowing up my ass. The grin on my face from sloshing up and down over the oncoming waves gave way to tight, eye-bulging anxiety, as I attempted to keep the kayak headed in the right direction. It seemed that every wave tried to twist the boat away from me, forcing me to madly counterbalance, bracing first one side up the face of a wave, then the other side as I slid back down. The dread of possibly getting knocked over seeped into me. The water was cold. And murky. And we were at least a mile from the nearest solid ground. Fuck.

I heard my paddling partner Robin yelling at me to relax and go with the waves. “Your kayak wants to float! Let it!” That helped for a bit, and I was able to get myself sorted out. But soon the anxiety rose again, causing me to loose my rhythm and tighten up, fighting more than paddling.

Carl popping over the crest of a wave.

Trying to keep it straight against 6′ swells.

Caught with the wrong oar on the wrong side at the wrong time.

Over we go.

And down.

Getting knocked over was almost a relief, breaking the fear in a cold, wet plunge, cutting it off and replacing it in one motion with the clarity of the moment. One second I was rigid with resistance, and then, almost instantly, forced into the relaxation that comes with holding your breath deeply. I looked around in the greenness for the toggle on my spray skirt, popped it out, and surfaced, making sure not to lose my paddle. Or my hat. Or my camera. Shit, I had a lot of stuff floating around. Robin paddled over and asked in a friendly voice if I was ok, almost casually, as if we were on solid ground and just I’d stumbled a bit as we walked.

Performing an assisted or self-rescue in the chilly, rolling ocean is very different from one in the well-lit, chlorinated safety of a heated indoor pool. Thanks to Robin’s thoughtful coaching and her relaxed attitude, I was able to get back in my kayak and continue on, losing only a little of my pride and my favorite baseball cap, relieved now that the fear of falling had literally been washed away.

Landing on Huckleberry Island to regroup.

Nice kayak!

She and I rejoined the others and we all landed on Huckleberry Island to rest, pull ourselves together, have a snack, take a leak, and to figure out where, exactly, we were going to paddle next. It can be difficult to discern one small island from another when you’re sea level, so after making sure we were where we thought we were, we established a plan for the last leg of our journey, and got ahold of Lynda’s fiancé, Dave. He’d meet us there and drive a group of us to go get our cars.

Back to civilization.

Saved by Dave and the dog!

We shoved off again and paddled through one last nasty bit, quickly finding shelter near the coast. We then navigated past various beach and yacht clubs to an inlet and calm water. The passage underneath the small bridge that leads to Glen Island was as much a psychological relief as a physical one. Boom. Just like that the wind disappeared. And, and I could be mistaken here, it seemed the clouds began to lighten up a bit as well, and we were able to enjoy looking at moored pleasure boats as we dipped our oars in the water, propelling ourselves on.

From Glen Island, we glided around to the backside of Hunter Island and the Orchard Beach parking lot where Dave and he and Lynda’s dog were waiting. Tired, happy, ready to go home, we pulled ourselves from the water and unloaded our boats. Then we figured out which order we wanted to get our vehicles in. Dave drove batch drove away, leaving me with Robin, Gary, Ann and Kerry to chill and wait.

It was over. Happily, only two of us had been rolled by the water, and thanks to the competent experience of our group leaders, the dunkings were uneventful. And despite the challenges everybody seemed to have had a great time. Indeed, it had been an excellent trip, and as I drove home to my family, I found myself thinking about the next one. Hopefully I’d learn to roll my kayak back up this summer so that an assisted rescue wouldn’t be needed. We’ll see.

Thanks for reading! To see my portrait work, please visit my website: http://www.NJohnstonPhotography.com

1st row: Andrea, Kerry, Ann. 2nd row: Robin, Carl, Lynda. 3rd row: Matt, Gary, Nathaniel.

The Execution Rocks Lighthouse is an historic structure built in the 1800’s, and is currently owned by Craig Morrison and Linell Lukesh. Money for the pleasure of our over night stay and the amazing BBQ they welcomed us with go to the restoration of the lighthouse. To donate, please visit their website: www.lighthouserestorations.org

Prime Paddlesports is owned and operated by Matt Kane, and promotes paddlesport learning, adventure and fun for kayakers, creating opportunities for skill development and on-water confidence building with courses, workshops, coastal retreats and events. Learn more by logging on to: www.primepaddlesports.com

execution rocks lighthouse

I’m fairly new to kayaking, and have so far enjoyed a few afternoon paddles in the Hudson River near our home and in Goose Pond near Lee, MA, where we vacation in the summer.

execution rocks lighthouse I'm fairly new to kayaking, and have so far enjoyed a few afternoon paddles in the Hudson River near our home and in Goose Pond near Lee, MA, where we vacation in the summer.

[viralhottopics]

Nashville lies at the heart of a divided country: Trump got bubbas to the polls

As the president staged a rally attended largely by out-of-towners, Democratic-leaning denizens of Tennessees Brooklyn pondered an urban-rural rift

Men in stetsons, check shirts and jeans swing their partners around to the thrum of drums, fiddle, keyboard and steel guitar of Mike Oldham & The Tone Rangers. The walls at Roberts Western World in Nashville, Tennessee, are coated with beer logos spelled out in neon or on lampshades or mirrors, old concert posters, photos of country music greats and three rows of cowboy boots for sale. The tiled floor is barely visible under the heaving crowd.

At this and other honky tonk bars on Broadway, Nashvilles main tourist drag, the music is old country: songs about drink, divorce, hardscrabble heartbreak, the miserable struggle to make ends meet. It is a playlist that has taken on new resonance in the era of Donald Trump, like a requiem for white working class voters in small towns who, feeling left behind with nothing to lose, propelled him to the White House.

But Nashville is a booming city where southern civility, religion and conservatism collide with a young, creative and liberal population. Paradoxically, the heart of country music is increasingly at odds in class, culture and politics with the heartland that surrounds it. In this it mirrors the dislocation of other burgeoning American cities that are islands of Democratic blue in deep red Republican states.

There is a vast gulf in ideology and approach to the world, said Bruce Dobie, a Nashville-based media entrepreneur. Its just crazy right now. My street and city are overwhelmingly Democratic. Were astonished by everything we see at the moment.

Dobie estimated that when the US president rolled into Nashville on Wednesday for a campaign-style rally, around 80% of the crowd was from out of town. Trumps warm-up acts were country singers the Gatlin Brothers and Lee Greenwood, whose rendition of God bless the USA earned a cheer with the words to the hills of Tennessee. Trump joined him on stage, grinned, shook his hand and raised two thumbs up as the crowd chanted USA! USA!, some with fists raised, in a near-religious frenzy.

So Im thrilled to be here in Nashville, Tennessee, the home of country music, southern hospitality and the great president Andrew Jackson, Trump said, referring to the 19th-century populist described by the state museum as champion of the common man and notorious for forcing Native Americans off their land.

The crowd waved signs including Promises made, promises kept, Lefty media lies and Women for Trump. Carma Williams, 63, a retired office manager who had travelled from 70 miles away, said: I love him because hes honest. Hes doing everything he said he would do during the campaign. I think hes the first president whos done that.

Inside Roberts Western World after Trumps rally in Nashville, Tennessee. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

Outside the Nashville Municipal Auditorium there was a modest gathering of protesters. One stood out. James Walker was wearing a red Make America great again baseball cap, sunglasses, a beard, a black North Face jacket and khaki trousers. He held aloft a sign that said: Ive made a huge mistake.

The 31-year-old explained: I voted for Trump. I thought it would be a positive change, a change that Obama didnt come through on, and it would shake things up. It has shaken things up but in a bad way. I realise now that some of the things that were just campaign promises seemed to carry on beyond the election and become a reality.

Walker, who grew up in California and spent two years in the military, said he ordered the trademark Make America great again hat many weeks ago but it had only just arrived. So that was the spark: I know what Im going to do with this.

He expressed a desire for atonement. I dont know what thats going to be but this is the first step: showing up and being honest.

Walker now works as a wine broker and lives across the Cumberland river in east Nashville, dubbed the citys own Brooklyn with its embrace of beards, tattoos and artisanal foods, along with Jack Whites record label and an explosion of diverse guitar bands and songwriters. Walker added: Its mostly Democratic, blue territory. Only a few of my friends admitted to voting for Trump and did so in confidence. Today is the first day Ive gone public.

Beside him at Wednesdays demonstration was Lisa Kaas Boyle, an environmental attorney holding a bag that posed the question: What would Dolly do? a reference to country music hall-of-famer Dolly Parton, who supports gay rights but said of Trump and rival Hillary Clinton: I think theyre both nuts. Surveying the queue of thousands of Trump supporters that snaked up and around and down a grassy hill, she said: Im shocked by this huge turnout. It really feels like a gut punch for me. Im sure they came from far and wide. Its shocking to me that people have no regard for their fellow Americans.

Boyle has just returned to Nashville after 30 years, partly to be close to family and partly in response to Hillbilly Elegy, author JD Vances personal insight into problems of the white working class including alcoholism, divorce, domestic violence, drugs and hopelessness. As the Washington Post put it, elites in both parties are studying the book as a sort of Rosetta Stone to understand the conditions that enabled the rise of Trump.

The 52-year-old, said: After reading Hillbilly Elegy, I feel progressives have to be involved. I cant just hang out in California with my like-minded friends. I have to make a difference here.

In last years election, Trump trounced Hillary Clinton by 26% in Tennessee, a Bible belt state that was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan and was last won by a Democrat when Bill Clinton, a southerner, carried it in 1996. Among the few counties he did not win were those containing Memphis and Nashville.

There are a lot of liberal artists

Now, Nashville is thriving with an influx of young professionals priced out of other cities. A record 13.9 million people visited the area in 2016, up 45% over the past decade. The music industry is worth $10bn to the region, according to a 2013 report commissioned by the Music City Music Council, and includes Americana, jazz and other genres as well as country.

It has come a long way since the Grand Ole Opry barn dance became a radio hit in the 1940s, leading to a recording industry and stars from Hank Williams then to Taylor Swift today. It has long been seen as music of the conservative heartland when Elton John denied a rumour that he would perform Trumps inauguration, he suggested, Why not ask … one of those fucking country stars? Theyd do it for you but its relationship with politics has always been more complex than often assumed.

Downtown Nashville. Visitors to the area, drawn by its famous music scene, are up 45% over the past decade. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

Bob Dylan, the troubadour responsible for some of the 60s defining protest songs, spent the end of the decade in Nashville and collaborated with Johnny Cash, the man in black who performed for presidents and prisoners. Merle Haggards 1969 Okie from Muskogee was regarded as a conservative anthem but he later defended the Dixie Chicks after they condemned George W Bushs invasion of Iraq and recorded a song in support of Hillary Clinton.

During last years presidential election an informal survey conducted by the trade publication Country Aircheck found that 46% of industry professionals supported Trump while 41% favoured Clinton. But unlike Hollywood, most prefer to remain silent, perhaps fearing that any declaration of allegiance risks losing half their audience.

Earlier this month an analysis by BuzzFeed found that of the 87 artists currently on either Billboards Top Country Albums or Hot Country Songs charts, only five Sturgill Simpson, Justin Moore, Chris Janson, Maren Morris and the Brothers Osborne have gone on the record with clear pro or anti-Trump views.

Sitting at the bar at the Red Door Saloon in east Nashville, Clay Johnson, 29, a composer, said: Trump probably got a lot more support from country music artists than hip-hop artists. But there are a lot of liberal artists. It would be wrong to paint them all as conservatives.

Musing on the urban-rural divide, he added: In rural Tennessee youll see people whove lived there and grown up there. In Nashville people tend to come and go like in any city. Its population versus space. Its shitty how one side can dictate how the other side lives because they live different lives. Its the same anywhere. When you live in the city, its different from living on a farm.

At another table as the clock ticked past 1am was Zie Campbell, 25, a freelance illustrator and teacher. Tennessee is a red state, Nashville is not, she said. Its a melting pot, as much of a New York as its going to get down here. This has been very hard for our specific community because we are surrounded by ignorance and bigotry.

In the rural areas theres not a desire to experience anything else. My dad smokes Marlboro Reds, Ill smoke Marlboro Reds. My dad listens to Johnny Cash, Ill listen to Johnny Cash. In the city you dont have that option any more: whether or not you are seeking it, youre forced to see others.

Zie Campbell, an illustrator and teacher in Nashville: This has been very hard for our specific community. We are surrounded by ignorance. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

Campbells parents live 220 miles away in Knoxville. Her father voted for Trump but she found Clintons defeat devastating. She continued: I am an example of the exact opposite of my dads opinions. When the sexual harassment allegations against Trump came out, my dad and I had a long conversation. I cried. We decided were not talking politics after that.

If the other side is willing to bomb Dresden, how do you fight that?

How can the rift between urban and rural, between blue and red, be healed? I dont know if there is something to be done, Campbell said. I dont think anyone is trying to sway anyone else. I dont think theres a whole lot of grey area.

Dobie, the media entrepreneur, said: Thats the $64m question. If youre a modern Democrat youre not in the mood to pussyfoot any more, having been subjected to what amounted to the bombing of Dresden in the last election. Trump committed Dresden. No one is in the mood be accommodating or easy.

Were now in a moment when I dont see much room for sitting around the campfire and holding hands. If the other side is willing to bomb Dresden, how do you fight that? You really have to take it to the streets.

Both parties are likely to compete fiercely for what might be described as the country music constituency. Dobie said: Struggling to meet bills, shooting a deer, breaking up with your girlfriend the lyrics of the country song speak the needs, desires and concerns of the conservative folk and thats why its been successful.

Thats the crowd were all talking about. Thats the demographic thats up for grabs in America and Clinton couldnt harness. Trump got the bubbas to the polls; Clinton did not. The bubbas are listening to country music.

Clay Johnson, a composer in Nashville: Its shitty how one side can dictate how the other side lives. Photograph: Jon Morgan for the Guardian

The divisions here are reflected across America, after an election that exposed brutal faultines and the education split among whites was said to be the critical factor.

Nadine Hubbs, a professor of music at the University of Michigan and author of Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music, said: In the US, our cities are places where many of us go to prosper while small towns or exurbs or suburbs are often places where people are left behind.

Nashville and Austin [in Texas] are really good examples of this phenomenon. To bridge the gap there are economic inequalities we need to pay attention to. Often the most unbridgeable gaps are the ones created by contempt for another group: lack of respect and stripping of dignity.

The way people who are prospering look down on folks who are in rural spaces, often associated with country music, creates the kind of divisions that are really hard to bridge.

The elites talk about the need for education of people in rural spaces; well, we know almost nothing about them. The economic and social segregation of the classes is worse maybe than its ever been in our history.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2mUBKAi

from Nashville lies at the heart of a divided country: Trump got bubbas to the polls

[njohnstonphotography]

I’m fairly new to kayaking, and have so far enjoyed a few afternoon paddles in the Hudson River near our home and in Goose Pond near Lee, MA, where we vacation in the summer. The more I do it, the more I enjoy the challenges it offers. It’s a great way to get alone time for a few hours, and maybe enjoy some non-work related photography. Or to just sit, bobbing up and down like a cork, watching clouds.

The Hudson River south of the Tappan Zee bridge. A timed exposure.

And so when Matt Kane of Prime Paddlesports invited me to join with him and a group of kayakers on an overnight expedition to the Execution Rocks Lighthouse, I was totally in. The longest kayak trip I’ve had to date was about 3 hours on the Hudson, so this was a big step up. We’d meet in Rye, NY, paddle 5 miles from the coast, south by south west, to a pile of rocks few miles north of Port Washington, NY, and back again the following morning, which happened to be Memorial Day.

Loading up.

Getting in.

Paddling off.

After meeting up at the appointed time and place, and getting our boats and gear sorted out in the Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary parking lot, we popped into our kayaks and shoved off into the setting sun. Despite the increasing clouds, the weather was calm and pleasant as we paddled, keeping a wary eye out for holiday pleasure boaters and quietly chatting about the lore of the Execution Rocks.

During the Revolutionary War, British soldiers were reported to have used the 9 foot tide at the island to execute prisoners, chaining them to the rocks during low tide. Additionally, Execution Rocks is where cereal killer Carl Panzram claimed to have dumped the bodies of his numerous victims. They say on starless nights you can tortured hear voices calling out as the water rises. This is where we plan on spending the night.

Using charts to navigate.

The sky gets darker.

Feeling very small in a very big place.

Matt Kane glides over darkening waters.

Sun comes out before going down.

We were running late, but thankfully the lighthouse’s beacon began it’s regular pulsing in the dark, and we were able to plot a good path using it and some nearby buoys. Our landing on the rocks of the island was going to be a technical one, and as we finally reached our destination, the ocean seemed to want to test us by picking up its energy. Our hosts, Craig and Linell, helped by shining flashlights down on us as we methodically lifted one heavy, packed kayak after another up the rip rap that makes the island, to safety.

One last navigational discussion before nightfall.

Execution Rocks Lighthouse beacon guides us in.

Craig and Linell, a welcome sight!

The lighthouse is a creepy, remarkable affair, feeling abandoned and ancient until you poke around a little and discover signs of the owners. Tables with glowing lanterns, food and water in the kitchen, a nice grill outside. Ironically, though Con Edison uses the island as a switching point for millions of volts of electricity and the Coast Guard is obliged to keep the lighthouse’s beacon flashing, there’s no electricity for Craig and Linell. Not yet, anyway. They’re in the process of raising funds to renovate the historic structure. So we bumbled around using flashlights and settled in to the smell of cooked meat wafting off Craig’s BBQ.

After a good burger, made fantastic by the long trip, I figured some photography was in order, and began setting up to the complaints of nesting seagulls. I normally do portraits of people, and since the lighthouse now had it’s own persona in my mind, I decided a portrait would be fitting. It being Memorial Day and all, I decided on a patriotic theme, and introduced red and blue light to compliment the white beacon at the top of the lighthouse. I left Matt’s silhouette undoctored because it’s so ghostly, a fitting addition to the image.

The Execution Rocks Lighthouse off the coast of Port Washington, NY.

Later, as I dropped into dreamless sleep, I kind of hoped I’d see a ghost, and at the same time, really wished I wouldn’t experience a haunting. Around 2am I was jerked from my sleep by a loud crash and howling wind. Somehow, a door had come loose and blown open as a storm moved into the area, rattling the living room I was camped out in. Assuring myself it was wind and not spirits that had roused me, I got up and walked outside. It was high tide. The waves that had earlier been yards below us, were now right at the door step, as if to remind me of the location’s gruesome history. Gusts of wind clawed at me and I watched waves roll in out of the east. Though no apparitions made themselves known to me, I felt aware and vulnerable as I realized we might have to paddle back in this.

Still kind of creepy in the daytime.

Aborting our long paddle back to Rye.

Group photo before we shove off.

In the morning we powered up on food and coffee. I had instant coffee in a pink sippy cup. Literally. What? I have 3 little girls at home. That’s how I roll.

After that we packed our boats, casting nervous eyes off the island. The seas, calm and serene yesterday, were now breaking on 5 foot swells, with winds gusting over 2o knots. The plan had been to paddle around, maybe to the north shore of Long Island, and then back to Rye by the afternoon. But that was looking less and less realistic. Matt called a meeting where the group decided the most prudent thing to do was head directly to Pelham, seeking shelter from various islands on the way. From there we’d figure out a way to get our cars and go home.

Some photos just read better as black and white.

Getting our kayaks off the island was just as tricky as getting them on, and once we were all safely bobbing up and down in the water, we paddled around the sheltered side of the island and into the oncoming swells, which were now topping out at about 6 feet. My kayak, a red Wilderness Systems Focus 150, is known for getting pushed around by the wind due to it’s higher stance, and for being hard to edge and turn. To my dismay, this turned out to be completely true. Going into the wind and into the oncoming waves was a cinch, and I found myself having a great time. Until we needed to turn at a right angle from it. That’s where my trouble began.

The only thing you have to fear is fear itself. So goes the saying. As I wrestled my boat to take the wind and swells broadside, it kept slipping even further away until I had the wind blowing up my ass. The grin on my face from sloshing up and down over the oncoming waves gave way to tight, eye-bulging anxiety, as I attempted to keep the kayak headed in the right direction. It seemed that every wave tried to twist the boat away from me, forcing me to madly counterbalance, bracing first one side up the face of a wave, then the other side as I slid back down. The dread of possibly getting knocked over seeped into me. The water was cold. And murky. And we were at least a mile from the nearest solid ground. Fuck.

I heard my paddling partner Robin yelling at me to relax and go with the waves. “Your kayak wants to float! Let it!” That helped for a bit, and I was able to get myself sorted out. But soon the anxiety rose again, causing me to loose my rhythm and tighten up, fighting more than paddling.

Carl popping over the crest of a wave.

Trying to keep it straight against 6′ swells.

Caught with the wrong oar on the wrong side at the wrong time.

Over we go.

And down.

Getting knocked over was almost a relief, breaking the fear in a cold, wet plunge, cutting it off and replacing it in one motion with the clarity of the moment. One second I was rigid with resistance, and then, almost instantly, forced into the relaxation that comes with holding your breath deeply. I looked around in the greenness for the toggle on my spray skirt, popped it out, and surfaced, making sure not to lose my paddle. Or my hat. Or my camera. Shit, I had a lot of stuff floating around. Robin paddled over and asked in a friendly voice if I was ok, almost casually, as if we were on solid ground and just I’d stumbled a bit as we walked.

Performing an assisted or self-rescue in the chilly, rolling ocean is very different from one in the well-lit, chlorinated safety of a heated indoor pool. Thanks to Robin’s thoughtful coaching and her relaxed attitude, I was able to get back in my kayak and continue on, losing only a little of my pride and my favorite baseball cap, relieved now that the fear of falling had literally been washed away.

Landing on Huckleberry Island to regroup.

Nice kayak!

She and I rejoined the others and we all landed on Huckleberry Island to rest, pull ourselves together, have a snack, take a leak, and to figure out where, exactly, we were going to paddle next. It can be difficult to discern one small island from another when you’re sea level, so after making sure we were where we thought we were, we established a plan for the last leg of our journey, and got ahold of Lynda’s fiancé, Dave. He’d meet us there and drive a group of us to go get our cars.

Back to civilization.

Saved by Dave and the dog!

We shoved off again and paddled through one last nasty bit, quickly finding shelter near the coast. We then navigated past various beach and yacht clubs to an inlet and calm water. The passage underneath the small bridge that leads to Glen Island was as much a psychological relief as a physical one. Boom. Just like that the wind disappeared. And, and I could be mistaken here, it seemed the clouds began to lighten up a bit as well, and we were able to enjoy looking at moored pleasure boats as we dipped our oars in the water, propelling ourselves on.

From Glen Island, we glided around to the backside of Hunter Island and the Orchard Beach parking lot where Dave and he and Lynda’s dog were waiting. Tired, happy, ready to go home, we pulled ourselves from the water and unloaded our boats. Then we figured out which order we wanted to get our vehicles in. Dave drove batch drove away, leaving me with Robin, Gary, Ann and Kerry to chill and wait.

It was over. Happily, only two of us had been rolled by the water, and thanks to the competent experience of our group leaders, the dunkings were uneventful. And despite the challenges everybody seemed to have had a great time. Indeed, it had been an excellent trip, and as I drove home to my family, I found myself thinking about the next one. Hopefully I’d learn to roll my kayak back up this summer so that an assisted rescue wouldn’t be needed. We’ll see.

Thanks for reading! To see my portrait work, please visit my website: http://www.NJohnstonPhotography.com

1st row: Andrea, Kerry, Ann. 2nd row: Robin, Carl, Lynda. 3rd row: Matt, Gary, Nathaniel.

The Execution Rocks Lighthouse is an historic structure built in the 1800’s, and is currently owned by Craig Morrison and Linell Lukesh. Money for the pleasure of our over night stay and the amazing BBQ they welcomed us with go to the restoration of the lighthouse. To donate, please visit their website: www.lighthouserestorations.org

Prime Paddlesports is owned and operated by Matt Kane, and promotes paddlesport learning, adventure and fun for kayakers, creating opportunities for skill development and on-water confidence building with courses, workshops, coastal retreats and events. Learn more by logging on to: www.primepaddlesports.com

execution rocks lighthouse I'm fairly new to kayaking, and have so far enjoyed a few afternoon paddles in the Hudson River near our home and in Goose Pond near Lee, MA, where we vacation in the summer.