#I have a lot of bugs. none of them are pinned because they are so small | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cnestus · 11 months

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i recently solved a fun little bug mystery at work and i thought it might be interesting to write up a step-by-step narrative of how i did so, as a sort of example of the kinds of things i get to do for my job. this is a stupidly long post because i have no editorial self-control so i'm putting the rest under a cut.

the above insect is a bark beetle, one of a series of 6 specimens i found in a drawer at work. they did not have species labels on them, and the collection labels indicated that they were collected in 1997 from "Chinese Cedrus used for artifical christmas trees." the infested wood had been intercepted and the beetles collected and pinned, but whoever was working in the lab at the time wasn't able to suss out the species, which is extremely reasonable because even IDing american bark beetles to species can be a massive pain in the ass, let alone ones from asia.

the beetles were clearly in the genus Phloeosinus based on the shape of the antennae and the large spines on the elytral declivity (the ass area), and whoever pinned them at least got them that far themselves, but determining the actual species was going to be a lot harder. even american beetles in this genus can be devilishly hard to confidently ID to species since they often look alike and also are quite morphologically variable in ways the bleed into each other. they are pretty cool though and those ass spines are usually critical in species-level identification

btw since i'm going to be writing out this word a lot in this post, it's pronounced roughly as "flea-o-sign-us" if you're curious.

determining bark beetle species is often made much easier by knowing what tree the beetle came out of since most bark beetles (but not ambrosia beetles, which are also scolytid/scolytine beetles but a whole other can of worms grubs) are highly host-specific, usually being adapted to only a certain tree species or genus or small group of related genera.

so Cedrus is the genus for eurasian cedar trees, and there is one species of Cedrus native to china, Cedrus deodara, but that seems like an odd choice of plant to harvest and send to america for artificial christmas tree trunks. most actual Cedrus species are from the mediterranean area. however there are also some chinese trees in the cypress family Cupressaceae (+Taxodiaceae) that are called cedars, and in fact most species of Phloeosinus are exclusively found in trees in this family. one likely species is Cunninghamia lanceolata, traditionally called "chinese fir" despite not being a fir but also more recently marketed as "chinese cedar" because that's how common names for species go.

oh and there is also the tree Toona sinensis in the family Meliaceae that's ALSO sometimes called "chinese cedar" for some reason but more importantly also called "beef and onion plant" lmao, but that was an even worse candidate for an artificial christmas tree trunk and also not a known host for the beetles. easily discounted but i had a laugh.

so my first angle of attack was to assume that the collection labels were correct and the beetles were in fact from a Cedrus tree. i was able to find a list of about a half dozen Phloeosinus species known to attack Cedrus cedars, but none of them were native to china. this would most likely mean that one of the mediterranean species had been transplanted to china for cultivation, which is entirely plausible. after digging though a bunch of literature i wasn't able to find a good key for Phloeosinus species in the entire area i wanted, but found a couple regional keys covering geographic ranges that when combined covered about what i wanted. for non-biologists, this is what a species key looks like:

sort of a choose your own adventure kind of thing but for determining a creature's true identity. anyway none of the results i got from these keys led to species who's descriptions matched the one that i had. i should also mention that my specimens had a rather distinctive feature unlike any other Phloeosinus species i'd ever seen before, which was an elytral vestiture consisting of these really funky little black explanate scales:

most Phloeosinus species have some kind of vestiture on their elytra but all the ones i'm familiar with have the hairs and scales light-colored and never shaped anything like this, so i figured that the description of the correct species would surely mention these scales.

so anyway dissatisfied with this avenue, i decided that the next most likely option is that whoever made the labels for the specimens was told that they had come from "chinese cedar" by the importer and had just assumed that meant Cedrus but it was actually one of the cypress family cedars. again most of the described species do in fact use Cupressaceae as hosts.

so next i found this UN report with a (hopefully) comprehensive list of all non-EU bark and ambrosia beetle species that attacked conifer trees. i culled from that a list of Phloeosinus species listed as coming from "asia." since that was too broad of an area, i then looked up all of these species in the species catalogues listed in the report, mostly Alonso-Zarazag et al (2007), though some were also listed in Wood and Bright (1992) or Bright and Skidmore (2002), which i happen to have physical copes of. from these i could narrow the list down to just species found in china.

now things became difficult because there are no keys to chinese Phloeosinus, or at least none in english. also even just written descriptions of many of these species were impossible to find because they were all written like 60-100 years ago and usually in chinese or german or french and had never been translated or uploaded anywhere online. likewise almost none of them had research-grade (or any) photos anywhere online.

so after hours of fruitless digging, the best i could come up with was a guide to scolytine beetles of korea (PDF link), which contained a key with a handful of the species on my list and did include english descriptions of these. now one of the species in the guide, P. perlatus, IS DESCRIBED as having dark scales, and my specimens did seem to land on that species when i ran them through the key. that's promising! and the hosts were on my list of possible non-Cedrus chinese cedars! also promising! buuuut something just didn't sit right with me. parts of the species description in that paper just didn't seem to quite match my specimens, like for example the size was a little off, described as being 2.4-3.4mm long, while all of mine were in the 3.3-3.6 range. plus the photos of the species, while distressingly low-resolution, just didn't look like mine.

okay so that was dissatisfying. i'd managed to whittle down my list of suspects a good deal from what little scraps of information i could find about them through my sleuthing, either the wrong hosts or the ones that did have english descriptions available online like in that korean guide didn't fit, but i was still left with several possible candidates and no way to narrow it down further, of course this all assuming that the beetles i had on my hands even were a species that had been scientifically described and named. bark beetles are a huge group of critters and many are quite understudied, especially in asia, and a bunch of new species are described every year!

i was about ready to just give up, but then by coincidence i had a reason to email a couple of high-level bark beetle researchers about a different beetle mystery i was also working on, which was in a group that they were the authorities on. on a whim, i mentioned my Phloeosinus conundrum to them to see if they had any ideas and they recommended i contact Dr. Roger Beaver. yeah, i know right? fucking kickass name i'm so jealous. sidenote: it's so funny how many bark beetle researchers have extremely appropriate names, like two of the biggest names in the field are Steve Wood and Dave Wood. no relation.

so anyway i contacted Dr Beaver, who had done some research on east asian Phloeosinus in the past and he was kind enough to send me an unpublished provisional key to chinese species that he had written up a few years ago. using that key, i ended up at "P. pertuberculatus (?=sinensis)" which means that there was some suspicion that P. pertuberculatus and P. sinensis were the same species, just described and named independently by two different entomologists (Hans Eggers and Karl Eduard Schedl respectively), as often happened, especially in the glory days of insane 18th-20th century european entomologists describing literally thousands of new species during their careers.

now these two species WERE both on my final list of suspects of chinese Phloeosinus species that hadn't otherwise been eliminated for one reason or another, and both had Cunninghamia "cedar" trees as known hosts. Dr Beaver was then kind enough to scan and send me the original descriptions of these two species:

which i was able to use google translate on:

not the nicest translation but still an admirable attempt on google's part to deal with all the entomological jargon, and most importantly the description of the elytral scales on P. sinensis definitely seems to match my specimens more than the pertuberculatus. plus i found a paper on taiwanese bark beetles (PDF) coauthored by Dr Beaver that had a (also distressingly low-resolution) photo of pertuberculatus that didn't seem to match my specimens:

aaand finally: i'd been trying for days to access the webpage of a chinese museum that popped up as the only notable result on a google image search for P. sinensis but every time the website would time out and the cached version of the image was too small to make out any details on, but it finally occurred to me this evening that the reason was probably because my work computer or work wifi was just automatically blocking chinese websites because of america's insane paranoia about chinese spying, and sure enough i opened it up on my home computer and it fucking worked!

that's a pretty fucking bang-on match for my specimens! the scales look right, the color is right, the size is right, the ass bumps are right, the host is right, the geography is right, and the translated description otherwise seems to match! here's mine again so you don't have to scroll all the way up:

so i'm calling this 26-year mystery solved! not all of the bug puzzles i've worked on have had as meandering of a path to their conclusion as this, but i thought that this one did display a good number of the different methods i use. the biggest thing that was missing was me wandering into my lab's massive library of old dusty entomology journals stretching back over a century and digging out some old article that never got scanned and put online, as often happens, but in this case since the bugs were asian and out library mostly covers north american entomology that wasn't going to be very fruitful.

hopefully this was interesting to... somebody besides myself. if you've read this far and weren't bored to tears then congratulations you probably have the same kind of brain damage as me!

#entomology #long post #scolytidae #scolytinae #phloeosinus #Pet Investigation

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novasintheroom · 9 months

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Morning routine

♡ Pairing - Vash x Reader

♡ Word count - 1k

♡ Warnings - none

♡ Description: Vash is a pain in the morning.

Now part of the 150 Bullets drabble series on AO3.

The sun is rising through the dusty, cream curtains, and Vash is snoring in your ear.

You groan, rolling away as you continue to wake. Vash makes a noise of protest in his throat, blindly reaching for your warmth, settling on the blankets, and pulling them away to burrow in further. The cool air on your arms and legs slaps you awake. You glare over your shoulder at your sleeping man, then, groaning again, stand from bed and head for the inn’s bathroom.

Vash is still snoring away when you emerge, showered and brushing your teeth. You roll your eyes and go over to him, gently slapping his thigh through the tumble of blankets. “Hm?” he says and goes back to sleep. You give your teeth a few brushes, then poke his side. “Hm? What?”

“Get up, we have to leave by eight. Motel rules.”

Vash turns his head toward you, eyes still closed. “What?”

You snort and go spit in the sink. When you’re cleaned up, you come back out. He’s sitting up in bed. His hair is a mess of golden straw, eyes squinting and fighting to open. He looks at you and purses his lips. “It’s six-thirty.”

“Yes, and you take an hour to get ready.”

Vash groans and flops back on the bed. “Do we have to get up? This bed is comfy…” Then, both eyes opening deceptively quick, he says “Come lay down with me, I can hurry and get ready in a bit.”

You lean your weight on one foot and cross your arms. “No, because then you’ll go back to sleep.”

“Please?” He does his best puppy-eyes, lip wibbling. “I never get to cuddle with you…”

That’s a fat lie. This man is a cuddle bug and takes any chance he can to prove it. “No.”

He sits back up. There’s determination in his eyes now; he’s set on winning this. “I won’t fall asleep! Promise! Just fifteen minutes!” He sighs when you shake your head. “Ten minutes? Eight!...Six?”

“I wanna beat the heat. You’re not getting your cuddles – “ You’re cut off when he reaches out and snags your wrist, pulling you bodily back into bed. He’s so quick. Despite your protests, he flips you on your back and lays on top of you. “Vash!”

But he burrows into your neck. His hair is soft, going to your nose and making it tickle. You huff as he gets comfortable, feeling all his weight press you into the mattress. “Ah, you’re nice and warm,” he murmurs. He takes a big inhale through his nose. “You smell good too.”

“You’re such a pain,” you mutter. “Five minutes. That’s it.”

You feel more than hear his laugh. He presses a chaste kiss to your jaw, humming in contentment and nestling back into your shoulder.

A sigh escapes. Well, five minutes isn’t bad. You reach a hand up and start rubbing his back through his shirt. You feel all the bumps of his scars, the metal plates and wires holding him together. He says they itch a lot. You scrub lightly with your nails, careful, and smile at his hum. Minutes pass by like this. You’re not sure how long. But Vash is happy, and that warms your heart.

“Stampede, you’re such a sap.” You say, and smirk as you feel him still on top of you.

“Take it back,” he mutters into your skin. You blow air out of your nose. He pinches your side, and you squeal. “Take it back!”

“What? You’re the ‘Stampede,’ aren’t you?” You bite your tongue to keep from giggling.

He catches it, though. Vash shifts to rest his chin on your chest, bright blues glaring at you. “Not to you. That’s not my name to you!”

You reach up and brush a hand through his hair. “Oh, you mean ‘Humanoid Typhoon?’ AH!”

Vash sits up and pins your legs down with his hips. You struggle underneath, but his hands are already moving. The tickle attack begins. Your laughter rings out fully. His hands poke your sides, wriggle under your armpits, the crook of your neck.

“Vash! Ha-ha-ha-ha! St-ah-ha-hap! Stop!”

He lets out a few laughs, hands digging into your sides ferociously. “That’s not it! You know that’s not it!”

“That’s your name!” You try slapping his hands away, but he catches them and holds them above your head. He leans down and snorts into your neck before starting to bite at it. It’s just ticklish enough. “Vash!”

“Take it back,” is all he says, using his free hand to tickle under your knees. The shriek you let out has Vash laughing all the harder, and he moves to your thighs. You’re squirming, shaking, trying to gain the upper hand – but Vash is too strong. It’s like he’s holding down a little bug to play with.

A Mayfly.

“Say it!” He’s back at your neck biting where he can. His morning stubble scratches your skin. You squish his nose trying to scrunch your neck up. “I’m not stopping ‘til you do!”

“Birdie! Baby!” You finally relent, a few tears leaking out of your eyes and your laughs turning to wheezes. “Love! Sw-sweetheart!”

Suddenly, there’s banging on the wall next to your head. Your antics are apparently bothering whoever is renting the next room. Vash pauses and looks guiltily toward it.

Taking in gasping breaths, you cough, “Oh, you’re in trouble.”

He finally releases you after giving you a look, his smile following. “You started it.”

“Whatever!” You push him off, slapping his shoulder as he laughs and gets up from the bed. “Go get ready already!”

“Alright, alright.” He picks through his sack by the door to gather clean clothes and some soap. The bathroom door closes, and you’re left to recover from the tickle attack. Your sides hurt, your throat is sore.

He's such a pain in the morning. And you love him all the more for it.

#trigun #trigun stampede #vash the stampede #tristamp #writing #self insert #reader insert #vash x reader #nova writes #vash the stampede x reader #150 bullets #my writing

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visceravalentines · 5 months

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sugar stuck in your teeth

They're grimy and tired and Benson's neck is sore. Randy gives him a shoulder rub and thinks hard about the allure of being a biological organism.

2.5k words. canon divergence, boys on the run. established relationship. implied sexual content, nothing explicit. sweat and oil and general nasty. sharing of a toothbrush. so fluffy i'm spinning it up and putting it on a stick and selling it at a carnival. read on ao3 here if that's more your speed.

They spend a full day on the road. Seven hours across Texas through scrub and sand. Nothing to see. No end in sight. Randy falls asleep in the dead-eyed sun of mid-afternoon and wakes up in the dark, dry air whipping through the car from Benson's window rolled all the way down.

"Hey." Randy sits up, disoriented, mouth gummy and tasting of bygone Mountain Dew, bladder fit to burst. "Why didn't you wake me up? You've been driving for hours."

"Didn't want to stop." Benson's voice is rough. Randy can read the exhaustion in his posture, the way he grips the wheel with both hands. "Besides, you looked like you could use it."

Randy shifts in his seat. He hasn't slept well all week. "Well…it's my turn now. Let me take over."

"Nah." Benson rolls his neck slowly. "Town's up here in like ten minutes. Figure we stop for the night."

Randy peers through the bug-splattered windshield and sees lights in the near distance. "You wanna find a motel?"

"I'd fucking love a motel. Gimme that lukewarm shower and a box spring mattress. Fucking luxury."

As it turns out, they get none of that. The only place in town has a sign that says Closed and no lights on in the lobby. Doors all locked, despite Benson's best efforts to rattle them open.

He doesn't say a word, doesn't even curse, just slumps defeated back to the car with Randy in tow. "You want the backseat or the front?"

"Benson, I slept for hours, I can–"

"There's not another town for forty miles and if I spend one more second on that fucking highway I'm gonna peel the skin off my face."

Randy doesn't argue. "I'll take the front."

"You sure?" Benson tosses a weary look at him over his shoulder. He squeezes the back of his neck and winces.

Randy nods. "Yeah, I'm sure."

The front sucks. You either have to fold your legs to fit around the steering wheel, or risk nailing the thing with your arm or your head. One time he hit the horn with his knee and scared them both so bad they ended up packing up and driving through the night because neither one could fall back asleep.

He's had plenty of rest. Benson should get the back.

They leave the car parked in the rear lot of the motel and pick their way through the scrub in the dark to take a piss, elbow-to-elbow. Randy barely feels self-conscious anymore. At the start he used to walk ten paces away and make Benson turn around. But that seems silly now. Benson's seen and touched every inch of him. This is nothing.

Benson zips up and takes off down the sidewalk with a haphazard sense of purpose. Randy has to jog a little to catch up. Benson holds out his arm and he ducks beneath it, the weight comfortable across his shoulders. By now Randy feels like he belongs there, pinned against his side.

He reeks. They both do. It's been three, almost four days since they last had a shower, been making do with baby wipes and clean underwear since they left Tennessee. Randy almost can't stand it. Back home, he showered every day, sometimes twice a day if work was rough. Right now, he could scrape the grime off himself with a fingernail.

He's adjusting to this level of awareness of his own body, like he's just now cognizant of the way his skin fits. It makes him sort of anxious. But he's coping. He doesn't really have a choice.

And it's funny–Randy doesn't mind Benson's stench at all. He's uncomfortable with his own stink, but he actually thinks Benson smells kind of…good, maybe. In a gross kind of way. It's such a foreign concept that he keeps inhaling a little too deep at this distance just to prove it to himself.

"What're you doing later?" Benson asks, oblivious.

Randy clears his throat. "Um…not much."

"Oh. Huh." Benson squints down the road towards the distant light of a gas station, the only thing in town that looks alive besides the two of them. "Well, how about I take you to dinner?"

A smile steals its way onto Randy's lips. He hooks his pinkie into Benson's pocket. "That might be nice."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Benson takes a deep, thoughtful breath. "There's this place…Seven-Eleven?" He casts a dramatic sidelong glance in Randy's direction. "You heard of it?"

"Yeah, I…I think so."

"It's just fantastic. The beer list? Unbelievable. And the atmosphere, well…there's really nothing like it." He's talking with his hands, throwing them off balance. Randy stumbles happily along with him.

"I don't know, um…I've heard they don't have Pringles. Like, the big can. Just the little ones."

Benson scoffs. "Well, now, don't you worry your pretty little head about that. You can get two of the little ones if you want. It's on me."

"Wow."

"I know."

"That's–that's really generous."

"Well, you're gonna have to put out."

Randy coughs out a laugh, looks at his shoes to hide the heat in his face. "Sounds, um…sounds fair."

"Randy, come on." Benson laughs, gives his shoulder a shake. "You're giving it up for two cans of Pringles? You gotta know your worth, man."

He'd give it up for less, but that's beside the point. "Maybe toss in some peach rings and we have a deal."

Benson gives him a squeeze. "Fuck yeah, alright. Now we're talkin'."

They pick their way through the snack aisles of the gas station, select a few staples they aren't sick of yet. Benson salutes the clerk behind the counter like he's an American hero. They make their way back down the road to the motel in silence save for the crunching of chips and cellophane.

It's a beautiful night, still warm from the sun, everything orange beneath the sodium streetlights. Not a soul in sight save for them. This town looks like every other one and Randy likes that, likes that it's starting to feel like coming home when they stop for the night in a new place with a single stoplight.

They lean against the trunk of the Chrysler and pass the Big Gulp back and forth. It's too late for caffeine so they got root beer, extra ice, because Benson likes to fish it out and chew on it. There's too many streetlights to really see the stars, but that doesn't stop Randy from trying. He sucks the sour off a peach ring and feels a little bit nauseous and a lot filthy and an overall, bone-deep sense of contentment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Benson twist his head, trying to roll out his neck again. It's not the sharp jerk of his familiar tic, not quite, but it makes Randy nervous. He's been doing it all night. He wonders if it was something he said, something he did. He still doesn't know what exactly he's trying to shrug off every time, but he knows enough to tread that ground lightly.

"You okay?" he asks, tries to make it casual. He swallows the peach ring whole and has to fight it all the way down his esophagus.

"Yeah." Benson nods, winces slightly. "Yeah. Just sore." He grips the back of his neck and stretches, lips hitched in a grimace.

Randy can imagine. Slumped in a car days on end, cracking the damn thing all the time. He sets the Big Gulp on the trunk, thinks, hesitates. Commits.

"Would you, um…would you want me to rub it out for you?"

Benson looks at him warily as he considers the offer. He's slow to answer, but Randy is patient. Doesn't push it. Lets him think about it.

Finally he nods. "Sure. Why not."

Randy clambers up on the trunk and sits behind him. Benson leans back between his legs, rests his elbows on Randy's knees, hangs his head forward. The space between them is awkward all of the sudden. Too close, not close enough. Too many clothes on. Too much skin exposed.

Randy is nervous and he's not sure why. He thinks fleetingly of their first time, his first time, and the way Benson's hands hovered an inch over his skin and shook a little bit. This isn't that, but it feels kind of the same. "You can…tell me to stop if you want. Whatever you want. It's okay."

"How about you start and then we'll see."

Randy brushes the curls at the base of Benson's neck hesitantly with his thumb before he wraps his hand around the muscle of his shoulder, gives an experimental squeeze. "Right…there?"

"Higher."

He moves his hand up and tries again. "There?"

Benson hisses through his teeth, cringes. "Yeah. Fuck."

Randy sets his hands on either side of his neck and squeezes gently.

"Yeah. Right there."

Benson's all tension beneath the skin, stiff and warm under his cold fingers. Randy thinks about the color of his muscles, the white of bone underneath them. He's pretty sure he's never touched anyone like this before, not even Benson, not like this. Not friendly or sexual, just…intimate.

"If you want me to stop, just–just say so, okay?"

Benson grunts an affirmative. His skin is oily and his muscles are taut as bowstrings, so riddled with knots it feels like buckshot lodged in his flesh. Randy presses his thumbs in deep and pushes up along his spine, again and again, feels a flush of satisfaction as Benson melts back against the car.

"Fuck," he moans.

"Hurts?"

"Yeah. Don't stop."

Randy's nothing if not good at taking orders. He falls into a rhythm, slow and steady, works over his neck and shoulders and back again. Benson swears up a storm and lets out a low whimper whenever he hits a sore spot.

"Sorry," Randy murmurs every time.

Benson never replies, but that's okay. He doesn't tell him to stop either.

At first his hands are balled into fists against Randy's knees, but after a while they go slack. He relaxes, finally, allows Randy and the car to support his weight. It's a selfish thought, but Randy hopes he's the first person to do this for him, or at least the first in a long, long time. Benson doesn't have a lot of firsts left. He wants this one.

Before long, his hands are cramping and he worries he's going to rub his neck raw but doesn't want to stop touching him, doesn't want to forfeit this new familiarity with his body. So he eases up, cheats a little bit, combs his fingers through his greasy hair and scratches at his scalp. It makes his chest feel tight, the way Benson leans into his touch with his eyes closed and groans under his breath.

When he finally pulls away, Randy tries to subdue his disappointment, until he turns around and reaches up to hook a hand behind Randy's head.

"C'mere," Benson mumbles, tugging him close and meeting him halfway for a kiss that tastes like peach rings and root beer. Randy grips his forearm and for a second, in his mind's eye, everything drops out and disappears into the void, save for them and the car and the stars.

When he breaks the kiss Benson doesn't let him go, holds him in place with their foreheads pressed together. Neither of them speak. Randy focuses so hard on Benson's breathing he forgets to breathe himself. There are words, but they creep by in silence like animals in the dark.

"We still got water in the back?" Benson says at last.

"Mmhm."

"I'm gonna brush my teeth. Change into my jammies." His jammies are a pair of basketball shorts made of more holes than fabric.

"Okay," Randy says.

Neither one of them moves. The crickets chat amongst themselves in the brush.

"You still want the front?" Benson asks.

"Sure."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Benson sighs softly through his nose. He lets go of him and steps back, shuffles from one foot to the other and stares at Randy for a long time, hair sticking up in all directions. Finally he goes to dig through the backseat for the water jug.

"Looks like a bunch of fuckin' raccoons live in here," he mutters.

Randy chuckles, looks at his hands palm-up on his lap. He's got Benson's skin beneath his nails, his sweat and oil worked into the whorls of his fingerprints. He's never been so close to another person. Spent his whole life maintaining a safe distance from everyone around him, treating his body like a blast zone. Now the idea of distance is laughable. They share everything but toothbrushes. Hell, he's been inside him. Randy always figured he would never reach that level of connection with anybody.

He brings his hand to his face and hesitates for just a second before he sticks his thumb in his mouth. The salt of Benson's sweat is familiar on his tongue. He tastes his skin on his skin. He knows him. He knows him. And Benson knows him right back.

He's craved this sort of intimacy his whole life. Laid awake alone countless nights and ached for it, mourned bitterly for what he never had and assumed he never would. But now he lies awake with Benson beside him and basks in how wrong he was. In how real he feels in his arms, wearing a second skin of grit and spit and whatever else.

He doesn't want to sleep in the front.

Randy twists to call over his shoulder. "Hey…um, Benson?"

"Yeah?" he says around his toothbrush.

"You think we could…both fit in the back?"

Benson spits on the asphalt. "No."

"Well…could we try?"

Benson snorts. "Fuckin' clingy, huh?" he says, but he sounds amused. Randy feels those dark eyes appraising him like a pair of hands fumbling at his clothes. He tugs absentmindedly at the collar of his shirt. Well, Benson's shirt. "Yeah. We can try."

Randy hops off the trunk and joins him in the evening routine, bumping shoulders, bumping elbows, their voices small and close in the night.

"Gonna sweat to death together back there," Benson says.

"That's okay."

"If you say so. Think I might skip the jammies. That cool?"

"That's–that's fine, yeah. That's good. Hey…is that my toothbrush?"

"No, yours is green."

"That is green."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is, the light makes it look weird."

Benson looks at the thing again. "Oh. Whoops. Does it really matter?"

Randy gives this serious consideration, thinks about his mouth and everywhere it's been. Thinks about the state of the rest of him. Thinks about pressing his body to Benson's in the backseat, sticky with sweat, breath on his neck.

He wants to say yes, it matters, but he doesn't feel it. He tastes salt on his tongue instead.

"I guess not," he shrugs.

Benson hands it to him.

"Your turn, then."

#i really do be dunking my barbies in mud and then playing house w them #and then posting at such odd hours #oh well. try and stop me. you can't #stockroom syndrome #the passenger #the passenger 2023 #the passenger fanfiction #ranson #randy bradley #benson the passenger #the passenger 2023 fanfiction

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rozeliyawashereyall · 10 days

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Guys I'm back (not really)!!! I missed you all so much and- oh wow I missed too much, huh.

I'll start with saying that I'm doing okay now! My mental health has improved a lot and I'm very proud of myself :) however! I'm still on break, I just came here to address a few things.

Now to what's happening in the bug army—and lemme just say jeez. I did not expect to come back to drama, especially with how small this sub fandom is.

English isn't my best language so hopefully I'm not being rude saying these-

Most of my information came from @audioroleplayconfessions and a few friends of mine

-Now~ about the discord server. A lot has happened and I won't be getting into too much detail about it. One or two of our members weren't in the best place and sought out help from me and a few others, they're both okay now and are getting proper help ^^

None of us are exactly okay in the head in the army, I don't mean "insane" I mean "just need a safe environment to vent". And that's exactly why the discord was made! But unfortunately it went past an after school comfort club and more of a therapy session.

Thankfully! Me and the mods are being especially stricter on the rules and are actively enforcing them better!

This is still our first time making a server so of course we aren't the best at it, but we're all trying! I do hope that anon can feel safe there again.

that's all I'll say about it, so let's close this topic already.

-The favoritism! Now sure what to say on this one tbh, just that no one owes you anything! If you're so insecure that you have to seek validation from strangers online—and having panic attacks that you aren't being noticed, maybe the problem is with you. Most of our amazing artists that get slightly more recognition is because they're one of the first batch of bugs to appear in this fandom!

It honestly just feels like you're putting the creators on a special pedestal, above everyone—while they're all very talented and incredible people, they're still human. Just like you, just like me. They try to interact with everyone they can and it's clear every person helping with the gator boys series is trying their damn best.

I genuinely do hope you're doing okay now though :(

I'm always here to help and support you if you need it! But now, it's best if you take some time off to focus on yourself! Take a mental health break, it'll do wonders to you, I would know! I'm taking one now ^^

-that one anon ask that was very clearly about me but they didn't say it.

I'm not too fussed up about it, just a little sad I made someone feel that way

I'm not sure what I did that gave you the impression of "annoying" and "pretentious" of me, but I'm really sorry that I did anyways. I do hope you'll still consider joining our little army, and so we too can be friends! I'm sure you're a great person!

Do know I'll always greet you and new members with open arms! <3

Oh and thank you so much to the people in the reblogs that defended me—giving you all the biggest digital hug ever

-and lastly~ I really, really hope none of us gave you a bad impression of us or the VAs! Everyone here is a wonderful person! From talented to kind to fun! Gator boys is an awesome series and we all just wanted to create a small group to fangirl and boy about it X3 I'll admit things have gotten a bit too far, but me and the founders are trying our best to keep everything under control.

Now, I'm not too good with words—but, I'm very sorry about everything that happened these few days, but I promise everything will be okay from now on! We'll all make sure of it!

Gonna be putting this post in my pinned for a week just in case-

#gator boys #the bug army #bug army #gatorboys fandom #genuinely so sorry this all happened #and sorry if this made you not want to join us or watch the series-#which you dont have to of course #just sorry if we gave you a terrible impression of us #everything will get better i promise!#I'll make sure of it.

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dragonsdendoodles · 1 month

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hi! just wanted you to know that I love your art and you have some of the most correct Enoch hcs ever.

will you please provide some more?🥺🥺🥺

please?

Thank you so much!!! Absolutely I will, I will talk about that one all day if you let me

When he’s not around, Horace can be found with a homunculus chilling somewhere on him, usually in his hands, on his shoulder, or on his hat. Just so Enoch can keep an eye on him. Not that he’s worried or anything (that would imply he has feelings)

He gets along surprisingly well with Olive and Claire when he’s not actively trying to annoy them. They’ll follow him around and he’ll let them play with his homunculi or put on puppet shows for them, and if she asks he’ll carry Claire around and give her piggyback rides, though most of the time he’ll pretend he’s annoyed with her for asking.

He’s very good with kids in general, just completely subconsciously. He doesn’t have a clue how that happened. In his words, small children like him and he has no idea why.

He has a love-hate relationship with his scars from the end of TDODA. Some days he thinks they’re badass, but some days he also gets really insecure about them because of other people’s reactions to them. When that happens, he’ll refuse to leave the loop or even sometimes his room for the rest of the day.

Enoch is actually very shy when meeting new people. If an ymbryne-in-training or someone new or important comes to the loop to talk to Miss Peregrine, he’ll spy on them from outside or from another room, but if they try to actually talk to him he retreats to the basement and doesn’t come out until they’re gone.

He can play trombone. Notice I did not say he could do it well.

He can also play piano, but that’s less a headcanon and more something kinda confirmed by MOW when he’s stated to have used up six hearts teaching a skeleton to play piano.

He was bullied pretty badly by Abe in the short time they lived together, but none of the kids fully believed him when he said something. He doesn’t blame them—he was new, and when he was new he was even more prickly and defensive than usual, so they’d usually assume he started it and was upset Abe was finishing it when he almost never did. He never told anyone how bad it got until he vented about it to Horace almost a century later, who now completely resents Abe. He refuses to let anyone even mention it to Jacob for fear of tainting his grandfather’s image in his head.

Enoch is one of if not the pickiest eater in the entire house. He has lived weeks off of McDonald’s French fries from the present and Jacob’s retrieval of them for him because everything else sounded like poison.

Noor introduced him to Hot Wheels and he is obsessed. He has a collection of them in his room and Miss Peregrine had to make a rule within the first day that he can’t put mouse hearts in them and make them into homemade RC cars because they’re too small to see on the floor and Bronwyn nearly got a concussion from trying to dodge one thinking it was a bug.

If he has any pride merch from the present at all, regardless of orientation, he has pins and buttons. Nothing else. Enoch does not see the point of all the different flags and symbols but he does see the beauty in being able to chase Horace around the house trying to stab him. The fact that the pins haven’t been confiscated is a miracle.

He chews on things to stim. Favorite objects include every pencil he has ever owned, a lanyard Jacob gave him from a college he’s never heard of, his nails until they start tasting like formaldehyde, and Horace’s fingers. Horace has given up on trying to stop this.

I have many, MANY more should you want more. Mostly for Enoch and Horace but for any of the kids really I think about them A Lot

#mphfpc #enoch o'connor #dragon’s headcanons

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tachimichishrine · 8 months

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"high school"

⫭◦⨝◦⫬

doa + hunting dogs {high school AU! hcs}

warnings: none!! just keep in mind this isn't an xreader!!

decay of angels

nikolai is, without question, the class clown, and head of the drama club

the teachers HATE him

he asks waaaaaay too many questions, and all the time, too

and they're so random???

they'll be in the middle of a test and he'll ask the teacher "how's your marriage doing right now? how's your partner, are they doing well?"

lowkey gets kicked out of the class daily

now spends most of his time playing cards with the secretary in the office

bram sometimes gets sent there as well, just because he's in the mood to take a nap

however, he doesn't really say that, he'll make up some kind of excuse like "oh it's my medical condition, I have limited energy" because he's paraplegic, even if it's bs

he's also that one edgy kid who sits in the back of the class discussing the end of the world

he??speak??so??oddly??

"death cometh for thou," like dude okay no need to talk like that???

the only person who actually understands what he says is fyodor, the reigning chess champ in the school

he's also very tired all the time, but he doesn't sleep, he'll just answer a few questions here and there if he's forced to, just to shut up the teacher

does the absolute bare minimum effort to pass class because he thinks it's all useless

"you have great potential, and I'm sure you understand all the material, fyodor, so with just a bit of effort-"

"thank you for the advice."

gets up and leaves 💀

fukuchi is the gym teacher that yells all the time and tells students to do pushups just because he feels like their face is mocking him

everyone either loves his class or dreads it

nikolai is fine, he's not all that athletic but he can run pretty decently and, worst case scenario, he just needs to bug the teacher and get sent to the office again to complete his game of poker with the secretary

fyodor hates gym class

with a burning passion

I CAN'T EVEN ENVISION HIS STICK-LEGS RUNNING PROPERLY SKJGKSJFG

hides under any large object and waits it out

bram is in a wheelchair so he just smugly looks at coach like "haha sucker!", only to be given dumbbells and told to do upper body workouts

now, fyodor and bram are hide-from-gym-class buddies

sigma is in preschool

yk since he's like 3 years old-

CHUBBY CHEEKS

he's so precious unlike all the other toddlers, but he does cry a lot

A LOT

LIKE WAY TOO MUCH

"sigma, you have to share your blocks with our friends, okay?"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

the caretakers still love him tho

BABY SIGMA BABY SIGMA BABY SIGMA BABY SIGMA

hunting dogs

jouno and tecchou are the upperclassmen, which is surprising given how many braincells they share between them

jouno is hands down the pretty popular jock on campus and all the girls FALL TO THEIR KNEES

he does get in trouble every once in a while for bullying people or threatening them, but he has practically seduced the principal at this point, so it's no biggie

tecchou is that one kid who raises their hand in class and gets everything wrong

he's great in gym class, though, seeing as he likes to work out in his spare time

some girls try to approach him while he's doing his own thing and staring at the ground but he's like "wait."

"...wait? for what?"

"the ants"

"...the ants???"

"you were about to step on them."

girls have now stopped trying to approach him

tachihara is the Bad Boy™ with Family Issues™ and Inferiority Complex™

he gets in trouble A LOT

unlike Nikolai, it isn't for harmless questions or disturbing the class, it's for beating up someone else and egging someone's locker and placing a pin on the teacher's chair and-

needless to say, the teachers hate him with a burning passion

he's taking teruko as his apprentice in chaos, given she'd be around two year younger than him

she doesn't get in trouble bc (assuming this is a different school and everything) the gym coach fukuchi defends her in front of the school staff ALL THE TIME since she's his favorite student

she's surprisingly good at most subjects, except...

m a t h

she screams and throws a full-on tantrum by tossing her math book outside the window then setting it on fire because this girl CANNOT survive variables and constants and graphs and parabolas

fly high, math notebook 😞✊🕊

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bonzos-number-1-fan · 5 months

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TMAGP 13 Thoughts: Phone Bug

A big episodes for small reasons. Not much world-shaking happened but just enough was said about just the right things. A lot to get into in this one around the incident. We're starting to have the curtain pulled back. Just a crack right now, but that's just more reason to be cracked.

Spoilers for episode 13, and all of TMA, below the cut.

Not a huge amount to touch on in the date portion of the episode other than a couple of sentences. Yeah, Sam is a gifted burn out that's sad about not getting experimented on. Same old same old. But Celia has a baby. Jack being Celia's kid I wasn't expecting mostly because of how that figures into her timeline. She's very heavily implied to be TMA's Celia but based on what she said if she is then she's been in TMP's universe for at least 4 years. A "couple of wild years" and Jack's "just over a year old". Plus 9 months and it's a lot longer than it might've appeared. None of that stuff tripped Freddy's possible lie detector either that I heard.

If you work under the assumption that the voices are who most people think, and they started roughly when they arrived, then that's a fairly major time discrepancy. The voices are about a year old but Celia has been around for 4.

However, it doesn't strictly rule that out either. Firstly, we know that moving between universes isn't actually one-to-one time-wise. Anya Villette went backwards 2 weeks when she crossed over. So them arriving at different times could support the idea that she's TMA's Celia further. Her general explanation of events could also be explained by this too. If she's not there willingly, or is there willingly but it didn't quite go to plan, a couple of wild years while you get your footing in a world you don't belong to isn't far fetched. If she was there looking for the voices then her showing up so relatively late could be explained by her baby too. So it's certainly not a dead and buried theory yet.

While Jack isn't Jack Barnabas he and the voices are about the same age. If people want to go rabid over that.

Gwen and Lena's little chat has a similar amount to really dig into. It's nice to see Gwen dealing with it all, and it's annoying we still don't know who died, but Lena does have a lot to say in a few words.

The world is full of opposing forces, some benevolent, most not. In order for the wheels to keep on turning, all these forces need to be monitored and balanced. That is where we come in.

This probably the most information we've had on the OIAR to this point from the show itself. I think most of this was safely assumed before this point. They've been doing a lot of monitoring, categorisation, and the only responses we have seen have been tamping major spikes down. A world of opposing forces is also a given. We are being led to believe that these are analogous to the 14+1 but there being benevolent ones if that's true is a big mix up. If you take the above timeline idea a step further and say the 14+1 arrived much earlier (or it doesn't matter because of how they're temporally weird) the benevolent ones could be native to TMP. They could be all TMP had.

Her assertion that the OIAR is a balance on these forces is interesting. Beyond the obvious stuff it also leans into an idea I've been throwing about regarding Starkwall. In the perception of Starwall might not really be the whole picture. The San Pedro Square massacre could've been an easy scapegoat to pin on them for the OIAR to split with them. A split caused by a disagreement in ethics. Starkwall thus far hasn't been shown to have an incredible disregard for human life based on Ep 7. The OIAR definitely has been. It could just be a PR move because the massacre was too big to contain but that feels like the least interesting way to handle this. A faction that's all in on monster hit men splitting with a faction who is against it has more room for interesting drama and worldbuilding IMO.

Balance was also a very large aspect of TMA in the end. The OIAR working towards that balance isn't as noble a goal as it might sound. Or it at least has the potential to be an incredibly misguided goal.

Okay, with all that mostly out of the way onto the incident itself. I enjoy this one a fair bit. Very different to what's come before it but with another recurring theme. We're starting to see a couple of patterns emerge now although it's too early to start naming things. I don't think there is a lot to really get into but this one was written by Alex, had a new VA, and was a recurring idea. Which does all point to this being quite important as these things go. All the episodes will likely tie up quite nicely in the end but this one seems quite relevant currently. In any case this was a fun one and I'm kinda curious how some of the elements within it will tie together. Mainly the gambling and insects.

Also, super weird they went with Zorrotrade for this. Because that's a real thing. Or was a real thing? It might be dead now, but still.

Post-incident chat has nothing I really want to comment on. More Alice and Sam is always good, even if Alice is trying really hard to not seem very upset.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4622 doesn't seem particularly noteworthy. It's interesting from a thematic angle how this differs from Rolling With It. Both obviously very linked to gambling but this one lacks the compulsion elements. Which is a good indicator that H is linked to that sort of thing. Not that I need to convince myself of that further.

CAT# Theory: 3. Insert screams et cetera, et cetera. More seriously there still isn't a convincing pattern to this. Although I might be swinging back to my original tria prima and/or triple deity interpretation.

R# Theory: B is where I was thinking it'd end up while listening. So that's nice. Not much to add to this. Much like with DPHW the more information that lines up with the theory the less there is to talk about it because I've already done the hard bit.

Header talk: Gambling (Application) -/- Murder. Other than Application being a pretty weird Subsection I'm not sure there is much to dig into here. Although it does likely confirm he's dead. Which does make it a little strange that his statement wasn't read by one of the Freddy lot.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp theory #tmagp speculation #klaus = kl4-u5

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pteropods · 2 months

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idk idk. A loy of people will hear. a character trapped/tortured/etc for an unrrasonably long time (~100 years in yhis case) and bcs its like. not actually possible they kinda just brush it off, right. But I Cant do that w/ Yoki bcs Im In Too Deep. So ive thought about ut again and again and again and again and again

Like. Yoki was begond his normal lifespan when he git crushed in the debris. He was ~20 when he got the bug, and about 80 years after that he got trapped (I use even number like 20 years old, 80 years later, 100 years under the debris, 500 years in the future, etc. to make things easier and so I dony have to remember exact numbers, but its usually not Exactly that number).

So i mean its not like he was this kid who got trapped, he was a 100 y/o soldier in the midst of battle. But I still think. like. Yoki didnt get the bug because he didnt want to die or smth, and if he had been able to move at all under the debris he probably would have crushed his bug and killed himself. It's just yhe test of the time hes very apathetic about his life- he doesnt stay alive because he enjoys living, it's just that he idnt miserable enough at the moment to go iut of his eay and inflict pain on himself to die.

That was a tangent though. Back on track, Im thinking about Yoki's solitude. Even in solitaty confinement (though still atrocious and inhumane), you're able to walk around, get meals, and speak. Though very limited, thse can at least slightly mitugate the effects. Though, Yoki had none of this. He was impaled through the head, preventing any speech, and pinned down by the weight of the debris which prohibited movement. Honestly regardless of that, i think over a 100-year period the effects wpuld be similar regardless.

Even though his musles and vocal chords couldnt atrophy due to the cellres bug, his mental capacities and knowledge certainly could. If you forget half of your highschool class knowledge just a couple months after you graduate because you don't use it, then over the hundred years Yoki lost knowledge of most things. Even basic survival needs were forgotten.

The human brain has a limited amount of knowledge and insight. If our brains are made to function and consume knowledge for some 80 years, then we only have 80 years worth of things to think about, and even less when you're rapidly forgetting it all. Having only his thoughts could only go so far. Eventually he ran out of things to ponder, questions to answer, memories to look at.

A lot of Yoki's entrapment had him only semi-lucid, it being the only way for his mind to protect itself. His only source of stimulation besides the consistent apin of being crushed and impaled was rapid mood swings between every extreme, and then total apathy. This was repeated on a loop for the majority of the isolation, until even that got dull

And even after he was freed, it wasn't fixed. Having lived without light for so long, he couldn't handle the sun- especially off of the blinding snow- for years. He had to retrain his eyes and esrs and skin to be able to hear and see and touch without completely overwhelming them. Starting from inside the debris and continuing sfter he got out, he would experience constant delsions, hallucinations, and irregular, jumbled thoughts. It likely took almost a lifrtime to recover into how he is now.

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tmnt-reticent · 6 months

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The songs that fit each silly the best from their respective playlists because I’ve been brainrotting over some of these songs so much recently (Raph, Casey and April barely have any songs IM SO SORRY ILL FIND MORE FOR THEM SOON- whenever I get a song rec it’s almost always for Leo or Donnie I was just lucky to find a decent amount of Mikey songs on my own cbsjcbjshcjd-)

You can guess why they fit them but I won’t tell you if you’re right fbsjbcjshck

Leo:

Streaks (ANIMA!), PIN-EYE (Jhariah), Oh No! (MARINA), Memento Mori (Will Wood), Passing Through (Kaden Mackay), Everything I Ever Thought I Knew (Zachery Levi), What The World Needs (Ride The Cyclone), A Sadness Runs Through Him (The Hoosiers), Goddamn Staying Power (Mother Mother), Explode! (Mother Mother), End Of Me (Mother Mother, specifically first verse and chorus), despair (leo.), She Used To Be Mine (Sara Bareilles), Top Of My School (Katherine Lynn-Rose), I/Me/Myself (Will Wood), Days (Mother Mother), Magic (MILGRAM)

THERES TOO MANY THAT FIT HIM PERFECTLY ISTG 😭😭😭 There’s so many others on his playlist (he has almost the entire Grief Chapter Album, same with Mikey) but these are the ones I feel fit him the best

Out of all of these I would say Passing Through, Streaks or PIN-EYE are his theme song but bro has way too many choices

Raph:

Maybe It’s My Fault (WILLOW), So Big/So Small (Rachel Bay Jones), I Really F**led It Up (girli), I’d Give Anything (Mandy Moore), Meteor Shower (Cavetown)

I wasn’t lying when I said there wasn’t a lot of Raph songs it’s bad fr 💀💀💀 ILL FIND HIM MORE EVENTUALLY

His theme song is 100% Maybe It’s My Fault, it was my top played song on Spotify last year because I was literally brainrotting over it for him for MONTHS. Bro feels so guilty 24/7/365 and none of it was even his fault.

Mikey:

God’s Plan (Mother Mother), End of Me (Mother Mother, specifically second verse and chorus), Nobody Escapes (Mother Mother), Normalise (Mother Mother), Wrecking Ball (Mother Mother), Sunsets (Jhariah), Art Is Dead (Bo Burnham), Look Who’s Inside Again (Bo Burnham), Love, Me Normally (Will Wood), Sweet Hibiscus Tea (Penelope Scott), Mirror Man (Jack Stauber), 2econd 2ight 2eer (Will Wood)

Mirror Man has basically been his theme song since I started writing Reticent but God’s Plan, Nobody Escapes, Art Is Dead and the end of Love, Me Normally fit him SO INSANELY WELL (especially God’s Plan and Nobody Escapes I have been listening to those constantly since they released partially because I was about to go see Mother Mother but also because I was brainrotting over them for Ret Mikey SO HARD)

If I had to pick one it would probably still be Mirror Man but God’s Plan is SO close to overtaking it

Donnie:

Outliars and Hyppocrates (Will Wood), Rät (Penelope Scott), Partner In Crime (Madilyn Mei), Interlude:I’m Not Angry Anymore (Paramore), Boys Will Be Bugs (Cavetown), dumb dumb (mazie), brutal (Olivia Rodrigo), Rule #4 - Fish in a Birdcage (Fish in a Birdcage), Waiting in the Wings (both of and reprise, Eden Espinosa), Sparkbird (Sparkbird), Laplace’s Angel (Will Wood), BlackBoxWarrior - OKULTRA (Will Wood), I Can’t Handle Change (Roar), What’s Wrong With Me? (Ashley Park), Run Rabbit Run (The Hoosiers), Magic (MILGRAM)

Most of these fit Season 2 Part 1 Donnie in particular so I’ve been having a hard time picking a specific one as his theme song but I think Boys Will Be Bugs would fit pretty well

April:

Hayloft II (Mother Mother), Lew’s Lullaby (Ritt Momney), Cut The String (Mother Mother), Feel Better (Penelope Scott), Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You (Anna Kendrick, Jeremy Jordan), Meteor Shower (Cavetown), Anybody Have A Map? (Rachel Bay Jones, Jennifer Laura Thompson)

April has the same issue as Donnie where a lot of her songs are more specific moments rather than her as a whole, but it’s worse for her since she has way less songs than he does dbskcbkshc- Cut The String is probably the one that would fit the best as a theme song though since even though it is meant to be for a specific moment she does have a tendency to run away from her problems instead of solving them

Also side-note, I do have an unfinished April animatic to Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You because my The Last Five Years hyperfixation came back shskvcjsgfjd- I’m unsure if I’ll finish it cause it’s pretty old now but even if I don’t finish it I’ll still post the WIP!

Casey:

Little Big Boy (Madds Buckley), Bring It On (MILGRAM), Good Kid (Chris McCarrell), Sunsets (Jhariah), Meteor Shower (Cavetown), YELLOW (Yoh kamiyama), Dead Mom (Sophia Anne Caruso)

Him and April have the same amount of songs that fit them the best out of their playlists omigosh twinsiesssss dbskcbskhcjd

His theme song is Little Big Boy absolutely 200% it fits him so perfectly I love it so much for him

#tmnt reticent #tmnt #reticent #tmnt fan iteration #teenage mutant ninja turtles iteration #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt iteration

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stillcominback · 1 year

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it's weird cause i really miss writing / plotting and literally get bored [ even though i usually have something i could be doing ... it's just y'know motivation, energy, etc. lol ] BUT STILL. i may not have the capacity to actually write on tumblr right now [ i put an update in my pinned post for all my blogs since most of them connect to rick here ] ... but i can still pop in from time to time and i'm almost always available on my phone via discord or IMs! i know i say this consistently, but y'know just in case! i'd love to build plots and dynamics with allllllll of you [ or as many as i can ] so, just officially giving all my mutuals the green light to "bug" me tbh!

and in case it's not clear: none of you are ever actually "bugging" me! i struggle with that anxiety too haha so just to be as clear as i can! ❤️❤️❤️

i'm usually pretty decent i think at reaching out and getting all that going, but honestly? just with how overwhelmed and exhausted i've been lately, it's been a lot harder to post or reach out / get convos started. it's frustrating!! because i wanna talk to people! i wanna plot! i wanna write [ on discord, at least for now ]! it's just been harder getting myself to get myself to initiate i guess??? IDK! all this to say i just miss you all a lot tbh and if it's easier, just comment or like this post and i'll come hit you up to plot or something! sometimes that helps me!

#ANYWAY! hope all your weeks are off to a good start!#just wanted to pop in here while i had a minute and say hi!#❤️❤️❤️❤️#again i appreciate you all sm for hanging with me and just being so amazing and supportive #i feel so lucky with the community and friends i've made here 🥺#00. // OUT OF AMMO ( OOC POST. )

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jammie3132 · 1 year

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Sir Knight and Prince Charming, Ch. 3

So...I haven't posted here in a while (DUH) and it looks like a lot of things have changed. Since I'm pretty confused, I'm just going to post this here like this. What I am going to do is put the link to AO3 ( at the bottom) because I don't remember if I posted the first 2 chapters. My timeline is all whackadoodle and I'm going to need more time (and a lot of wine) to go through that mess. Wish me luck!

THURSDAY…EXACTLY 2 WEEKS LATER

Santana stared at the 3x5 cards on the push-pin board in her office, uncertain of what to do with this new clue.

**June Dolloway cancels B’s Showcase & Met Gala**

Granted, it couldn’t be helped. Her sister-in-law broke her hip and she was going to France to take care of her. But, since June and her bad directions/wrong number brought Sir Knight into the picture in the first place, anything June related had to be included on the Blaine Board.

But where?

Trouty was in Kentucky for the twins’ birthday which meant it fell on her shoulders to get some answers. Seriously, it did, and this time it wasn’t for fun like when she figured out Berry’s sleazy ex was a gigolo. Ok, yes, she originally thought drug dealer but tomato-tomato. What bugged her was it only took 3 hours to solve that mystery and 2 weeks later she was no closer to figuring out what caused the change in Blaine.

He hadn’t left the basement in over a week. In one way this was completely understandable. Afterall, the place was called Blaineland.

None of them (even those who lived there) had ever been in the basement. Mercedes constantly reminded the group the record label declared it off limits and she wasn’t going to piss them off. Then the Andersons bought the brownstone and wanted some pictures of the furnace.

Everyone was stunned by what they discovered but Blaine fell to his knees and sobbed like a baby. The whole thing was a state-of-the-art recording studio with a baby grand piano and 2 lounges, one being a home theater and concession stand with a movie theater popcorn machine!!!

This was all amazing but not leaving the basement included Blaine’s classes at NYADA. Yes, he arranged excused absences for earlier in the week because he didn’t know what his state of mind would be with Tuesday being the one-year anniversary of the shooting at McKinley.

You say school shooting and people are a bit more understanding.

Today was Thursday…no classes but he flat-out stated he wasn’t going to his Song Writing Workshop tomorrow.

Damn it! She’d fallen down a rabbit hole yet again. Stay focused, Lopez! Back to the beginning, or what Blond Chameleon (dork!) believed was the beginning.

**Sir Knight=Sebastian Smythe?**

This never felt quite right. Don’t get her wrong, her psychic Mexican-third eye was screaming the SOB was somehow involved.

The only thing she couldn’t get past was Blaine’s insistence his Knight in Shining Armor couldn’t possibly be Slushie Smurf. There’s a sadness behind the denials. A sadness Blaine’s expressive eyes couldn’t hide, at least to her. How come she seemed to be the only one who saw it?

Wasn’t Blaine supposed to be the oblivious one, not his best friend and boyfriend?

Hummel kept insisting whatever was happening was no big deal. The day after the Thursday from Hell, Blaine met with his song writing professor and it didn’t go well. In fact, it went so badly the professor told him if he didn’t fix his assignment by the due date, she’d have no other choice but to fail him.

**Song Writing Fail**

She pulled off the card and moved it to align with the Sir Knight card. This made more sense to why Blaine practically moved into a music studio.

Well, that and the fact his old room was now her office/temporary bedroom and his new room was part of the remodel.

But the meeting with the professor happened on Friday which meant it couldn’t be the catalyst for Blaine’s change. Too much crap happened the day before, especially some events she believed hadn’t been given enough attention due to their (*cough* Sam’s) Sir Knight focus.

**Kurt’s temper tantrum saying Blaine was responsible for his getting kicked off the photoshoot**

**Kurt talks to Chinese Food delivery guy, has a complete 180 attitude change and apologizes for earlier behavior**

**Kurt never explains what happened at Vogue or what caused the attitude change**

Rachel (accidently) mentioned something about Kurt having to sign a big NDA agreement for the photoshoot but, of course, didn’t know details. Did everyone at Vogue have to sign an NDA? If so, there was no way to get information there. But what about the delivery guy? What did he say to flip Hummel? Should she go try to talk to him?

Should she add all this to the board?

She was still deciding when her phone rang. Looking at the clock, she remembered Pamela had scheduled a call at this time. But from the ringtone alert it wasn’t her but her husband.

That’s weird

“Hello, Mr. Anderson.”

“Good morning, Santana. How are you?”

“Um, a little confused. I was expecting Pamela so we could finalize the schedule for tomorrow’s demolition and the start of the remodel on Monday.”

The Andersons hired her (temporarily) to handle Pamela’s ridiculous (and constantly growing) To Do List. Blaine and Sam had too much on their plates, especially when it was announced Sam had won the role of Mike in the Magic Mike Musical.

She still couldn’t believe she caught Rachel’s reaction to the news. It was even better when Artie put the video on a loop (with cut ins of Sam doing his body rolls) and set it to music…Pony, of course.

Anyway, one day after she went (verbally) Lima Heights on one of the contractors (who Blam believed was mobbed up) the temporary title went away. Now she’s the Andersons’ personal assistant/house manager and unofficial Blam babysitter.

It was the best job she’d ever had and not just because she’d been fired by both Yeast-I-Stat and the diner (long story). Charles calling had her worried. He must have picked that up from her tone. “Santana, everything’s fine. Plans changed and Pammy left for LA this morning to see Cooper. You’re doing a great job. Better than we dared to hope.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Wait… “When you say plans changed, does that mean the record label got the judge to void the sale of the brownstone?”

His laughter made it clear that wasn’t the case.

“Nope. Like I said all along, it’s not mine and Pammy’s fault the producer who was supposed to live there funneled 3 million dollars from the company to build a studio and no one noticed. And even though the paperwork isn’t completely finalized, enough of it has been. It also helped we purchased the place in cash, as is, expedited closing at the label’s insistence.”

“As is being the important part. Right?”

“Smart girl but the label being the party to insist on the fast closing didn’t hurt. The judge did admit my getting the contracts pushed through in less than 24 hours tied his hands. It usually takes around 30 days to close on a property.”

“Not your fault you’re good at your job…whatever it is. It was fun watching the people from the label heads explode when they realized how badly they screwed up. But, Mr. Anderson, you haven’t said what the change of plans are?”

“Turns out you are not the only one who believes I’m good at what I do. The parent company of the record label offered me a job running the non-talent portion of the label. You know, the boring stuff. I’m flying into NYC in the morning to listen to what they have to say. Since today is Thursday, can you tell Blaine I’m coming? Sam told me you’re now the gatekeeper for emergency contacts and I’ve learned my lesson about interrupting his Blaine Time.”

This is your job…this is your job…this is your job

You love your job…you love your job…you love your job

“Yes, of course I’ll tell Blaine. Do you want him to call you?”

“That’s not necessary. My appointment/interview is more of a business lunch so I’ll call him afterwards.” There was a pause, but she could feel he wasn’t finished. “Santana, tell me the truth, at least as much as you’re comfortable telling me without breaking Blaine’s…I mean…it’s just, how is he doing? Sam said the anniversary of the McKinley shooting hit them all harder than they realized it would. Then June Dolloway cancelled his Showcase…”

“You know why she did that. Right?”

“Oh, yes. My mother fell and broke her hip last year. My brothers and I all took turns caring for her so, as a son, I completely understand. As a father, I’m worried about the ramifications for my child.”

A father who gives a damn, even after all the crap that happened when his child came out as gay. Must be nice.

“I do know he has a meeting with Carmen Tibideaux at NYADA next week, but otherwise he really hasn’t said anything. Remember, he only found all this out yesterday.”

“He’s not talking to anyone? I know Sam’s in Kentucky but not even Kurt? And what about that new friend of his…the guy he calls Sir Knight?” WTF? How does he know? “Sam told me the two of you have been trying to find out who he is.”

I…AM…GOING…TO…KILL…HIM!!!!!

“You know Sam. No way his Superhero alter ego can pass up on a mystery.”

“He said maybe there was a tie in with the Warblers. Pammy says Blaine tried to keep his friendships with them even after what happened with his eye but after the steroids everything fell apart.”

That was new. Ok, maybe Sam wasn’t going to die. Plus, Charles was referring to the Warblers as a whole and not one particular Warbler who nearly blinded his son.

“We did think there might be a connection to the Warblers but don’t see how it would connect back to June.”

“June?”

“She gave Blaine the wrong number which turned out to be Sir Knight’s. But our research didn’t go anywhere because neither of us knew any of the Warblers’ full names.”

“Having those names is important?”

“Can’t cyberstalk someone if you don’t know their name.”

They did know the name Sebastian Smythe. Why hadn’t they just Googled the ass? What an epic fail.

She blames Sam, or even better, Blond Chameleon.

“True, but please try to not call your research cyberstalking. Let me get ahold of Pammy and see what she can do, if anything. And Santana, thanks for helping look after my boy. Something’s going on and I don’t want Blaine falling back into the depression he was in last year. Pammy and I still haven’t forgiven ourselves for not catching on sooner.”

After their goodbyes ended, she started to write down all the new information Charles gave her. Right when she pinned the last new 3x5 card to the Blaine Board, an email alert from Pamela popped up on her computer screen. In it was her log-in and password to the Dalton Parent Portal. She’d just gone online and confirmed it worked.

After all this time? Blaine left Dalton nearly 3 years ago. You’d think a fancy private school would have better cyber security. Reading further, Pamela explained alumni bios were listed by graduation year. No graduation, no listing, and yes, that included Blaine.

Again…so why did Pamela’s log-in and password work?

Bios would include the college the alumni currently attend. Since the majority of Dalton boys usually wound up in the Ivy League, at least one of Blaine’s old friends should be close to the NYC area.

The email also contained a list of names to concentrate on. She almost fell out her chair when she got to the final name.

Sebastian Smythe

Even with that mind-blowing development, she knew going through the Dalton site could take hours. She’d have plenty of time for research tomorrow when the kitchen and bathrooms were being ripped out. The best thing to do was to stick to her original plan to try to find the delivery guy from 2 weeks ago.

There was something she had to do before she left.

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she was surprised to see Blaine at the theater’s concession stand and not in the studio.

At least he’s eating.

“Hey Hermit, it’s Blaine Day. Go to a park and sit under a tree like you usually do.”

“Hermit? Isn’t it Hobbit?”

“Not after this week.”

“Santana…”

“Hey, it’s your fucking life. Do what you want. I just thought you’d like to know your dad called and is going to be here tomorrow for a meeting. If you don’t want him asking more questions than he already will, get some sun on your face!” As she quickly planned a dramatic exit for emphasis, she calmed down long enough to suggest “Call Sir Knight, or text, whatever.”

“I can’t.”

WTF???!!!

“What the hell do you mean I can’t? You’ve been communicating with the guy non-stop for 2 weeks. I’m still in awe how you convinced Hummel to give you a pass on the whole Klaine texting is cheating bull-shit.”

“It’s not a big deal. We agreed to end our chats. He left the country for work, or his grandmother is sick, or both. I don’t know. He said he’s going to be extremely busy and knew I needed to focus on my Showcase, although, that’s not a problem anymore.”

“When? When did you guys break-up?”

“We didn’t break-up and does it really matter when it happened?”

“Blaine…”

“Santana, it’s not like we were friends. He was a wrong number.”

From the look on his face, she knew Blaine was lying. Even in that short amount of time, Sir Knight had become important to Prince Charming. “Call June and ask her what the hell’s going on. We all know that so-called wrong number wasn’t random.”

“She’s in France taking care of her sister-in-law. I’m not going to bother her with this. Sir Knight is gone, so you and Sam can stop your not-so secret mission to prove he was Sebastian which I told you wasn’t possible in the first place!”

3 HOURS LATER

She let herself into the brownstone and proceeded to her office, ignoring the overwhelming desire to go to the basement and check on Blaine. No way he’d gone to a park.

Even though it was barely 1PM, she decided to change into comfy clothes. The best perk of her new job was getting to move out of the loft and into the brownstone. She didn’t care if it was going to be under construction for the next month. Had to be less annoying than Hummel and Berry’s constant bitching. And it’s not like she couldn’t escape if she wanted. Blaineland was completely soundproof due to the studio and home theater.

Sitting back at her desk, she checked her messages. She had one from Sam but if she had a guess he wanted the breakdown of what happened with the delivery guy…Ray. She didn’t even bother to read what he sent and sent one of her own reminding him to spend time with his fucking family. He’d be back in a few days and they’d fix the Blaine Board then.

It wasn’t that she was pushing Blond Chameleon out, he’d just be laser focused on the Sir Knight/Prince Charming (non) break-up. She’s 100% certain Kurt’s Thursday from Hell behavior was the key to all this and her trip to Manhattan only reinforced her beliefs.

Everything went better than she hoped. Not only was Ray working, he remembered her as a friend of Kurt’s (his words…not hers). The first thing she asked was if he knew who sent the food to Blaine. He said he had an idea but was curious why, after 2 weeks, she came all this way to ask.

She had prepared for this.

Her story was that Blaine knew who sent the food but won’t tell anyone. He did say all of them knew/at least met the person from high school. It was beginning to drive them crazy so she and Blaine’s other friends, other than Kurt, turned it into a bet to see who could solve the mystery first. She pulled out a $100 bill…

Still had no idea how to put bribe money in the petty cash ledger but had a feeling the Andersons would be fine with it.

“I’m willing to pay for information.”

The flashing of money brought others over to “help”. They all agreed with Ray when he said, though he couldn’t confirm it, the food had to be sent by the talent or someone in their entourage. The reasoning being unless it was Isabelle Wright, who all agreed it wasn’t, the Vogue employees working the photoshoot couldn’t afford the dinner(s) sent to the brownstone.

And while the NDAs were no joke, and Vogue employees were extremely careful with what they said in public, each of her new buddies had overheard bits and pieces about that night.

It was to launch the new face of a famous fashion house, and the person being shot was a guy. Also, he was an unknown who’d been discovered when a model went AWOL at one of last season’s Fashion Week runway shows in Paris. A friend of a friend (something like that) called this guy and begged him to do it even though he wasn’t a model. The rest was history. One girl added she overheard there was something else going on with the guy, something bigger, like maybe an acting role.

She thanked everyone and pulled out two more $100 bills for them to split as they saw fit. Then she took Ray to the side and asked how much of this information Kurt had. He told her the one thing he told Kurt was the talent sent the food to Blaine, not that it was only a theory. Then he reminded her Kurt had to know a lot more than any of them but wasn’t saying anything due to the NDA.

Must be one hell of an NDA.

She put all this new info on 3x5s cards but after pinning them to the Blaine Board she found herself at a crossroads. Everything was ready for the contractors’ arrival in the morning. There were no more errands to run. She could go down and watch a movie.

Relax and clear her mind of all things Blaine Anderson.

Who was she kidding? The reason she’d allowed herself to get tangled in this web in the first place was so she didn’t have to clear her mind. If she did, she might have to start dealing with the fact Dani dumped her by leaving a letter at the diner for when she returned from Iowa. And how that bitch Brenda found it and convinced the staff to do a routine to Taylor Swift’s We Are Never Getting Back Together as she handed her Dani’s letter. And how she punched that bitch Brenda and had the choice of being fired or having the cops called.

And how in the letter Dani asked her to tell Kurt Elliot had gone to Nashville with her, completely blowing up Hummel’s band. While she could somewhat see Dani in Tennessee the Glitter Rock Vampire made zero sense.

And couldn’t she have asked Berry who still worked at the diner? Who knows, maybe she left a letter for Rachel asking her and that bitch Brenda did something with it. She managed to keep all her other evil plans secret from her then roommate.

Stop it! She needed a distraction and even though she scheduled her Dalton website research for tomorrow, it wouldn’t hurt to check out the one surprise name on Pamela’s list.

Getting on the site was ridiculously easy as was finding the alumni lists. Assuming Smythe graduated the same year as Blam (although she would’ve sworn Blaine was a Senior, not a Sophomore, when they met) she went to 2013. He wasn’t there. That didn’t make sense. Was he still at Dalton?

She put Smythe into the home page search engine and the only things that popped up were Warbler competition videos (the last being last year’s Sectionals) and articles about the LaCross team from the previous year. All mentions of Sebastian end there. Did he leave Dalton before he graduated? Oh crap! Did he have something to do with the steroids? Both Sam and Blaine said there was no proof he was and the Warbler who ratted them out never mentioned the former captain.

*Ding…Dong*

Oh, thank God! While she wanted a distraction, she could see getting lost in this rabbit hole for hours and she had an early wake-up time.

Reaching for the doorknob she prepared herself for Kurt and whatever drama he’d twisted into an emergency to get her to call Blaine for him. She was pleasantly surprised to instead find a beautiful woman with a radiant smile and a killer body.

Not the time Lopez

“May I help you?”

“Are you Santana?”

“Yes…and you are?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought Sam told you I’d be stopping by. My name is Annabelle and I’m one of his manager’s assistants. I’m here to pick up the packet he left so we can get his tax and union paperwork filed before he officially begins work on the musical.”

“He didn’t…wait, he sent me a text but I assumed it was for something else. You don’t look like a serial killer so if you want to come in while I check, you’re more than welcome. Warning though, there’s nowhere to sit because remodeling begins tomorrow.”

Annabelle smiled a smile Santana was trying really hard not to read into. “I’m definitely not a serial killer, although my primary client might disagree. I have threatened him with bodily harm on more than one occasion.”

“Sorry, sounds like a douche bag.”

“No, he’s not, more like an annoying little brother. But I’ll never tell him that.”

“Ok, now I can totally sympathize but at least you don’t get a 2 for 1 like I do with Blam. I’ll be right back.”

As she tried to not look at Santana’s ass as the beautiful woman went to what she assumed was a home office, Annabelle took in her surroundings. There was a rumor going around that one of the major music labels had millions of dollars embezzled by a producer to build a studio in the brownstone they bought for him. In addition, they didn’t find out until after they sold the place.

The guy who bought it was some sort of genius and had a judge agree anything attached to (even just screwed into the wall) the structure was included in the as is purchase price.

Since everyone in the NYC entertainment (not just music) industry thought the CEO of the label was an asshole they were celebrating still unknown man as a modern-day Robin Hood. And while the odds this being that particular brownstone were astronomical, she was still going to ask.

“I got ahold of Trouty. Yes, he did send a message, the one I ignored, so here you go.” Santana handed over an envelope, both women going out of their way not to touch the other’s hand. “He also said his manager wanted to know about the study system Blam developed back in high school to help his dyslexia.”

“You keep referring to Blam. Who is that?"

"Sam and his best friend. It’s like they have one mind so it’s easier to give them one name.”

“Would it be possible to get his number so I can talk to him on how to help Sam?”

“He’s in the studio in the basement. Maybe Hermit will actually leave it if he knows it’s to help Trouty.”

Hermit? Trouty? Annabelle only cared about one word “Studio? There’s a studio in the basement?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. We found it when the Andersons bought the place. Hold on, I’ll have to send a text. The whole level is soundproof.” Santana watched as Annabelle turned into a cartoon character with as wide as her eyes got and how far her jaw dropped. “Is something wrong?”

“Holy Shit! The rumors are true?”

“Rumors?”

“The brownstone with the studio!! How the guy who bought it screwed the label out of millions of dollars. He’s a fucking legend!”

“My dad didn’t screw anyone out of anything. It’s not his fault the label had such shitty bookkeeping.”

Annabelle turned around and went straight back to cartoon mode. She’d recognize that guy anywhere. “Blaine Fucking Anderson.”

“Excuse me. Who the hell are you to call me that?”

Santana was put off as well. Things had been going great until that moment. “Annabelle…”

It was Blaine’s turn to turn into a cartoon character. “Annabelle? Annabelle who works as an assistant to an entertainment manager?”

Their guest still wasn’t talking and had gone so far as to put her hand over her mouth. Santana quickly came to the conclusion she was the only one with no idea what was happening. “Blaine, why does Annabelle’s name and job matter?”

“Because Sir Knight had someone like you who took care of shit for him but she was his manager’s assistant and her name was Annabelle. Joey, the driver, knows where I live but he didn’t know my name.”

“Blaine, I’m sorry…”

“Are you here to spy on me under the pretense of taking care of Sam? There’s no reason. Sir Knight left the country and told me he’d be too busy to chat so it would be best if we stopped.” Then it dawned on him. “How do you know my name? Did you do some sort of research on me?”

Santana huffed and threw up her arms in frustration. “If she did and got your name, she’s much better than me and the Blond Chameleon. We still have no clue who Sir Knight is. How did you figure it out? Is it because the driver guy had Blainer’s address?”

Annabelle pulled back her hair, obviously a nervous habit, and shook her head. “You don’t understand. I could lose my job for the little bit I’ve already accidently said.” She looked away from Santana to Blaine and saw the same pained expression on his face that she saw on Sebastain’s when he left for Paris. Yes, he was worried about his Nana but she knew it was also for the loss of his Prince Charming.

She had no idea why he cut Blaine off when he needed his friend (love of his life) the most. He had an international phone plan. Screw it! The jerk needed her too much to have Benny fire her.

“Sir Knight knew you were Blaine Anderson the second you called him the first time. You obviously hadn’t changed your number in years.”

Blaine and Santana grabbed each other’s arms as a means to keep balance. It was a bad time not to have any furniture to hold on to. “I haven’t changed my number. The Ohio area code should have been the first clue” Blaine said as he tried to remember his first conversations with Sir Knight. “But he had changed phones recently to a private line.”

“Yes, and I set it up with only the 22 contacts he was allowed to keep. Evidently, he later deleted his parents and put you in himself…under the name Killer. It looks like you both figured it out but if you’re looking for confirmation…Sir Knight’s name is Sebastian Smythe.”

“Damn it! The Blond Chameleon is going to be an even bigger pain in the ass once he finds out he was right all along!”

AO3

#blaine anderson #sebastian smythe #seblaine fic

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