#The yellow strange doll is definitely the worst

[redlionknc]

Love Stardew, hate the damn dolls :(

[yee-fxcking-haw]

What Happens Next?

Summary: You begrudgingly go out dancing with your best friend, but you're consumed by the fear that you'll run into James Barnes. You two shared a wonderful afternoon in highschool and somehow ended up at prom together. Unfortunately, James ruined everything with a horrible prank at your expense. Of course, at the most popular dance hall, he shows up.

Hi guys! This is my very first fic ever so pLeAsE be nice. I apologise for typos and for being long winded. I want to preface this by making it clear that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing I just hope y'all have fun reading the story. My comic book knowledge is eh, it's set in the 1940s ish?? LOL I suck y'all are in for a wild ride. Maybe four or five parts if you guys like it?? Maybe??? Please like it????>

Warnings: Mentions of death. Asshole guy tries to get reader to leave with him without consent. Eventual smut. More specific warnings will be at the beginning of each chapter.

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 "Molly I do not want to go dancing." You bite off the end of the sentence as you put the rest of your clothes away. 

   Your best friend is sitting on your bed, touching up her makeup in a delicate handheld mirror. She rolls her eyes in a dramatic manner then slapps the mirror down on the bed and huffed at you. You can't help but laugh at her theatrics. 

   "It's not my thing." You say in a softer tone, trying to ease the tension you'd created with your snapping. 

  She looks at you with her soft brown eyes and pouts her red lips. 

   "Oh for Pete's sake I don't even own a dress." You say as you motion at your overalls. 

   "That is a sorry excuse and you know it, they're all I wear- you can borrow one of mine." She says, stressing the last half like you're hard of hearing. 

   "Yours are all too nice! I rip things and spill things and lose things, no way I'm using one of yours." You take a glance at her lovely yellow dress, decorated with a delicate white floral design. Of course she could pull that off, but you could never.

   "I have plenty I don't wear anymore, you can just have one."

   You cross your arms and scowl. You know how this is going to end, but you won't go down without a fight. Molly is one of those girls that just got what she wanted, like it was a fact of life. She's too pretty, too convincing, and dangerously clever.

    "There's going to be people from highschool there. Please don't make me do this." You beg, maybe the pity card will work. Graduation was only two months behind you, so a lot of the humiliation still stung. 

   This was true, the majority of your highschool career was indeed filled with self induced bullying. 

   "What if he's there?" You ask, feeling much more serious. 

   Molly's hands stop and she looks you in your eyes, they soften a little as she sees your genuine anxiety. Your mind goes to that horrible boy, James Barnes. Handsome enough to get himself out of any trouble, heartless enough to ruin highschool for you. Against every ounce of good sense in your body, you had developed a crush on him the last two years of highschool. It was probably those blue eyes that looked silver in the right light. The contrast of those eyes against his chocolate brown hair that always laid so well combed on his head. He had this way of walking down the halls with such confidence,  you'd swear he had every intention of owning the building one day. You assume it was the hormones, the desire to be wanted by the most wanted boy in school. Any girl could fall victim to those looks, even you. You had even grown to find his childish antics somewhat amusing. All of his pranks and obnoxious behavior had become something adventurous that you'd always longed for, something that had been missing from your life. 

   She interrupts your thinking by running her hands through the rest of your hair to undo the last half of the braid. 

   "Well, I say we get you all dolled up and show him how blind he was." She offers you a soft smile and a pat on the shoulder. 

   Your eyes drop to the floor, trying to give off the impression that the carpet has suddenly become very interesting to you. You hear her sigh while she reaches a small hand up to tilt your chin towards her face. 

   "He can't ruin dance halls, he can't ruin our fun, he especially can't ruin college boys." Her voice takes on a mischievous tone and you see that light in her eyes that only means you've already lost. You can't help but smile at her endearing girlishness. 

   "Fine, but I will not wear pink." 

   Like a five year old who's just been told she can have a sleepover she squeaks and runs to collect her makeup off the bed. 

   "Please no lipstick. I'm begging you." You smile at her, knowing full well she will pitch a fit over your reluctance to wear that awful stuff.

   "Just a little, to give you a touch of color?" She says, using her sugary voice to convince you. 

   Another easy victory for her, you roll your eyes and throw up your hands. She's on you immediately, doing God knows what to your poor face. She works with light touches, most of the application is not so bad. The mascara is the worst, it tickles and makes your eyes feel heavy. You can't find it in your heart to object though, given how joyful she is about the entire ordeal. She runs her finger through your hair a few times, pulling some pieces forward to frame your face. She steps back and crosses her arms in a very self satisfied way. 

   "You really are pretty." She says, not beautiful, just pretty. 

   "I'm not ugly." You shrug and turn to the mirror. 

   Slightly shocked, you take in your rather foreign reflection. You did look pretty. She had been very light with the makeup like she had said, she had given you just a touch of color in all the right places. Your lips look rosy, your cheeks blushed gracefully, the color to your eyelashes gives your eyes lovely definition. She tosses your hair to one side and smiles. She had given you the appearance of a girl who knew what she was doing with her looks. Perhaps you could fool a college boy into a dance with you. The overalls stood out sorely, but that would be remedied with one of her elegant dresses. 

   "So… what do you think?" She asks cautiously. 

   "I think you might be right." You smile softly at her. 

   She replies with another triumphant squeak and grabs her bag. She hoists out a bright red dress and thrusts it at you. 

   "Red? Molly this is the most attention grabbing color you could put me in! Did you pack this before you left, before you even asked me?" You're slightly offended, but mostly impressed. Of course she had, she knew she would get her way. 

   "Oh just put it on you big baby." 

   With a huff you toss the dress over your chair and unclip your overall straps. You give her a glare as you shove them down your legs. You discard your shirt to the pile in the corner of your room and she sighs at your messiness. You hold the soft dress in your hands before throwing it over your head, admiring the way it glides over your skin. A very welcome contrast to the roughness of denim. It falls down your body, you have to tug a few times to get it all settled. It hugs you a little tight in a few places, as Molly is slightly more petite than you. You turn again to the mirror to inspect your transformation, again shocked by what you see. The red brings out the blush and lipstick even more, making you look like you've just been caught doing something not so lady-like. Molly walks up behind you, that same satisfied smile on her face. 

   "Now that's a lady." She says smugly.

   You sigh in defeat, not only had she convinced you to go dancing, but she had made you somebody worth dancing with. You reach up to try to flatten your hair a little and she snatches your wrist. 

   "Don't you dare ruin that volume. Grab your shoes, let's go." She scurries off downstairs, you assume to let your mother know of your plans for the evening. You take a moment alone in the mirror to run your hands over the dress. It really is a pretty dress, delicate neckline with a bow to tie the waist. It brings out your curves in a very flattering way, giving you that much envied hour glass look. You had that going for you, you were full in all the right places. As much as it pains you to admit, Molly had made you look pretty. Pretty, just pretty. You wonder what it would take to be beautiful. 

   You go to grab your boots instinctively, but catch yourself. You wander over to the closet to fetch the little black dress shoes your mom bought you for graduation. They looked almost like black ballerina slippers, very sleek and feminine. They feel very strange once they're on your feet, but Molly would have an absolute meltdown if you tromp down the stairs in your boots, so you suck up the slight discomfort. On your way downstairs you hear Molly and your mom laughing about something, probably at your expense. 

   "Well I'll be! How hard did you have to fight her to get her in that thing?" Your mom exclaims when you round the corner into the kitchen. She takes in your appearance with a dropped jaw. 

   "Oh Molly you did wonderfully." She touches your hair, smoothes the shoulders of your dress and steps back.

  "Thank you ma'am, she's a lovely canvas." 

  Growing slightly irritated at the gawking, you shove past them to grab the keys to your truck. 

   "Alright y'all this ain't a museum quit your staring." 

   They both chuckle at your grumpy state. 

   "We're just saying you're pretty is all." Your mom says gently, knowing too well your hatred for dressing up. 

   You turn and sigh, you know they mean well. They don't know how difficult it's going to be to go out and just be pretty next to Molly. Molly is gorgeous, and she'll be told that by any man who sees her. You'll be given a once over and they'll move on to her, you'll become her shadow all evening and the truth of it fills you with dread. Your hand sneaks to your stomach to try and calm your nerves. You think maybe you can feign an illness, get out of this whole charade that will inevitably end in you watching Molly be swept off by countless men, while the most action you'll see is the root beer bottle touching your lips while you sit alone. 

   "Oh no you're not doing the sick act." Molly is all too familiar with your tricks. She grabs her purse while your mom laughs. 

   "Molly get her out of here before she has the most sudden case of the flu known to man!" They both laugh deeply at this and you grumble while they usher you towards the front door. Your mom gives you each a kiss on the cheek and smiles fondly. 

   "Be safe, stay away from soldiers, and always keep an eye on each other. I will allow a small amount of mischief but nothin' that requires me getting dressed to come pick you two trouble makers up." 

   You and Molly chuckle at her little speech. She was well aware that you two could very well get yourselves into a right mess, given the years of shenanigans. You lean in and hug her tightly. 

   "It's just the dance hall ma. Nothin' we can't handle." You reassure her. 

   "Oh I know that. I'm worried it can't handle you." Another round of laughter, Molly opens the door and bows with a dramatic sweep of her hand. 

   "After you Madame." She says through laughter. 

   You roll your eyes, at her, at your mother, at the absurdity of this entire evening. Maybe it won't be so bad to get out and have fun again. Since you graduated you've been hesitant to show your face anywhere around town. Going to the dance hall was a big deal as it was just outside the city. James and his best friend Steve were there often during the weekends in highschool. You always admired Steve a little, he reminded you of yourself. A shadow to an attention grabbing best friend. Steve always seemed sweet, you wondered how he could be best friends with such an ass like James. Then again, James seemed harmless until he proved to be heartless. 

   "Very well, but I'm driving," you announce, Molly tries to object but you whip around quickly and give her a warning look. 

   "Fine that's fair, you've already budged on a lot tonight." She ends her sentence with a sweet giggle. 

  "I love you both! Keep her from biting any heads off Molly!" Your mom calls out as you walk to your truck. 

   "As always!" Molly calls back. 

   You climb into your old blue truck, the only thing you have left of your father. The war took him, not an uncommon story around these parts. This truck has become a thinking spot for you, a little sanctuary made of cracked leather and discarded soda caps. You smile fondly as you start up the engine. Your father and you had a friendship that you believed to be rare. He never once made you wear a dress, or brush your hair. He admired your stubborn nature, he used to tell you the world had another thing coming if it thought it was ready for a girl like you. Swallowing the tears that threatened to spill, you reach over and pop the lock of the passenger side door so your best friend can join you. Molly hops into the passenger seat and gives you a wide grin. 

   She says your name softly, you glance over to offer her confirmation of your attention. 

   "Thank you for coming with me. I owe you." She's set aside the joking to genuinely thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone for her. While Molly was at times irritating due to her ability to always get her way, she was a genuine, loyal friend. 

  "You sure do." You laugh, flick on the lights and shift the gear to drive. 

   Your dad had taught you how to drive at 14, something he was very proud of while your mother was horrified. 

   "If I'm gonna send you out on the road, you're gonna know how to handle a truck. I want you surrounded by all this metal, much safer than all those little show cars people got now." You can hear his strong voice reciting his speech for why he wanted you to start so young. 

   He had succeeded indeed. You could handle a truck better than anyone you knew, every time you drive you thank him for it. There probably wouldn't ever come a day when you'd part with this ugly blue truck, not when it held every memory you love. 

   The drive to the dance hall is filled with Molly yammering about all the fine young men that will be there. You try to listen, but your mind is stuck on James. It's a Friday night, of course he'll be there. You were a fool to think there was any maybe about it. He would be there, you would see him, and you would have to relive his most horrible prank all over again. Your only hope was that Steve would be with him, if Steve was there James would somewhat behave himself. You hoped so at least. When you pulled into the dance hall parking lot your stomach began to tie itself in knots. A white hot embarrassment clawed at your lungs and your stomach. You could already see faces you recognize from highschool, you wanted nothing more than to run back home with your tail between your legs. You pulled the truck into a spot along the road, so you were turned away from anybody that might see you. The thought of somebody seeing your face then leaning over to whisper to their friend was enough to make your eyes water. You curse yourself for being so damn sensitive about the matter. It was only prom right? Only a stupid dance, that's what you always said. That was until that arrogant coward James went and- 

   "Are you ok?" Molly asks quietly. 

   You hadn't even heard her calling your name. Your thoughts consumed by the horrible shame eating at your insides. 

   "Just worried." You say, almost a whisper. 

   She's quiet for a moment, contemplating your anxious state. She reaches over and covers your hand with hers, rubbing it with her thumb affectionately. 

   "He can't take this. You get to smile, you get to have fun. People like him peak in highschool and end up miserable the rest of their lives. People like that don't get to ruin things for people like you." Her voice is calm, resolute, it brings you the peace you've craved since you left the house. 

   You think of your dad, how livid he would be if he knew you were letting some stupid boy steal your thunder. You could never let him see you this bent out of shape over somebody like James. You take one deep breath, begging the air to steady your nerves. Looking over at Molly, you smile at the honesty in her eyes. She's right, he doesn't get to have this too. He had his moment, his last hoorah. Prom was all he was ever going to take from you. You fluff your hair a little, tossing it to one side like Molly had at your house. Taking one last breath, you square your shoulders and smile at her. 

   "Let's give 'em hell." You say. 

   "Atta girl! You're a knockout hon, you'll see." She hops out of the truck and runs around to meet you on your way out. She hooks her arm in yours and pulls you towards the building. So far none of the people heading in have turned to throw any rotten fruit at you, so you allow yourself to relax slightly and follow Molly's lead. As you make your way to the door you notice a group of soldiers leaning against the wall, a few smoking, a few cradling beers. Naturally their eyes wander over to you two. You anticipate the eyes that land on Molly, but not the eyes that land on you. You're especially caught off guard by the low whistle that leaves the lips of a particularly handsome soldier. You must look like you've never even seen a man before, let alone had one compliment you. Molly doesn't miss a beat, letting out a soft giggle and raising her free hand to wave. 

   "Evening boys, y'all here to dance or cause trouble?" She says with her flirty voice. They all chuckle. 

   "How's a little of both sound, sweetheart?" The one that whistled says with a deep husky voice. You blush and try to hide your sheepish smile by looking down when his eyes meet yours. 

   "Sounds like a plan." Molly winks and ducks into the doorway. 

   The lobby is absolutely packed with people, some saying excited hellos, some couples all over each other, all far too busy to even notice you two have entered. This brings you even more relief, maybe you would make it through tonight without having to relive any painful highschool memories. People probably didn't even care anymore. That's what happens after highschool anyway, it all gets forgotten while everyone finds their own way. That's thinking optimistically of course, an event like prom was sure to be remembered, but for tonight you're determined to pretend it never happened. Clinging to Molly like a life raft you let her lead you into the dance hall. You are absolutely floored by all of the movement, the bodies wrapped around each other, the band blaring on the stage, the twinkling lights illuminating the entire event. It's all so incredible. Everyone seems to have completely lost themselves in the movement of the band's driving melody. They're playing In The Mood by Glenn Miller, a song you've learned is a hit at places like this. You crane your head to take in the entire room, out of the corner of your eye you notice the soldiers from the front door, the one guilty of the whistling has his eyes glued to you. You offer him a shy smile, he returns it with his own confident grin. 

   "Molly that soldier won't stop looking at me!" You say urgently.

   "Well then let's go." She says it like it's obvious. You don't even get the chance to object, she yanks you around and you're on your way over to the group of charming soldiers. Your eyes are glued to your admirer, who looks pleased with Molly's decision to bring you over. 

   "Hello again." She says with her signature confidence. 

   "Hi there." His friend says, giving Molly a long look up and down. 

   "I'm afraid no young man has had the guts to ask either of us to dance, either of you up to the challenge?" She asks. 

   The two men give each other a knowing look. The friend offers Molly his hand immediately. 

   "It would be a pleasure darlin'." He says with a goofy smile. He's very handsome, warm brown eyes with tight curls to match. A strong jaw and a bright look in his deep eyes. Built strong and broad like most soldiers, dwarfing Molly. You hear her giggle and ask him his name as he sweeps the off into the dance floor. You're left with your soon to be dance partner, tongue tied and full of nerves. You glance up at him through your lashes, hoping you don't look too helpless. He offers you a small smile. His eyes are a deep brown like his friend's, but his hair is a rich auburn. Freckles decorate his handsome cheekbones, pairing beautifully with his rich eyes. 

   "What's your name sugar?" He asks with confidence while he steps forward, placing his left hand on your waist, moving his other to hold yours up in a typical pose for dancing like this. You're so very thankful for his obvious experience. If this was all left up to you, there would be nothing but awkward silence and a sorry excuse to duck and run out of the building. His confidence puts you at ease, so you settle into the dance, a slow easy pace to match the new song the band had begun to play. You tell him your name softly and give him an awkward glance. 

   "Thank you for the pity dance. That girl that stole your friend is my best friend. She had to practically drag me here." You add a chuckle to the end of the sentence, making sure it comes out soft and feminine. 

   He smiles down at you, a look you can't quite decipher crosses his eyes. Before he speaks again his eyes drift to your neckline quickly then dart back up. You try to stuff the uncomfortable feeling it gives you deep down so you don't ruin the dance. 

   "Ain't no pity dance sweetheart. You're a vision in red. My name's Daniel." He says, eyes dancing over your collar bones briefly. You suppose this is the kind of attention that you should expect at a place like this. This is the kind of attention girls come here for isn't it? You sure hope so. Finding yourself lost for what to say next you think about what Molly would say. Despite your nerves, you let your free hand slide to play with his collar, you bat your eyelashes and give him what you hope is a flirtatious smirk. This seems to boost his confidence a little, he lets the hand on your waist drift down slightly. You swallow that uncomfortable feeling and ignore the gesture. 

   "So Daniel, how long have you been a soldier?" You internally kick yourself for the disgustingly ditsy question. This is why you don't go dancing. 

   "About a year, joined right out of highschool." He says, shamelessly watching your neckline now instead of meeting your eyes. 

   Channelling Molly, you utterly shock yourself with the sentence that leaves your mouth next. 

   "Well if you think I'm a vision in red, you should see yourself in this uniform." 

   This apparently sparks something in him, because he drops his hand so his fingers are on the side of your ass, and the hand holding yours drops to mirror it. You grab his shoulders to steady yourself, he brings you flush against him and drops his head so his lips are at your ear. 

   "You should see me out of it hon." His voice is low and sinister and you positively hate it. You plant your palms on his chest and look up at him with as much alarm as you can convey. 

   "Look dude, I'm new to this but I'm not an idiot. You need to find another girl if this is how you want tonight to go," you snap.

   He doesn't drop his cocky smile for a second. Before you can even react he has you by the wrist, dragging you into the lobby and out the door. The bastard had positioned you for a quick escape while you were dancing. 

   "Hey knock it off!" You holler, looking around wildly, pleading for someone to notice. They're all far too caught up in their own activities to notice, just like when you and Molly arrived. Your legs betray you as you stomp along behind him, desperate to avoid a scene. Your stomach starts to flip and you dig your heels in once you're in the parking lot. You yank your arm back and call out to him again. 

   He turns on you like a wolf, grabbing the sides of your face with a crushing grip. You let out a whimper while your hands fly to his and attempt to pry them off your face. 

   "Look hon, you got two options, embarrass the hell out of yourself, or come with me and have the time of your life." Now that he's this close you smell the alcohol on his breath. 

   "You pig!" You snarl, your foot comes down on his right foot hard and you spit in his face. He hops back and howls, grabbing his foot and wiping his face. You turn on your heels to run into the building but his strong hand is around your wrist again. He yanks you so your back is against his chest. Before you can object to this horrid action, a strong and smooth voice echoes from behind the both of you. 

   "I ain't no genius, but I don't believe a woman wants to be held like that by a man that she's just called a pig." 

   Daniel's arm releases you and you stumble forward, not even sparing a glance back at your rescuer, you run into the lobby and find a table to brace yourself on. You swallow as much air as you can to still the rattling of your bones. You hear shouting, maybe the sound of a fist connecting with a face. Daniel let's some colorful language fly at his assailant, followed by heavy footsteps and a slamming car door. 

You let out a huff, flattening your fingers out on the cold wood of the table. Willing yourself to relax before you see Molly again, the last thing you want is to ruin her night out. 

   "Are you alright doll?" That smooth voice from the parking lot asks from behind you. You feel a wave of calm wash over you. It was just a voice, a stranger's voice, why did it bring you so much peace? Dropping your shoulders, you turn to face whoever this bold savior is. 

   "I am now, thank you for-." You freeze, suddenly feeling like you're in even more danger than you were at the hands of Daniel. You stare directly into eyes so blue they look like silver. Your throat closes, Your heart hits the bottom of your stomach and you bring your arms around your abdomen. Those beautiful lips part and he says your name gently, like you're some wounded animal he doesn't want to scare off. You damn the butterflies that flutter in your stomach at the sound of his voice saying your name like that. Those eyes have you trapped in their gaze, you will yourself to run, to rip your feet from where they're planted and run like hell. You can't fucking move though, not away from him.

   "James." You whisper. Embarrassment burns white and hot in your gut. You swallow thickly and grab your elbows, wishing to hold yourself tightly, hoping maybe if you squeeze hard enough you'll crumble and disappear.

   "Uhm, th-thanks for that." You blurt out then turn to run to your truck, hoping to hide until Molly comes out to find you. You need the safety of that dingey cabin, to smell the leather and the oil and have your nerves stilled by memories of your father. 

   He calls out your name, hot on your heels as you stomp to the truck. You won't turn around. You will not fall for it again. 

   "Doll please, hear me out." That damn name always turned your legs to jelly. Not tonight. You whip around, hair flying wildly around your shoulders. He comes to a jolting stop and looks at you with begging eyes. Your finger comes up to point at him, you take two stomps forward and place it firmly on his chest. 

   "Do not fucking call me that. Stop fucking following me." You say as firmly as you can, trying to hide the pain behind the words. 

   "Please just listen." He says after a breath. His eyes soft and honest, those stunning eyes. Shit. You fell for it. 

   You cross your arms and look to the side, following some tail lights down the road. 

   "I am so sorry…" He says with a weak voice. 

Part Two

[birdsandspades]

Teenage Dirtbag - Chapter 1

- You and Todoroki were exact opposites. He was clean cut, driven, focused on his future. You were to most a burnout kid, spending your time at the skate park. But opposites attract right? Or was it birds of a feather flock together? Whatever it may be, you would have fun finding out. 

(Soft Todoroki paired with skate kid Y/N.)

Word Count - 1,665

-Not going to lie, I don’t know how to feel about this one. I wrote the chapter rundowns months ago and ended up really wanting to try it out tonight. If this doesn’t do well so be it. I atleast got punk todoroki out of my system. 

----

Todoroki looked up at the light peaking through the tree leaves, burnt orange and rusty yellow blurring together as he squinted at the sunrays bleeding through.  

The wind picked up, blowing a few off the lower branches. They glided along the ground, catching on the points of others as they slowed to a stop. 

A crisp crunch sounded under his shoes, crushed footprints trailing behind him as he walked the covered sidewalks of the park. 

It was brisk out, Todoroki pulling the sleeve of his coat over his exposed hands as another gust of wind blew past him. A perfect day for a walk.

It was quiet out, no one in sight as he continued the same loop around the perimeter of the school fence. A lazy afternoon, just cold enough to keep most indoors. 

But not cold enough he thought, the sound of footsteps beating behind him. He turned around, scowling at the approaching group of people. He opened his mouth to protest, quickly turning to pleas as you ran towards him, eyes glued on the group behind you. 

You collided with the boy, teetering backwards as you looked up his padded form. A black wall of insulated coat, deadpanned as he looked between you and the fast approaching girls. 

You frantically looked around the park, eyes fixing on the tree a few steps off the path. You grabbed at the strangers chest, pulling him behind the tree. You gave him a firm shove, holding him against the trunk, his eyes shooting open as you pressed a hand over his mouth. 

You lifted a finger to your lips, pressing against him as the group of girls ran past. 

“Did you see what way she went?” One questioned, the other shaking her head before running ahead.

You waited a moment, your grip on Todoroki easing as the group disappeared down the trail. You took a step back, giving the angry boy an awkward smile. “Close call huh, sorry about that.”

Todoroki pushed past you, moving back to the trail.

“Um, so what's your name?” You ran after the boy, slowing down to match his pace down the sidewalk.

“Todoroki Shoto.” He said rather curtly, eyes fixed ahead of him.

“Todoroki, super sorry about running into you like that. Wrong place, wrong time.” You laughed, rubbing the back of your head. 

He stayed quiet, not sparring you a glance.

“So...do you go to UA?” You pointed to the nearby buildings over the fence, just a stone's throw away.

“Yes.” He was blunt, clearly not one for conversation. Todoroki picked up his pace, trying his best to walk ahead of you.

“No way, I recognize you now! You froze over half the stadium at the sports festival!” You yelled after him, running to catch up.

“Yes.” His favorite one word answer. 

“You're like super powerful, I should have just had you scare off those girls.” You laughed, craning your neck to see his face.

He didn’t laugh, the corners of his mouth forming a perfectly straight line.

“Well, my names L/N F/N!” You offered him a hand as you walked, flashing him a smile.

Todoroki stopped abruptly, turning towards you. “I’m sorry, but I should really be getting back to school. Goodbye.” He gave you a forced smile, waving as he walked the other way.

“Ok, bye!” You shouted, lifting your hand slightly.  

That was the first day you met Todoroki Shoto, the first time you felt it.

----

You had been going to the park everyday for what seemed like weeks, all in hopes of seeing Todoroki one more time. It had been slow, the gradual picking away at your sanity. You thought of him at first late at night, only in the early hours of the morning that were devoted to overthinking. But those thoughts multiplied, and those as well until every second of your day was dedicated to thinking about the two toned boy who could have cared less about meeting you.

He was otherworldly to you, a complete mystery. A top student at UA, a powerful quirk, a dysfunctional family (you did your research.) You wanted to know more about him, to see more. A smile, a laugh, a reaction. Just something to appease the monkey in your brain that was screaming for you to try your hand at another chance meeting. That was the stupid reason you were sat down on this particular bench in the park, folding into yourself as you shivered. It was cold, really fucking cold. The autumn chill was definitely doing it's part this time of year. 

You looked down the path, the same one you walked with Todoroki that day. Your feet planted firmly on your skateboard as you rolled it back and forth underneath you. You had been doing this almost everyday after school, shyly nodding at everyone that passed by. You had hoped that if you saw him here once, he would eventually come back. But that just hadn’t been the case. 

You had seen an abundance of people, one that reminded you of a head of broccoli, another that resembled an angry pomeranian, even a troll doll. But still, never the peppermint hair you were searching for. 

You didn’t know why you were so infatuated with seeing the boy again, he was for the most part a stranger. But you felt a semblance of something deep inside as he walked down the path in front of you. Hands in his pockets as he looked up at the changing leaves. There he was, clad in the same blackened marshmallow coat.

“Todoroki!” You waved your hand at him, catching his attention. You picked up your skateboard, running to catch him.

“Hi!” You smiled, watching as he continued walking. You followed after him, keeping pace as he trudged through the fallen leaves on the sidewalk.

You walked for a bit in silence. To a passerby you would look like too friends, going for a stroll on a Friday evening. But it was far from that, the uncomfortable tension visible in his shoulders.

“What are you doing here? I only ever see UA students at this park.” He was the first to break the silence, speaking so nonchalant it almost threw you off balance.

He was right, it was practically UA’s park, lying just on the border of the notorious hero school. 

“What! Can’t I enjoy a nice walk in the park? Why are you here?” You acted offended, your tone borderline fake. 

“I like to get out of my dorm room after school…” Todoroki pointed towards the buildings on campus, unphased by your panicky question.

“You live on campus?” You had heard about them moving the students into the dorms, but that was only a few days ago. Had they really moved that fast?

“Yeah, that one. I live on the top floor.” He pointed again, singling in on his window. You looked harmless enough, what was the worst that could happen by answering your prying questions.

“Ahh,...cool.” You shuffled along beside him. Silence falling between the two of you again. 

“I’ve never seen you before.” Todoroki looked your way, the same stoic look on his face as before. He seemed to have a knack for breaking the ice. 

“Oh um, I don’t go to UA if that's what you're asking. I go to a smaller school on the other side of the city.” You shoved your hands in your pocket, looking at the top of the school building.

“Are you quirkless?” Todoroki stopped, something tinting his features. Was it sadness, confusion, annoyance. You couldn’t quite tell as he looked over you.

“Oh no, I have a quirk! I just didn’t make it into a good school. I failed most of the entrance exams, probably because I don’t study.” You laughed, shrugging awkwardly.

“You should study.” Todoroki frowned, walking off again.

“I know that! I just don’t really like to…” You trailed off as he spoke.

“You and I are very different in the way.” He muddled his words, shrinking into his coat as the wind picked up.

“What are you carrying?” He nodded his head towards the board in your hands, eyeing the bright designs painted on the wood. 

“My skateboard?” You lifted it into view, giving him a confused look.

“Oh.” His curious eyes told you this was the first time he had seen something like that in person. 

“Do you know how to ride one?” You questioned, giving him an amused smile.

“No.” He shook his head, pushing his hands into his plush pockets.

The bell tower chimed as the clock turned to 9:00, Todoroki stopping at the front of the school gates.

“I have a curfew, I should go back to the school now. It was nice seeing you again, take care.” He gave you a brief nod, walking through the school gates. 

“Yeah! It was nice seeing you too! I’ll see you later?” You shouted after him, stopping at the edge of the gate. He had a way of leaving that would leave anyone shell shocked.

“Maybe.” He gave you a brief smile, it quickly disappearing as the gates of the school closed. The tower chiming one last time, the ring echoing throughout the park. You saw it, that momentary flash of happiness. It all seemed to click. 

You had been pining after that smile since the day you saw him almost a month ago. That strange boost of serotonin hitting your brain just right as you thought about it gracing his face. You were drawn to him. He was to you, your complete opposite. You could see that from just your two interactions. But something told you he was cut from the same cloth, that sad look in his eyes pulling at you to dig deeper. You wanted to get to know this boy, make him happy. He deserved it, you just knew it. 

You were going to do it, you were going to see him tonight.

----

Next Chapter

----

[mariisseething]

Analyzing Hero Costumes: Girls of Class 1-A

My obsession has spiraled out of control. Let me roast analyze these babes. I’m dumb. I’m tired. I’m gay. Let’s do this.

Warning: I’m a cynical, lazy-ass critic with no consistent taste. Don’t expect a fair analysis.

(This is just for fun, please don’t get mad at me for being an undereducated weeb! I went into writing this with only the knowledge I’ve obtained through watching the show and reading the manga. I don’t know everything about the costumes, and I don’t want to either)!

Ashido Mina (Pinky)

Babe, imma be frank here.

I love her, but—

that shit ugly.

Funcionality: Mina’s quirk (Acid) comes from her hands and feet. If I remember correctly, she has passages in her shoes that her...foot..acid.....can pass through, and her hands are fully exposed. So her costume is “practical”, and works with her quirk.

Design: As I said before, that shit ugly. The body suit has the worst pattern and color combination I’ve ever seen. (Like if Sully from Monster’s Inc. was turned into a cow and hated it). Her tiddies should be popping out any second now, which isn’t great. Her weird armpit vest with it’s stupid fluffy collar is quite reminiscent of Hawks’ jacket, which leads me to believe that their costumes were made by the same designer. (Many of the designers in the BNHA universe put calling-cards in their costumes). Her white mask is pointless, but at least it matches the fluff on her collar. Her boots, though they have a purpose, are ugly as sin. The pale yellow doesn’t match any other piece in the ensemble, and the Dabi-scar colored purple makes me sad. Hate that.

Total Score: 2/10

Her costume does almost nothing to enhance her quirk, and it’s hideous. The only reason it got two points was because of the shoe holes, and the possibility that it’s connected to my boy Hawks.

Seriously, this is some Seasame Street lookin-ass bullshit.

No hate on Mina, she’s lovely, but her taste is atrocious. (see: her bedroom).

Asui Tsuyu (Froppy)

Okay, okay bitch I see you.

I’m here for this.

Funcionality: Tsu’s quirk (Frog) requires a decent amount of flexibility from clothing. Spandex works for that I guess. Normally, I would automatically fail this costume for having goddamn toe “socks”, but for Tsuyu they’re nessecary. Having her individual toes chiseled out helps her grip onto shit when she’s kicking ass. It looks like her gloves are attached to her body suit, which is rad, but I’m not sure what the purpose of that waist belt-thing is. If anything, the chunky pieces of her costume would make it harder for her to swim. I also have no fucking clue what that head piece is. I once thought they were like binoculars or something, but she’s never put them on her face so...they wouldn’t fit....on her face..huh.....I’m so stupid bro.

Design: Lets start with a positive, the color scheme slaps. Everything goes together, and the dark green even matches her hair. The bodysuit has a cool structure, and I can definitely appreciate the slight turtleneck and boot-esq feature; however, the chunky wrist pieces, belt, neck/chest-thing, and head piece confuse me. I guess they’re there for fashion, gutter fashion. Shitty crap face fashion. Ugly butthole fashion. FILTH! I need to calm down holy shit—

Total Score: 6/10

The look honestly only lost points for the random ass statement pieces. Water terrains are Tsuyu’s specialty, and a clunky outfit would certainly slow her down underwater.

The toe shit, turtleneck, thigh-high “boots”, and color scheme are pretty dope though.

(Also, she only has three toes but frogs have four).

(My Hero Academia: Cancelled).

Hagakure Toru (Invisible Girl)

So, here’s the real question.

Is she naked?

Short answer: I dunno.

Funcionality: So she’s invisible, right? A good costume would emphasize that. I can only assume she wears the boots and gloves for comfort and so her allies can see where she is. If she wants to go full invisible, she just has to take them off. At one point, it was confirmed that she was topless during the sports festival, but we’ve had no further updates on her costume. A few people have theorized that her costume is made of her hair (assuming she has hair). We know that this is possible, as Mirio’s costume is made of his hair so he can remain clothed while his quirk is activated. The only issue would be making an outfit out of something you can’t see. If I were Toru, I would choose to fight nude because, I-uh...hmm, I-I can do what I want SHUT UP!

Design: There’s not much to critique here. The shade of blue on her gloves is cute, and the pink stripes don’t make much of an impact. The shoes are just about the most boring thing I’ve ever seen, like why are they beige??? What are they supposed to match? I just—ugh, beige??? What the fuck Horikoshi...smh.

Total Score: 5/10

Since we don’t know if the “hair-costume” thing is canon, I can’t rate it any higher. If that is true, it would be an 7/10. The outfit does its job, but I’m bored and beige sucks.

(Btw I don’t trust her...)

(Sketchy chick right here).

(Sketchy chick with some ugly-ass beige shoes).

Jirou Kyouka (Earphone Jack)

Aww.

She’s cute!

Look at her little face, d’awwwweeeeee!

Funcionality: The lovely Kyouka’s quirk (Earphone Jack), makes absolutely no sense to me. Like, I get that she can hear better and can eavesdrop really well, but how does she...make loud noises??? With the speakers??? Plugging earbuds into a speaker doesn’t make............noise, and the speakers aren’t part of her body. Whatever, back to the analysis. The speakers on her hands and calves amplify sound somehow, and her earlobes are exposed. It’s works.

Design: The speaker boots are basic, but acceptable. She’s got some comfy looking black pants, and a trendy salmon-colored top. Her jacket is iconic, and she’s wearing a choker. (+1,000,000 points for that). The white gloves don’t match shit, but they’re fingerless so I’ll let it slide. Her headphones almost match....meh. I don’t care. (+10 for the face paint).

Total Score: 8/10

Listen, I’d give her a 10 but this costume just isn’t....gimmicky, enough for me? She’s a superhero for fucksake! Now’s the time to dress your goddamn best! The look is practical, and seems to be her taste, I just disagree with her choices. Sue me. I’d either wanna fight in the wackiest most dangerous getup you’ve ever seen, or completely naked. Either way, I’m getting arrested. Jirou needs to get on my fucking level.

Uraraka Ochaco (Uravity)

I don’t know boys,

it seems like she might be...

round.

Fuck sharp angles!

Funcionality: Ochaco’s quirk (Zero Gravity) only requires her hands to work. More specifically, her fingertips. Uh, yeah those are some nude fingertips. *Ahem* moving on. Actually wait, since she often uses her quirk on herself it would be helpful for her to eliminate as much extra weight as possible, so I’m hoping that all of the accessories are hollow. They better be, or I’m gonna start throwing hands with Kohei Horikoshi.

Design: When Ochaco first got her hero costume she was surprised by how tight it was, even saying that it wasn’t supposed to be that tight. Bitch, how could it have been loose? I don’t...fuck it. I like the colors, I like the boots a lot actually, but who cares about that, I wanna talk about her fucking chastity belt. Who she keepin out? (Jesus Christ she’s a child, tone it down Mari). Do you think it’s comfortable to walk around with a chunk of plastic on your crotch?! I don’t know, seriously, is it? Maybe she’s trying to hide something...a hip dip perhaps?! Jk hip dips are stupid, that’s how bones work, don’t be ashamed. Her wrist...spheres... have handles on them, no comment, and whereas I usually LOVE chokers—that one is stupid and I hate it. Curvy little shit.

Total Score: 8/10

I like it overall, but some things are just too strange to overlook. (i.e. the chastity belt, wrist cuff handles, and the ugly choker). This costume doesn’t really scream Uraraka to me either. It’s a bit unoriginal to me.

I just don’t love it.

(Why are her fists clenched? Is she trying to fight? I could snap her like the twig she is and steal her girlfriend).

(Assuming she has one).

Yaoyorozu Momo (Creati)

Oohooohohohoho

hooohohoho

hoooooo mAN do I have some WORDS for this one!

Funcionality: Momo’s quirk (Creation) does require quite a bit of skin to be exposed, but I’m not sure why that skin HAS to be her boobs. She’s got thighs, a stomach, a back, an upper chest, and arms. Why do her Russian nesting dolls have to come out of her tiddies??? Okay, actually, she doesn’t make that many things with her tits. So....why’re they out? This costume definitely lets her quirk run wild, maybe too much.

Design: The red is pretty, and I can tolerate the sandy yellow. Her shoes are unimportant, so let’s just gloss over those. Now, WHAT is that thing? A makeshift, tan colored, plastic tube mini...skirt? I know she has a shelf on her ass that she carries books on, but doesn’t she have a cellphone? Google? Can’t she just remember the molecular make-up of a cannon? (Because she only makes cannons now for some reason). Have we ever even seen her reading those books? Can she read? A large portion of her midsection/chest is exposed up to another one of those weird chest pieces and a neck jacket. Maybe she should cut the neck coat off and glue it to her tiddies.

Total Score: 1/10

Listen, Horikoshi clearly understands what Momo’s costume needs, but he has no idea how to make that. This outfit IS inappropriate, no matter how you look at it. She’s a minor, and I don’t like the idea that she’s running around 75% naked. The only part of this that I like is the shade of red. That’s not good.

I really like Momo, she’s a good character, it’s unfortunate that we have to sexualize her so much. Can’t girls just be smart without also being eye candy for creepy 30 year old weebs?

——————

That’s it for this analysis. I plan on posting more stuff like this since I enjoy writing it so much! You should totally follow me so you don’t miss my future ramblings! 💖

Unless you hated it.

I wouldn’t blame you.

[jamlally]

All eyes on you pt 4

Warning: This story definitely has some Dubcon possibly some NonCon and features a Dark!Steve as well as a shady!Bucky in places. This is NOT a happy here he come to save the day fic.  If you don’t like that then please don’t read this.  It is intended for 18+ readers only 

Steve took a moment to wash his hands in the sink, the clear water soon turning pink as the blood washed away “You know, there is a lot of modern technology that I don’t get, but mobile phones, they are just so convenient,  It took me maybe 5 minutes to get your details,Gavin.  Five minutes and I knew where you lived, what you do for a living and how many parking tickets you’ve had. Once I had that information it took a few clicks and I was guided right to your door”  A low groan came from behind him and he turned as he dried his hands on a tea towel that was lying on the side.  Leaning back against the worktop he looked down at the man on the floor

 “You see, you thought you were untouchable, but it turns out that wasn’t the case.  You’re behaviour tonight wasn’t acceptable, but I think you’ve learnt that now, haven’t you ? If I were you I would avoid Nocturne, if you were to go there and make more poor choices, well what happened tonight will seem like child’s play”  

Moving forward he squatted down in front of the man who had dared to lay hands on his Belle.  With one hand he turned the mans head to face his way, holding it there until the battered man was able to open one of his eyes.  They were quickly swelling closed but for the moment he could still make eye contact, “Don’t make me come back here again, and don’t run.  Remember 5 minutes is all I took”  

He could see the fear in the guys eyes.  As tough as he had acted earlier in the night, when Steve kicked in his door, the tough guy act was dropped in only a  couple of minutes after Steve had shown him what it was like for someone to put their hands on you when you couldn’t do anything about it. 

“You’ll want to get some ice on those ribs friend” he added as he walked away pausing by the door  “And call a locksmith to fix the door up.  It looks like the lock was broken when someone tried to break in.  It’s lucky that you caught them before they did too much damage”  He glanced at his watch seeing that it was later than planned.  Hopefully he wouldn’t miss being able to keep an eye on his girl as she headed home.

He had been sure that he would miss her leaving tonight but it seemed that she too was running late.  They really were that well aligned.  He didn’t have time to get behind her and take his usual route, so instead he headed up to the roof tops, making use of a fire escape.  He could tell that she was tense after tonight, she didn’t have her ear buds in and she was moving in a more jerky way, trying to keep an eye on everything.  He as glad that she was being more aware but he hated that she didn’t feel safe.  As her pace continued to increase, he grew concerned, what had her so spooked?  He kept pace with her, he could see the subway up ahead and realised that he would need to head down to be able to keep following her.  As she came close to where she would cross he spend up and jumped from the roof landing with a solid thud onto he ground, bending his knees to absorb some of the impact, but he still felt the jolt through his joints. Super soldier serum made him stronger but his body still felt the forces and damage before his body healed.  He could see his girl up the road, checking to see that it was safe to cross, she was wiping at her face, as she stepped down, he saw her ankle turn and started to run, but he knew that he wouldn’t get there before she hit the ground.  He watched her try and brace for impact, saw her wrist collapse, her head hit the ground and then nothing.  Reaching her prone body he crouched down, rolling her to her back and gently brushing her hair out of her face.  “Belle?” He didn’t get a response, so he started to assess her condition. She had been crying, he brushed the tears from her face, his hand lingering on her skin, she was so soft and delicate - had someone else done something to his girl? or was it just hold over from the earlier events? He could see that there was a bruise on her forehead, it looked like she had managed to knock herself out. He could guess that her ankle was at best strained, at worst broken, and her wrist obviously bothered her.

 “My poor girl” He moved her bag onto her stomach and then slipped one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees before standing with her held close to him,  She felt like a feather to him, she was too light for his liking but he could help her look after herself better,  Taking a second to shift her in his arms he moved her so that her head rolled onto his chest.  Dropping his head he pressed his face into her hair taking a deep breath,  While he could still smell the scents from the club her own scent was still there.  Drawing in a second deep breath he allowed her scent to surround him and sooth him.  He The sound of a car in the distance brought his attention back to the here and now.  If someone was to see him here then they would be asking questions he didn’t want to deal with  He hadn’t been ready to meet her, but it seemed that fate had taken a hand and moved things forward. He checked the area, made note of the street name and the cameras there before heading back into the shadows with Belle held close to his body.  

The first thing that Belle noticed was that she was warm.  Warmer than she would have been if she was lying in the street, warmer than if she was in her apartment, where the heating wasn’t working properly again.  The urge to just curl up and sleep was strong,  Her head, wrist and legs hurt, and she was fairly sure that opening her eyes wouldn’t make her feel any better.  Sleep pulled at her find, becoming her to come in, but her bladder was starting to make itself known and it didn’t feel like it would take no for an answer.

Slowly she opened one eye preparing for the pain that would come when the light hit.  The pain didn’t come, so she opened both eyes and took a second to process what she was seeing.  She was in a nice room, it was very classical. there were traditional wooden features and furniture, and the room was lit with a warm yellow light that didn’t make her eyes hurt. This didn’t seem like any kind of hospital that she had ever been to.  When she tried to turn her head, the pain was there though and she couldn’t help but groan.  The sound of water running preceded what sounded like a door opening from the other side of the room.  Slowly she turned towards the noise, grimacing as she did.  In the doorway, partially in shadow was a man, and not one that she recognised. 

“H.. He…” she coughed grimacing as her head pounded.  Her throat was dry and scratchy “Hello” The figure moved and as they stepped into the light she knew for sure that they weren’t someone that she knew.  He was tall, very broad shouldered, with what looked like darker hair and a full beard.  He headed over to her bed, a soft smile on his face

“Belle” his hand reached out to her, gently touching her forehead before stroking down the side of her face, until his fingers curled slightly under her jaw in what felt like a very intimate gesture,  She couldn’t keep eye contact with him while he touched her like that,  it seemed inappropriate some how.  His fingers applied a small amount of pressure  encouraging her to raise her eyes. “I am happy to see you awake at last, I was worried about you.”

Belle tried to smile but she was sure it came out strained at best “I, I’m not sure where I am and, I’m sorry but I don’t” she pulled in a breath “I don’t remember you”

“Of course you don’t doll.  You’ve had a hard night.  We can talk more about where we are when you’re feeling up to it, but what you need to know is that you’re safe, no one can hurt you here.  Now can I get you anything ? Some water perhaps?”

She couldn’t take it all in, safe? Had someone been trying to hurt her?  That presence that she had felt,  had it been more than her imagination? Focusing seemed beyond her and she couldn’t get her thoughts in order

“Belle? Did you hear me”

The strange mans voice focused her a little “ Yes, Sorry it’s all just a bit ….. well strange.  Water would be good but ummm….”

“Yes” he smiled at her in an encouraging way 

“I um..” she felt her face redden “I need to um, use the bathroom” God she felt like a three year old having to ask for help. 

“Of course. how inconsiderate of me.  Let me help you, your ankle isn’t in the best shape”  He was already moving as he spoke, pulling back the covers.  She found she was in her vest top, bra and underwear but nothing else,  Her blush just reddened as she took in her state of undress in front of this strange man.  Before she could say anything he had picked her up in his arms holding her close and was heading across the room.  She wasn’t sure but it sounded like he sniffed her.  The bathroom lights made her wince and turn her face into his chest.

“Close your eyes” his voice was soft and soothing in her ear, and without question she did as he asked.  The light was gone and then he moved into the room,  there was some jostling and then she was set down on what felt like a toilet “Give me a second” She could hear him walking away and going through a draw, then a scratching hiss. “Ok you can open your eyes now ‘

When she opened her eyes there was a soft warm light coming from a large pillar candle that had been lit. 

“Thank you” she looked over before she dropped her eyes “I think I can probably manage this bit”  

“Oh, of course” he seemed a little caught out  “I’ll be in the other room, when you’re ready”

When the door was closed Belle took a second to pull in a deep breath and try and get her mind clear.  Everything was so confusing. How had this man found her  and who was he ?  She wasn’t going  to get answers sitting here uncomfortable. The relief she felt on being able to control her bodily functions was something.  As she washed up she looked over herself taking in a bruise on her head and how pale her face was.  She dropped her eyes, what a mess. and more than that she was saved by someone she didn’t even know, sure he seemed like a nice guy.  He had brought her to his home, or so she figured, and made sure that she was warm and tended to, but it was more than a little odd that he hadn’t just called for an ambulance and waited with her until they came.  The more she thought about it the more she felt uncomfortable and that feeling of panic from earlier started to come back. There had to be a rational explanation as to his behaviour didn’t there?  Maybe he didn’t have a phone, or maybe he had seen someone trying to hurt her? Belle’s breath was starting to come out in gasping pants and her hand shook as she raised it to her head, rubbing at her temple where her headache was starting to demand her attention. Pulling her head back up she could see her eyes wide and panicked looking back at her from the mirror, she frankly looked a mess. 

A soft knock on the door brought her attention back to the room, but getting her breathing under control seemed beyond her.  Her heart pounded and a matching pain drummed in her head.  Her mouth started to water and she felt like she was going to vomit, or pass out.

The door creaked open and her eyes met the blue of the stranger, the welling feeling of nausea had Belle closing her eyes, she could feel the sweat breaking out on her forehead.  She wanted to speak, to ask for yet more help, but she couldn’t get the words to form, she couldn’t get her breath to be under her control, her heart was pounding and she could see speckles around the edge of her vision. 

“Easy there” a warm hand on her cheek gave her something to focus on “It looks like you moved a little too fast, let's get you back to bed” The strangers hands were warm and firm as they  wrapped around her shoulders, they were, in some ways, comforting. He scooped her up and started to ferry her back across the room.  The motion, no matter how gentle he was made her stomach roil and Belle swallowed convulsively to try and keep her stomach contents down. She didn’t even attempt to open her eyes until she felt the cool of the bed sheets against her back.  

“Can you try and take a drink for me Belle?  If you can keep it down then I can give you something for your head”

Belle peeled one eye open and met the surprisingly blue gaze of her rescuer.  How did he know her name?

“I don’t know” Her voice was weak even to her own ears and she hated that.  She wanted to ask him the questions that kept coming to her but holding onto them for more than two minutes seemed like too much work. She felt the puff of air on her face as he sat back.  He clearly wasn’t happy with her answer but right now it was the best she could do.  She watched as one of his large hands pinched at his nose and his eyes focused on her in a way that made her uncomfortable 

“I understand that you aren’t feeling well but you need to rest and that won’t happen if we can’t get pain killers into you” 

He reached into his pocket before holding his hand out to her.  In the palm of his hand rested two small pale nondescript tablets.

“Now be a good girl and take these and rest.  We can talk about everything else tomorrow” His tone of voice was no nonsense and as much as it would be easier to take them she wasn’t in the habit of taking unknown medication from a stranger

“Um..” her voice cracked and she tried to swallow “What are they?” When she had started to speak he had looked annoyed and raised a single eyebrow, obviously unhappy at being questioned.  As she finished her question a brief smile flashed over his face

“I am glad you are aware enough to check but these are absolutely safe for you take.  They’re just some standard pain killers for your head” 

Before Belle could respond he reached out for her hand, and when he saw it tremble he gently placed it back down and help his hand up to her mouth. She could tell that he had washed his hands recently, they smelt fresh and clean.

“Open up” His hand pushed against her mouth and held it there until she opened her mouth enough for him to shake the tablets in.  He leant a little closer, he seemed to loom over her.  His eyes didn’t leave hers and for a moment she was sure that he was about to kiss her.  Her breath caught in her chest and she glanced briefly between his eyes and lips.  Even through her brain haze she was aware that this was a handsome man and he was very much in her space.  The smile on his face let her know that she hadn’t been subtle in her admiration.  As her blush flushed her face her head pounded even harder and she let her eyes fluttered closed.  

“Open up and take a sip of water doll” His voice was closer than he had been seconds before, but  she was in no condition to work out what was happening.  The water was cool and soothing as she swallowed and the warm hand that stroked her head seemed to help her relax further.  She tried to open her eyes but they just would comply.  There was a brush of what felt like lips o her head and that was the last thing she knew.

Steve closed the bedroom door quietly after getting Belle settled down in his bed.  She was here with him, in his room, in his bed!  He wad desperate to go and lie with her, but he had other things that needed to be dealt with first. The incident tonight had pushed his timetable up and now he needed to play catch up.  In his office he flicked on one of the 3 monitors sitting on his desk seeing his girl laying in his bed.  He watched her for a few more minutes,  She was at peace, where she was supposed to be.

Three hours passed before Steve was even close to being able to go to bed.  Despite it being the middle of the night he had managed to set a lot of wheels in motion to get things sorted for his girl.  Slipping into his bed with his girl, pulling her soft, warm, beautifully smelling body into his own was a dream com true.  His dick was hard in seconds and he couldn’t help but buck into her a little.  She smelt so good that he had to fight himself for control. His hips moved without thought, his dick throbbing against her ass,   She was injured and needed time to recover before things could go that far, so he had to stop, no matter how much he wanted to do more. Tightening his grip he let his eyes drift close.  This was right.

[mochalattaehyung-blog]

☆彡 Part 2

Summary: Late night texts lead to strange diner meetings and a handful of inappropriate questions. But you’d expect nothing less from Jungkook or Taehyung.

The minute you arrive back at your apartment, something within you bursts and you can’t help but smile. The feeling is like coming back from one of those inspirational movies and instantly wanting to turn your life around. Well, the most you do is open your window, but it still makes you feel refreshed. The night sky has a darkish gleam to it that brings a shadow to your room. Turning on the fairy lights above your bed, you sigh with delight. What are the chances that you’d meet two handsome people and have the time of your life after a week of absolute despair?

Changing into a bright yellow top that reaches halfway down your knees, you are calmly humming to yourself when your phone buzzes. The feeling of your stomach churning returns for a millisecond. What are the chances that it’s Jaehwa trying to pry you back into their life or Seohyun blaming you for something? Your invisible barrier that Taehyung and Jungkook has placed up for you drops to the floor as you rush to grab the stupid thing.

[Tae 🐯] 9:18pm

Are you home?

You chuckle at the contact name he gave himself. Now that you think of it, he does kind of resemble a tiger. His stare is still imprinted in your mind, wild smile the kind you’d expect from a wild animal beneath the shadow of the jungle leaves. Shaking your head, you try to perk yourself up a little after the dampening thoughts and bring yourself to reply.

[You] 9:19pm

Yeah, I’m about to get into bed :) Thanks again for tonight!!!

You want to cringe at the creepy-looking smiley face you added, immediately wanting to toss your phone somewhere into an abyss where you no longer have to look at it. Technology can be extremely hard sometimes.

Not expecting an immediate reply, you jump under the covers, marvelling in the instant heat your little burrito provides you. You’ve always been one for wrapping yourself in your covers, after all, it provides protection and support! That’s more than most of your friends have ever offered you, if you’re really to go there . . .

[Tae 🐯] 9:20pm

Me and Jungkook really enjoyed. We’d love to meet up again.

Your heart almost stops at the text message. It seems so foreign to have a genuine invitation for once. Tapping your finger against your mouth, you sit up in your bed to think of a suitable reply. It’s a Sunday tomorrow and you most definitely aren’t busy, but is it too soon to ask them? Perhaps you’ll just let Taehyung decide what time?

[You] 9:20pm

I would really like that too!! When do you want to meet up?

You once again are unable to look at your phone, a giddy sense of excitement making you jump a little. You can’t help but think about the both of them. They were so nice to offer you their company, and whilst they did give you a reasonable excuse you also can’t help but wonder what they saw in you that day? Was it pity? Are they just doing this because they feel bad? Your complex mind yet again ruins your happiness, causing you to pummel into your bed sheets. Well, at least he texted you first. That has to be a good sign, right?

Taehyung doesn’t reply for a while and you figure it’s because he’s talking to Jungkook. They’re both University students, maybe they share a dorm or an apartment similar to yours? They didn’t say exactly which university they go to, but considering the way they carry themselves you’re positive it’s one of the top three.

[Tae 🐯] 9:24pm

Monday?

Taehyung is a blunt texter, you note. The worst kind for someone with your type of personality. His lack of words equal lack of enthusiasm to you and instantly you feel like a bother. Trying to shrug away the thoughts is even harder and so you walk around your bedroom, completely abandoning the idea of sleeping.

Once you actually read the word, you let out a low huff. Of course you can’t make Monday! You have an assignment due and plenty of classes to get through. It’s one of the busiest days of your week. Must be witchcraft. The universe clearly isn’t on your side.

[You] 9:26pm

Sorry, I have an assignment due the next day. I can’t miss the deadline. Again.

You will admit that when it comes to deadlines, you are useless. Your ‘creative flow’ (which really is just a fancier term for procrastination) needs time and patience and it’s usually late into the night when you actually get your ideas. Thankfully, Taehyung has managed to remind you that you actually due have an assignment due and you should probably work on it.

Panic emits throughout your entire system and your already jaunty body is now rushing towards your school backpack where you know your notebook is idly sitting, waiting to be stared at for a few hours and then thrown away as it always is.

[Tae 🐯] 9:26pm

That’s naughty, you should never miss a deadline. Tuesday?

His words make you a little tingly, which worries you to a certain extent. He seems like a kind person, from what you can recall. Somehow laid back, but also like a hawk, aware of everything and constantly alert. You expect he’s most likely strict with himself and is just reflecting it onto you. That’s the obvious explanation, anyway.

You find yourself in your kitchen, stuffing into the leftover pizza you had stored the previous night in your fridge. It’s quite a comical scene really, here you are in your oversized t-shirt with leftover pizza in your rather sweaty hand. Stupidly, you don’t want to think about it. You aren’t ‘quirky’ like the girls on Instagram who probably do the exact same thing as you do, take a picture and then leave it. You’re just as basic as the next person, which is another reason as to why you are so unsure of this whole thing.

Get a grip, Y/N.

You contemplate on what to reply, pizza grease causing your phone to slip from your hand. You almost manage to curse as it hits the hard floor, luckily bouncing on its corner which saves your precious glass screen.

[Tae 🐯] 9:30pm

Tuesday. 4:30.

Does he know he’s had an affect on you? The text shows brightly on the screen, words burning into your mind. Part of you is ready to text him back telling him that you are independent and can sort it out yourself, almost wanting to be offended in order to ensure your sanity, but you can’t help but feel the same tingly feeling as before. A part of you is okay with being dependent on him. As well as Jungkook.

Your assignment is handed in right on time and all is well until the bell for lunch rings. It’s like a chime signalling the end of days to you, the sound echoing in your ears. Everything is muted aside from that one haunting sound as you walk to the lunch hall, letting yourself be knocked and bumped like a rag doll as your steps are soulless and unmotivated. You can’t pretend that everything is alright forever. Not when you see them all sitting there.

Haeun is the first to notice you, of course. Her outfit is a simple sleeveless jumper on top of a crisp white shirt, presentable and modest. Her skirt however, is inches away from revealing everything. Once again she is a mastermind when it comes to fooling her parents. You hate the feeling, almost wanting to go and talk to her about how she managed to pull it off. It takes effort for you to walk past them without looking, because you can feel their burning gaze with each step.

“Hey, Y/N!” Seohyun’s voice is unrecognisable above the crowd of rowdy teenagers. You instantly shoot your head in their direction, completely and utterly letting your guard down which causes you to sink away behind a few people before you actually do something.

There, sitting in the middle, is Jaehwa. Her bleach blonde hair looks almost natural now that she’s had her roots done, her school blazer discarded beside her leaving her tight shirt on show. You’ve never felt such impending jealousy in your life. You’re a stupid bitch for feeling this way because you know what she’s like, but a part of you just can’t help but want the vibe she carries with her. She is untouchable. Surely, she didn’t cry at home like you did.

She gives you one of those sly finger-waves, barely moving as a smirk begins to form on her lips. You can already picture it, like some dumb movie scene. You are the helpless victim whilst your ex friends continue to torment you endlessly. It makes you sick to your stomach, so much so that your tray is no longer of any value to you and you leave it where it sits, ignoring your rumbling stomach. You will not be the damsel in distress. You just wish you hadn’t left your damn pasta.

It’s 4:15 and you’ve never been more stressed in your life. Taehyung had asked you last night to meet in the diner you had last time and you couldn’t be more pleased. You loved that place, it seems so vintage. You don’t exactly know what to wear, freaking out over which top to choose. Your clothes are much less than revealing, in fact you don’t think you’ve ever even shown skin on nights out.

“Oy vey.” You sigh as you hold up a baby pink dress and a baby blue one. You’ve decided t shirts may be too casual even if it is just a meet-up with some new friends. How do you even dress for these kinds of things? It’s not a date. It’s not a date. Besides, there’s two of them. All of your thought mould into one when you finally go with the blue dress, putting a plain white T-shirt underneath it because your mindset still tells you to be modest. Maybe it’s just your confidence? You’ve always accepted whatever people wear, so what’s the problem when it’s you?

Realising the time, you lock up your apartment and run out of the door, quickly waving at a few of your neighbours before dashing to the diner which sadly is a little too far for your liking. You almost regret adding a beret since it almost falls off every waking second, but you wear a beret with almost every outfit as it is a crucial part of your life.

The neon sign glows against the slowly darkening sky. As you open the door, you halt your steps. There’s a ton of people here. Almost every booth is full. Last time you came here there was barely anyone here, which makes you gulp. People seem rather skeptical of your arrival, most dressed in strangely coordinated outfits.

The one booth that isn’t fully cramped is the one you walk towards, not recognising any of the people that stare you down with a look of pure hatred. Thankfully, you find Taehyung and Jungkook sitting there, immersed in conversation.

“Hey.” You murmur shyly, completely hating yourself for the ugly introduction. You hate how cowardly you seem, plopping yourself down next to Jungkook as awkwardly as humanly possible. Jungkook feels warm beside you, so much so that you have to resist the urge to snuggle up to him.

“Hi, Y/N.” Jungkook welcomes you hushfully, tilting his head downwards to smile at you. It makes your heart melt a little and you have to look away like some horrible lovesick girl from a romantic comedy; the kind of films you are an absolute sucker for.

“Y/N, you look troubled.” Taehyung announces, his elbows on the table as he leans in, an eyebrow quirking upward. You notice that his hair is much lighter than previously. Rather than a ruby red, his hair is now a light peach, verging on pink.

“Well, people here didn’t seem to p-pleased to see me I guess. I don’t know. . .” You turn away to look at everyone. They’re minding their own business, but in an ominous kind of way. As if it’s just something they’re doing to pass time. You look around, biting your lip suspiciously.

“Are they bothering you?” Jungkook’s usual soft-spoken voice sounds darker, which makes you whip your head around to meet his eyes. They are equally as dark, like something out of a horror movie. He looks like he has a thought in his head, one single thought. If you say yes to the question, what exactly would he do?

“No!” You laugh nervously, your hands performing some awfully paced waving motion in order to stop Jungkook from doing anything stupid. You hadn’t expected him to have such a hard exterior in situations like this. Part of you now feels silly for underestimating him.

“A lot of them are part of a gang, this is where they come. It’s their territory too and unfortunately that means sharing our beloved pizza with them. Just ignore them, they probably think you’re not good enough for them or something. In my opinion, you are fa better than they’ll ever be.” His voice is somehow coy, the kind that you’d use to speak to a young and impressionable child. He’s trying to convince you to believe his lie, the only obvious assumption you can think of.

Your sensitivity seems to heighten a little, suddenly the eyes on you become so much more noticeable. The lingering stares are certainly not calming in any way, “So, this gang—“

“Don’t even go there, they’re dangerous. They have this crazy pack mentality and all they do is deal crappy drugs. They aren’t what they project themselves to be.” Jungkook’s looming voice settles you slightly, but you are also shocked to hear him speak so much in one go. He isn’t at all how you’d portrayed him in your head. His presence is more of an observant one, you notice he isn’t one for joining in that often.

Your curiosity is practically burning through ever vein in your body. You want so badly to pry further as you normally do, ruthlessly rip into all kinds of questions. The look both Taehyung and Jungkook throw at you, however, makes you wish you hadn’t even thought of the idea.

“Anyway, let’s change the subject. You look particularly nice, what prompted this look?” You take the compliment to heart, since he seems so interested in fashion. Taehyung is wearing an extremely expensive jacket, smooth and colourful but somehow just enough.

“I didn’t know if this diner was casual chic or just simple so I went for an in between?” Your answer sounds like more of a question and you hunch your shoulder out of instinct to display your confusion. Jungkook scoffs, which you are mildly unsure how to take, “this place is in no way chic, I’m pretty sure you’d get away with wearing your pyjamas in here.” You chuckle , noticing something keen in Taehyung’s eyes. When he meets your stare, he clicks his tongue.

“Wanna bet?” A devious smile rests upon Taehyung’s face, his fingers playing with one of the napkins provided on the table. You snicker at the thought of Jungkook actually wearing pyjamas in here, but you aren’t entirely sure he wouldn’t do it.

“Sure. If I come in here tomorrow morning in my pyjamas, you have to give me,” Jungkook trails off for a moment, and you stare at him in awe. Is he actually going to do this?

“Whatever I want on the menu, no price limit.” Scoffing, you let our an exasperated sigh. He looks at you, as if to say ‘what’s wrong with that?’ Personally, you would have asked for money. After all, payback is fun. When you do it right.

“Deal, Kookie.”

Finally, a waiter comes over. You are sad to see that it isn’t Namjoon from the previous night. Instead it’s a scrawny boy who doesn’t seem to peak either of the boys’ interest, suggesting they are strangers. Since it’s nearing noon, you decide to treat yourself. That makes no sense, why does the time of day mean you can treat yourself, Y/N?

You order a milkshake and some fries, as well as a humongous burger. The people around you, although painfully attractive, are not going to stop you and your ravaging sidekick, ‘super stomach’. That was lame.

After you order, Taehyung and Jungkook still ramble on about the stupid bet, insisting you waste your precious early in hours in order to see Jungkook in his pyjamas. Although it would be a heartwarming sight, you aren’t sure it’s physically possible for you to wake up before 8am.

“Okay, I know we know quite a bit about each other, but it’s not really getting anywhere with this stupid bet. Come on, tell me about me about yourselves.” You urge the boys to tell you about themselves. Curiosity is practically flowing through your entire body at the moment, that paired with undoubted cynicism on what exactly the people around you are doing. Taehyung and Jungkook seem completely unbothered by it, almost familiar to it. You aren’t saying that you doubt them in any way, but when you think about it you don’t even know an awful amount about them.

“Well, Jungkook here is a bit of a sadist.” Taehyung blurts out, picking up one of his french fries as if he’d said something normal, when in reality you’re here practically choking on your drink. You’ve quickly accumulated through mild conversation that Taehyung is blunt and incredulous when it comes to silence.

You look over at Jungkook with a raised eyebrow, because what the heck? Does he just like hurting people on the daily or is it more of an in bed kind of thing. Either way, you want to know.

Taehyung is damn good at controlling conversations.

“Well, you wanted to know more...” Jungkook simply says, his head held downwards as he is unable to look at you. That’s his answer?!? THAT. You almost can’t fathom the surge of feelings coursing through you at this very moment. Jungkook’s hunched back and blushing face paired with Taehyung’s feline smirk. Nothing is making sense in your mind. It’s like your nerves have jumbled up into what looks like those strawberry string sweets. Your palms are uncomfortably sweaty and your face is beet red. Thanks, hormones.

“Okayyyy; that’s not exactly what I was expecting. So Jungkook, you like hurting people?” You ask, knowing that your pushing yourself a little too far as you place your head in your hand, eager to hear a reply. It’s a bit wicked of you really, but it feels too good all the same.

“Well, in that context it sounds villainous of me. But yes, in some senses.” Jungkook seems all the more intrigued, his shyness seemingly gone, instead replaced with a dominant aura. You feel your thighs clench at his words—you hate yourself for it. This was meant to be some lovely friendship that would swoop away your lonesome thoughts, but you just have to get attracted. Surely, it won’t escalate to anything further.

“And in what context exactly, does it not sound so villainous?” You twirl a strand of your hair on your stubby finger, really stumbling from your comfort zone at this point. You don’t think you’ve ever acted this way in front of a Male, since normally it ends in you becoming so paranoid that you cut off all ties. Something about Jungkook makes you not want to do that, even if it is a spur of the moment kind of thing.

“Barf. This is utterly gross.” Taehyung interrupts your rather sensual moment, making ‘you come back down’, if you will. Your elbow is off the table in seconds, thighs rubbing together as you shut your eyes out of your sheer stupidity. Why are you so awkward?

“Well, Y/N. Taehyung here likes to be called ‘master’ in bed, should you ever need any pointers.” Jungkook gets his own back, leaning further into the leather of the seat, the booth suddenly becoming extremely tight-fitted. You find yourself choking on air once again as these unbelievable boys stare each other down into some sort of spiritual realm. What is going on? Did they precept your ‘wanting to get to know them’ differently or are they doing this on purpose?

“In fact, Y/N. I love it.” Taehyung’s gawk is fixated directly on you, his coffee coloured eyes not even hesitating to push tension and all kinds of emotions straight into your little bubble. This is meant to be the part where you describe his ‘orbs’ in excessive detail, but you are completely unable to over the desperate throb you feel in your lower region.

Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You’ll lay awake thinking about it for months if you do it. You’re going to regret it.

“Do you really, master?”

You can’t help it, all three of you burst out laughing, tears almost forming at your eyes as you watch Taehyung holding his gut in an attempt to suppress his own laughter. You replay the cringey purr in your mind, laughing again. Breathing almost seems an inconvenience at this point.

“That was the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” Taehyung shrieks, his roar of laughter making you feel somewhat warm. For someone who seems so poised and in charge, his goofy laugh really lets him down. You don’t understand your feelings at the moment. Jungkook is an amazing person, beautiful and reserved but sentimental and challenging all the same. It’s not like you to observe someone so closely, but you find yourself doing the same with Taehyung. He is electric, part of every conversation but also aware and focused. You aren’t sure, slipping into a headspace of ultimate confusion as you watch the two sneakily converse and bicker with each other.

Oh no.

↳ A/N - Thank you for the support on my first chapter of Lonesome!!!! I definitely did NOT expect it!! I hope y’all (🤠) like this one as much as the last!! Things will be uncovered about Taehyung and Jungkook very soon so stay tuned! ���☕️

[shriekbackmusic]

Virtual Sleevenotes, Credits and Lyrics for ‘Barry Andrews: Lost Pop Songs 78-80’

TRACK LIST 1 Rossmore Road 2 Win a Night Out (with a well-known paranoiac) 3 Freak 4 Me and My Mate Can Sing 5 Mousetrap 6 Bring On The Alligators 7 Sargasso Bar 8 Feeding Time 9 Muscle & Movement 10 Opposite Way in the Rush Hour 11 Taking Over ICI 12 Vampyr Skinhead 13 Big Soft Safe Family

MUSICIANS 1-3 clarinet: Frank Abrams, trombone: Ian Bateman, guitar: Rob Hendry, Robert Fripp, Bruce Mcrae, bass: Dave Marx, drums: Richard Wernham, engineer: John Strudwick, backing vocals: Bruce Mcrae, Patti Palladin, Clara Harris, Steve New, Marion Fudger. Recorded at Rockstar Studios, Fitzrovia, Mixed at Regent’s Park Studios, St Johns Wood. 4-7 guitars and bass: Dave Marx, drums: Rob Wilford, engineer: Hugh Padgham, Producer: Martin Rushent. Recorded at Townhouse Studio 2, Goldhawk Road. 8-10 guitar: Jon Ellis, bass: Dave Marx, drums: Richard Wernham, engineer: John Strudwick, recorded at Pathway Studios, Islington 11-13 bass: Marion Fudger, guitar: Rob Hendry, drums: Richard Wernham, engineer: Eric Radcliffe, recorded at Blackwing Studios, Borough.

The songs on this album have been lying about for a looong time, as you see.  The reasons for this are twofold: 1- it’s juvenelia, really - undeveloped, derivative. Trying stuff on for size.  An artist not in complete control of his medium, if you like. So I was not in a hurry to expose it, I guess, for its flaws are obvious. 2 it’s precious, unrepeatable, unvarnished. Truly an account of Process as someone’s aesthetic develops. It’s fascinating to me, of course (‘each man loves the smell of his own farts’) and, I have to assume, as an article of faith, that it may be to others. So, as a one-time-for-all-time thing, I was hesitant to release it. Anyway, here they…are, these songs which are inextricably bound both to a critical time in my life and the interstitial flavour of the historical moment: the end of the 70’s in good old (post-war, now post-60’s) UK. The dingy, dark, money-strapped days of Callaghan and Heath on the cusp of the New (fake) Gold Thatcherite Dawn.

London still grubby, edgy and un-Developed in a lot of places (squats still available - for instance) and Punk, which had roared for a couple of years - having redefined pop culture, via getting Pissed and Destroying - was about to stagger off into the wings, fresh out of ideas.

the Roxy Club, Covent Garden in 77 (it’s a shop selling Speedos now. Out with the Bin Bags in with the New Shiny Pants!)

The Clash and Pistols albums of 77 had permeated, by 79, everywhere they were likely to go (surprisingly far) but their offspring - the ninety-to-the-dozen, political, permanently furious form of *Punk was on the wane. ‘New Wave’ as a catch-all term for anything that was neither hardcore (with a little ‘h’) Punk nor Old School Rock was becoming the mot du jour. Another strange little sub-genre was Power Pop (which my old firm XTC could be described as, although to be fair, we were doing it well before the term was coined). Blondie, The Rich Kids, the Rezillos: all were attempts to make ideologically (yes!) acceptable the idea of melody and upbeat themes in a landscape where (Iove this term) *Ramalamadolequeue was rapidly wearing out its welcome.

(the Rich Kids - ft. Steve New, the baby deer. They’re not signing on are they? They’re Rich.)

Personally, these tunes cover, as historians say, ‘the long 78-80’. Roughly from the end of my time with XTC to the beginning of Restaurant for Dogs which was (sort-of) the R&D for Shriekback, although definitely with its own sovereignty and aesthetic.

Rossmore Road                                                                                               source: 1/4″ tape                                                                                              This came to light in a box of old tapes (Lordy I wish I had more tapes). It’s the first mix John Strudwick and I did for the single but I wasn’t happy and, rather sportingly, Virgin let us remix it. This version, though, not only has the ‘son trouveé - ‘asking for directions’ elements at the beginning and end (hilariously furious posh guy who - you can hear - I have managed to wind up even in the few seconds it takes to ask where Rossmore Road was. How? I really was an annoying, chippy bastard in those days - you can see why I felt paranoid (see below).

I was playing with Robert Fripp’s League of Gentlemen at the time and Robert kindly offered to come down and bestow his guitar benediction upon my humble pop tune (skills which were to be deployed, rather more usefully, on Bowie’s ‘Scary Monsters’ later that year - which Robert had taken a break from rehearsals with us to do (‘I have redefined the parameters of modern guitar playing’, he self-deprecatingly declared, on his return).

We got off to a bad start and never got beyond it: we plugged Fripp in and played the tune - John the engineer had assumed, totally reasonably, that this was a ‘get familiar’ go-through before we started recording.

As producer I should have been clearer - very much so, as it turned out because Fripp threw a total hissy fit when told we hadn’t recorded his 1st take. He gave us a rant about Heroes etc - how all his most genius work had been 1st or second takes. I apologised. He made a somewhat passive/aggressive show of graciousness in spite of this clear affront and the atmosphere was kinda tense after that. Someone else who hated me. Just great.

And anyway, what we would have got (and, on the 2nd take, did get) was - Fripp fans forgive me - 70’s prog-hero solo guitar noodling (very good guitar noodling, but still) - which loftily ignored the song’s structure so entirely that you had to choose between either just showcasing Robert or actually crafting the song. On the remix we ended up using one note (at the top). I honestly couldn’t find anything else that properly fitted. On the present mix, however, if you listen carefully, you can hear Fripp doing his flash, busy thing - it’s mixed as loud as I dared but you can hear it doesn’t really work and, if it hadn’t been him playing it, it wouldn’t have been there.

An inappropriate and inelegant use of resources, as he might have said. Interesting to hear though, perhaps, in a vestigial tail/snake legs sort of a way.

conceptual stuff about RRd. 

ROSSMORE ROAD (NW1) The 159 runs along it Round the corner from Baker Street There's a dolls house shop on the corner Of Lisson Grove and

Rossmore Road Rossmore Road

Turn left at the DHSS in Lisson Grove You find yourself in Rossmore Road And there's a number of public buildings And a safety barrier down the middle of the road

In Rossmore Road In Rossmore Road In Rossmore Road

White and yellow lines and street signs And public phones and traffic cones And belisia beacons on the central reservation All humming now, all humming now, all humming now

To the north The Grand Canal Round the corner Regent's Park Next stop on the tube Marylebone Road And you can see Balcombe Street from Rossmore Road

The 159 runs along it Round the corner from Baker Street There's a dolls house shop on the corner Of Lisson Grove and

Rossmore Road Rossmore Road Rossmore Road Rossmore Road

In Rossmore Road White and yellow lines and street signs North of the river South of the circular Under the road Above the railway

All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now, all humming now, all humming now All humming now...

Win a Night Out (with a well-known paranoiac)                                           sound source: 1/4″ tape

Very pleased with this, I am still. Sui generis as they come. Blur before Blur said somebody. OK I’ll take it. I was (I think) actually thinking about Patti Smith’s Piss Factory - and Land and Wave, those half-poem, half-song tunes of hers. This, though, suffused with the provincial UK, late 70’s consciousness you get when you perhaps smoke too much grim hash and take too much speed. Interesting sexual punishment element to it also. Because it’s two dates: one rustic and one urban, then an extreme post coital reverse followed by a horrific denouement (Nazi Vivisection! The worst kind) which shows that, as they say: ’just cos you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’.

This is, obviously, autobiographical (apart from the vivisection). This arsy, scruffy little bloke, oppressed by the forces of reaction and class, who seems to attract humiliation and brutality wherever he goes, even though his intentions are just to have fun and get laid.  It’s a little poem about fear and self doubt which, around ’79 there seemed to be lots of. So I made a record. More expensive than a therapist but it has a trombone player..

WIN A NIGHT OUT (WITH A WELL-KNOWN PARANOIAC)

We could rendezvous in a country pub I know in the heart of rural England where the landlord sports moustaches just like Jimmy Edwards and the crisps and pickled onions on the bar are numberless as the stars at night We're just about to order scampi in an Elizabethan basket when two neckless men in blazers and cravats approach our table and say - "sorry - this bar is exclusively for the use of Nobel prize winners, latter day saints, people who have seen God and selected relatives of our dear Queen, and furthermore, you worm, there is mud upon your plimsolls". I reply that I am a member of most elitist cliques you care to name and the blood which courses (at an ever increasing speed as it happens) through my veins belonged once to the Cuban royal family, but, they don't listen and they just pour my drink down the sink and say "this is not what we mean. In this life, one is either U or non-U and if I were you I'd make myself bloody scarce.” I even try to show them my credit cards but unmoved they say "OK sonny, it's time you were taught a lesson and there's only one thing that your sort understand"

Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid

At an Iberian eatery in the west end, we could gaze at each other across saucers of yoghurt and bits of crusty foreign bread - and then - I could order a carraffe of Asti - we could have so much fun. We could discuss things like communism and chart positions with the lack of inhibitions that separate the truly liberated from the herd - but - I should mention that I talk quite loud as a casualty of inexpensive foreign wine and neither am I unaware of the restive noises from the party sitting close by. But as I'm in the middle of my funny story about the Arab and the underwater toilet, I can't stop now 'cause I'm in too deep, as I'm coming to the part where I say (in my best joke telling voice), "so the Arab says to the attendant, right...

‘Of course as we know five thousand pounds of pressure can suck out almost anything,’ and it all goes quiet and a little girl is saying: "Daddy, what a horrible man" and Daddy replies, "don't worry darling 'cause I've just made a phone call to your crypto-fascist Uncle Roger and he'll be here quite soon, and make quite sure he doesn't upset any little girls... little girls any more"

Win a night out with a famous paranoiac Win a night out with a well known paranoid Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid

Lying in your crumpled bed on Sunday morning, you said your Mum and Dad had gone away to a conference in Bath and I believed you like a fool. Now you get up, go to the window and you turn a pot plant round. I study your naked bottom with a twinge of lust but I'm not twigging that something's going down. There is a sound of the heavy boots upon the stairs and the door crashes open and in comes your Dad with some faithful retainers and some ex-Army mates from the Conservative Club. And I figure they must have been waiting all night because your Dad is clutching two reels of infra-red film and he's looking dangerously pale as he shows me the microphone under the bed, and I'm just about getting the message: all is not too groovy

As you stand there in your dressing gown laughing at me, then in comes your Mum in her nylon house coat with her hair hanging loose like a suburban Harpy and she advances towards me with an army surplus bush knife, clearly bent on wreaking havoc down below the navel and she's just about to get stuck in when I wake up... and yeah, it was all a dream

I'm really in a hospital bed. There is a smell of formaldehyde in the air, and a couple of doctors with swastikas on their arm are doing something to the brain of a sheep and in the corner is a huge zinc bath containing some sort of reptile and the nurse is saying "be a brave boy and drink it all up". And I realise I can't feel me legs and the shape in the bed isn't my shape at all and I wanna cry out but I can only bleat

Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid Win a night out with a well known paranoiac Win a night out with a famous paranoid

FREAK source: cassette So Funk was the thing - but let’s take it and fuck it up with our English voices and anti-slick playing. Let’s actually take the funk/fun out of it. Disco hatred was the tip, kinda. I recall saying in an interview that it was like scratching up a big lairy american limousine with the nasty, rusty keys of your squat (there’s also an unreleased Restaurant for Dogs version we recorded for Warners with Nick Launay which takes this approach to its theoretical limit: it’s pretty hard to listen to). We are, in fact, so alienated from the subject matter that I sing ‘just come on down to the fifth floor’ instead of ’54’ - the iconic New York club, me not having heard of it (though - quirky historical note - Shriekback did actually play there in the place’s last week - on the Sacred City tour).

Dave’s ‘confused Dutch person’ on the end is a nice random element. Like he’s wandered in off another session. 

4 Songs from Town & Country EP (Virgin 79) Me and My Mate, Mousetrap, Bring on the Alligators, Sargasso Bar sound source: vinyl Ah T&C - I sort-of despise thee. No-one was taking care of my career development - especially not me - after XTC so I got stuck in a posh recording studio with the Strangler’s producer way before I should have been. This you can hear from the ‘apprentice piece’ nature of this EP.  All influences fully on show and sellotaped together. A ‘band’ which, you can tell, has only so much in common and which was kinda thrown together.  An adolescent ferocity in the delivery not masking very well a slew of insecurities. ‘Calm Down’ I want to tell this snarling young herbert, ‘nobody thinks you’re cool anyway. It’s fine: do an album about a fish, why dontcha?’ As it is, we get a variety pack of New Wave/Post Punk styles and lyrical tropes: Me & My Mate (the Clash obvs: stage democracy, anti-rockist groupy exploitation, DIY fanzine-esque self-expression for the working classes, Patti Smith reference). Mousetrap A classically-trained-but-recently-listened-to-Elvis Costello/Joe Jackson Bitter Relationship song. I like the spoken word bit that deconstructs a Well Made Play in 4 lines though (for those who don’t know, The Mousetrap is the longest running show in the West End - since ‘52!). The ‘Darlings’ repeated hookline was a reference to my lovely Aunty Rene who worked many years in the box office of various West End theatres (the Adelphi and the Prince of Wales I think - and since you ask) and had adopted a fabulously camp way of speaking through long exposure to gay theatrical men. Her poodle Chico was ‘my little Treasure Island’ and everyone else was ‘Darling’.

Aunty Rene (2nd left) with her theatrical crew and actress Anna Neagle at the Coalhole on the Strand 1968)

MOUSETRAP Been playing Shaftesbury Avenue For a thousand years or maybe two - darlings Done plenty bum gigs in my time But everything's alright now

In the mousetrap In the mousetrap

We fall in love most every night We're quite ridiculously tight - darlings And yeah I feel some kind of freak Getting killed six times a week

In the mousetrap In the mousetrap

It's nearly half past three Gotta do a matinee I don't understand this game Why everything's the same

But as the show go on and on And on and on And on and on and on and on and on And on

I know the punters mustn't see How mundane it seems to me - darlings But sometimes I wish I could screw Someone else in Shaftsbury Avenue

In the mousetrap In the mousetrap

Curtain up - exposition Development of character Plot - unravelling slow Sustaining interest, gathering momentum

Till they unmask the killer Then a twist right at the end And it's all over till tomorrow night

In the mousetrap In the mousetrap

Sargasso Bar definitely the best of this bunch. Although the Small Town Observational style is a little irritating  (alright, Bazzer, you’re a Poet of the Everyday and you are so very alienated) it is here for the first time that a certain mock heroic, magical-realist aspect started to appear in my writing.  ‘they raise their glasses in 2/4 time and they study the latecomers as they slither in beneath the door’. XTC did a version of this which failed to get onto GO2.  Not too much different I think but I recall Andy Partridge’s objection to the line: ‘we’re surrounded by the Eels of Death’. He felt it was the sort of hippy, trippy kinda image which XTC Stood Against. I felt it was - well - mock heroic and magical realist. This conversation went nowhere, obviously, but it was instrumental in making my decision to leave the band. These people just didn’t get my shit…

SARGASSO BAR Couple in the corner Now she's crying on his shoulder Well they're a couple of Modern Lovers Sort of Kevin and Isolde She's embarrassed by his footwear He's embarrassed by her hair But he doesn't really care He says it's murder staying emotionally aware He's another Lost Soul But he's only come here to die And get high

In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar

Big John in the wooly Football training in the evening Well he got married married married Now he only thinks of leaving And he's surrounded by the blubber Watch the terylene stretching As he makes a point about his car When you're on miles to the gallon You know where you are And he's here every night, he's such a regular guy He gets high

In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar

We came in from the rain Now we're surrounded by the Eels of Death Everyone nervous and everybody couldn't care less We raise our glasses in 2/4 time We study the latecomers as they slither in beneath the door About this time of the night There's more and more and more and more Well, give them ten minutes then they all go home to die Cos they're so high

In the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar, the sargasso bar

Bring on the Alligators yeah, dunno about this one really. Clearly I’m really working the magic realist tip again but to what end? It’s clearly meant to be funny, what with the Polish ‘1234’ in the middle and the ‘cocktail bar’ quiet section at the end and all but it’s all trying a bit hard for my liking. The awfully Lahndun working class accent I have on all these tunes is also a bit abrasive. My estuarine whine is of course part of me but it is underlining, unecessarily and stridently I feel, the ‘prolier than thou’ ethic which I had bought into wholesale during Punk. Let it go, dude…

2 LOTS OF DEMOS source: cassette Well, now we were getting somewhere.. Listening back now, 40-odd years on it really does seem to me that the year (ish) between the EP and this first set of demos represented a huge leap in my - er - self development. The life in XTC - still living with Ma & Pa or on the road within the Mothership of the band - record company, management, everything being done for you (at the expense, as it turned out, of knowing what was actually going on..hem hem). It’s cosiness and material sufficiency came at a price I could no longer put up with. Time to go, clearly.

I remember leaving the last outpost of that world - the nice flat above the Townhouse, paid for by Virgin while we were recording the EP but now, since recording had just finished, off limits. So…I could go back to Swindon - or step out into the scary metropolis, where all the safety nets have been packed away, and see what can be made to happen. Me and a girlfriend (who had signed up when I was a (sort-of) pop star - she was in for a taste of the real musician’s girlfriend’s lot now alright) went over to my old schoolmate’s flat in the East End (he was at college in London) - it was pouring down of rain as we walked across Tower Bridge. No money for a cab - the XTC wages had long been cut off. 

Youth seeks a Rite of Passage, does it not? This seemed to be mine. I felt noble and scared and reckless and Hungry for Experience. So, these tunes were written after a year of London, of squatting, signing on, meeting loads of new people, getting sick, getting well, hanging round the ink well - no, actually, after a particularly avid speed binge and a dreadful mini-tour with the T&C band I developed serious chickenpox (more virulent in adulthood, it turns out). I was the Elephant Man for a while. The body was having its unignorable say about all this new input.  But the tunes were definitely better. More individual. Not trying so hard and, sometimes, there was a Showing Forth of something really quite juicy and new (and I don’t just mean the pustules, har har).

Feeding Time                                                                                                         I submitted this to Shriekback’s publisher when he asked if we had anything that might do for the Eurovision Contest. He never quite looked at me the same way again, I thought (nil points pour moi).

I had been working at London Zoo (west gate and Reptile House: taking money on the door) that year and eating in various Camden/Kilburn greasy spoons. These two experiences were to produce this little gem. A Meditation on Eating. I think it needed doing. 

Points of interest: Dave Marx’s great bassline which is really the hook and the armature. Jon Ellis’s glistening ‘egg’ chord. The ‘Taking Your Order’ on the fade (Prawn Cocktail! The 70′s are strong in this one...) I had earlier recorded this with some ‘opera’ singers (from the BBC West of England Chorus - including Mrs Evenett (contralto) my old French teacher) singing the ‘Feeding Time’s’ in fine bel canto stylee. Which I may release at some point.

FEEDING TIME Putting things into my body at Feeding Time White wine and little damaged bodies from the bottom of the sea inside me still feel hungry when I reach the end and I won’t  feel good when it’s Feeding Time again. I watch him from the corner at Feeding Time sometimes he is hideous to watch as he shovels his chops inside him and his belly is beginning to distend and I know he’ll feel great when it’s Feeding Time again

but in the meantime Eat - don’t stop Eat - don’t stop Eat - don’t stop

Biting Viscera and gristle at Feeding Time listen to the lobsters whistle crack their legs open suck out what you find inside The spaghetti as it glistens at Feeding Time like spirogyra on your wet lips munching masticated chips in your mouth with lots of wine Eggs! Eggs! Soft and warm romantically slipping down inside and I wish it could always be Feeding Time and I wish it could always be Feeding Time (let’s see what’s on menu.. I’ll get an onion bhaji.. …prawn cocktail …three more pappadums…)

Opposite Way In The Rush Hour You know, it’s a bit cheesy and self serving but I still dig this. Our hero is heading off to some gig (some horrible, low paid, nightclub-type gig - let’s say in Edgbaston. Or Stoke). He’s hitching his way up there to meet the band at the soundcheck and it’s just getting dark. He looks at all the Regular Folk coming home from work: old geezers on pushbikes, factory workers - UK manufacturing has still a few years in it at this point - young girls (that might have been mating/marriage material in his former life) wait at bus stops and the cosy tea (the evening meal not the drink - important class-related point) on the tables, visible through the shortly to be curtained windows and our man gets all Springsteeny-sentimental about his self-ordained High and Lonely Destiny. Noble chords, I think, and very clever drumming by Rich Wernham (he was bloody good, I must say - as Nick Lowe said - ‘you can get away with murder if you’ve got a good drummer’). The absence of traditional last chorus repeats, instead dissolving into a babble of voices was indicative of some creative, envelope-pushing Thort, I would say. The boy’s finding his feet..

OPPOSITE WAY IN THE RUSH HOUR Going the opposite way in the rush hour watching the cars going past in the night. Factory gates let out the day shift - they escape on their bikes. Daughters go home on the bus, see you’re not one of us. The sensation is sweet and it’s sour. Going the opposite way, opposite way, in the rush hour.

Closer to being a part of the big system: so near and far from all that you seek. Closer to where the big heart beats you into submission then rocks you to sleep. Curtains still open The news on the telly they’re making their tea and I want all they’ve got but somehow.. keep on going this way: opposite way in the rush hour.

Street lamps come on now, those front rooms look so warm now. Old men with empty lunch bags pedal homewards and the girls wait at bus stops as the weekend unfolds. Once it would have felt so right heading into the hot sticky heat of the night

…it’s not a question of honour or a question at all Just the way that we choose to live now Going our opposite way… opposite way… opposite way…

Muscle and Movement Painfully sincere (and unintentionally camp) credo from the Squat years. Fucking grim, mate. It was cold, self-flagellating and unecessarily unpleasant. Here is the mantra behind that lifestyle experiment ‘pain is knowledge and knowledge is wealth.’ Jeez, give this guy a cuddle...

MUSCLE & MOVEMENT Fed up of sitting around with my legs crossed Pretending and smiling and saying ‘yeah, cheers then’ avoiding the whites of their eyes. (and another thing) And another thing- don’t try and tell me you’re gonna get something together when everything’s going your way then the limit’s the sky. You can’t always hide on the side watching people who do things bigger than you. You can’t have a permanent stop to the things that displease you or give you unease. ‘Cos all that matters is Muscle and Movement flesh out all your fantasies with Muscle and Movement (ain’t no such thing as security, just Muscle and Movement Muscle and Movement

as you relax at the end of the day there’s another tomorrow staring at you as it stands at the top of the stairs time is a swine it just keeps coming at you battering you to the floor as you try and stand up yelling you’ve had enough save it for somebody free - don’t talk to me I got no symapthy pour out some more of that wine everything’ll be fine just stay drunk all the time but remember that Muscle and Movement is all that makes you what you are Muscle and Movement standing still don’t get you too far it’s Muscle and Movement Muscle and Movement

it’s hard but it’s true that there’s nothing to cling to nothing to belong to and nowhere is more important than where you are now and there is no rest for the wicked, no rest for the wicked or peace for the innocent or the don’t knows (this lines indecipherable) cos there ain’t nobody got the things they need (same) cos the things that you lack are what you never get back cs the only secret weapon is Muscle and Movement

Muscle and Movement nothing happens by itself Muscle and Movement pain is knowledge and knowledge is wealth

Vampyr Skinhead & Taking Over ICI Well, it’s here that I claim total responsibility for the Two-Tone/Ska Revival that was to occur later that year. No, honest - no-one else was doing this stuff at the time (or they were but no-one had heard of them yet). These two tunes were, moreover, direct descendants of my song ‘Super Tuff’ from the XTC album (btw, that title came from the strapline of a Bruce Lee movie ‘Bruce Lee - Super Tough - but also Tender,’ so I was also anticipating Tarantino and all that kitsch martial arts movie stuff from the 90’s - could I be any more prescient?) Actually, exciting self delusion aside, I claim only to have had my finger on an historical pulse which had been throbbing away since the 70’s and which obviously many others had also been party to. As I say somewhere else ‘it’s ok to have a great idea but you have to get off your chuff if you’re going to start a cultural movement’. I wasn’t dedicated enough, clearly, but I was quietly and briefly, a canary in that particular coalmine.

The idea of reggae as this parallel exotic, possibly dangerous sub-track to Pop/Rock had been around for quite a while and kept bubbling up out of the Zeitgeisty swamp to varying amounts of mainstream attention. Bob Marley (pretty much just him) had Broken Through to become the reggae artist that unitiated white people liked and played at parties to show Cool. U Roy, Big Youth, Scratch et al remained the province of hip white people (as we liked to think of ourselves). But, under the audacious banner of ‘Fuck Art, Let’s Dance’ the Ska revival, the Two Tone label, Madness etc were to mine the accelerated beats, fruity grooves and edgy vibes of Jamaica (along the lines of Desmond Dekker and Toots and the Maytals) to international chart success. Of which more in a minute..

Since Punk there had been this strange symbiosis (which is easy to forget, it’s so non-intuitive) of reggae with Punk which had continued, unabated since the days of the Roxy Club.  This, eventually, had permeated the wider scene.  So, when XTC would play, in 78, gigs in Birmingham or Leeds, the disco would always be alternating, say, the Drones, Chelsea or the Pistols with Althia and Donna, Steel Pulse or Culture. It was a tacit admission, I would say, that the Punk formula was a limited one and, while its brutal austerity had been bracing (and a welcome antididote to Old Fart music), people still needed melody and sensuality and Actual Dancing.

But, there had been, in my late schooldays (early to late 70’s) an earlier, more schismatic appearance of Reggae (in its proto form of Ska) which I had observed firsthand in my Comprehensive provincial schooldays with all its codes and brutalities (kinda charming and nostalgic now; fairly scary and intense at the time). There was a  2 tribes battle going on at my school and in the UK generally: the Skinheads and the Greboes/Hairies (vestigial, usually non-ideological Hippies, really, sometimes with a component of Biker). It was a pretty one-sided battle: the Skins were an embodiment of working class, unsmiling rage and violence (’Aggro’ and ‘Bovver’ were their coinages (graffitti in my town read: ‘S.T.A.B (= Swindon Town Aggro Boys) Kick to Kill’). It was a culture of fighting and machismo which picked on pretty much anyone (it became a white racist movement eventually of course: ‘Paki Bashing’ being one defining activity but, as is documented in ‘This Is England’ TV series, the Skins didn’t start out that way: look at all that ska and blubeat. Also, in Swindon in the 70’s there wasn’t much opportunity to get the ol’ racism going - there wasn’t a single black or Asian kid in my year at school; only one or two in the entire school - so the Hairies/Greebs would have to do as a Victim Class, I guess. 

The mostly docile, pacifist, great-coat/tie-die-wearing, patchouli-smelling, Topographic Oceans-carrying quasi-hippy was always good for a bit of a kicking (though I suspect, the lack of physical challenge made them a bit uninspiring - football hooliganism probably gave the Skins more of a work-out).  At any rate, the hirsute, messy look and, (NB!) the usually university-bound, middle class nature of the Hairies was a walking provocation to the neatly groomed, fashion-conscious, mostly working class (went to work instead of Sixth Form: fuck school and Uni, let’s make some short-term money - therefore doomed for life to the factory or site) Skinheads.

This schism was enacted in the music, as it often is: the long-winded, effete,  sexually inert tropes of Prog, the self-indulgent, solo-wanking, adolescent-boy mirror-gazing of hard rock versus the clipped, disciplined, concise sexy beats of Ska and pop reggae (showcased particularly in the ‘Tighten Up’ series of compilations). It really was chalk and cheese.

There was, btw, a whole genre of dirty ska songs, epitomised by Prince Buster’s Big Five single (‘funky spunky man in Big Five, screaming steaming night in Big Five…there will be water all over the bed…water all over her head..’ (!) 

One night after a Manfred Mann’s Earthband show at Swindon College (deep Hairy territory, obviously) when the crowd were reluctant to go home, the promoter stuck a Ska tune on the PA which cleared the room like tear gas. Hard to imagine now. Like I say, Tribal. So, when I started writing songs (Pop Songs! For Bands!) I felt I had struck a fruitful vein in observing the horrified yet strangely fascinated viewpoint of the oppressed Other (Hairy/Greeb/insert Ethnic Group) as he is subdued and brutalised by his natural predator, the Skinhead. 

Form following subject matter, this would, of course, be couched in a mutated form of reggae which, though, as a fledgling Hairy (with already insufficient hair, aIas!) I was forbidden to like - I must say it did exert a fascination. It was so alien. Alien is interesting. Thus, in Vampyr Skinhead we have, again, a randomly predatory hardnut - this time he’s going door to door terrorising people (‘no compunction as he hammers down your door - or elects to clamber in the window - he is swift and he is sure..’). The image really did come to me in a dream: this ferocious little fucker doing his rounds of the estate, like a Clockwork Orange version of the Man from the Pru. Definitely a Viz magazine character there, I reckon... The sound of a Ska beat still had, for me, the menace it did when the Skins at school danced their clipped, butch, slightly-ridiculous-but-I-fucking-dare-you-to-laugh, scary little dance to it.

Non Cultural Studies note: the riff is played on a WASP synth - I guess the 1st affordable synthesiser. Fairly horrible but it had one good sound so hey... No actual keyboard - a flat plate which was murder to play and ‘explains’ the really obvious cock-up on the intro which we didn’t have time to repair. It wasn’t mine btw (the WASP not the cock up).

VAMPYR SKINHEAD Vampyr Skinhead knock at your door Don’t sell brushes or Brittanica no more He no check for pushing leaflets through the door or collecting money for the football he lives outside the law. He’s just out on the street with his boots on his feet and I would give a lot to know what he’s got Vampyr Skinhead.. Vampyr Skinhead Vampyr Skinhead strikes again Vampyr Skinhead feel no pain gonna do it again and again and again

Vampyr Skinhead come down your way and he’s not from anywhere silly in the USA. Not religion that he’s peddling door to door he’s not looking for the meter (he wouldn’t know what it’s for). He’s just out on the street with his boots on his feet and your little sister’s crying but he’s not. Vampyr Skinhead Vampyr Skinhead Vampyr Skinhead

Somebody’s gonna get uptight, gonna get hot and they’re gonna make mincemeat of him someday... Somebody like Peter Cushing gonna wreck the curtains while he’s sleeping then they’ll be nothing left but a pair of Marten’s and a pile of dust…

Vampyr Skinhead come down your street he’s a monster and he’s got sharp litle teeth. No compunction as he hammers down your door Or elects to clamber in the window - he is swift and he is sure. Out and I would give a lot to know what he’s got Vampyr Skinhead…. Vampyr Skinhead…. Vampyr Skinhead……

V.S.’s Nemesis...

Taking Over ICI was an attempt at a pure pop reggae tune - with a socialist/punky spin. Lovely playing by Rob (gtr) and Marion Fudger (ex wife of Dave Fudger, charming chap who used to write for Sounds and now worked for Virgin Publishing - he got me the gig with Iggy Pop). Rich Wernham (also of the Motors). Cracking organ solo dontcha think? I had chops in those days - before Quantise fucked me up.

TAKING OVER ICI Alone I just didn’t dare make my move to trash organised laissez-faire but since you nibbled my ear Cadbury-Schweppes and Lever Brothers quiver in fear. All the multiples are whining. All the big nobs are resigning. Since I found out you loved me, I’m taking over ICI Taking over ICI Alone I couldn’t handle myself let alone the redistribution of wealth. But, since I found out you care, I could trash the System single-handed I swear. Can’t handle all their wheeler-dealing - prefer to hear rich people squealing… Since I found out you loved me, I’m taking over ICI Taking over ICI… Taking over ICI..

Big Soft Safe Family Rather as ‘Paranoiac’ was: a one-off, never to be repeated thing. Deeply and nakedly autobiographical. Musically quite original, I venture. Shmershy chords the like of which I hadn’t used before and a confidently slow groove. Vignettes of my respectable working class, late 60′s, Mike Leigh previous life suffused with the cheap cynicism of a young sprat who didn’t realise how lucky he was. They’re all gone now.. and - spoiler - I actually never had an aunt from Torquay (but she rhymed).

BIG SOFT SAFE FAMILY The relatives are all on their fifth cup of tea. Their rapid eye movements are something to see - all lying to each other and smiling alternately. Your mum and your dad and your aunt from Torquay they are none of the same as they once used to be but they’re all of them, gloriously in the Big Soft Safe Family

We all of us have a particular smell I know their’s and they know mine habitually well. They worry about me and I worry about them I’m surprised you can’t tell. We use the same toilet and eat the same food and we savage each other when we’re not feeling so good but blood is thicker than water and ultimately we’re a Big Soft Safe Family

We’re slowly aquiring the things  that we need they’re very pleased with our progress indeed. They were saying we looked very happy and of course we agreed. Respect due to father and love due to mum and the daughter is lovely and so is the son. Illusions die obstinately in the Big Soft Safe Family

[thethespacecoyote]

Dumb idea for a prompt but abo modern au Jack comes up behind Rhys in a long line at maybe a grocery store or department store and Jack uses the opportunity to be an obnoxious flirt

I made this into a thing where Rhys is shopping after a heat and feels gross, but Jack hits on him anyway :D Modern ABO AU where Hyperion is just a normal company :0

The day immediately following Rhys’ heats was always the worst.

Sure, the inevitable pre-heat panic that set in no matter how many times Rhys has done this was always a bit of a hassle, but preoccupying himself with meal-planning and supply shopping managed to distract him from his anxiety until he was comfortably holed up in his room with plenty of blankets and toys and emergency snacks on hand. The actual heat itself was usually pleasant enough—Vaughn took care of most of the day-to-day chores and checked in on him periodically, and his suppressors prevented the dizzying and potentially dangerous fevers he used to experience.

But even his top-of-the-line medications couldn’t do anything to soften the inevitable post-heat drop.

Rhys had groaned audibly when he’d woken up this morning to find that the mindless need clenched in his belly had finally abated, leaving him with feeling weak and tired and starving. His room had been a mess, far from the usual immaculate state he liked to keep it in. Half of the blankets that had been periodically piled on top of his bed and twisted around his body during his heat had spilled onto the floor, and several of his pillows were still damp with either drying sweat or slick or saliva. He’d kicked a dildo out of bed as he’d swung his legs over the side, trying to re-balance his center of gravity as he’d looked for some clothes to throw on.

Jeans were too tight around the butt and crotch, so he opted for a pair of navy sweatpants that had been tossed onto the floor. He shivered, still cold from the sudden change in body temperature, so he grabbed the old Hyperion sweatshirt he’d gotten from the intern program and zipped it up around his trembling frame. He cuddled into the soft, well-worn neck of the sweatshirt, fairly content to burrow back into his bed and nap the rest of the day away when his stomach snarled at him.

He rubbed his face with a sigh, before hobbling out towards the kitchen.

However, Rhys was mortified to find his ice cream shelf in the freezer completely empty. His jaw fell open, but he aggressively sniffed back the annoyed tears threatening to build up in his eyes. Oh no, no, he wasn’t going to be one of those omegas who cried after their heats, no matter how much he might want to due to the lack of ice cream.

He peered around the house, hoping he could find Vaughn and whine enough to get his best friend to go out and get ice cream himself, but a message on his ECHO quickly told him Vaughn had long left for work, apparently confident that Rhys’ heat had resolved. Rhys pouted, groaning lowly to himself as he looked towards the door. He really, really didn’t want to go out in this state.

But….but ice cream, the hungry little id in his brain needled at him. Rhys frowned down at his stomach as it growled again.

“Traitor…” The omega whined as he shuffled off in search of his shoes.

As Rhys waddled through the ice cream aisle with a series of plastic slaps, he made a mental note to himself to buy some god-damn flats next time he went on a shopping spree. The bright yellow flip-flops glared accusingly back up at him, a constant reminder of how sloppy and thrown together he really looked.

His hair was a mess, presumably. He hadn’t even bothered to take a look in the mirror before he had left, knowing that it was a limp, tangled mess that couldn’t be salvaged without a shower. He rubbed the heel of his palm against his eye, cringing at the feeling of gunk clinging to his lid. He was a total mess, an eyesore compared to the young professionals and soccer moms flitting through the grocery store grabbing lunch or buying groceries. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to focus on which type of ice cream he wanted and not the bizarre looks he was probably receiving for his disheveled appearance.

His fuzzy brain spent five minutes trying to decide between Mocha Almond Fudge and Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake blast before he finally dumped both into his basket, hobbling towards the check out counter. The line was long, much to his dismay, so he tried to drift off into daydreaming about eating his ice cream, when a sudden nudge to his side jolted him out of his reverie.

“Hey.”

Rhys blinked dumbly, turning around to look at the man behind him.

His nose, even stuffed up as it was, could instantly tell that he was an alpha. And a pretty handsome one at that—all broad in the chest and shoulders, with bronzed skin and a charming smile and eager, twinkling eyes. He was definitely Rhys’ type, if he were at a bar or browsing dating profiles, but he was at a supermarket and post-heat and honestly embarrassed about his current appearance. He averted his eyes, subconsciosly tucking a piece of hair behind his ear.

“Hey, uh, sorry, did you need something?” Rhys gestured vaguely to the rows of impulse candy and other items flanking the cashier lanes.

“Oh, I suppose you could say that, cutie,” the strange alpha grinned, showing off a pair of long, attractive canines. A confused, awkward smile flitted on Rhys’ lips.

Cutie? He had on old, unwashed sweatpants, greasy hair, flip-flops…was this guy blind?

“What ya got there, huh?” The alpha peered into Rhys basket. “Ooh, ice cream. Looking for something sweet, kiddo? Good, ‘cause I’m pretty sweet on you.”

Rhys stared back, flummoxed. The line moved ahead without him for a moment before he managed to stumble forward, not sure how to respond. Pre-heat, he wasn’t surprised when alphas tried to flirt with him, their judgement impaired by pheromones driving them to shack up with an omega for a week’s time. But post-heat—post-heat, unless there was a bond or intimacy present driving an alpha to care for him, there should be no reason for one to try to get with him. Especially when he looked like hell shoved into a bag and kicked off a cliff.

“You…really…” Rhys couldn’t stop the disbelieving tone from invading his voice as he replied to the strange alpha, “is this like…a dare from your buddies or something?”

“Buddies? You think I’m putting you on, sugar?” The alpha placed a hand to his chest in mock-offense. “Please. I’m a gentleman.”

Rhys chuckled softly, a little blush crawling over his cheeks as he unloaded the tubs of ice cream onto the conveyor belt.

“You know…if I knew I was going to meet a handsome alpha at the store, I would have dressed better…” He sighed as he tugged his sweatshirt around him, suddenly self conscious. But the alpha raised his eyebrows, looking at Rhys like he was crazy.

“Crap, if this if you not trying, then I’m pretty sure if I ever see you all dolled up my knot would fall off,” he smirked as he dumped a bottle of expensive wine, a box of condoms, and three huge bags of pretzels onto the counter. A happy smile flickered on Rhys’ lips as he paid the cashier, stuffing the pints into his backpack.

“Really…I mean, I clean up pretty well, if I don’t say so myself,” Rhys quipped, rubbing his arm as the alpha paid for his own items, shrugging them into a reusable bag.

“Oh yeah? Well, that’s something I’d like to see. If you’d be up for it, sweetheart.” A business card flicked slickly into the alpha’s hand, quickly passing to Rhys’ eager fingers.

“Go home, eat some ice cream, take a shower….then call me if you need me. Could use some help finishing this wine, yanno.” He winked, firing a finger gun at Rhys before disappearing through the supermarket entrance. Rhys remained, stunned, as he stared at the name engraved onto the business card.

Jack Lawrence, Hyperion CEO.

[misanthropicmegara]

Out of Cantrips: Mun writes a kids book

Or at least the first chapter!

@anthropolite

@blackskiesbeautifultimes

@atalantathebrave

Chapter 1:

Time had always seemed to move more slowly in the village of Ramsaydale. The sun had peeked down on the same cherry and slate rooftops for generations. Each little Tudor cottage and Victorian town home had stood the test of the ages, passed from father to son until a few had moved to low whitewashed shepherd’s cottages.

One small figure left the gated terrace on Ashgrove Street, carrying a basket and scooter. As she hopped down the stairs, Phoebe Sorrel hummed to herself. An autumn chill swept fallen leaves down Ashgrove and tickled the fringe of Phoebe’s auburn hair.

As Phoebe locked the gate behind herself, she checked that she had everything. A little pocket change clinked in her leather satchel, which she tucked her keys into. She hooked her basket’s handle over the handlebars of her scooter and started her early-morning errands.

Keeping to the sidewalk, Phoebe rode from Ashgrove down Avalon Boulevard, to where it intersected with Orcadian Drive. The Village Shop wasn’t open yet, so she passed it and followed Orcadian Drive to its end, where it branched into a dirt road.

The dark break in the tangle of forest outside Ramsaydale yawned waiting for Phoebe to pass through it.

“Cuthbert’s in there, I’ll be fine when I get in there…” she told herself. Still, after a moment standing in the breeze and letting it tousle her hair, she pulled out her phone.

The soft, rubbery case of her phone and the phone grip was comforting, and momentarily distracted her from the fact that she didn’t know what to expect beyond the first rank of trees.

She opened her text messages and found the last messages Cuthbert had sent her.

 Cuthbert: P, come by tomorrow, it’s almost done.

Me: When? :D

Cuthbert: I don’t know, early. Got to help at the shop,

Me: What about 6? I have to help at my shop, too.

He’d said fine. Fine. So how wasn’t he already there waiting for her? Checking the time on her phone, she saw that she was fifteen minutes late.

What if something had happened to him?

Phoebe chewed her lip as she wavered where the pavement became a dirt hiking path. She could faintly see Cuthbert’s footprints, familiar for the distinctive personalized soles of his shoes. He’d insisted on taking a course in cobbling from the Cultural Centre, and making his own pair of leather shoes, and ever since, he could rarely be seen in store bought pairs.

He must be out there, but was he well? Ordinarily, he would meet her on the outskirts of the tree cover, and they would part ways before she ever had to go in.

She’d gone to the brook a few times, but never alone.

Where was Cuthbert?

Though she found herself fearful, Phoebe stood a little straighter. How could she call herself an adventurer or an explorer if she were too afraid to wander a little further out of her own village?

Phoebe dug the toe of her boot into the dirt, while the heel remained grounded on the pavement of Orcadian Drive.

“I’m supposed to look out for my friends,” she told herself, and her fingers traced the compass keychain hooked on her leather satchel.

As she was intently focused on the trees, Phoebe heard a chirping creak. A window hinge.

Her head whipped around, and her bun bobbed along with the flutter of her fringe.

The Ramsaydale Dragon, a large red plush doll with golden ram’s horns sewn on, peeked out the attic window of the Cultural Centre. If Phoebe weren’t used to the weak hinges on the window, or the strangely thoughtful look in its yellow glass eye, she might have been startled.

Instead, she blushed, and scooted a little further onto the dirt path. “What are you looking at?” she demanded of the silent plush. “I’m only waiting for Cuthbert to come out and meet me!”

The dragon’s head bobbed in the wind, and it seemed to be sarcastically agreeing with her. That glass eye, unblinking and all-seeing, appeared to be telling Phoebe that she was just making excuses for being afraid.

“Don’t be a know-it-all!” she protested. With that, she scooted a little further toward the tree line. “I’m coming, Cuthbert!” she called, and pushed off with one leg so she couldn’t help but rush that last bit toward the first of the trees.

Suddenly, she was in shadow.

Here, under the cover of the trees, the birds were quieter, and all she could hear was the distant babbling of the stream which hid itself within the forest.

“Cuthbert?” she called, less certainly than before.

Without the friendly gaze of the dragon to spur her on, Phoebe realized that she was quite alone.

She couldn’t quite remember where the treehouse Cuthbert sometimes spent his nights in was, but she could remember that it was near the stream.

Phoebe slowly scooted along, her eyes darting around madly for any sign either of Cuthbert, or that she was about to ride directly into a spider web.

Even the thought made her shiver, and she paused to zip up her bright red jacket before continuing.

“Cuthbert?” she called again, and when she heard her own voice, it was the sound of a scared little girl who needed Mam to switch on her night light.

That was definitely not the way she wanted Cuthbert to hear her! She was meant to be brave enough to spend time with him!

Of course, how was she meant to impress him when she wasn’t capable of finding him?

“C-Cuth—” she started again, but she was stopped by the sight of him straightening up from behind a bush.

“Shh!” he hissed, holding up one hand to halt her. “If you say my name one more time, you’ll scare it off!” Though he was whispering, there was enough change in his pitch that Phoebe knew how serious he was.

Phoebe faltered, and took several steps back with her hands gripping the scooter’s handlebars. “You… you said I could come out here to see you…” she said quietly.

Cuthbert tilted his head at her briefly, his sandy hair sweeping across his brow like a drawn curtain before he looked away. “It’s not… normal.”

“What isn’t?” Phoebe asked, drawing nearer.

Cuthbert raised a hand, showing a torn fishing net. “Something tore up my fishing net. Something with a terrible call… You shouldn’t be out here, Phoebe.” His voice was lower than she remembered, and it made her shiver inside. He sounded older, even though he was only a year older than her at thirteen.

It was a long moment before Phoebe could stop staring at his solid profile, like an illustration out of a book about Robin Hood or King Arthur, and notice his net.

“Ee!” she squealed, covering her mouth in horror. “Did you snag a wolverine?”

Cuthbert snorted through his nose, glancing sidelong at her. “Silly girl. This forest isn’t a good place for you… Come on.” He threw his net down, letting it drape across the bush. “We ought to get our business done so you can scoot back out of here.”

“Hey! I’m not—”

Cuthbert withered whatever she might have said with a skeptical rise of one brow, then gestured for her to follow his long strides deeper into the wood.

Phoebe bit back protests and followed him.

If he could clearly see how cowardly she was, there was no point in trying to pretend otherwise. She wasn’t all that good at it, anyway!

When they reached the foot of the tree with boards nailed on as a ladder, Phoebe’s heart sank.

This was always where Cuthbert would insist she stay on the forest floor, and leave her behind as he climbed into his treehouse.

She took the basket from the handlebars of the scooter and offered it to him. “I thought you might be hungry… So I brought you some of yesterday’s rolls. They’re in a different cloth from the decorations.”

“I don’t know how to put those on, you’ll have to come up with me,” Cuthbert said without turning around. It was then Phoebe realized that he was using the pulley system to bring down a wooden crate tied to a rope.

It was the same crate she’d helped load their starter kit into the past week, and suddenly she realized why he’d brought it down.

“You mean… you’re going to let me work up there with you?” she asked. “In your tree house?” her voice went a scale higher as she spoke.

“Are you about to make a big deal about it?” Cuthbert asked, sounding supremely uncomfortable with the idea. “Just… Put the basket in the crate, lean your scooter on the tree, and follow me up.”

“Aye,” she said, and loaded the basket carefully into the crate before Cuthbert began to crank it back up into place.

“Well, come on,” he said, and started to climb up the ladder.

Only when Phoebe had leaned her scooter against the side of the tree, and placed her hand on the first board did she realize that she’d never climbed a tree.

“What are you waiting for?” Cuthbert called down at her.

“I, um… I’m not sure…” she gripped the rung more tightly. “I should be fine, right?”

“I do good work,” he said. “Hurry up, I don’t like leaving you alone down there!”

Suddenly flattered, Phoebe gazed up at Cuthbert with a rush of excitement. “I’ll be right up with you!” she called, and careful not to rip her stockings, she pushed herself up to the next rung, and the one after that.

While she paid attention to her hand and footholds, Phoebe kept looking up to see Cuthbert watching her.

As long as she could see him, she realized, she wasn’t so afraid.

She hardly noticed how high she climbed while focusing on Cuthbert above her until he reached down to take her hand.

“The last bit is the worst,” he explained.

Phoebe hesitated only a moment while the butterflies in her stomach did a jig before she took his hand.

His hand felt rough, like cracked leather. She’d shaken hands with his father once, and it had felt just the same.

Cuthbert hauled her into his treehouse, leaving her to blink in surprise at how different their surroundings were.

There was a cot with a pair of blankets and a sleeping bag, as well as a knitted pillow which must have been from his mother. A cooler took up space in one corner, and along three walls was a counter.

“How do you keep it all so clean?” she asked in wonder.

“The windows close, and I sealed up the cracks between the boards…” Cuthbert said, before pulling the crate through a hatch in the side of the tree house.

“What’s this?” Phoebe asked while he was distracted, going right for what she thought might be their shared project.

It was smooth and angular, half as tall as Phoebe, herself, but under a cloth. She couldn’t help herself, she had to uncover it and see what he’d done!

“Hey, not yet!” Cuthbert protested, and he was on his feet in a flash, hatch shuttered and crate pulled in. He gripped Phoebe’s wrist firmly.

“But I’m up here to work on it with you!” she protested, and twitched her fingers. “Won’t you please let me see?”

Cuthbert shifted his jaw to one side and made a low growling noise in his throat. “Fine,” he said, and released her hand. Still, his cheeks had gone red all over again.

“I’m sure it’s amazing!” Phoebe told him with her widest grin, willing her eyes to sparkle.

Cuthbert took a step back. “I do good work,” he said, and gestured for her to uncover their project before putting his hands behind his back and pacing to the other end of the treehouse.

Before he could come back around and change his mind, Phoebe whipped the cloth off the project underneath.

When she saw what Cuthbert had made of the kit they’d gotten last month, her gasp and squeal fought to get out first.

“Do you hate it?” Cuthbert asked with strain in his question.

Phoebe looked to him, and found that his back was to her, and he was clamping his own hands together like angry links in a chain. “No!” she exclaimed, and ran to him, throwing her arms around him in a rare moment when she had the jump on him.

It was Cuthbert’s chance to gasp, and he staggered. “Hey, hey! I get it, get off!” he turned and was going to push her away when he paused. He’d grabbed her wrists, and now he was staring down at her with something like panic in his face.

Phoebe’s mouth dropped open to apologize, but she couldn’t decide what she was meant to apologize for. His eyes were so blue! She had nothing to say. In fact, the longer she gazed up at him, the more she wondered if she ought to tear down all her posters and replace them with photos of Cuthbert making just that face.

“I’m glad you like it. You’re the kind of person we’re making them for,” Cuthbert said, dropping Phoebe’s arms to her sides and striding past her. “We should be able to get lots of money for the project…” he said, voice muffled since he was facing away from her.

Phoebe tiptoed up behind him again, but this time when she got close enough, Cuthbert flinched. “And extra credit!” she pointed out.

He waved a hand. “And that, too.”

Phoebe couldn’t stop herself from dragging her fingertips along the side of the pixie house. “Is this a real log?”

“Of course, it’s a real log! Do I live in a forest or a toy factory?” Cuthbert asked, spreading his arms to gesture around the tree house.

“You live in the village…” Phoebe pointed out with her nose wrinkled. “I mean, you’re practically my neighbor.”

Cuthbert frowned. “Well, that’s not my house, it’s my father’s house.”

“I suppose that’s fair…” Phoebe said, though her chest clenched with the thought of Cuthbert thinking of himself as someone who didn’t live close to her.

“It is. Now, what did you bring?” Cuthbert began to unpack the crate, and the basket.

A bubbling horror took over Phoebe’s stomach, and she tripped closer. “I-I thought you might like…”

“Crepes,” Cuthbert said flatly, peering down at them. “I suppose this isn’t for the house, huh?”

“No…” Phoebe dug one boot toe into a knot in the wood. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Why does it smell like flowers?”

“I… put flowers…”

“In my food?” Cuthbert asked.

“It’s fine! You can eat them!” She pulled a thermos out of the basket, and Cuthbert went crosseyed at the poppy design on it.

“What… what did you put in that?”

“Lavender tea,” Phoebe admitted. “It’s supposed to be calming… I thought you could… use it…”

Cuthbert blinked rapidly. He paused, then reached into the basket. “Uh… thanks.”

Phoebe coughed lightly. “It’s… stressful out here, working so much…”

“Sure,” Cuthbert put the thermos down on the counter and moved on to the basket’s other contents. “The rest of this doesn’t seem so bad.”

Phoebe’s lip trembled, and she gripped the edge of the counter. “I-I brought flowers… for the roof…” she lifted a bundle of wildflowers out, barely missing his hand. “I wondered if we could weave them in…”

“Between the roof slats?” Cuthbert asked, relaxing even without the calming lavender.

“Right!” She beamed, glad to see him no longer closed off to her. She pulled a little buttercup from the bundle and threaded it through the delicate bark roof tiles Cuthbert had nailed onto the roof portion of the standing log.

“Hm. Well, if you think girls will like that sort of thing,” Cuthbert shrugged. “You can leave them with me, and I’ll finish the rest. Do you see any sections for the specific rooms?” He pulled open the log to reveal that he had hollowed out several sections to look like rooms, and added plaster to strengthen them. The log, cut in half down the middle and with door hinges added to the side, had rooms on both sides of it.

“Ooh…” She saw the kit crate from the contest runners, with the crisply printed “F.A.E.” written on it. “I think…” she picked out one of the tiny bed frames, and placed it gently next to a small round window Cuthbert had carved out of the log. “I think this would be a sweet little bedroom!”

Cuthbert rummaged in the kit, and pulled out swatches of fabric. “Wallpaper?” he suggested, holding it up.

Phoebe hummed softly, invigorated by the chance to work together with Cuthbert without feeling he was looking down on her. “How about this?” She pointed to a peachy floral print, and Cuthbert took the matching ream of the fabric from the kit. “I’ll do that,” he promised, settling the fabric into the room Phoebe had chosen.

“Thanks!” She chirped, and realized when she looked up at him how close they were.

He seemed to have noticed, too, but she guessed he wasn’t itching to squeal and write everything, ever into her diary.

“And um… this would be a great kitchen,” she said, quickly pulling the kitchen furniture out of the kit.

She’d chosen one of the rooms closest to the door on the lowest floor. “I really love your halls and stairwells, they’re fit in so well!” she gushed.

“Thanks,” Cuthbert said flatly, but there was a moment when he’d finished saying it that Phoebe knew why: he was doing all he could not to let his voice crack.

Just the past winter and spring, Cuthbert had struggled with speaking, and whenever he made the wrong noise, the other boys would crow at him.

Now, he’d evened out his voice enough that he didn’t get laughed at nearly as much, but what if he only avoided it because he didn’t say much? He certainly said more to her than to anyone else.

She’d never laughed at him, though.

“So, um… I think this would be a cute bathroom…” she tapped the floor of a room beside the bedroom. “No big windows, so not embarrassing. I made a bathtub!” She showed him what she’d made out of the half of a plastic Easter egg.

Cuthbert’s eyes bugged out. “Did you make that on your own?” he asked.

“Well… My father helped me… He got the clay when he was in town. It hardens in the air, y’see.” She settled the bathtub into the prospective bathroom and then pulled out a tuft of pearly pink fluff. “This is the no-slip rug, isn’t it cute?”

“If you like that sort of thing,” Cuthbert said gruffly.

Phoebe faltered, and was just going for another bit of home made furniture, when her phone chimed. “Ee!” she squealed, and yanked her phone out of her satchel. “I have to get home! They’re going to start putting the first round of rolls in!”

“I can finish from here… I’ll bring your basket back to you when I go home later.” When had he begun to sound so gentle? “I’ll help you down. I don’t want you to get lost, either, so don’t take off when we’re down.”

With that, Cuthbert was the first to climb down from his treehouse, beckoning for her to follow.

However, it was not so easy to climb down as it was up.

Phoebe’s fingers and knees trembled with fear. “What if I fall?” she whimpered.

“I won’t let you,” he said with such seriousness Phoebe had to believe him.

“You’d catch me?” she asked.

“You’re not so heavy,” he answered, and climbed back up. “Take it slow,” he instructed.

Phoebe obeyed. It was much easier to drop one foot then the other lower when Cuthbert took each foot by the heel and guided it to the right foothold.

Before she knew it, she was on the forest floor, and Cuthbert was pulling her scooter upright.

“Did you forget anything?” he asked.

“No, no, it’s fine!” she smiled a bit too widely, and took the scooter from him. “I’m… really, it’s fine!” she laughed nervously.

Cuthbert patted her on the head, letting her bun fluff up and down like a pompom. “Relax, you don’t want to drive when you’re nervous. Was that your first time up a tree?”

“Yeah!” she giggled again.

“That makes sense. You did a good job. Now, come on, time for you to go back to the village.”

Phoebe had no words for Cuthbert as he walked alongside her to the edge of the forest. She worried if she opened her mouth, she would say something incredibly stupid.

In the sudden sunlight overlooking Ramsaydale, Phoebe heard a distant sound like a scared kitten.

“Just the wind,” Cuthbert said automatically, as if he knew Phoebe was concerned. “You don’t have a thing to worry about. I’ll see you soon.”

As Phoebe scooted away, reluctantly, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this school year would be something completely different from the last.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #170: “... Though Hell Should Bar The Way!”

April, 1978

Oh, hey, Jocasta is back! Good ol’ unfortunately named Jocasta!

And this is a very good DC Silver Age-esque comic cover. Heroes acting inexplicably only to be sort of explained kinda on the inside. I can’t wait to see how this scenario does not even come about.

Remember the cover where Mantis was protecting Libra from the rest of the Avengers but inside she tried to beat him up for pulling a Vader on her?

Also, “The Return of the Bride of Ultron” is a very Hammer Horror-esque title. Drop the definite article and its basically one.

But enough admiring the cover. Lets get into it.

Last time: Back in issues 161-162, Ultron gave Hank Pym amnesia as part of a weird plan to trick him into turning the Wasp into a robot for Ultron to marry. It was foiled when the robot wife summoned the Avengers with ants and Iron Man threatened to destroy her, forcing Ultron to back off.

But also recently, there’s some unrest in the house of avenge. A series of overpowered foes have been battering the Avengers esteem and as a result one stalwart chums are at each other’s throats. Cap blamed Iron Man for his absentee leadership but then Scarlet Witch went OFF on Cap’s own performance recently.

The Avengers consist mostly of hurt feelings and bruised egos at this point, basically.

So we start with Cap taking his frustration to the gym.

Beast also tries to cheer him up, in his own inimitable way.

Problem: I don’t think Cap has ever been a fan of Beast’s sense of humor. There’s been several instances since Beast has joined the team where Cap has told him to stop clowning.

And he once again does so here.

So Beast tries a different strategy. He offers to tell him about some sexual escapades.

Because in the past, Cap seemed into it. It’s the closest they’ve come to bonding as teammates.

But Cap is in a Mood so he fakes a fall to freak out Beast before catching himself on the uneven bars.

Not cool, Cap.

He then angrily pumps some iron.

Because as someone pointed out to him, he’s been useless lately. And he doesn’t have superpowers unlike some people he could mention so he’s got to keep his few skills sharp.

Beast: “You know, Cap, you’re a lot like Witchy in a way -- you both take everything way too seriously! Now, me, I never take --”

Cap: “Get lost, Beast!”

Rude.

And then Iron Man shows up which just gets Cap more tightly wound.

Iron Man just wants to have a word with Cap in private.

So Beast, in his own display of pettiness, effortlessly picks up the 500 pound weight that Cap was working out with to put it away.

Savage.

Anyway, as soon as Beast is gone, Iron Man tries to start the word in private with Cap but Cap claims to be busy and passive-aggressively starts working out with the mobile stunblaster while Iron Man is trying to talk.

The mobile stunblaster is, of course, a work out machine that follows you around and tries to shoot you with punch beams while you have to block it with special gloves.

I expect that all gyms have one. Its basic workout equipment.

Cap isn’t really receptive but Iron Man manages to get out what he wanted to say.

Iron Man: “Look, Cap, what I came to say --”

Cap: “Let me guess, Tin Man -- you want to tell me I was way off base criticizing your leadership -- since I haven’t been earning my keep lately!”

Iron Man: “No. I came to apologize for myself and for Wanda! None of us have been setting the world on fire lately! She had no right to judge you!”

Cap: “It doesn’t matter! I’ve judged myself... and in my own eyes, I’ve fallen short! Maybe I’ve been lax lately --! It won’t happen again, Tin Man! Never again!”

Iron Man: “Fine! I want you to know Cap... I feel the same way about the job I’ve done as chairman! I’ve made some bad decisions... let other matters occupy time I owed the Avengers... and when I was around, I tried to do it all myself! I guess I felt guilty... and I kept trying to prove my worth! Just wanted you to know -- I’m aware of my failings! I -- I’ll try harder, Cap... or, if you think I should, I’ll step down! You can take over!”

Cap: “Wait! Iron Man, I guess my problem is that I’ve seen too many friends die in battle -- and when it seemed as if your job with Stark outweighed your Avengers’ duties -- as if you were taking your responsibilities lightly --!”

Iron Man: “I wasn’t! But... about Stark. Cap -- I should have told you long ago that --”

Cap: “No... keep your secrets, Iron Man! You lead... I’ll follow -- that’s enough!”

MmmMMMM. That is some good open and honest communication.

I love it. The me who first read this a couple years back was a fool to come off this run with the impression that it was just the Avengers getting their asses kicked and yelling at each other.

Its the Avengers getting their asses kicked, yelling at each other, and then having productive, emotionally honest conversations. It is my JAM.

Canonically, the first Civil War wouldn’t even have happened if Cap and Iron Man had set their feelings out like this.

I like that Cap passive-aggressively working out during this conversation keeps it from being talking heads because we get a bunch of unnecessary ACTION POSES as Cap works out.

But while Cap and Iron Man SOCIAL LINK GO or perhaps SUPPORT CONVERSATION depending on where your interests lie, out in the living room some other Avengers have less dramatic bonding.

Vision and Wonder Man play a game of chess together, Jarvis and Scarlet Witch admiring what good friends they’ve become off-screen. Much improved from existential angst causing Vision to try to punch him a lot and then they have to fight a gravity jerk.

They do, after all, have a lot in common. Like a brain.

But they get a phone call from Hawkeye who reveals that Two-Gun Kid has vanished. Disappeared even!

He tells Scarlet Witch not to bother coming. There’s nothing to find at the scene of the crime. So he’ll come to them.

Meanwhile, in Attilan, the Inhuman city in the Himalayas, Quicksilver is moody. But that’s nothing new, he was like that before.

He’s sitting on a balcony gazing beyond the city.

His wife Crystal asks if Attilan confines his spirit, having to stay in a secret city after all the glory and daring of being an Avenger. The battles, the thrills, the running full speed into a wall and breaking every bit of your skeleton bone.

But just as Quicksilver is saying he would never leave her, he vanishes mid-reassurance.

No, he didn’t run away in the most supremely dickish way ever. Like Two-Gun, he’s been disappeared.

What is going on here?

A story for later.

But for meanwhile we’re back to the Avengers Mansion where the Wasp shows off her new costume.

I don’t know what to say about it. Its not the worst she’s had. You don’t see as many superhero costumes that are orange and yellow. And Jan knows that branding is important because she put W for Wasp all over herself. Her gloves are cut to suggest Ws as are her boots. She’s got cleavage W and an abdomen W too.

Yellowjacket actually warns Wonder Man that if Wasp notices him in civvies, she’ll get him in a new costume so fast!

Wonder Man defers. He’s decided he’s not the costume type.

The thing about the Wasp is even if she makes a costume for someone else, she often makes it to appeal to her own tastes. Like when she made a costume for Angelica Jones, Firestar, with a pluuuuuuuuunging neckline. To Firestar’s lament.

So what I’m saying is that if Wonder Man let Wasp dress him, he’d definitely end up in thigh boots and with W’s all over his clothes.

Although, Wonder Man does become an actor later on who plays oiled up big muscles tiny shorts roles. So he’d probably rock it.

And then some colorful comic relief blue collar characters show up.

Wasp put her foot down and told Hank that she would not live with a Real Doll version of herself in the house so Hank hired Meyer and Mack to move her into his lab in the mansion.

Meyer is a real ‘seen it all’ type. Nothing impresses him. Avengers? Pssh. He moved Neil Sendaka’s ‘pianer’ once. Yellowjacket starts monologuing “[Jocasta] was conceived in evil, and yet while Ultron was transfering Jan’s life into her metal body, she unselfishly gave up her own existence by summoning us in time to stop the process and save Jan!” and Meyer all but taps his watch and reminds Yellowjacket that he’s on a flat rate.

Now Mack on the other hand? Mack is sure impressed.

And possibly discovering he has a new fetish.

Elsewhere in Saugerties, New York, the Guardians of the Galaxy secretly watch over a young Vance Astrovik. They’re sure that any day now evil cyborg from the future Korvac is going to try to knock off Vance to prevent the Guardians of the Galaxy from ever forming.

That is, if young Vance doesn’t manage to get himself killed first.

Since he’s playing baseball in the middle of a dark street and if Charlie-27 hadn’t been there, a truck would have run him over.

How he survived in the original timeline without future people being his guardian angels is a bit of a mystery.

Charlie-27: “It’s a wonder anyone reaches maturity in this idiotic backward era!”

An era where people toss spheroids in the middle of the road and where strange pieces of paper can be exchanged for food items. What strange customs.

The takeaway here is that, yes, the Guardians are busy guardianing Vance Astrovik and even though Korvac actually has bigger fish to fry and their vigil over Vance is misguided, its not pointless.

But meanwhile, back at the plot, Meyer and Mack finish carting the Jocasta crate into Hank Pym’s lab.

And just as Mack is marveling at how ‘real’ Jocasta looks (presumably for someone made entirely of metal with silly metal hair tentacles and also robot eyelashes) the robot girl awakens and OH YEAHS through the crate.

Jocasta: “He has awakened me! He calls! I must go to him! Let nothing stop me!”

Meyer and Mack flee the lab and run into an unhappy Yellowjacket who heard the crash of the OH YEAH and assumes that they fucked something up.

Which is probably not the case.

After escorting the movers out, the Avengers (Vision, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Yellowjacket, and Wasp) run towards the lab.

But listening to the voice in her head, Jocasta finds the button that locks down the lab and then obviously locks down the lab.

Yellowjacket and Wasp managed to slip through the door before it closed. Doors never really bothered Vision anyway. But that leaves Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch locked out.

And the door is really tough! Its made of a special alloy almost as impenetrable as adamantium. Although the fact that it doesn’t get a name here sort of implies its going to be back to the drawing board.

But either way, the whole lab has been reinforced with it. For security reasons.

Scarlet Witch is sure that if she concentrates her probability altering powers, she can get the door to crumble but in the meantime, Wonder Man is going to keep punching like it personally insulted him.

Inside the lab, the three Avengers discover Jocasta up and about and creepy. She talks with Jan’s voice except cold and metallic. (Its never discussed whether Vision sounds like Wonder Man but since his body was the Human Torch’s I think probably not).

Vision isn’t creeped out. Somehow Ultron activated the Jocasta robot from afar and makes her speak like Jan hoping the Avengers will hesitate. But Vision won’t.

Drama is passed down in the family and as Ultron loves breaking Hank Pym’s things, so too will Vision break Ultron’s.

Except apparently Ultron planned for this. When he does the thing he always does and tries to intangible inside the robot to disrupt her circuits, he discovers an anti-matter booby trap.

It fills him with deadly energies and also copious amounts of pain.

Meanwhile, Beast has arrived at the door. He’s been looking for Thor but Thorry no Thor to be found.

That’s not one of his jokes. I just couldn’t resist.

Scarlet Witch is finally ready to do the thing she do and make probability weep but apparently the door has personally insulted Wonder Man by now. He proclaims a grudge match and finally punches it down.

Maybe its because it didn’t initially fall when he reminded everyone that his punches are approximately on the level of Thor’s hammer.

He says that a lot. That and the fact that he was created to fight the whole original Avengers roster.

I think its to remind the audience what Wonder Man’s deal is. But it also fits in with him being insecure, especially since nearly every time he talks about his fists being on the level of Mjolnir, the fight goes bad for him.

Inside the lab, Wonder Man, Beast, and Scarlet Witch find the Vision who tells them not to touch him because of the deadly energies. But that they need to pursue Jocasta.

Who has left the lab and is in the courtyard.

...

So all that effort to punch down the really expensive door was for naught? Did they really have no one guarding the other exit from that room?

Geez.

In the courtyard, Wasp and Yellowjacket fail to do anything to prevent Jocasta from strolling away, punching random plants.

Wasp: “Hank, I’m afraid Ultron’s strategy is working. I can’t bring myself to hurt her! It’d be like hurting myself!”

Yellowjacket: “I -- I know what you mean!”

Lets ignore, for once, the obvious and terrible irony involving future events. Lets go right in and focus on Jan not being able to hurt anything bearing an image of her.

Her one weakness. She just loves what she sees in the mirror too much to ever raise a hand to it.

The two heroes try to use their respective ranged attacks at low power to drive Jocasta back into the mansion but then Yellowjacket makes the mistake these two heroes always make and flies in too close.

She nabs him out of thin air and starts squeeeezing

Then Beast do what Beast do. DYNAMIC ENTRANCE, BOOT TO THE HEAD!

Then because Yellowjacket distracts Beast asking him not to smash Jocasta if he can help it, Jocasta shoots him in the face with eye lasers.

Because, of course, Ultron built her with eye lasers.

The family that slays together, right?

Wonder Man goes to punch her to scrap but she has a force field. Of course she does.

And even though he could punch through it eventually, in the here and now she shoots him in the face with eye lasers.

Scarlet Witch uses her power over nature (I guess she does just have both skillsets interchangably. Neat) to wrap Jocasta up in a tree in much the way a tree does not and cannot do.

Jocasta just flexes her way free. Because she has robot super strength.

Ultron, your wife is too powerful. You’re shaming the rest of us with your unstoppable killing machine wife.

The Avengers regroup and think about this. Maybe if they use teamwork and work as a team, assemble if you will, maybe if they strike as one they can overcome this robot lady.

Before they can, Iron Man comes in blasting.

Not at her, at them.

Iron Man: “Leave her alone! The first Avenger who harms her answers to me!”

And then Thor appears out of nowhere, calling it a long-delayed return (weird time stuff is still going on with him). Instantly deduces a battle is happening and decides that it would be a really cool way to enter the battle if he smashes this mysterious robot woman with his hammer.

I’m not saying that Thor always goes for the move that will fit best on an album cover but I’m sure that it runs through his mind sometimes.

Captain America is confused that Thor doesn’t recognize Jocasta since he was there when they stopped Ultron from putting Jan’s soul in her. And he’s not sure where he’s flying in from since he was just in the mansion minutes ago.

BUT HE HAS TO SAVE ROBOT GIRL!

And he throws his mighty shield and even Mjolnir must yield.

Also, after their little talk, Iron Man and Cap are back in the whole friendly pal/chum kind of thing. Like. Almost exaggeratedly so. Like Cap is making a real effort.

-Iron Man catches Cap after he jumps off the roof to throw his mighty shield-

Cap: “Thanks, Iron Man!”

Iron Man: “Good work, Cap! Took a heck of a chance, though!”

Cap: “Not really. I figured someone would catch me! After all, teamwork’s the name of the game!”

It practically screams I’M GOING TO BE POSITIVE!!

The other Avengers criticize Iron Man and Cap for letting Jocasta go. Which she does by literally walking through the wall. Geez. Ultron your wife is so strong.

Anyway. Iron Man explains the obvious thing. His armor sensors have locked on to Jocasta’s electrical patterns. Obviously they’re going to follow her and she’s going to lead them to Ultron!

Hot damn! Avengers being proactive! Kinda! I mean, Jocasta waking up was on Ultron but instead of just letting the killer robot lurk around somewhere and make a new plan to be murdery and oedipal, Iron Man is going to do something about it!

Unless this is a trap!

But that’s just the hazards of the job.

Also, I guess the cover was more or less accurate. The exact scene didn’t exactly happen but the spirit of it basically. Although Iron Man never blasted Wonder Man. In fact, he apologized that he had to blast near him to stop him.

So this is my second read through this run on Avengers. So like the brown bear I know ALL. But the first time around, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see Jocasta coming back.

I mean, it was only eight issues back. But that’s over half a year. Generally a loose end like Jocasta either comes back in the next issue or is teased throughout to remind the readers that its totally going to be a plot device.

If not, usually the loose end doesn’t come back so soon. And just gets brought back by the first writer who remembers it was a thing.

Apparently Jocasta has just been propped up in Hank Pym’s living room the whole time with Jan growing more and more disgruntled with it.

There’s not much to say about Jocasta herself. She’s kind of like the Wonder Man zuvembie. More plot device than character right now. But an intriguing one.

So next time: more of this. The Revenge of the Return of the Bride of Ultron. But it won’t be called that, alas.

[purplesurveys]

255

How was your last break up? Tough. Undeserved on my end. Had it coming. Speaking of, what are your thoughts on love? It’s beautiful when given or received well. What did you want to be when you were five years old? Ugh, this question again? What do you want to be now? Honey I don’t even know what electives to take. At this point I just want to picture myself successfully getting a job interview. Where would you like to live? A nice little condominium in the city, away from biological family.

How's your relationship with your father? Definitely closer to him than my mom, but we still differ on everything socio-political and it annoys me to death. Who's someone you look up to? Gabie. Do you believe in second chances? For the ovewhelmingly biggest part, no; but there are exceptions. Do you believe in a god? Nope. How do you succeed? Work hard. Ask questions. Do extra work. Sacrifice. Are you a hard worker? Sure, if I felt passionate enough about the task. I can’t be 100% if it isn’t something I enjoy. Do you have any painful secrets? Gabie knows everything about me so they technically aren’t secrets anymore, but for the rest of the world, yes they are hidden and will stay hidden. Where do you imagine yourself 10 years from now? Married hopefully, and continuing to build a life. Would you steal from a lost wallet or return the whole thing? Return the whole thing or at least turn it in. Using stolen money just seems so cringey to me. What is the hardest thing you've ever had to say? Telling friends that my grandfather died. Saying it myself just made it all the more real and it sucked. What is the hardest thing you NEEDED to hear? I’ve been told a lot of harsh things in the past that when I stop to think they all just make one big noise in my head and it makes me uncomfortable. And something you just didn't but heard anyway...? ^ Same banana. Have you ever felt something break inside you? Why did it? Not physically but I felt my entire body shut down when my mom gathered us in her room to tell us that grandpa was dead. I was in autopilot that night but really pulled it off so I looked okay on the outside, although inside I was 1/3-denying it, 1/3-crushed to my core, but also 1/3-spooked since I was already strangely expecting a death as soon as I saw my mom’s car parked outside the house when I got home from school that day (she brings her car to work and doesn’t get back until around 9 PM.) Why I had that particular feeling I never knew why, but at least it made the blow a little less harsh. A year ago, did something upset you that wouldn't now? What was it? Nah, I’m still the same. What are the qualities you look for in a friend? Loyalty, no bullshit, no high school pettiness, low-maintenance as fuck. And in a significant other? Loyalty, intelligence, and willingness to ignore my unaligned front teeth while I save up for new retainers. What are your thoughts on one night stands? Not for me, but you do you. High school relationships? Hey, that’s how mine started so I’m all for it. Have you ever wished violence or acted violently towards someone? I grew up in a highly violent environment so I was that way for a while, especially towards my little brother. I didn’t realize it was wrong at the time and I hate myself for it now. Do you believe in fate? No but it is funny how everything worked out between Gab and I. So many coincidences in the past 16 years that it almost seems like the universe enjoyed playing with us like dolls and pushing our faces against each other. I still wouldn’t call it fate, though. What's something that has shattered your belief system? I was Catholic for ten years (hardly, but it was taught at home and school so I accepted anyway) up until my mom started abusing me and making my 10 year old self feel like shit everyday. Since all I was ever taught to do was pray, I did that repeatedly and with much fervor begging anyone out there to help my mom and change her. Nothing happened, nothing changed. Turned on the religion almost immediately. How much of an influence does your family have on you? Zero. When I’m gone I’m gone. Do you believe some people are broken? Yes. It’s a reality but it can always be fixed. Can love save you? Cheesy, but yes. If you could say one thing to the world, what would it be? Adopt, don’t shop. Do you believe everything happens for a reason? For the most part yeah. I don’t rely on it wholeheartedly, though. Do you treat others well? Yes, as much as I can. Do you treat yourself well? No, I feel that I don’t deserve it. If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be? In a busy city having dinner out. And with whom? Either with my girlfriend or with my orgmates. Could you fall in love with someone, despite what they might look like? I’m saying yes but I haven’t experienced that before. Have you ever thought about your dream home? I started thinking about it when I was nine, when my dreams for a mansion were still running wild. Obviously at 20 my aspirations have toned down drastically, but I still think about my ideal home nonetheless. What does it look like? Nothing too fancy, but there are stuff that do need to be present: split-type aircons, yellow cove lights, a flatscreen TV, and a room for all my wrestling stuff. Once all the boxes are ticked I could safely say I got my dream home. What are your thoughts on suicide? It’s a battle I fight everyday. If someone was crying to themselves in public, would you ask if they're OK? Yes, especially if it were someone my age. Have you seen anything you truly wish you hadn't? Lotsa them. Especially on the internet. What is pain to you? I find this too broad to answer. Ultimately pain is different for every person. Do you take care of people or are you more dependent? Definitely a dependent ass bitch right here. With whom was the worst relationship you've ever been in (romantic or non)? My mom. I don’t even count it as a relationship...it’s, at best, tolerance. When you falter, do you regain your composure quickly? Sometimes yes but mostly hah no. It could take forever for me to get back up. What are some words to describe your faith (not necessarily your religion)? Nonexistent.  Do you feel nervous around other races or nationalities? This is one of the most messed-up questions I’ve ever come across, congrats. How do you respond to Jehovah's Witness at your door? We don’t have a substantial population of people of that faith. Do you believe your current friends will be your friends forever? Angela and Gab definitely. Not sure about everyone else. I hope the friendships I’ve built with people in my org will last, though. I really do. How do you react to people who are belligerently against your beliefs? I’m fine with them so long as they can offer me a sound, intelligent argument and that they don’t act holier-than-thou and/or shove their beliefs down my throat. If you could fix somebody's heart, whose heart would you want to fix? It’s such a cheesily phrased question so I’m just gonna answer this in the most literal sense - my cousin’s girlfriend who has a heart problem in real life. Do you love too much, not enough, or are you OK where you're at? Too much, which I’m okay with. What are you living for? Too tired for deep questions at this point. Have you ever broken a heart? Sure. What was your first love like? Brief. Real, almost. Honestly, do you try to stay objective in a hard situation? I have to. What is one thing you really want to succeed at? The future. Do you value yourself? Not at the moment. And the people around you? Very much. Are you sensitive? Highly. Are you sensitive to others? Highly. If you had one small wish that could granted right now, what would it be? To be in Kapitolyo with friends right now. :(

[kihosprincess-archive]

About Me Tag!

Tagged by the lovely peach @thatnerdyblondegirl thank you doll💕

Sorry in advance for the rambling

Name: Emery

Nicknames: gods I have so many; moony, moose/moosey, cassiopeia/cassi, em, emy, sassy sassy cassi, eri....I'm p sure there's more but most people call me moose anymore

Zodiac Sign: aries

Height: 5'7/170cm

Orientation: is this....is this supposed to be sexuality?? What does this mean???? Anyway I'm pan/greysexual

Nationality: american

Favourite Fruit: strawberries!! Tho I like most fruits tbh, I'm just super picky about how they look and their stiffness if that makes any sense? I'm honestly more picky bout fruit than anything

Favourite Season: I'm shit with seasons but probably like fall or autumn or spring? Like it depends on where I am but if I'm somewhere that actually grows plants then probably spring when it's green and blooming but california is p dreary honestly

Favourite Book: I've got a few fav books honestly like The Golden Compass series good fucking series omg, Alice in Wonderland is an always, The Blue Girl is a great one too kinda strange but great nonetheless but my go to book is always Alanna ((and the series that follows her journey)) like honestly my Alanna books are so warped because of how many times I've read them tho my go to books when I'm sick are honestly the twilight series idk why, they're such shit books honestly

Favourite Movies: Ever After is never not gonna be a fav movie but some random less known favs are Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List, Now is Good ((sad movie but I love Dakota Fanning)), Triple Dog, and the more well known: Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars most of them anyway I'm also a sucker for marvel movies and Wonder Woman for sure because who can pick one fav of anything???

Favourite Scent: ocean, freshly cut wood or grass, flowers ((natural not like perfumey)), rain, and things of the like

Favourite Colour: yellow!! Or anything pastel honestly

Favourite Animal: I love like all animals but elephants are definitely fav cuz seriously????? Elephants???????!

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate: TEA!!! I literally wanna open a cafe because I love tea so much and other reasons but I also like hot cocoa I do like coffee too but it makes my anxiety 10x worse so I don't drink coffee anymore

Average hours of sleep: 6-10

Favourite Fictional Character: What??? One fav???? Okay to name a few off the top of my head; luna lovegood, draco malfoy, ginny weasely, the marauders in general fuck peter, arya stark, jon snow, tyrion lannister, a shit ton more got characters, leia organa, luke skywalker, obi wan kenobi, hawkeye, bucky barnes, legolas, I'm gonna stop here before I spend 5 hours on this alone

Number of blankets to sleep with: 1-3

Dream Trip: Everywhere???? Like I literally wanna travel so much akdbakdja I've never been out of the states tho save me

Blog created: July 2017

Number of Followers: 225 I could've sworn it was at like 100 yesterday???!?! Thank you all for deeming my blog followable??

Random fact: alright anyone who believes in witchy shit might be interested in this but it still baffles me but like my dreams legit tell me when I need to contact my friends or when something wrong is going on okay cuz about a month ish give or take ago I had the biggest feeling that I needed to contact my friend Ty, right but I was like nah I'll check in on him another time. Same night I had like the worst dream where I was coughing up blood and I couldn't breathe and it was hard to swallow and I ended up in an ambulance and blacking out in the dream and next thing I knew in the dream I was waking up with tubes hooked up to me and then I actually woke up in real life and my gods I felt horrible all day. So fastfoward to a few days later I meet up with Ty he's my neighbor so I see him a lot tbh and so he starts telling me how he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia he didn't know he had until he was coughing up blood...and having problems breathing.....and blacked out waking up in the hospital with tubes attatched.....this is still on my mind to this day

tl;dr: I have witchy dreams and I need to keep in touch with my friends more

I tag:

@mochiwonho @warmhyungwon @monmoongie @alexsvt @jooheonslegs @incomparablegravity and anyone who wants to do this but as usual yall don't have to sorry if you've already done this tho

[mishamoonberry]

Plush Toys

baby that’s what i do CH 2 - FFN / AO3

Just so you know, this fic doesn’t have any chronological order whatsoever. So what I wanna write will be written, time skips comes and goes, sometimes we will jump to the past, etc etc.

Enjoy reading!

This chapter includes Pein’s and Kisame’s opinions of Akatsuki’s newest recruit!

Warning: goofy Akatsuki, also this chapter takes place after an amount of time skip

It takes one Kakuzu one look at Akatsuki’s poor money management, and it is with pure horror on his face that he snatches the position of treasurer (and the considerably hefty amount of money as well as its bank book) from Zetsu’s white fingers.

“If you don’t understand how money works, then why are you managing it?!” He says, the tone almost taking a shrill one that he thinks is entirely justified. The book is filled with doodles of poo, and Kakuzu doesn’t want to know why. Zetsu and his strange obsession of poop are not in his top list of the things he wants to know about.

Zetsu, the little fucker, simply shrugs his shoulders. His black half is missing, probably latching onto another aloe vera guy like the creep he is.

It still weird him out a little bit that Zetsu is not a single entity, but one of many.

(My name is Legion, for we are many)

Kakuzu rolls that thought—the thought that sounds like Hayato and his morning routine of reading the bible—away from him swiftly, like how he does everytime he gets new people speaking in his head in the voices of his past Family. Still, really, it’s strange that there’s only one Black Zetsu but so many White Zetsus. It’s jarring, a lot more than finding out that Yuni is apparently an alien.

(And he still thinks that’s something is wrong with the Zetsus).

(Particularly Black Zetsu).

(He is glad he doesn’t have to spend much time with the black half, really).

“Well, nobody wants to do it,” is Zetsu’s eloquent reply, and Kakuzu wonders why Pein didn’t just do it himself or, like, appoint Konan-san or something; the woman looks capable and responsible enough, definitely better than the poo obsessed white-person-cannibal-thing!

(He wonders if he was recruited because of his money managing skills).

(It can’t be, right?)

(Right!?)

(It must be because he’s cool or something, or because of his S-rank reputation, not his money managing skills!)

(He kills people for a living, for God’s sake!)

(Honestly, while the Tsunayoshi in him is insulted, Kakuzu can’t help but to preen. He does love money, so it’s nice to be acknowledged that he knows how to handle his babies).

Zetsu grins at him, and Kakuzu feels like he won’t like what comes out of Zetsu’s mouth later.

His intuition is spot on, of course.

“So I just took the position, cuz somebody has to, right? And besides,” he grins unrepentantly, “it’s fun to doodle on it.”

“…”

Kakuzu wonders if he’ll get marked as Akatsuki’s traitor if he burns Zetsu with his dying will flames. Zetsu is, after all, many. Losing one won’t be that bad. Losing one won’t hurt at all.

That’s right, Kakuzu thinks viciously, his hand lightly sparking flames. It’s just one, he won’t be missed that much.

“Please refrain from murder inside the headquarters, Kakuzu-san,” Konan’s smooth voice interrupts his murderous thoughts and Kakuzu pauses, the sparks of flames on his hands dying like blown candles. Konan’s eyes focus on them for a moment, finding it intriguing that she finds no smoke or burned clothing.

The miser turns to the only woman in the group (and a very pretty one at that) and stares at her with a gaze that conveys his very emotions and thoughts, particularly about Zetsu’s doodling habit, something that the White Zetsus only do when they’re bored.

(Well, Konan thinks, that, or they go out to eat some people.)

“While killing your partner isn’t really recommended,” Kakuzu raises an eyebrow at the leeway she gives him—not recommended doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to, after all—and listens as she continues, “it will be a hassle to clean it up here. If you wish to kill, cleaning the headquarters from the mess will be your responsibility.”

It is then her lips twitches upward for a second, betraying her amusement at this event, and Kakuzu has to wonder if this is her way to smile or smirk.

(It reminds him of Bianchi, somehow).

The woman’s yellow eyes gaze at his green ones for a little while, some sort of camaraderie passing between the both of them, before she nods and saunters away, probably figuring out that Kakuzu has listened to her words and won’t end up killing Zetsu (yet).

Kakuzu, after watching the woman’s retreating back, remembers the mess of an accounting book in his grasp, curses, and makes a beeline to his room to fix the data or… just… whatever can be salvaged and saved from this mess.

They both ignore Zetsu, who is pointing at himself and loudly protesting about the apparent worth of his life.

XXX

Pein doesn’t really know what to think about his newest treasurer.

Being someone who loves money almost as much as he loves his own life, Kakuzu is obviously doing his job fairly well (even if he’s a bit stingy when a request to buy something is esteemed one-sidedly as unnecessary). The traitor of Taki also manages to effortlessly juggle between his work as a treasurer and his missions—although with Akatsuki still being a rather new missing-nin organization, missions are still far and inbetween—as well as his hobby to collect bounties or, well, what he calls as vacation time.

Well, as effortlessly as he can, Pein guesses.

There were times when Kakuzu had to shoo Zetsu away when he was counting money and cataloguing the data while sitting in the headquarters’ lounge, or when he threw a book full of doodles of poo and biceps and muscles and even some poorly drawn genitalia to a snickering White Zetsu.

Kakuzu bought Zetsu a drawing book, sometime later. A thick one.

And coloring pencils.

And crayons.

Lots of crayons.

Pein won’t say it, but Kakuzu seems more like an exasperated father trying to maintain his difficult children than a murderous and blood thirsty missing-nin sometimes.

Kisame fits more into that “blood thirsty” picture, and even Pein finds him sometimes cooking in the kitchen with a blue apron decorated with a stitched picture of a shark and the words ‘fishes are friends’.

(Pein finds out later that it’s a gift from Kakuzu).

(Pein finds out Kakuzu likes to stitch, in which, okay, it fits his fighting style, but he also stitches things for fun, and now he seems more like a mom than anything).

(Pein finds out Kakuzu stitched a mini aloe vera Zetsu doll and gave it to Zetsu for safe keeping).

(The White Zetsus fight over it sometimes).

(Pein wonders if Kakuzu stitched him something and just haven’t found either the time or the guts to give it to him, because Konan got herself a mini Yahiko doll and she loves it).

(…Sometimes, he wonders if he recruited the wrong ninja to be in Akatsuki. Why is his newest recruit so domestic?)

(Kakuzu of Taki is an S-rank missing nin who steals hearts from his village’s elders, why is he so domestic?)

But Kakuzu is strong, and Pein acknowledges that. Not as strong as Pein with his Rinnegan, of course, but the man truly deserves the S-rank he gets within the bingo books.

His movements are swift and agile; he’s sure of his own power and is not overconfident. Kisame, who has gone with the miser to a few missions together, says the man has managed to finish the mission as quickly and efficiently as he could, sometimes even ending it in one blow, probably making the blue skinned man pout over the loss of his chance to fight.

And then, there’s the matter about his flames…

Zetsu and Konan both had told him about the sparking of flames on Kakuzu’s hands—flames that curiously enough didn’t leave smoke or burn marks after they disappeared—that appears whenever he gets fairly irritated or tense.

A kekkei genkai, perhaps, and of a new kind as well, considering his family didn’t have such a thing, according to the information Zetsu gathered about the miser.

That, or it’s just a new jutsu the guy came up with in his long life as a shinobi.

But he hasn’t exactly used the flames for some reason.

Not on missions, where he totally can handle them without the help of his ‘flames’, and not even during the spars he sometimes does with Kisame and rarely, Konan herself.

(She seems to be quite fond of him, although Pein doesn’t know why. He rarely ever interacts with the missing nin outside of necessity, after all).

It makes Pein… curious.

As a leader, he probably can inquire the miser about it and demand a demonstration about the flames.

But Pein knows Kakuzu loves his freedom, the so-called Vacation Time and Leisure inbetween Missions, as Kakuzu himself so eloquently put it.

Or what’s left of it anyway.

He probably will be reluctant to do it, considering he hasn’t truly talked about it to shown it to anyone else blatantly. Although Kakuzu has shown that he is wary of Pein and his power.

If worst comes to worst, he’ll probably lose a very skilled treasurer.

Well, whatever, Pein muses, closing his eyes.

As long as it doesn’t affect the organization and its goals negatively, he shall not bother.

He believes the time will come when it gets revealed to him, anyway.

Soon, soon.

XXX

Kisame thinks Kakuzu is amusing.

True, he lives up to his reputation. Kakuzu is curt, ruthless and definitely lethal. Undeniably, he’s also a really skilled shinobi. In Kisame’s standards, he’s an important, strong ally, and has the potential to be a formidable opponent.

(Although Kakuzu is funny, too, since he saw Kisame looking at the mini Zetsu doll and offered to make him one if Kisame wanted, and when he said he didn’t need such a useless thing, the man got up and made him a freaking apron.

An apron, with a picture of shark and the word friend.

Then Kisame saw a small shark plush sitting in the lounge’s sofa and he laughed).

But Kisame is also not blind, thank you very much.

Although Akatsuki hasn’t made any real moves toward their goal in acquiring the jinchuuriki—save for the three tails in the Mizukage who is already effectively under Uchiha Madara’s influence—it has begun to collect information regarding them.

He’s seen Kakuzu’s flickers of emotions—emotions that are quickly and expertly hidden underneath a blank mask—when he saw the jinchuuriki’s information, and Kisame knows why.

Children.

Some of the jinchuuriki are children.

And Kakuzu, ruthless as he may be, is largely known for his penchant of sparing children, even young Genin or Chuunin that he seems to judge through his own criteria, because he killed some twelve year olds and let some others in the same age live before, and sometimes even women or pregnant women in particular.

This is one of the reasons as to why civilians don’t hesitate much when they approach Kakuzu for mission requests.

Out of all troublesome traits to have, he has to just have his fondness of children.

There will be some problems with the extraction, when the time comes, considering Kakuzu’s apparent weakness toward children in general.

Or, we can just wait until the children are old enough, Kisame thinks with a grin. That way, Kakuzu won’t be adverse to capturing and killing them, would he?

If there’s anything Kisame knows, Kakuzu respects and finds thrill in fighting strong and skilled shinobi. Older jinchuuriki are bound to fit those criteria. Kakuzu will find no qualms in fighting them; he’ll even be honored, if Kisame’s predictions of his traits are spot on.

Still, it’s a long way to go, he muses. Akatsuki still needs to find a name of its own to be feared among the Hidden Villages, to gather enough information and funds, to gather more members, before they can think of capturing those jinchuuriki.

For now, he’ll settle with gathering and getting to know new members, as well as watching how things go around the amusing miser.

Still, that plush toy, though, pffft.

XXX

Aaand done! What do you think?

Pein thinks Kakuzu is weird, and rather intriguing, especially his flames, while Kisame thinks Kakuzu is both funny and also someone that could potentially turn against Akatsuki simply bc of Kakuzu’s (or Tsunayoshi’s, really) fond feelings about children.

It’s Tsunayoshi’s memories at fault. He keeps on remembering Lambo, I-pin and Fuuta.

(Also, he cannot contain his need to make a plush shark. He just can’t. The temptation is too high).

Some of them have been influenced by Kakuzu’s Sky Flame’s harmony quality, can you figure it out between the lines? Tell me who you think has been enchanted by his flames and has potential to be his ‘guardians’!

Review please!

Next chapter: Konan and Zetsu’s thoughts about Kakuzu

[bitterbuttercups]

Review: Monster High’s Posea Reef and Kala Mer’ri

So, last week, I was at the local five and under store and I found a whole shelf of Posea Reefs and Kala Mer’ris. I’ve never owned a Monster High before- and, actually, I don’t think I’ve ever held an unboxed one in my hands before, either. I was excited at the opportunity to get them for $5 and bought both. 

Image heavy doll review under the cut!

I didn’t really intend to review them when I bought them, but after I got them out of their boxes and played with them I knew I had to talk about them- so, I’m sorry I don’t have any photos of their packaging, but, I can talk about it just a little bit.

I was wowed by the packaging on Monster Highs. I buy a lot of My Little Ponies and Transformers and they’re generally pretty conservatively packaged, but- these girls had beautiful plastic windows and really nice cardboard tabs holding it together. I managed to keep most of the packaging intact and everything! I thought their little diaries were a delightful touch. I read a few pages and set it aside for a rainy day. I really do love the puns in Monster High, I think they’re very fun and clever. 

Let’s start with Kala Mer’ri!

Initially I wasn’t sure I wanted to pick Kala up- purple isn’t my favourite colour and I’m not a fan of the big joint beneath her waist. 

I also dislike the spots on her lips.

However, I thought her four arms looked like a lot of fun, and for five dollars I figured at worst I would sell her my next collector con.

Fortunately, though, I was completely blown away and while I like Posea’s blue more than Kala’s purple, I love playing with Kala.

I like her profile. She has a wide, flat nose I think is very cute. I also like that her eyes are round and pronouncedby not buggy. I also like her forehead shape- I often find with dolls that I think their foreheads are too long or short and it pulls the whole face into uncanny valley territory.

I also really like the little divet in the middle of her bottom lip- it makes it just a little soft and pouty. I don’t like her lipstick- I think the pink clashes with the purple and I really think the spots look unpleasant. I wish they were at least symmetric, but they aren’t, and they’re much heavier on the left side.

She has very pretty eyes with light blue irises and large, dark blue pupils. She has orange and salmon, fin-shaped eye makeup and very large black upper and lower eyelashes, as well as some little pink and yellow spots on the inside of her inside nose bridge, and its all on top of a light purple.... blobby shape.

I would have thought I wouldn’t like the dark blue pupil, but, I think it looks fine. I really like the pink and orange fin-like makeup, I think it’s very pronounced and in character and the orange really contrasts with the purple in a nice way. I’m not sure how I feel about the large light purple spots. I feel like something better could have been done, but at the same time, I do think it looks better with than without.

What I don’t like is the... squiggly orange french fries she has for eyebrows. Why? Why do they look like that? I’m utterly boggled.

I’m a little confused by her ear shape, as well. It’s like a dish, almost, with a very flat bottom. Is it supposed to look like a suction cup? It doesn’t look like an ear at all. I’m not sure.

I do like the squareness of her jaw and her strong chin, though. I think it does give her a very strong profile- I think I like her nose the best. It’s very cute.

I tend to prefer slimmer faces in my dolls, but I feel like it works really nicely here. I actually thought when I saw her in the box that her hair was an afro, I was a little disappointed when I got her out of the box and realized it was just a frizzy ponytail.

I I had some fun playing with shadows, too.

And I really like how her squareish cheekbones sharpen the light! It’s really fun.

Monster High faces just seem to have so much depth. Not so much molding it looks weird or buggy but they aren’t flat like Equestria Girls figures, which I have a few of and honestly kind of hate. 

Her arms are what I bought her for, though, and I found them much easier to pose than I had anticipated.

I was also under the impression that monster highs could not easily touch their faces- I am not sure if I was simply led astray or if the molding of these dolls is a little different, because she easily touches her face.

I’m also noticing quite suddenly in this photo which I did not realize when I was taking her picture that Kala’s left upper wrist has been stained by her accessory. That’s very unfortunate.

First thing I did was take off her armbands and the prickly little belt she’s wearing. It’s very soft material. I don’t really like it, aesthetically, but it does help her open front- coat? dress? lay flat.

I do think she looks better without her many plastic accessories. She looks a little more floaty and cool, but, there’s nothing wrong with having a few more accessories lying around.

Under her coat she’s wearing a little band as a top. I’m not sure what the pattern- it’s like a cross between a reef and lisa frank cheetah print. it’s held on with soft  plastic straps. She has these little ridges on her shoulders- I wish they’d left them off, they’re kind of annoying to work around and don’t look particularly interesting, anyway.

It’s held on with velcro at the back. I think the velcro piece is a little too big, but, I really love her shoulders back there! They’re molded really nicely.

Hm.

Hmm. :/

You know, I really like that Kala has a thicker profile than other monster high dolls- she’s wider her back is filled out more, which I think is good. I know lots of people like the stretchy skinny arch of monster highs molds, but I don’t. I dislike HOW wide Kala’s hips get, but I can live with it.

Her torso joint is great, because it lets her turn to the side.

And, well. All the way around, actually. Very monstery!

I wish there was a gradient or something between the light purple of her torso and the dark purple of her midsection and tail. It seems very sudden.

I’m also not sure how I feel about the bright yellow tentacles. I think they’re pretty, and they look better from the front with the patterned gradient, but from the back they look very strange, It really draws attention away from the rest of the doll.

I do love them, though- I think the curves feel really dynamic and natural, like real coiling tentacles frozen miid-movement. I also like that she stands on them! I was a little turned off when I first got her, because I would have rather had a traditional mermaid tail, but, when I let myself get used to the idea I found it very easy to have her stand unassisted because of them. They dont offer her a great range of motion or many poses, but, they are super duper stable.

also super duper detailed, tbh.

Speaking of detail, I love her hands. They have these adorable little suction cups on the fingers.

To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the flawed hands most monster highs have. I really dislike the heads of Ever After High dolls, but I adore their hand sculpts- very gentle. I’d post a photo, but I don’t have any Ever After High dolls. I think one day I might buy a Cerise, though.

At this point I took her hair down and spent about twenty minutes trying to beat it into submission. it was pretty tangly at the ends, and very poofy. Some hair came out, unfortunately, when I combed it. Not enough to be especially noticeable- but, hair never comes out when I brush my ponies, so, I was disappointed.

poof!

Yeah it was... really not going to lay even remotely flat. That’s fine, I didn’t really want her to have straight hair, anyway. I think later when I have time I’ll boil some water and give her that pretty afro I initially thought she’d had.

for now, though, it’s a little unmanageable so I have to do something with it.

I ended up putting it back up in a pony tail, but thatfelt a little lackluster, so I took down the sides of her head and made some neat skinny braids.

I crossed them in an x on the top of her head and then tucked them into the underside of her hairband.

She came with her strapless top, her sheer coat (I just noticed the squid pattern! How cute), her spiky little belt, two arm bands, one bangle, and two earrings. I am not a fan of jewelry myself and have never liked wearing it. I think her bangle is cute, but, apparently it stains, which is unfortunate. Many bright pink things do. I really like her strapless top the best! I think its bright and fun.

I’m really impressed by her poseability. Her shoulders bend at very tight angles and her elbows bend at almost ninety degrees. Her hands rotate really well, too!

They also spin all the way back! They get in the way of eachother far less than I would have anticipated.

Her torso can even rotate to the left and right a little bit.

She can also tilt just a little bit backwards.

I had thought that her pronounced hip joint would allow her to sit nicely, but, no such luck it appears. She sits very awkwardly, held in place by the weight of her tail.

You can definitely get some nice looking shots if you work for it, I think, but, it doesn’t look great in person.

All in all, I really like Kala. I don’t like her waist joint or her eyebrows but I love her wide body and four arms and cute nose. I think maybe I’ll try and find her a better outfit.

Time to talk about Posea. She has a different silhouette but a similar build.

The first thing I love is her face shape. She has a very sharpley angled face a a triangular chin. I think its very pretty and lets me see her neck. I think her nose is very small and sharp, though, and I prefer Kala’s. 

I think her eyes look very nice and soft, too, and this 3/4 profile looks quite elegant.

I’m not a huge fan of her hands, though. I don’t like webbed hands. I guess that’s a personal thing, but I just don’t think they’re very aesthetically pleasing.

Her makeup is nice, though. I like the dark lipstick, I feel like it matches her hair really well- I wish it was reflected somewhere in the upper portion of her face, though. Perhaps her eyebrows? Because I don’t know why they’re purple when her hair is maroon and green. Her eyes have a very soft look because of the medium blue pupils and the light blue lower lashlines. I think its very pretty! The soft green undertones in her iris are very elegant. She has very very light freckles the same colour as her very very light eyeshadow, too, that are really cute- I dislike her very dark freckles under her eyes, though. I find them very distracting and kind of out of the colour scheme.

You might be able to see her freckles better in this photo.

I let her hair down at this point. I’m not a fan of the pulled back style for her.

It didn’t take much brushing to get Posea’s hair to behave- it sort of already wanted to fall in all the right directions.

I really wanted to try and find a way to have some of her hair fall a bit forward to cover the plugs, but...

I guess I forgot what rooted hair looked like. It’s rooted very thickly, but it is still plugs, so it is noticeable.

I tried pulling her hair back in some thick braids, but, I wasn’t super happy with that.

I ended up just putting her hair in a loose pony tail with her hair ornament on the band.

Whichm by the way, I really like. I think maybe it’s supposed to be coral? I’m not certain what’s at the center. It looks like a little crown- the round kind? I think it’s probably some kind of sea creature. I think it works as a little bow here.

Posea has only one piece of clothing, her shirt. I took it off and I was surprised by how much detail was on her body!

She has all these little spines or nodes along her skin. That’s definitely a sea creature thing and it’s really neat. I kind of liked running my thumb over her tummy, it was a weird texture. I like how ornate it is, too, its not just an even coating. It’s a cool and elegant pattern that looks distinctly intentional- I’ve seen many patterns that looked random or accidental, but this one is symmetrical and pretty.

I also like Posea’s torso better here- they look like pieces that go together, unlike Kala, who’s top and bottom pieces look very different.

Posea, too, can tilt a little to the left and right. I feel a bit spoiled that these were my first two, I’m worried when I get a standard Monster High that doesn’t have this point of articulation I’ll be disappointed.

You know, I like Posea more from the front than I do Kala but I significantly prefer Kala’s portrait. Posea’s face looks to be slopped downward far too much. Also, her eyes are much flatter and her forehead feels too long- perhaps this is a personal aesthetic problem, but, I like her from the front more. 

I do love her cute little fishy ears, though.

The kelp accessory covering her tail is really cool. I am really disapointed that her little animal friends are attached the way they are. some of them have little hooks like the seahorse but others don’t appear to have anything to attach them to the tail. I left the clear plastic rubber bands on because I’m very worried about losing these little pieces. It strikes me as not the best design for a doll intended for children- There’s not much you can do with them because of the way they (don’t) attach, and they’re so small you can lose them very easily. 

Her kelp skirt makes it very difficult to move her tail- it’s soft plastic but not very soft. However, it looks so nice that frankly I think it’s a fine tradeoff.

And there she is nekkie. I like the detail on her bottom half- its very kelpy. The idea of a kelp octopus is strange I suppose but it works. I wish that perhaps her three “feet” were a little more symmetrical- perhaps not with the same swirls but, at least with the same height.

Posea can change her height easier than Kala can by bending her “legs” down at the ball joints. 

Now, they painted a bit of green on the front of her midsection in a downward arch but they also painted a little point on her lower back, too. I guess she has a little butt.

She looks pretty similar from the back as she does on the front, though. Which is fine.

Posea’s limbs were very stiff- especially at the shoulders. I found them difficult to move at all and it wasn’t terrifically pleasant.

Here’s all the clothes she came with. Her seaweed skirt (with friends), her top, her coral top, her earrings, her armbands, and her hair ornament. I really lover her top- I think the colours are really cool and fun. it looks very halloweeny without the rest of her, actually. I don’t like her coral top, though. I think it looks a little silly and accidental or random- which I suppose it’s supposed to, because it’s supposed to look like coral, but I don’t think that’s very fashionable.

You know, actually, I think they would probably look better if they switched tops.

WOW. Posea looks really cool in this outfit, actually. 

The open front jacket and the strapless tube top? She looks very chill. 

Unfortunately because Kala is so much wider than her.... they can’t swap clothes very well.

Unfortunately, as you can see, her jacket is very loose and oversized.

the tube top is far too big.

It’s just sort of hanging there loosely. I guess Kala will need her shirt back.

Before that, though, I wanted to see what Kala looked like in Posea’s shirt. I couldn’t even really get it on!

It’s really unfortunate, too. I think the purple orange and green colours go far better with Kala than with Posea.

But... I can’t even get it to velcro all the way in the back, and her shoulders are kind of stuck because the fabric is pulled so tight. :(

I wish they’d both been thicker, or both thinner. I like the thickness of the upper body on Kala but her butt just looks ridiculous. Posea’s looks much better.

After this I started playing with them and doing some cute poses, because I’ve never really had dolls this poseable and articulated before.

They were really fun to play with! I want to dig up some props later and play with them more. 

So, final thoughts.

When I bought these, I had expected them to cure my Monster High craving. As an avid collector of My Little Pony toys (500 and counting), many people I know collect Monster High dolls. The more I saw them, the more I wanted them, but there were still features of them I disliked- the flared hands, the the hyper arched backs, the unarticulated ankles, the hunched necks. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I found that once they were in my hands, these things were not as big of a problem as I would have expected them to be. I found that I loved posing them and I loved their thick, silky hair. These two especially I found to be fun and interesting toys- I love the extra arms, and I love the seaweed motif. 

I really think I’ll be getting more of these in the future should they come my way. They’re just so poseable and colourful and fun.

[socialattractionuk]

Women tell us all the worst ways they have been chatted up

(Picture: Erin Aniker for Metro.co.uk)

In the movies, being approached by an infatuated stranger is the very pinnacle of excitement and romance.

Maybe your eyes lock across a crowded room. The sparks are instant. The chat up lines are sincere, heart-felt and adorable. You’re probably about to fall deeply in love.

Unfortunately, in real life, this is rarely how it goes.

Being hit on by a stranger is a total minefield that swings from the cringey and the bizarre to the downright offensive and, on occassion, the threatening.

It’s weird that we have romanticised this notion of being accosted on the street by a stranger and demanded to supply them with smiles, attention and even a phone number.

Even though we owe these strangers nothing, there is an unspoken power dynamic that requires us to play the game, appear flattered, give out a fake number if we need to.

Every woman is aware of how outright rejection can turn things hostile in the blink of an eye.

There is an art to the unsolicited chat up line. And so few people get it right. We asked women to tell us the very worst ways they have been chatted up – and we don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Michelle

‘A guy once said to me; “when you walked in the room, I saw your arse and thought – yes I could do that. Then I saw your face and thought – I could definitely do that.”‘

Andrea

‘A hospital porter who looked like Danny Devito kept mopping past me and grinning profusely, all while I was waiting for my gynaecologist appointment.’

‘After five minutes of tactical mopping, he shyly whispered: “You smell and remind me of summer.”‘

Jordana

‘I was in a bar, coming out of the toilet when I felt someone put their arms around me from behind. It was so intimate that I thought it must be my boyfriend and turned around for a kiss.

‘I was utterly horrified to discover it was some random guy I had never seen before. I then watched him do the same to two other women.

‘I always find getting chatted up on public transport really awkward too – because there’s no escape.

‘I have been on trains with groups of boys, one will come over and try to chat to you while the rest of the group are laughing behind him and egging him on – that always feels horrible.’

Becky

‘I find that taxi drivers hitting on me is one of the worst things,

‘One guy spent the whole journey telling me that if he was single he would marry me and then asked if it would be OK for him to text me after the journey. To which I said no, and reported him.

‘Last weekend a guy was flirting so hard with me at the bar – he bought me a shot of tequila and repeatedly told me how beautiful I was, that he had never seen anyone as beautiful as me.

‘So far, so good.

‘Then he says, “oh, this is my girlfriend!” I genuinely thought he was joking, but then he grabs this tiny brunette girl and then they are both just there grinning at me.

‘I downed my tequila and backed the hell away from that weirdness.’

(Picture: MMUFFIN for Metro.co.uk)

Sonya

‘Once I got told I look “too exotic” to be British. I think he thought it came out of his mouth like a compliment.

‘Another time, this guy literally followed me for 20 minutes – I was driving my car, he was driving his, all he could see was my eyes from my car mirror.

‘He followed me to where I was having lunch with family, stopped next to me, got out and gave me his number.’

Narjas

‘I was walking home from the station when a guy did a u-turn in the road, drew up next to me, opened his door and asked me if he could give me a lift home because he thought I was beautiful.’

Jo

‘I was followed by two men in a van once who waved cash out the window. I think that might have been a different sort of proposition…’

Anna

‘When I was on the underground in New York, a man moved so that he could sit next to me.

‘His opening line was; “do you know why koalas eat eucalyptus?”

‘I said no.

‘He said, “to get high, I’m David.’

Mara

‘Once I was at a train station, waiting for my train. A guy comes up to me, tries talking to me and tells me I’m pretty and that I look like his sister and his cousin.

‘Then he asks for my number.’

Sam

‘A particularly creepy incident was when I was thinking that a guy was stood really, really close to me – and it turns out he was sniffing me.

‘My hair did smell good that day, but that is really, really not the way to get me to talk to you.’

Josie

‘I once got told in a club that I had very pretty feet.

‘It was really creepy and I have never gone clubbing in strappy heals again.’

Ria

‘I was in Oceana in Kingston a few years ago. A guy said “hi” to me, or something vaguely normal like that, and I greeted him back.

‘His literal next move was to shove me up against the wall and put his hand up my skirt. I screamed, obviously.

‘Another time I was at work and there was a cleaner who spent his whole time trying to chat me up and he would stare at me a lot, which I could cope with.

‘But then one time I came back to my desk to find he had left printed out sheets with information about how the brain evolves when you have sex with someone you love.

‘He was watching form the other side of the office to see what my reaction would be.’

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Ellen

‘At my old job there was a guy who worked in the stockroom of the high street store (I worked in the head office).

‘I went over to pick up some samples and sort a delivery, signed a form, and he then looked at my signature to find my name and found me on Facebook.

‘He proceeded to message me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and on my personal email – which was especially creepy as it has my middle name and wasn’t linked to any social media at the time – calling me the girl with the tiny tattoo and asking me why I wouldn’t talk to him.’

Katherine

‘A really strange one was the time a guy told me that my eyes were “really weird” and that they had a yellow circle around the iris.

‘The fact that he had paid such close attention to the minute detail of my eyes was creepy in itself – when had he looked at them that closely? And the use of the word “weird” didn’t go down too well either.

‘It was a very bizarre way of trying to flirt with me. He kept trying to talk to me after that, but as you can imagine, I gave him the cold shoulder.’

Jess

‘A guy I met in a bar once asked for my Instagram as he was new to the UK and I said yes, as he was friendly and genuinely seemed to just want to meet people.

‘However, he then continued to DM me the YouTube link to Jet, Are You Gonna Be My Girl until I had to block him.’

Rosa

‘Some guy who said his name was Daniel was incessantly messaging me on LinkedIn – asking me on dates, telling me he wanted to take me for dinner.

‘He then started endorsing my profile with “skills” like “beauty” and “charming” and “great body” – this went on for weeks! I was terrified his weird endorsements would end up on my profile where people could see them.’

Not very professional Daniel.

Every woman wants something different from a prospective romance – but what we don’t want is pretty resounding.

We don’t want to be made to feel uncomfortable or unsafe, we don’t want to be followed and we certainly don’t want someone to act as though they are entitled to our time.

Follow these rules and you might have a shot.

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