#Universal Colorful LED Angel Wings

[lampscompany]

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[neptoons1998]

Calling

A/N: Heyy! I'm back with a one-shot, I will also post on my ao3 account later on today. Give me your thoughts about this, please.

Just a heads up this 42!Miles and 42!Tiana because I wanted to write something about the alternate universe.

Tag gang: @pantherheart @mal-urameshi @bi-hop

Summary: Miles was supposed to stay and watch, while his uncle went to the bar. He couldn't help but be curious about a red angel.

It was raining the night he meet her. 

Miles knew he was supposed to wait right here, waiting for his uncle to finish business in the bar. Anyone who was anyone would go to the bar; whether to relax or socialize. Or for him and his uncle to conduct business on who to assassinate next. No one knows who owns the shady bar, not even its employees. 

Before Miles think about anything on the rooftop something caught his eye. Or someone, the person had bright color wings as it soar through the rainy clouds.Even though Miles has changed so much from his late father’s passing, his curiosity is still alive and well. Before Miles could think up a good reason why he wanted to follow it; he quickly got up from the roof and started following the figure. Hopping from one roof to the next dashing between buildings as he endures a version of cat and mouse.  

He thought he was pretty silent with his movements, but the figure stopped on a nearby rooftop as if they were waiting for him. 

“Yknow stalking someone is weird right,” The voice teased before turning to him. Miles looked closer at the girl, who looked around his age. With neat crown rows held tightly in a bun. One thing that Miles couldn’t help but notice was the blood-red wings that lay on her back, it made her a twisted version of an angel. 

“Who are you?” Miles called out with a person with wings. The girl lifted her visor still having a smirk on her face, “And where’s the fun in that?”

Miles’ eyebrows pinched together, “Answer the question.”

The girl stretched her wings before folding them, “Now why would I do that?”

“You’re not from here,” Miles spoke he knew enough about the villains to even the villains of the week, who don’t last that long quickly being killed by the higher level ones. Normally Miles doesn’t care about the villains as long he could protect his space, there was no reason to want more power. 

More power led to more problems, Miles thought as he watched the girl.

“Well you’re right about that,” The girl responded as she watched the skyline, “Don’t tell me it's my accent.” 

“Prowler,” Miles stated thinking his name would make the girl give her name to him.

“What?”

Miles rolled his eyes,” That’s my name. Prowler”

 The girl  couldn’t help but burst into laughter, “I-I’m sorry that’s not the name I was expecting to hear.”

Miles glowered as she continued to laugh, “Alright, it’s not that funny.”

“It really is, “ She said between getting gasps of air in her lungs, “Well I guess it’s better than Emo-killer or something. Mine is Starling.”

“Starling,” Miles couldn’t help but repeat her name. Miles wasn’t stupid he knew that wasn’t her true name, but at least he had something to work with now. 

Before Miles could ask more about her, his earpiece filled with his uncle's voice, “Miles, where are you?”

Starling gave a bittersweet smile, “Sounds like duty calls. Whenever you want to just talk I’ll be around.”

And with that, she took flight once more. 

Starling, he thought as he continue his way back to meet his uncle, Angel would’ve been a better name.

[synthy-sizer]

You sit at your desk and other students steadily trickle in, some still chatting. You can't say you're too interested, though. You just sit quietly and unpack your backpack. You carefully pull out your pencil case and notebook and sit them on your desk. Your teacher doesn't take long after that to arrive and the class naturally settles down as she sits at her desk and greets you, then starts taking names.

"Sofia Gardener," she asks? You put your hand up. "Present." She nods and ticks your name off the list and continues down. You sit and wait and fiddle with your pencil. Eventually she wraps up the list and stands up. "Today we're going to continue learning about Luna's history and how we were blessed as a people to be free of Otherside's corruption, and to do that we're going to step out of the classroom and I'll show you all the murals in our halls and teach you about them. Make sure to bring your notebooks and pencils so that you can study the material later." She walks to the door and the students all file into line. You follow suit and grab your notebook, tucking a pencil above your ear.

One by one you're ferried out into the hall and brought to the front of the school. Your teacher stands behind the first image in the mural and your group clusters into a small group in front of it. "This is where everything began," she starts, gesturing at the planet portrayed in colored tiles on the floor. It's a beautiful, lush planet covered in nothing but blues and greens. "We were created by God here, in Eden, with all of God's other creations, including the angels." She points at the edges of the planet which are surrounded by Angelic figures dressed in all white robes. "The angels were supposed to help God create and oversee the universe, but the first 9 tried to rebel, led by their figurehead, Lucifer."

As she speaks she walks backwards and gestures at the next mural, depicting 9 figures with black wings, albeit still wearing white. The cluster of students follows suit, maintaining distance and allowing the mural to remain in view. "Lucifer and the fallen angels spread their corruption throughout Eden, attempting to demonstrate humanity's fallibility and the failure of God's sense of morals. Much of humanity surrendered to temptation and became corrupt." The mural beneath her feet depicts the planet, once lush and green, now being changed to black and red. "However, some of humanity stayed strong and resisted the influence of Lucifer, and stood as proof against their morale. God rewarded this faith and strength of will by sparing them when the rest of the corrupt humanity and the fallen angels were smited, and Eden became our world, Luna. And the smited ones went…" she points down at the final mural, depicting 2 planets orbiting each other, "here. Otherside."

You look down at the image depicted in tiles. Luna has remained colorful and bright, but in contrast, Otherside is depicted in blacks and grays with small hints of brown and tan. "We retain our faith and redouble our wills every day to thank God for his kindness, and to ensure that we don't waste the holy land gifted to us. That's why we have to strive to be good above all else. Does anyone have any questions?" You continue to stare down at the mural and write notes as someone asks, "what happened to the people who went to Otherside?" "We don't know exactly," your teacher says. "Our books say that they attempted to build their own society on Otherside, but we simply can't check to see if that's true." "Why can't we see," another asks? "If we showed interest in Otherside it's possible that it would only be so long before its influence reached us again. God gifted us a peaceful life and spared us because of our refusal to listen to Lucifer. That's why it's important not to investigate it." You look down at your notebook and realize just how little of your notebook pages are covered in notes, and instead have been dominated by doodles. You stare at them for a moment. You're so lost in thought that you jump a little when the lunch bell rings. "Ah, time for lunch break everyone. Meet me back at the classroom in 30 minutes," your teacher says.

NEXT

PREVIOUS

[dcvilgrams]

All the hearts arranged in rainbow order. And SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES on behalf of The Smiling God

❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc's positive traits?

his creativity, his organizational skills, & his dedication to his family

💔 BROKEN HEART — what are three of your oc's negative traits?

his anxiety/self-doubt, his tendency to jump to often irrational and self-deprecating conclusions, & his dependency on others

💘 HEART WITH ARROW — what and/or who do(es) your oc consider the most important to them?

the thing he considers most important is his family. he worked incredibly hard, suffered so much, & literally even died to keep them and have them stay in his life. nothing is more important to him

🧡 ORANGE HEART — does your oc tend to prioritize family or friends?

to Xhura they are very borderline one and the same, but nothing comes above his family. now his family is self-made and not really comprised of blood-relatives (in the strictest sense) as much as it is comprised of people he is close to, but the circles of 'friends' & 'family' have a very large overlap for him

💛 YELLOW HEART — how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

as a human, or as I will consider 'actively,' two: english and japanese

but as a demon & especially being tied to Barbatos he obviously knows many more should he need them; which I will call 'passively:' so many

💚 GREEN HEART — does your oc prefer being inside or outside?

it kind of depends on the day & on his mood, but Xhura isn't exactly an outdoors-y kind of guy so more often than not inside

💙 BLUE HEART — does your oc have any cool/special powers and/or abilities? how are they with magic, if it exists in their world?

well, he does have a set of primary & secondary wings as well as a tail; inherited from his transformation into a demon following his permanent stay in the Devildom

he's not the most naturally adept at spells—not like Satan for example—but he does have an affinity for passive magic where his connection with Barbatos is concerned. most of his spellcasting doesn't involve incantations when it isn't very specific magic

💜 PURPLE HEART — what is your oc's ancestry/genetic background?

his lineage on his mother's side can be traced all the way back to Lilith and her human children, while his lineage on his father's side can been traced back to a japanese woman named Ryoko; who the Demon King—Diavolo's father—took as his bride

🖤 BLACK HEART — has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

Xhura did kill a man by the name of Josiah Clarke; a sorcerer who led a twisted and misguided cult of angel-worshippers under the guise of 'Michael,' & who kidnapped Ayla (@houselamentation's mc & Lilith's doppelganger) in the hopes of turning Ayla into Lilith through perverse magic

dude had to die. I think that much is obvious

as for breaking someone's trust... well it could be argued that he broke Ayla's trust when he was the one who suggested to Diavolo that she be temporarily barred from the Devildom following the incident involving her developing magic & the Ring of Light...

but that's more a matter of opinion. he thought he was doing what was best for Ayla in the hopes that she would get help

🤍 WHITE HEART — what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits?

everything must be color-coded, his eye color changes based on the situation & his mood & who he is with, & he unknowingly named his zombie iguana plushie Spooge & refuses to rename it even though he now knows what the word means

😊 SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES — what are your oc's career/general life desires? what do they want to get the most out of life?

Xhura never really had any life goals once he was forced to move away from japan & his dream of attending university there & becoming a historian was taken from him

now, though, he's fully embracing a future working towards becoming a royal historian for the Devildom, taking great care in his duties as a Lord of Hell, & wants to help realize Diavolo's dream of peace

details about ocs! | my ask

[amilst]

Euonymus alatus, Burning bush, Winged spindle. Though the flowers are done, the garden still has its beauty. The highlight now is the brilliant red of the Euonymus alatus, commonly called Burning bush because the nondescript green leaves turn a brilliant crimson in October.

The name “euonymus” comes from the Greek for “of good name” or “lucky.” Euonyme was the mother of the Furies in Greek mythology, the goddesses of vengeance who were like the sheriffs of the Underworld punishing those who committed crimes.

Though quite prevalent in suburban landscapes, the bush is a native of Asia and is now considered quite invasive because its berries get dropped by birds here and there. At least four states, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts have outlawed its sale.

The “alatus, in the scientific name, is Greek for “winged” and refers to the wooden wing-like structures, pictured below.  appearing on many of the twigs near the leaves.

Botanists have supposed the wings increase the circumference of the branches and provide extra protection for the shrub against breaking branches. That might be the reason birds like to build their nests deep inside. The berries, as well as the leaves, are quite toxic to humans, though the shrub is neither a bramble nor a briar.

In Denmark and other Nordic countries, the bushes are called “Winged spindles” because the branches were  traditionally the source of the rotating rods used for spinning wool. The wood is a bit unusual, dark and quite strong, considering how thin it is. It has also been used to make toothpicks, bird cages, pegs, pipestems, artist’s charcoals and gunpowder.

The leaves change colors in October because, like other fall leaves, the shortness of the day slows the production of chlorophyll, a pigment that gives leaves their green color. When that happens, other pigments in the leaves become visible. 

The poet Sir John Beetjeman wrote this little verse:

Her father’s euonymus shines as we walk/ And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk/and cool the veranda that welcomes us in/To the six o’clock news and a lime juice and gin

I got the shrub originally because of the biblical reference, though I soon learned no one thinks this was the bush in this Exodus story:

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”

Most think that burning bush was a bramble, prickly shrubs in the family of blackberries and raspberries, though some have toxic fruit that can cause confusion and disorientation. These more toxic shrubs are common in the desert around Mount Horeb, the place where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments. 

The Monks at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, however, say their Cathedral sits on the land where God appeared to Moses and set him on his way to free the Israelites. St. Catherine’s, the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, has been around for more than seventeen centuries. On display in front of their Cathedral is a bramble believed to be the descendant of the original shrub. Visitors to the sacred bush, pictured below, must remove their shoes as the Bible says God commanded Moses to do as he approached.

Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at Hebrew University, does not believe the bush was burning at all and that Moses was actually having a hallucinatory experience. I guess the prophet should not have eaten those bramble berries.

[ainews]

There is no denying the power and versatility of the waveform. In its simplest form, it is a visual representation of a wave's characteristics such as amplitude and frequency, allowing scientists and engineers to analyze and manipulate various types of waves. But what many may not realize is that waveforms have also captured the attention of a most unexpected audience - angels.

The fascination with waveforms among angels can be traced back to their love for music and sound. Being ethereal beings, angels are attuned to the vibrations and frequencies of the universe, and they find great joy and wonder in exploring the intricacies and patterns of sound waves. This deep connection to waves has naturally led them to appreciate the visual representation of these waves - the waveform.

But why would angels be interested in something as mundane and scientific as waveforms? The answer lies in the ink used to create these graphics. Angels, with their otherworldly powers, have a special affinity for ink, the substance that brings words and images to life on paper. And when it comes to waveforms, ink plays a crucial role in their creation.

The precise and intricate patterns of waveforms require a special type of ink, one that can withstand extreme temperatures and adhere to various surfaces. This is where presidential ink comes into play. Made from a blend of high-quality pigments and oils, presidential ink is known for its durability and vibrant colors, making it the perfect choice for creating waveforms.

The relationship between waveforms and presidential ink goes beyond just practicality. For angels, the blend of science and art in waveforms represents the perfect balance between logic and creativity, a concept that resonates deeply with their own nature. And when infused with the mystical properties of presidential ink, these waveforms take on a new level of beauty and transcendence, further fueling the fascination of angels.

But it's not just the technical aspect of waveforms that draws angels towards them. In the realm of fantasy, angels are often depicted as majestic beings with sweeping wings and haloed heads. It's no wonder then that the graceful curves and fluid movement of waveforms remind them of their own celestial forms, adding an element of familiarity and comfort.

In conclusion, the love for waveforms among angels may seem peculiar at first glance, but upon closer examination, it is clear why this seemingly scientific concept holds such appeal for these mystical creatures. With its blend of art, science, and a touch of presidential ink, waveforms embody the very essence of what angels represent - a perfect balance between the tangible and the ethereal.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Professionalizing the Police

"For a full day in August 1957, Los Angeles radio station KMPC celebrated "Chief Bill Parker Day." At a luncheon with city boosters at the Biltmore Hotel, a city councilman pronounced the city's police chief "a model for police and administrators throughout the world." That same month, Parker sat in the law office of attorney George Vaughn to give a deposition - the LAPD was facing a lawsuit for ten cases of police brutality brought by Vaughn's client, the NAACP's Legal Redress Committee. Unfazed, Parker used the occasion to charge Vaughn with "evil intent in this whole situation." He claimed that the committee was trying to "drive the whole Police Department out of the city of Los Angeles" and said that this sort of "unholy harassment underscored the very necessity of police officers. "We have been getting along fine until you got here," he concluded." Parker's response reflected the mindset of a police department that acted with almost complete impunity yet saw itself as under siege from the communities it terrorized. Without a hint of irony, Parker would later describe police officers as the "greatest dislocated minority in America."

Many of the same surveillance technologies that generated the dialectics of discipline in New York prisons during the late 1950s were being mirrored on the streets of major cities, including New York and Los Angeles. During the postwar years, policing was reshaped by a national impetus toward professionalization led by reformer O. W. Wilson and his protégé, William Parker. In 1950, Parker began what would become the longest tenure of any police chief in Los Angeles, ending only with his death a year after the 1965 revolt in Watts. Kelly Lytle Hernández concludes that by the 1950s, "local activists had gathered enough evidence to categorically describe police violence as a tactical assault on Black life in the city." Los Angeles's notoriety was due not only to the scope and size of the city's policing apparatus but to Parker's role in disseminating it as a model for other cities: "The LAPD's postwar model of policing routinely served as a standard for departments across the country." A master salesman, in Parker's first few years on the job, he gave over a thousand speeches to business groups and civic organizations promoting his ideas about crime and policing, and he is credited with coining the phrases "thin blue line" and "to protect and to serve." Parker justified the violent police occupation of Los Angeles's communities of color through the use of racial crime statistics and masked the department's hases through an aggressive public relations campaign that promoted a modern, professional image.

Police professionalization at its most prosaic meant wrestling autonomy from machine politicians while narrowing the domain and scope of policing to the "expertise" of crime prevention. Police chiefs set about creating universal standards and bureaucratized procedures meant to engender public trust and deter incursions into police discipline from politicians and civilians alike. Significantly, professionalization also meant proactive policing: wiretapping, racial profiling, data gathering, and, of course, discipline. "Perhaps most importantly," Max Felker-Kantor adds, "professionalization ensured the LAPD operated independently from political influence."

No police units were better equipped to do this than the anticommunist Red Squads in cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York. Felker-Kantor describes the Red Squads in Los Angeles as a "John Birch Society dream of right-wing, pro-business, white-supremacist politics backed by an all-out attack on progressive social movements and civil rights activists." So palpable was this dream, that some have estimated two thousand Birchers within Los Angeles law enforcement during Parker's first decade as chief. The special squads formed during the Cold War were swiftly expanded to encompass what The Hate That Hate Produced had defined as the rise of "Black hate" and "Black supremacy." Indeed, early surveillance reports conflated Black Nationalism and communism, branding them equally "subversive." In 1957, one state investigator for the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) in New York called the Nation of Islam a "pink organization consisting of colored people." By 1960, after the documentary had aired, the BCI shifted to calling the group a "nation-wide supremacy movement." 

While the New York Police Department had no figure as iconic or enduring as Parker during the 1950s, its Red Squad police intelligence unit - BOSS - had rescued itself from postwar obscurity and become an evangelist and a model for national counterintelligence programs by the 1960s. Touring as "proselytizers for the cult of intelligence," BOSS was described by one scholar as akin to the Green Berets, a special operative unit that touted itself as the "finest of the finest" and "total professionals." Most importantly, just as monthly surveillance reports from New York prisons radiated outward and modeled national policy, BOSS disseminated information to outside agencies." Tony Bouza, who began his service for the agency the same year that Defossett first infiltrated the Nation of Islam, recalled an agent who funneled information daily to J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. In those days, he recalled, "we really rarely got anything from them and they got quite a bit from us."

William Parker was no stranger to police intelligence. When he first joined the LAPD in 1927, he acted as an informant by infiltrating radical groups. Soon after taking office, he declared the files of the Intelligence Division the property of the Chief of Police." He believed that the effectiveness of surveillance outweighed any infringement on civil liberties. In 1954 he defended surveillance using hidden microphones and recording equipment and when the California Supreme Court ruled evidence obtained through such unconstitutional means inadmissible, he condemned the decision as "catastrophic" to "efficient law enforcement." Another staple of Parker's department was its autonomy. Although he frequently closed ranks with white politicians during times of crisis, Parker remained insulated from public and government scrutiny: despite long-standing demands for a civilian review board, he was shielded by a city charter that granted the chief of police civil service protection and full power over the discipline of officers.

When Parker laid out his blueprint for the role of the police force in community relations at the 1955 Annual Conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, he proudly remarked that "Los Angeles has not experienced an instance of organized group violence in the past twelve y attributed this long period of calm largely to the "professionalization of its police department."" His address framed policing through a liberal logic in which diversity was articulated as everyone's "right to be different." "We are all minority group members," he told the audience, "any one of which can be, and often has been, discriminated against." Parker's justification for the overbearing presence of police in communities of color rested on crime statistics. He explained that the reason for the heavy deployment of police in neighborhoods inhabited mainly by people of color was "statistical - it is a fact that certain racial groups, at the present time, commit a disproportionate share of the total crime." His speech simultaneously defended over-policing and race-based crime statistics and advanced the pretense of color blind law enforcement that disregarded race as a meaningful category of analysis.

Parker closed his address by offering an anecdote that embodied his professionalization argument: human relations and community training could eradicate racist policing, if not racist police. He described an "old school" officer, recruited "long before psychiatric examinations were instituted," who walks a beat in this new "racial melting pot" of Los Angeles. Despite carrying with him "the maximum number of racial and religious prejudices one mind can hold," this officer has "memorized every maxim, every scientific fact, every theory relating to human equality." The punchline of Parker's story was that for this "old school" officer, his "intolerance has become a victim of enforced order-habit has won out over belief." In other words, racist police could become disciplined to perform nonracist policing.

The framework for The Hate That Hate Produced mapped easily onto this sort of thinking. Parker often justified "the police department's discrimination with reference to other discrimination." Just as the documentary portrayed Black Nationalism as a type of racism that inevitably arose in reaction to white racism, Parker understood all groups to be suffering from different types of "minority" status, even - or especially - police. Parker's theories of professionalization as a means to eradicate racist policing were disseminated in LAPD training bulletins. Satirical cartoons illustrated Parker's points, teaching officers that police brutality was not confined to the use of force but that "complaints of so-called 'police brutality' are fre quently found to be complaints concerning offensive language or improper attitude." The bulletin used slang directed at police to show that it could be training as a means of professionalizing police practices was designed received as hostile when used by outsiders. Parker's outline of human relations to disguise the specificity of police violence against communities of color by demonstrating that anyone could be a victim of hatred. Some of Parker's ideas mirrored demands made by the NAACP and other Community groups calling for law enforcement reform. His focus on human relations training and a racially diverse police force that could maintain a better rapport with the communities it policed echoed the goals of many in Los Angeles and New York who were fighting for police reform. But liberal calls for the professionalization of police generally resulted in more police with greater impunity. As later described by Naomi Murakawa, this adhered to the dynamic in which modern police departments and liberal reforms served to cement the notion that police brutality could be solved through more procedures and training, framing "racial violence as an administrative deficiency" rather than a structured and intentional outcome." As Parker contended in his 1955 address, "We are not interested in why a certain group tends toward crime, we are interested in maintaining order.... Police deployment is concerned with effect, not cause." He was content to continue the vicious cycle of overpolicing and racially biased crime statistics, each justifying the other.

By 1960, after the death of a Black teenager at the hands of Los Angeles police the previous summer, the possibility of a police review board had set off a polarizing debate in Los Angeles. The proposal was the product of a multiracial coalition that brought together the ACLU, the NAACP, the California Democratic Council, and what the Los Angeles Times referred to as "several Latin or Spanish groups." The proposal called for a five-person board to be appointed by the mayor with approval from the city council - and allotted $500 each to citizens harmed by police misconduct. The idea of a police review board was invigorated by an onslaught of criticism of Parker for maintaining a department rife with discrimination, the use of excessive force, and racial profiling. His defense rested on a combination of crime statistics, anti-immigration rhetoric, and social scientific notions of racialized criminality. This built on a postwar racial liberalism in which the language of biological racism was often replaced by cultural determinism following the findings of anthropologist Franz Boas. Criminologists and law enforcement officials, as Khalil Muhammad has shown, used crime statistics to refashion Blackness into a "more stable racial category in relation to whiteness" and, in effect, a marker of criminality."

Parker's comments during a two-day hearing before the Federal Commission on Civil Rights in 1960 demonstrate the ways in which cultural notions of race and criminality justified racialized policing. "Flanked by a battery of aides carrying charts," Parker argued that African Americans, Latinxs, and Asians all committed crimes at disproportionate rates compared to their white counterparts (11 times, 5 times, and 3 times, respectively) but neglected to mention the disproportionate policing of the neighborhoods where people of color were concentrated. Demonstrating that he had moved away from discredited notions of innate criminality, he called these statistics a reflection of a "conflict of cultures." Rather than seeing housing segregation as one cause of these disproportionate statistics, the police chief deemed these "dislocations" primarily a problem of "assimilation." In language reminiscent of Progressive-era anti-immigrant rhetoric, Parker claimed that the city had been plagued by people "shipped here by officials of other localities who want to get rid of them." He charged that ultimately the police were the "dislocated minority," complaining that no "one is concerned about the civil rights of a policeman." 

- Garrett Felber, Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. p. 88-92.

[cornbreadcreations]

been having entirely too much fun with my Hazbin Hotel Sinnersona, Doodle! Doodles lore gets a little dark, so I'm gonna put it under a readmore. Trigger warnings for: Cave-related deaths, drowning, starvation.

Theo Del'Arte was out hiking on his day off work, just enjoying some nice natural scenery, having a good time. And then a bear came along. Theo stayed calm, though, faced the bear, kept going slowly backwards to create distance; it was no grizzly by any means, so he figured it would lost interest shortly, but it didn't. It followed him until he hit a wall, and as it drew nearer, he noticed a crevice in the mountainside. It was just barely big enough for him to slip into, but the bear would not be able to fit, being what he at the time assumed was a large male black bear. The bear could get its arm in, pushing Theo deeper into the crevice, where he learned - it was deeper than it looked. He slipped, sliding swiftly and painfully along the rock before landing harshly in pitch blackness.

He screamed and screamed, his pack with his phone in it nowhere to be found, lost in the tumble. Hours he was trapped there, unable to climb out with two broken legs, until a monsoon came, and the cave filled rapidly with water.

At first he tried to use it to get out, but it had been so long already, and he was so exhausted, he couldn't keep up with the water, and ended up drowning.

Shortly after, he manifested in hell - and that's where he sort of splits into two storylines depending on how much of a power fantasy I feel like indulging in. :) Doodles powers as a sinner include:

Flight, by manifesting a third pair of wings on his back, or by transforming his four arms into wings.

Echo Location and Enhanced Hearing: Doodle is a leaf-nosed back, so his ears and the shape of his nose allow him to use specialized squeaks to 'see' with sound. He can even use this ability to pick bits of shrapnel and debris out of dirty wounds. He also totally tells Angel Dust he's actually blind and uses only echo location to see, to which AD starts trying to trick him, at some point holding some object up and saying 'what color is this' to which Doodle replies 'idk, smells purple.' Despite this, they are pals.

Decimating Decibels: At base level with no soul contracts or other power modifiers, Doodle can create sounds in a multitude of frequencies both hearable to humans and not, with a maximum base power output of 420 decibels. For context, 200 decibels would cause your internal organs to rupture, 210 would explode your skull, and 320 decibels to crack the earth open like an egg to make an omelet. 1100 would cause a supermassive black hole so powerful it would immediately swallow the universe and give everybody an instant game over, but Doodle can't reach that level. At the moment, anyway. :)

Bonus:

Despite his power level, Doodle has very low ambition. He's not interested in becoming an overlord, and he has not desire to hurt, manipulate, fight, or otherwise fuck with people in a negative context. He's a friendly demon, who just wants to be content with his afterlife. He's not certain exactly what sins led him to hell, but Heaven would feel much too squeaky clean, he'd be too afraid to touch anything for fear of tainting it. As such, he's politely declined Charlies offers for redemption, but is quite happy to use his experiences on earth and his own knowledge of the human condition to help Charlie in her dreams by acting as sort of a pseudo-psychologist (he makes it very clear he is NOT a trained therapist or psychologist, it was just one of his special interests so he just knows a stupid amount about it) helping sinners work through their issues and helping Charlie better structure her system, since Charlie has no context of what its like to be a human. double bonus, how Doodle would have looked as a winner:

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Battlefront

https://www.patreon.com/empyreaniris?fan_landing=true

https://starr-fall-knight-rise.tumblr.com/post/182501791735/master-post

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzEIdDAB4omdO2JcQVMObfrhLJ5kX4ONmSsLypM1ks0/edit?usp=sharing

The red earth cracked under his feet, like the brittle shell of an egg, a surface layer of ice or even a thin pane of glass. Behind him, the crunching of other boots on the planet’s surface set up a chorus of sound that echoed up and into the yellowed sky rent and torn by a battle being waged between gods.

And here, over the horizon, he could finally see them. An army thousands strong, wide and deep as the sea was endless, and at their head…. A familiar figure. It had been over ten years since Kazna had lead an army into battle, and it had been more than a few thousand since soldiers had met eye to eye in such neat rows across an open plane of battle.

This was it.

He felt like a soldier of the Greek City states, a Spartan standing against the Persians at Thermopylae covering the army’s retreat. The more colorful retelling of that story said that 300 lone spartans had stood against the entirety of the persian army, but the truth of history was really that the Spartans had stood with a few hundred other greeks in that battle.

Looking around him, he supposed he could feel like a spartan, standing next to the NeoSpartan king James and his queen Xanthia both arrayed in gold and red armor, helmets shaped to emulate the Corinthian helmets worn by their ancient greek counterparts, red brushes falling in a sweep from their heads, faces obscured by visors. Next to him stood representatives of other proverbial city states.

The Drev led by the Saint of Anin, beautiful with their shining carapace cut like precious gems, and their burnished armor worn in sweeping spikes around their bodies. Spear tips glittered in the hands of both the Neospartans and the Drev as they marched for battle. Behind them marched the legions of the makers, faces burning with a godly golden light, their bodies shedding power wherever they walked. And with them came more,  The occasional Tesraki and Rundi scampered across the ground in an attempt to keep up with the marching armies. Etium floated along, beside his chain gun which glowed an ethereal blue.

And more and more

Human soldiers in black armor.

Celex in oversized mech suits.

And finally, their backup.

Adam wasn't sure to this point of Conn would manage it, but as he tilted his head back t outlook at the sky, he saw them, Descending like a swarm from the heavens came the….

Came the starborn.

Thousands strong, snuck in through the open shield by masking their thoughts, and there they had staged themselves, issued gravity belts by their new de facto leader.

Conn.

He floated down from above dressed, for some inexplicable reason, in a three piece suit, coal black eyes burning with hunger almost as if he was excited for something,  ribbons flowing out from behind him like the abstracted wings of an angel given form. A terrible destroying angel.

They floated downward and forward, joining the slow procession of warriors cobbling themselves together against impossible odds.

Adam never wanted  to go to war.

The Drev War

The war for the Gromm homeworld 

The war for Earth.

War after war after war since the moment humanity stepped foot in the GA.

And now this.

The war to end all wars, the war for the universe. Was this it? Armageddon, The apocalypse, Ragnarok.

He wasn’t sure if going to war with the people he most loved was a good thing or a bad thing, at his side Sunny, his wife, the woman it had taken him years to fall in love with, but he had somehow managed despite his own self sabotage and stupidity. At his right, his best friend for the past decade better than any friend anyone could ever have asked for, Ramirez, still wearing the patches of a marine despite not having technically been a marine the past few years now.

Celex behind him, prismatic hair blowing in a surprisingly photogenic breeze. He looked both unperturbed and even excited. He had a Maker rifle slung across his back on a sling and a Spartan spear in the other hand. Otherwise, he was unarmored.

As if by some unwritten agreement, the two armies drew to a halt standing at odds across an open field of maybe fifty yards. The world was surprisingly silent despite the violence that took place overhead. In a way Adam thought it should have been loud, violent, deafening because what else should a war between two gods have been.

Yet it was silent except for the whirring of mechanical joints.

As if of one mind, Adam stepped forward along with Sunny, Adham, and kazna’s entourage.

“There is still time for your surrender.” Kazna called, “Your futile efforts do not have to fill your end with suffering and pain.”

Adam felt his lips draw back in a sneer, “Surrender to you, lose to you, either way the results are the same, we cease to exist and the universe with us. I would rather die in battle knowing I could do all I could than lay down and die like a coward.”

Kazna raised her head, dark shadow spilling around her body and shoulders. In a way the gesture almost seemed appreciative, “At the very least, human, you are not a coward.”

“Pity I can’t say the same about you.” Kazna’s mouth twisted in a sharp curl, golden eyes burning with hatred.

It was Lanus that stepped forward this time. The armies on both sides were quiet as he stepped forward to join Adam and the others, towering above them with his hulking size.

“Please, Kazna, let this end. Come back to us…. Come back to me.” He spoke as a man in private eyes only for her. The way he spoke, the tenderness in his words were of an intimate nature, something that should have been shared in the quiet rather than across the field of battle. Adam watched Kazna’s mouth twitch again somewhere between guilt and a sneer but not quite either or. 

But it was no use.

“Silence Lanus. Once you led armies, but now you follow. You are not the warrior I once knew.”

And then she slammed her visor down over her face, obscuring her mouth, but leaving her eyes burning and gold from behind the plate. Lanus raised his head slowly, a regal sort of sadness spread across his face, “Very well.”

It was during this conversation that Adam couldn’t help but notice another two figures making silent conversation across the open battlefield. Next to Kazna and the others, Maverick seemed unusually small, in a way that she had never seemed before. She wore no armor, and her hands were unburdened by weapons. Where the others around her seemed hungry for battle, she only seemed grim.

Ramirez shifted in the line behind them as his eyes fell on her, and they locked silent gazes from across the space between.

Was that doubt on her face?

Who could say, but she did not step to join them 

Ramirez bowed his head.

Adham drew himself up to his full height, ambiguous face drawing itself into a look as stern as stone. “Then it seems we have nothing more to discuss, you die here.” and then he raised his spear calling the murmuring soldiers into silence

“READY!”

Horns blasted somewhere in the distance as Kazna raised her own spear.

Overhead the Starborn shifted, and Adam could feel the rolling waves of psychic energy pulsating off of them in great beating waves.

It was time.

He reached up and drew down his visor stepping back into line with the others shoulder to shoulder with Sunny. Before him, the Spartans drew together in a shield wall, ready for their attack Drev paired off behind them, two by two. Adam was only dimly aware of the people around him as he fell into place next to Sunny, but he was aware enough to hear the small exchange that happened only a few feet behind him.

“Excuse me, is this spot taken?”

Adam turned his head just in time to see a massive Drev warrior step into the empty space beside Kanan, her body glowing gold, her carapace blazing white.

Kanan barely had the voice to speak as Nehchal stepped into the place beside him.

Dzara almost looked a little put out until Lanus placed a hand on her shoulder, “It will be an honor to fight at your side.” 

Sunny and Adam needed no last words.

They could already hear it, unspoken between them, all of the thoughts and feelings they would have shared during a moment like this without words spilling into the space between them.

Otherwise,

Silence.

“FIGHT!”

Adham made no fanfare, no cheer, no call, just a single order, and they marched. The less experienced warriors bumped into their counterparts at the front ready to charge into battle like this was some sort of heroic movie scene, but those experienced, on the front line, held for the time being.

Adam and Sunny held their arms forward sending charges of Anima energy through their armored suits and into their forearms standing strong as glowing golden shields burst to life before them. The makers broke off in groups darting to the side and aiming directly towards the enemy lines, targeting their heavy artillery.

Behind them, came the clunk of artillery going off, and then a sharp whistle as the ordinance shot through the air over their heads. The void took first casualties, screaming as that artillery round roared into their midst and then erupted sending bodies and pieces of bodies briefly into the sky. The void did not need an invitation to strike back, and Adam’s ears were filled with the whistling of incoming artillery before a brief eruption of golden light sparked behind him as the makers blocked the strike.

Though they were unable to protect everyone.

The first casualty of the Makers was starborn, ripped apart by the force of the concussion and thrown back to land torn amidst the marching videos down below.

“STEADY!” Adam ordered.

“STEADY!” Conn shouted, and the entire field was filled with the psychic pulse as he spoke, powerful nad resonant.

More golden burst of light broke their line, a few rounds made it through. Bodies collapsed.

Before them their own artillery chewed through the lines of void soldiers.

They were so close now.

Adam could see the Gold of kazna’s eyes even as she raised her spear.

And let it fall. 

[desultory-novice]

re mks eyes my theory was always that as the kirby species matures their eyes become one color, similar to them growing wings. meta, galacta, and morpho (assuming they’re all part of the species) all have one color for their eyes, while kirby’s eyes are still multi colored since he’s fairly young. also on the topic if they’re all the same species, which “knight” name would kirby choose do you think?

Oh hey! That's a really cool idea on the maturing eyes theory! 

I know that any purposeful change was debunked as being caused by the lighting (?) engine for Forgotten Land, but remember when we were all freaking out about Kirby's eyes having a bit of green in them in KatFL? That would have went along swimmingly with this theory!

Plus, the idea of eyes coalescing works well with one of my own early theories (and a quite popular one, I'm led to understand) that Meta Knight possessed the power of Copy Abilities when he was younger, but either due to overuse of the Sword ability or because he chose it (...wouldn't it be neat if there was like, a whole ritual to go with it? With a fancy shrine and everything?) he's now a permanent wielder of the Sword ability.

....Heh. Maybe that's why he's able to spawn endless swords in the arena fight, as seen when you nick Galaxia from him!

Hmmmm... What would Kirby be like when they reach their mature state? Well, Kirby definitely looks cute with angel wings, via the Angel ability in Squeak Squad.

But Star Allies has influenced me greatly, and I can't help but thing Kirby will have RAINBOW wings, ala the Star Allies Sparkler. (Well, not exactly like the Sparkler, but that's where I got the idea from.) Something like arched ribbons of light trailing down their back, but they're rainbows instead...

As for a name...there's a lot of possibilities there. We don't know why Meta Knight has the name Meta. (I mean, we know why HAL gave him that name, but no in-universe explanation as to what "Meta" means to the orb in question.) Galacta Knight seems to reference their great power (strongest in the galaxy) and Morpho/Butterfly Knight is named after their wings. That's a unique spread.

It's probably a bit simple and I'm sure has been thought of before, but given the series is called "Kirby of the Stars" (and that "Hoshi no Kirby" may be their full name)  ... I can see easily Kirby going with the name "Star Knight."

[lampscompany]

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[wolf-zer0]

Ya want some WORLD-BUILDING????

Have some world-building!

*REMINDER* This is based on characters, not real people.  I’m not going to be writing any shipping/smut content, especially involving minors.  Please be respectful of content creators’ boundaries!

The Crystallos Empire (AKA the Antarctic Empire)

Largest the countries (takes up most of the southern half of the map) but agreed to stop expansion after a bloody battle with Valeriana 

Centered on a large snowy mountain in the middle of the tundra 

Mostly stays out of other countries’ business, but will step in as a last resort 

Has some of the most well-known citizens in the world because… they’re pure chaos 

Attack at your own peril 

Has vast deposits of ores and gemstones, and the metalwork from Crystallos (mainly weaponry, armor, and jewelry) is highly sought after 

The only known food export is potatoes.  Wonder why… 

Associated Colors: Royal blue, light blue, crimson, gold 

Aesthetic/Vibes: gothic vibes, white stone and large stain glass windows, not particularly opulent or extravagant but still impressively royal looking, think catholic cathedral but brighter and with less Jesus (can you tell I’m a recovering catholic yet?), spires shooting into the sky that’s visible even during a blizzard, cavernous halls full of sunlight and echoes, snow that can comfort and kill in equal measure

Notable Members:

Philza Minecraft:

Angel

Visible wings look like a harpy eagle

Probably the most powerful person in the world

Didn’t mean to start an empire it kinda just happened

Also didn’t mean to adopt kids but his Dadza alarm went off

Usually kind but will not hesitate to use violence when necessary

Technoblade: 

Is pig.  

With braid.  

At least 8 feet all

Extremely adept fighter, skilled in almost every form of combat.  

Not a people pig, prefers his potato farm to being a prince

Hella protective of his family but will not hesitate to bully when given the opportunity

Wilbur Soot: 

Muse who can influence people through song

Can’t totally control people (yet) but can subtly push them in a certain direction

The public face of the imperial family

Would rather insult than fight but can and will cut a bitch if he needs to

Because inspiration is fickle he’ll have some … strange episodes (see: the Sand Incident)

Tommy Innit: 

Child.  

Chaos incarnate.

Is he human?  Is he not?  No one’s sure yet.  

But he’s a gremlin and a hellion and willing to throw down at any moment.  

Has a surprisingly caring side, but no one outside his immediate circle has ever really seen it.  

The Kingdom of Valeriana (aka Dream SMP)

Oldest of the countries 

Located in the middle of a massive forest at the center of the main continent 

Home of the Fae Courts

Ruled by a single king who is chosen by a tournament held every 100 years 

Known for causing chaos in other countries, but after an Incident with Crystallos they have kept their meddling to annoyances rather than outright declarations of war 

Considered the most magical of all the countries, and traditional enchantments almost all come from Valeriana 

Associated Colors: neon green (duh), bright yellow, forest green, light brown, blood red (more saturated than Crystallos), rose gold 

Aesthetic/Vibes: spooky art nouveau (idk what else to call it), lots of plants and nature but with an edge of danger, poison gardens and carnivorous plants, hedge mazes that lead everywhere and nowhere, laughter deep in the forest, deer with eyes just a hair too human, Alice in Wonderland on steroids 

Notable Members: 

Dream: 

Current king of the Fae

As long as he’s touching the ground, he knows where everything and everyone is

Can terraform

Unlimited in the boundaries of his kingdom

Much more limited outside of his realm

No one has ever seen what he really looks like, even before he took the throne

Since people outside the kingdom don’t know who he is, he’ll wander the outside world and challenge random people to fights

Never says what happens to the losers

Only one person has ever beaten him: Technoblade

He might have a lil obsession around Techno, but it’s fine.  

A little competition is healthy.

Sapnap:  

High Lord of the Summer Court

Dream’s right hand man

Likes fire a little too much probably

George: 

Human that Dream took a liking too and yoinked from the mortal world

Dream and Sapnap made him immortal but he hasn’t realized it yet.  

Skeppy: 

Changeling who started growing diamond-like scales across his body

Is vaguely allied with Dream simply because he’s Fae, but is more loyal to BBH

Like a lot of other Fae, likes to make challenges but he makes them less deadly.  Not totally safe, just less deadly.

Badboyhalo: 

Demon who was kicked out of hell because he was too nice

Found Skeppy in the Overworld and the rest is history

Cursed by the Demon King that the moment he says a swear word, the entire world would end, but can never tell anyone that he is cursed

The Merchant’s Guild

Not quite a country, more of a international power 

Oversees the largest and most important businesses in the world 

Makes sure that no laws are broken between different countries and everyone gets a fair shake 

Has a very large reach, so some members have dabbled in espionage for various groups 

From the outside it looks like the whole thing is kept together with duct tape and hope, but its actually pretty functional

The main members are just… a lot. 

More concerned with keeping things working than influencing other nations (although there are still jokes about it) 

The most valuable thing they trade in is information

They have a lot of fingers in a lot of pots, but are trusted with their information 

Associated Colors: dark blue, teal, deep yellow, burnt orange, copper

Aesthetic/Vibes: art deco babie, angles and lines, very modern and streamlined, sleek suits instead of armor or robes, whiskey in a crystal glass, wars won by words not weapons, knowing when someone’s lying without them saying a word

Notable Members:

Schlatt: 

Ram-man with a plan

Not that bad of a dude, but is in a position where he is constantly in possession of highly sensitive information and that does things to someone’s mental state

Drinks pretty regularly but not a full blown alcoholic

Trying his best

Can be a snarky asshole sometimes

Quackity: 

Lucky duck.  literally.  

Duck man with an uncanny ability to absorb good luck from people (typically Fundy) and apply it to himself

No one knows when or why he joined the guild, but now he’s there

Pretty damn smart, but hides it behind humor

Fundy: 

FOX!  

With BEANS!

Trying his goddamn best but life (and Quackity) make it very difficult

Usually is stuck with the shit end of the stick when getting jobs/contracts/etc. 

Wilbur being his dad is an inside joke that’s gotten a life of its own.  

(No Fishfuckers Allowed!!!)

Puffy: 

Badass sheep lady who captains a ship and commands her own armada

Schlatt’s sister

Also part of Storm’s Landing’s council and acts as the main liaison between them 

Do not fuck with her she will kick your ass.

Storm’s Landing

Port city that became a country after becoming a safe-haven for seafarers

Led by a council of important people, with the head of the council known as the Admiral 

Closest ties to Crystallos and the Merchant’s guild because: 

1) Clingy supremacy!!!!

2) it’s a good idea for a guild to have good ties with a large sea power

3) all the dads for Tubbo

Associated Colors: navy blue, scarlet, white, brass 

Aesthetic/Vibes: Nautical (obviously) with heavy “Age of Exploration” vibes, barnacles crusted on treasure chests, think tall ships and pirates and shit, respecting the ocean because holy shit she’s gonna smash your boat to pieces on a whim because she can, has an edge of darkness because when you go deep enough who knows what you’ll find down there (maybe mermaids???) 

Notable Members:

CaptainSparklez: 

elected to Admiral after the previous Admiral went missing on a routine voyage 

(idk who it used to be, I just wanted to make him new at leading)

not 100% sure about the whole thing, but handling it pretty okay

still answers to “Captain” instead of “Admiral”.  

Niki:

If Storm’s Landing had a queen, would be it unquestionably

Never gets robbed even though there’s a well known “underbelly” in town

Could probably end wars with her croissants

Has a significant history of empathic abilities in her family, so she can tell how people are feeling at all times

Eret: 

Owns a magic store in town that really only shows itself to people who need it.  

Having a bad mental health day?  

He’s got a warm blanket and a cup of your favorite warm beverage waiting.  

Dysphoric?  

She’s got the perfect outfit and affirming words already prepared.  

Trying to find that specific book but can’t remember the title or plot, only vaguely know the color of the cover?  

They’ve got it.  

Ranboo:  

Not sure why he decided to move to a seaside city when he’s not chill with water, but now he’s here and he’s too anxious to leave

Known for teleporting around town randomly when nervous, and the people who find him are always willing to let a hand if he gets lost

Tubbo: 

This boi!  Has so many dads!  

Epitome of “Kindness does not equal weakness.”  

While a lot of people underestimate him, he’s not some fragile little flower

He hasn’t fully grown into his ability to speak to animals (he can only understand bees right now)

He’s just as much of a shit stirrer as Tommy.  

When they meet up, look out.  Something’s getting destroyed.

The Astral Academy

An independent university focused on advancing knowledge in the arcane arts and engineering 

Not a country, but has the political power of one due to their vast resources and building prowess 

People can’t enter unless they are invited or have been given entry as a student 

There are a bunch of potential doors scattered around the continent that could lead to the Academy, but no one is sure where the real entrance is 

Associated Colors: royal purple, lilac, sepia, sky blue, silver, bronze Aesthetic/Vibes: bright academia, massive libraries with bookshelves stuffed to bursting, workshop benches covered in scrap and prototypes, open air observatories, runes waiting to be translated, the crackling energy that comes from successful collaboration, falling down a research rabbit hole, bursting with pride after a project is a success

Notable Members: 

Sam

Purpled

Ponk

Punz

Antfrost

Jack Manifold

I don’t know much about these characters, so if you have any ideas please let me know!

Zero’s OC Land - The North Haven

Smallest and newest country 

Recently gained independence from under a cruel dictator (not schlatt lol)

Located in a pine forest at the base of a huge mountain range 

Has pretty good relations with the other countries, but outsiders don’t know much about them 

Main exports are wood carvings and leather goods 

Associated Colors: Maroon, dark brown, black, pewter 

Aesthetic/Vibes: medieval but with a modern twist, dark wood lit by a roaring fireplace, snow-covered woods without a living soul in sight, half timber houses and detailed wood carving, no outrageous ornamentation or extravagance 

Notable Members:

Tyr: 

Lord of the North Haven

trying to keep his people safe and protected

one of the few remaining Spirits (higher in power than the Fae, but lower than angels)

Spirit of Justice

lost a hand in the war for North Haven’s independence

didn’t want to become the leader but does a pretty good job at it

Adopted 5 kids and is trying his best

Bragi: 

Heir Apparent

24 year old human

can influence the world by speaking (not singing) but has to be careful about which words he uses

has a book full of phrases that have proven effects (a spellbook of sorts)

has a friendly rivalry with Wilbur

Freya: 

Spymaster

actually the oldest but abdicated because she feels she’s not the right person to lead a country

age unknown because she’s the last known [REDACTED] (it’ll be revealed, but I wanna build suspense)

has gyrfalcon wings and heightened senses

chronic insomniac

Forseti: 

Official Librarian

20 years old

hybrid with an unknown entity

has black fingers with sharp claws

always wears gloves to hide them

can create portals to places he’s been or to people he knows (the second is much riskier, but not impossible)

knowledge sponge

wants to join the Astral Academy but is too nervous to apply

Odin: 

Older Twin

The “Sensible One”

17 years old

Has an uncanny sense of direction

Can’t get lost no matter what

Can manipulate magnetic fields

Loki:

Younger Twin

The “Hot Headed One”

17 years old

can manipulate fire

idolizes his older siblings, particularly Freya

The Institute

Creeping around in the background

Up to bad things

Something’s going on in the world, but no one’s noticed yet

They will though… soon

Aesthetic/Vibes: minimalism (the worst kind of vibes imo), think laboratories or empty hospitals, harsh artificial lights and cold floors, labyrinths of monotonous hallways with no doors

[kyungwonrp]

+ ... // STUDENT PROFILE ... LOADING

MOCHIZUKI REI is 23 YEARS OLD and currently enrolled in kyungwon university. she is in her 1ST YEAR of the GRADUATE PROGRAM, majoring in KOREAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. she is notably part of the ICE SKATING CLUB and the DANCE CLUB. she works part-time OFF-CAMPUS in the DAWON TEAHOUSE. you may find her in the EAST WING (ROOM #10).

                        + ... // LOAD STUDENT BACKGROUND . . .

tw: mentions of death and grieving.

the soothing breeze caressed her pale skin as rei advanced along the stone path, the rustling of leaves and the freshness of the air that filled her lungs with each deep breath she took calming her raging nerves. in the past, she had wondered if every single time would feel the same — clammy hands, racing heart, a knot in the pit of her stomach she could never get rid of, an absolute hollowness inside her heart. eight years later and those feelings remain. some things simply don’t change when it comes to heartache like this.

rei’s dainty fingers tightened around the bouquet of flowers and her steps faltered on the grass when she left the path and finally reached her mother’s grave. a grave — the word rang loud in her mind. it seemed to never quite register, the sorrow the mere thought of such a loss brought shifting her mood even so long after the events. but it had to register now. today was a day of change. a day of letting go.

“hi, mom.. i brought your favorites.” she breathed out. trembling, rei rested the bouquet against the headstone, appreciating the way the flowers adorned it and brought it color. her mom had always loved tulips, the yellow ones especially. just the thought of her smile each time she received those had rei’s eyes filling with unshed tears, her teeth digging deeply into her lower lip in hopes the pain would stop her from crying as she reached into her pocket to soon unfold a letter.

ㅤ ㅤఇ  ๋ ≀ — ❛ before i called her name, she was nothing but a gesture.

dear mom, 

do you recall the first time we met? i was just a small little girl, already so tired of the world i lived in.. but i remember silently praying every night before sleep for whoever listened to send an angel into my life. some kids at the orphanage would laugh at me because i was growing older and nobody seemed to want me as part of their family but, even though i ached from the pain of being rejected time and time again, i held onto hope. it’s that hope that brought you to me. my angel.

the memory of you entering those entrance doors is still vivid in my mind. back then, i thought you were odd. normally, people came in couples — no matter the genders, it was always two. and yet, you came alone; such a weird concept for my eight year-old mind to process. perhaps that’s what got me a little more curious about you and, ultimately, what led me to introduce myself to you with the biggest smile i could muster at the time and hold onto your hand. little did i know i’d keep on holding your hand for a long time.

we became family, you and i. and you taught me so much about love. about how a connection such as ours is not determined by blood, but by what’s in our hearts. eventually, mom yori — or, as i jokingly called her as a kid, mom two — came into our little family, and you both helped me heal every scar i had from feeling abandoned so early in my life and made me realise i was deserving of all the good that was coming to me. you shaped me into the woman i am today, a little insecure at times, sure, but who knows her strengths as well.

thank you for being such an inspiration to me, too. i lost count of how many times i’ve read and reread your unpublished novels; of how many times i wished you’d had allowed the world to see how good of a writer you were. mom yori thinks you should have shared them with everyone too, but we know you were too scared to do it at the time. even if we are the only ones who can read them, though, i cherish every word you put on paper. it’s what motivated me to keep pursuing an education in creative writing. so i, too, could move people with words.

i’m moving to korea today.. i’ll study korean language and literature.. those were your dream majors, right? sometimes i ask myself if you ever missed your home country over japan with us, since you were always so proud of your roots and missed so many things from your hometown. i enjoy imagining you being proud of me, too, for being able to enroll into such a great university in a country i know you loved so much. i’ll be an international student and there will be so much i’ll have to get used to, but i’ll picture you and mom yori with me the entire time giving me strength. i truly miss you so much, so thinking of you always helps.

me going away also means i’ll visit less.. i guess it was about time i stopped annoying you every month and allowed you to rest. this isn’t a goodbye. it pains me, though. to leave you here, and to leave mom yori by herself too. she hasn’t been with any other women since you left us and i’m scared she will fall sad with my being away too. promise me you’ll look after her, okay? i know that, wherever you are, you’ll help me take care of her.

i will do my best to focus a little more on me now, like i know you’d want me to do. it’s so, so hard because i constantly feel your absence, but i promise that i’ve always been trying my best. regardless, i thank you for being part of my life. whether you are here or not, i know you’ll keep guiding me as you have for these last few years. i love you, mom. i will forever love you more than words could ever say.

sincerely, your rei.

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ఇ  ๋ ≀ — ❛ when i called her name, she became a flower.

the tears made her vision blurry, one hand coming to wipe them away so she could attempt to recompose herself. there were so many conflicting emotions inside her chest. love, pain, excitement, reluctance.. all of them mixed together enough to feel overwhelming. this was only the end of a chapter, though. one that had served its purpose in her life, even if it had brought her more grief than joy. the new one was made of pages upon pages of blank paper ready to be filled, and she had no idea how the story would turn out, but she had to take the leap.

rei folded the letter back and placed it under the flowers, making sure the breeze wouldn’t carry it away. she had a flight to take in a few hours, new people to meet, new experiences to live. though the letter stayed, the emotions it conveyed would hopefully bring her mother along with her in spirit. so, pressing the pads of her fingers against her lips for a kiss, rei touched them upon the headstone, imprinting all the affection in her heart on that simple little gesture before she took the courage to turn her back towards the grave and leave the ghosts of her past behind.

[demonologist-in-denim]

“Okay,” Dean declared as the Winchesters, Cas and Crowley ambled into the mostly empty museum, “this place is awesome!”

For any imaginative child – or grown man denied the joy of childhood – the interactive children’s museum and library was very much a magical place. The walls were brightly painted, with puzzles or buttons that lit up. There were large foam constructions to climb on, and nooks to hide in, rope bridges and swing sets, an obstacle course and one of those nebula lightening balls that made kids’ hair stand on end. According to the map of the vast museum, there was a room where the entire floor was a pool of bubble solution, and kids hopped from island to island, using huge wands to blow massive bubbles. In another room, kids could be the bubbles, climbing inside inflated suits and bouncing around a room full of air jets. An entire wing of the museum was given over to a library, where shelves revolved to reveal hidden rooms and spiral staircases led up into miniature observatories. It was a place of childhood wonder and imagination.

All that fun, however, was being put on hold by unwelcome disappearances – and odd appearances. Lately, museum and library staff were going missing, and in their place, children were suddenly appearing. The children all went unclaimed at the end of the day, and made quite a bit of fuss when adults attempted to help them find their families. They insisted they weren’t really children at all.

“A case involving children,” Crowley griped, “how delightful.”

“Come on, Crowley,” Sam laughed at both the demon and his brother’s excited exploration of one of the exhibits. “We were all kids once. With imagination and joy and – you know – optimism about life.”

“Speak for yourself,” Crowley muttered. He grabbed Dean by the elbow and dragged him over to the cartoon-styled map of the museum. The FBI agents and the consulting Child’s Services counselors had just come from a meeting with the museum’s director regarding the case, and were scoping out the place. Normally, one pair would have done the preliminary investigation while the other pair looked into lore and the victims, but the museum was massive and too much for just two people. And it was clear that Dean was going to be a bit of a handful on this case.

Cas wasn’t helping much either.

“You were a child, once.” The fallen angel smiled irritatingly and glanced at Crowley out of the corner of his eye, thoroughly enjoying ribbing the reformed demon. “You wouldn’t have enjoyed a place like this? Is there not some small – very small – part of you that – ”

“I’m going to spare you from finishing that utterly ridiculous sentence, Feathers. If this is Neverland, than I am Captain Hook. Which would make you lot the Lost Boys and that one – ” He eyed Dean as the hunter enthusiastically dug a penny out of his pocket and set to spinning down the museum’s donation funnel. Crowley would murder them all before admitting something in him softened at the sight. “ – the boy who will never grow up.”

They all watched Dean for a moment, watching the penny as it spun round and round.

“Right,” Sam said, nodding towards the entrance to the main exhibits. “Who’s up for some exploring?” The four passed through the turnstile and into the museum.

It was rather obvious what was happening, of course. Something or someone was turning the museum and library staff into their childhood selves. Crowley wasn’t yet clear on the how or why of it. Or how to reverse whatever was happening.

What he did know was to take the necessary precautions against the Winchesters, Castiel or himself being turned into children. The absolute last thing he needed was for Sam and Dean to be downsized to hyperactive, bloodthirsty “wee-chesters” with himself and Cas responsible for their care and the case. Or worse – much, much worse – for all of four of them to be de-aged. In which case, the only real solution, horrible as it would be, would be to call his mother. Crowley could only imagine the delight Rowena would take in that particular situation. Unless, of course, reversing the spell proved to be difficult, in which case she would have not one, but four very rambunctious and very unwelcome boys under her care.

Rowena was not even remotely fond of children, much less her own son at that age. And it wasn’t something Crowley had any interest in reliving either. Thus, the necessary precautions were in place.

Which left him free to enjoy, from an emotional remove and with dismissive amusement, the wonders of the children’s museum.

Room after room opened into another immersive, interactive exhibit. A room where they walked on bridges and ducked under overpasses built for marble races. A room lit up in blacklight with huge, glowing blocks where kids learned about the light spectrum. More than once, they nearly lost Dean.

“Dude! Dude!” Dean grabbed Cas by a shoulder and shook him. “That room is a giant ball pit! And slides!” The hunter stared up into the two-story high room designed to look like an alien spaceship, where slides of all different colors and lengths slithered down into the ball pit. A child walked by eating a multi-colored swirled cookie from the museum’s café. The treat was the same size as the kid’s head. Dean stared after him. “Duuuude…”

“I am beginning to suspect,” Crowley mused, glancing back with bemusement as Dean shuffled after them, craning his neck to look into every room they passed, “that whatever is causing the staff to become children likely has to do with their own over-enthusiasm for the museum.”

“You think so?” Sam asked. Almost to juxtapose his brother, he straightened his suit’s tie and walked like the professional FBI agent he was pretending to be. “I would have guessed it was the work of a witch.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean hopped on the moving sidewalk and rode ahead of them, looking a little too proud of himself for it. “If that’s the case, why bother? In my experience, witches turn adults into kids to eat them. But there are plenty of kids running around, so why not just snatch any of them?”

Castiel furrowed his brow at Dean and glanced around them, concerned. “You should not talk about snatching children so loudly in public.”

“Feathers makes a good point.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks, Mr. Pretend Child Services.”

Crowley adjusted his cardigan and glared at the hunter. He still wasn’t clear why, exactly, he and Cas needed to play at the counselors while the Winchesters got to be the investigating agents.

“Maybe it is some sort of benevolent entity,” Cas offered, obnoxiously hopeful as always. “Perhaps it only wishes for the staff to enjoy the museum and the library as much as their young patrons enjoy it. And it doesn’t understand that it is causing undue harm.”

“Yeeeah,” Sam smiled weakly at the fallen angel. “I suppose that could be it.”

The foursome stopped at the end of the corridor, before a massive pile of books stacked to create a doorway which marked the entrance to the library. Beyond, light choired through the room in sparkling peals, shelves upon shelves climbed the walls, and in the center rose a great tree. Not a real tree, as would be immediately obvious to any adult. A sign declared it to be The Great Reading Tree, and rope ladders and staircases climbed up into its branches, where hammocks hung and platforms with railings looked out over the room. There were soft burrows carved into the tree at the base and into some of the larger branches, where children could nestle in for a read. The top branches entwined with the ceiling and drifted out over the room. Bookmarks dangled above the boys’ heads.

“Don’t,” Sam warned his brother, “even think about it.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but couldn’t keep the massive smile off his face. It was clear just how badly he wanted to climb The Great Reading Tree. Even if he wouldn’t fit in any of the hammocks or burrows or any of the rest of it.

They walked through a room bathed in ultramarine, with floor-to-ceiling aquariums creating a child-sized maze. Dean stopped to ogle the dwarf lanternshark and scare the pufferfish into inflating. With bored exasperation, Cas reminded him not to tap on the glass. In a room without lights, the floor tiles were lit in bright colors and chimed musical notes as the boys stepped on them. Dean danced the chorus of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and Crowley may or may not have tapped out the opening notes of Brahms’ Symphony No. 3. They tottered their way through a vortex tunnel the length of a football field. Dean had to be quite literally dragged from the room where some ingenious engineer had managed to combine air hockey and bowling.

Towards the end, they walked through a holographic, interactive exhibit of the solar system. Sam studied the rings of Saturn with scholarly intensity. Dean flicked asteroids across space. Cas held the world in his hands, turning Earth this way and that, pondering, with that deep furrow carved into his brow. Pretending disinterest, Crowley wandered towards the sun. He put his hand up to it, felt a muted warmth supplied by some sensory system or other. Pretended, for just a moment, that he was the center of their little universe, rather than second-rate Pluto.

“You ever walk among the stars, Cas?”

The fallen angel looked at him over the top of their world.

“Did you?” He asked, though it wasn’t so much a question as a quiet commiseration, a reminder to them both that they had more in common with one another than with the humans with which they now chose to keep company, to consider family.

They explored every exhibit in the museum, allegedly looking for clues about the case. There would be time for that later, though, once the museum closed. For now, it was admittedly fun to simply wander through and familiarize themselves with the museum.

Maybe, Crowley mused to himself in secret, there was a little bit of childlike wonder in each of them after all. Even in him, if only a little.

The maze of corridors and rooms led the four boys back around to the main entrance, with only one exhibit left. A floor-to-ceiling green screen photo booth, with a touchscreen interface that allowed the museum-goer to choose the background. And large green foam blocks and shapes to maneuver, sit or climb on, hide or lift to create a fully-immersive photo experience. On the opposite wall, the potential photo appeared, allowing photo-takers to see themselves and adjust accordingly. The final photo was available in both digital and print at the museum gift shop.

“Dude! We gotta do this!” Dean was already swiping through the available backgrounds.

“Yes, by all means,” Crowley drawled. “Let’s leave a record of our being here, as well as making fools of ourselves. That will surely never come back around to bite us in the arse.”

“Hey, you know what? You don’t have to be in the photo if you don’t want to be.” Dean replied, with a tone that said he wasn’t about to let the demon ruin his fun. “Me and Sam and Cas? We’re gonna be pirates.”

“Wait,” Sam started to say, “I didn’t agree to – ”

“Come on, Sammy!” Dean called happily over his shoulder. The screen on the opposite wall lit up with the image of a massive pirate ship, floating in what could only be, Crowley realized with some amusement, Mermaid Bay. A jolly roger flew from the mast and a crocodile lurked in the waters below the boat. Trailing among the sails was a sprinkling of golden glitter. Fairy dust.

Crowley shook his head. Neverland, indeed.

With Cas’ confused assistance, Dean stacked and arranged the foam blocks so that he and Sam could appear as if over the railing of the ship. More blocks were stacked to a precarious height, especially given that the blocks had to bear the weight of a grown man, and Dean appeared in the crow’s nest of the ship.

“Check it out!” Dean laughed. “We look awesome! Everyone ready?” He held the remote control clicker in one hand, ready to take the photo.

Crowley looked at the three – Dean up in the crow’s next making a fierce scowl; Sam with his hands up to his eyes, pretending to be looking through a spyglass; Castiel, so eager to go along despite his utter lack of understanding, absolutely beaming at the camera. Little boys at play, all three of them.

Crowley sighed, and stepped into the bottom corner of the green screen. He lifted a foot to “brace” against the open treasure chest resting on the shore, crossed his arms, and offered the camera his most supremely pleased smile.

There was a loud, lens-shutter sound that the exhibit’s child audience would recognize and understand, and then their little tour of the museum was over.

Out in the main entrance, Sam delegated responsibilities, sending Dean and Crowley to interview the museum and library staff turned into children, under the premise of reunited the supposedly lost children with their parents. Sam was going to look into any related lore, and Castiel was to remain at the museum, keep an eye on the staff, and see if he couldn’t ascertain anything that might be of importance.

“Okay, but before we head out,” Dean insisted to Crowley, after they had parted ways with his brother and the angel, “I’mma visit the café, get me one of those cookies. Maybe a nacho-flavored corndog or some astronaut ice cream. You want anything?”

A decent cup of tea was entirely unlikely, so Crowley sent Dean off on his own, with strict instructions to return immediately after obtaining the desired treats, and not go wandering off again into the museum. He even threatened with the possibility of acquiring one of those child leashes, but Dean just laughed, patted him on the shoulder and made off towards the museum café.

In the absence of any unbelieving eyes, Crowley wandered over to the gift shop. He scrolled through the various photos taken from throughout the day in the green screen room. Ostensively to look for anything that might pertain to the case. But when he came to the photo of the four of them, he quietly paid for a digital copy to be sent to one of his private emails. And for a printed one, which he thought would go nicely in a frame and which he might present to Dean later, with the insistence that the photo be hung in Dean’s room or someplace that no one but the four of them might see it. Crowley had a reputation to maintain, after all.

And then, remembering something, Crowley pulled out his phone and opened up his Bumblr app. He checked the date, and smiled to himself. How fortuitous.

He made a new post and tagged one of the supernatural fans with whom he occasionally liked to chat, keeping himself up to date on the fandom and, surprising no one but himself, even making a few friends. This fan also happened to enjoy the work of J.M. Barrie, and Crowley was fairly certain they’d appreciate this particular photo of himself and the boys, who were known to the fandom as rather dedicated Supernatural LARPers. He supposed his reputation could handle a little fun, now and then.

“Happy birthday, @emblue-sparks,” Crowley tapped out under the photo. “From everyone’s favorite ‘boys who refuse to grow up.’”

He clicked post, and smiling, wandered back into the museum in search of Dean.

***

Surprise, Em! Wasn’t sure I was going to get this written in time, but where there is a will, there is a way. Hope you like it and have a wonderful day today! Eat lots of cake for me.

Thanks to everyone for reading! If you’re wondering exactly why – or even how – Crowley became a member of the in-world spn fandom, you can find out here.

[solitvdcs]

* darren barnet, cis male + he/him  | you know andrew upston, right? they’re twenty-seven, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, five years and just reappeared after almost nine years? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to cough syrup by young the giant like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole ink-stained hands wrapped in bandages, lingering stutter hidden behind a mysterious facade, dropping the weight on your shoulders into the pacific ocean thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is november 3, so they’re a scorpio, which is unsurprising, all things considered.

trigger warning: death and vehicular accident

basic info

full name: andrew richard upston

birth date: november 3, 1994

pronouns: he/him

hometown: new york, ny

sexuality: bisexual

height: 5′11″

eye color: brown

hair color: brown

build: athletic

tattoos: “i feel infinite” across his upper back, written in his brother’s handwriting (from a note his brother wrote him once), various others but that’s the important one

piercings: none

style: varies from day to day, his style is whatever the fuck he wants

favorite color: gray

favorite food: pizza

zodiac: scorpio sun, scorpio moon, aries rising

mbti: infj

hogwarts house: gryffindor

enneagram: type 8 wing 7

temperament: choleric-phlegmatic

alignment: chaotic neutral

bio bullet points

as the oldest son of richard and helen upston, he was – of course – meant to take over the family business someday. he played the dutiful son act for most of his life, work first play later blah, blah – he played as hard as he worked, though, but he didn’t see a problem so long as he got done what he needed to beforehand

he started in karate at a young age, got kicked out because he didn’t take the sensei seriously, then enrolled in a different dojo where he did a little better. made it to brown belt level before moving to irving in eighth grade, which was the same year teardrops on my guitar came out (yes many people serenaded him, he was the cute new guy who happened to have the same name as the guy in the song)

instead of continuing with karate, he joined the local hockey league (also something he’d been playing since he was young). high school track came in the off season so he wouldn’t injure himself in a contact sport

DEATH & VEHICULAR ACCIDENT TW drew was never as close to his younger brother as he would’ve liked, but tate was still his brother no matter what. one night, tate snuck out in one of their dad’s luxury cars with his best friends in the passenger seat. the road was slick from a thin layer of freshly snow, the car slid off the road and wrapped around a light pole. drew was away at a hockey game, and tate was gone before he arrived. he stayed by the bedside of tate’s best friend that night until she woke up END TW

drew graduated a couple months later, went to a nearby university (and therapist), and studied sociology — a throwaway major, really, since he just needed the degree to take over the company. his fate was sealed, and he didn’t need to overthink it 

towards the end of his freshman year, he overheard his dad on the phone when he was walking by the office in their home. long story short, he discovered his dad was embezzling the company he worked for – his mother’s family’s company and the company drew was meant to take over – and drew knew it was only a matter of time before his dad was discovered, because – well, his dad wasn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box

he made the ultimate decision to drop out and try to make a living on his own so he wouldn’t get caught up in his father’s crimes. the problem was……..drew didn’t have any marketable skills. again, sociology had been a throwaway major just so he could get the slip of paper, and the only thing it helped was his ability to read people and situations

DEATH TW 2 still grieving over his brother’s death, he started channeling his grief like his therapist had told him countless times before. out on his own on the other side of the country, drew’s risk-taking behavior and overall adrenaline junky-ness led him to work as a stuntman in los angeles, and though it was fun and paid the bills for the most part, he was used to a much better lifestyle END TW

he’d fallen into the underground fighting ring back in school and found his way again in los angeles, and it was a much more lucrative business than stunts. he took up karate again and earned his second degree black belt while out in la. and during his off time – he started writing a book. 

drew had never been the best talker. he always spoke before he thought through his words and usually ended up saying the wrong thing. writing forced him to think about what he was saying, though, and he was actually pretty good at it

he published his book – a coming of age story featuring a boy with more than a few similarities to tate, and maybe a few others he had strong connections with along the way– under a pseudonym, because if the book did well, he wanted it to be his money and not get caught up in his family’s affairs. and if it did poorly, well, nobody would be the wiser

it did really well, though. topped all the bestseller lists, even without him doing a book tour to protect his identity. the only people who know he wrote rapidfire are his agent and therapist

now that he’s financially independent, he’s cut himself off from his family completely (was originally going to help his mother out, until he found out she was the brains behind the operation which – should’ve been obvious because his dad’s an idiot)

he’s living in port apartments, feeling weird living in the same town as his family again, as well as so many other people he grew up with

reported his family to the proper authorities, mainly to save his own skin and make sure he didn’t get implicated with them. they’re being investigated, but it’s still hush hush currently so it’s not widespread knowledge

he’s been back for about two weeks while he’s moved his stuff into his apartment, but hasn’t made his presence known to anyone else

wanted connections

NYC OR HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS!!!

any hook-ups or flings he had in the past, age appropriate of course

friends/frenemies/enemies

anyone who was hurt by his departure (the only person who actually knew he left before he did was tate’s best friend, and that’s only because she walked in on him packing and they got into a massive fight over it)

fans of his book even though they don’t know he wrote it asdkfj

mmmmm you know i love a good flirtationship

i’m so bad at wcs i’m so sorry, thanks for reading!!

[helahades]

The Goddess and the Grocer

(Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader)

Summary: Sappy and hopelessly romantic, the part time art student, part time grocery bagger, and full time fantasy creator Steve Rogers lives in his head, with you as his muse. Making puzzles out of your groceries, and portraits of your every curve and edge, he fears and craves every interaction, while living with you as a lover in his mind.

A/N: Well. I have struggled with motivation for the longest. Something hit me though, and by something I mean other supportive writers and great friends. Hugest shoutout to @threeminutesoflife for being a darling and @imanuglywombat for making TWO beautiful mood boards I stare at more than Steve stares at the Peggy compass.

Warnings: creepy, obsessive Steve. ideation of creepy thoughts. food focused talk. mention of overeating. dub-con concepts. two mentions of alcohol consumption.

New blog, new me! I’ll take this moment to say I’m taking requests, and I love feedback even more than Steve loves you! hope you enjoy

Word Count: about 3k

-

Now rain slicked, the sheen of oil and water twists the reflections of the tonights red, red, green—-“can I make the turn, no too late” on yellow—now red traffic lights into a twisted rainbow on the city streets.

Down those streets, and across a barren parking lot, parents, lovers, businesspeople and more squeak and clack and slap their rainy shoes on the old speckled tile at the entrance (that Steve had just mopped) as they do every week.

At the Potts Grocery Store, nothing ever changes. And never in the night.

It isn’t just night though, it’s dead night. The odd time after things have slowed for sleep, after the rush in between when people bumble in (promising themselves promises they won’t keep about doing the shopping sooner next month), after the ten minute period within which Dr. Banner wordlessly picks up the same array of bland teas.

The night has crawled beyond all the events that happen as they do, and entered the dead night.

Maybe Steve is too poetic—like his dad says he is—too tied up in fate, and hope in life’s mystique, but he holds hope for what happens where the night is dead.

When the night dies, and most are asleep, with it, facades die too. The only people to come in the dead of night, are drunks, doctors, various night shifters, and… you.

He hasn’t yet questioned your reason for showing up so late. Hasn’t really, technically, spoken to you at all, really.

Some part of Steve thinks, maybe if he startles you, says something that clangs too loud or awkward, all your pieces will blow away, like some agitated dandelion, and he will never know you again, if he ever even knew you at all.

No, Steve’s job isn’t to startle you, or to take up your space. It’s to try and meet your eyes as you hand him the reusable bags. It’s to try and figure out what meal you’re planning from what he’s bagging, and what he already knows lies unused in your kitchen. It’s to put the bags in your cart if you’ll let him.

He hasn’t seen you yet. It’s getting late, where are you?

Somewhere between cold fluorescent and neutral warm desk lamps, the lights of the grocery store seem to exist both to chase shadows on tired shoppers' faces, and to mock him, like a candle finally blown out by a stood up date.

Had he done something wrong the last time? If he had, that couldn’t be helped. You were wearing those shorts and looked like you had just gotten ready for bed and you had your hair pulled back, but just a little fell into your face anyway.

And your scent. It always wraps around him like the saccharine spice of pastries when he swings open the bakery door for his morning shift.

The moment you breezed by him after checkout was almost too much to bear. He caught the fresh damp scent of your tied up and deep conditioned hair. You smelled like fresh linens and a life he can only imagine having when he’s chasing orgasms alone and twisting up his sheets.

He could have devoured you.

But he didn’t.

Not even when your shoulder accidentally grazed him while you were rushing out in a frenzy.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” came your frantic whisper.

He dreams of making you that delicate again. He thinks he could shape your unsure apologies in his hands like clay, or spread you thin on a canvas when you whisper so soft. But he didn’t do those things at all.

Steve being Steve, he tried to make his large frame slouch, your aura wrapping him up into a double life Clark Kent shyness, despite your gentleness.

He didn’t say a word.

A wordless, mirthless stretch of his lips. An “It’s okay, walk all over me” grin. You regarded him with a flicker of an odd glance, and then you were out the door.

As he finishes up with the last shopper in his lane, his worn Converse squeak as he leans his frame against the bagging station at checkout.

-

Last class, last week, his art teacher dropped a big assignment. Stuffy and sadistic, the man seemed to only eat the pain of lovers kept from expression, so of course, he relished in the moment he told the class to try a new medium, with a subject they hadn’t previously captured.

He seemed to look directly at Steve as he delivered the blow.

Steve's problem certainly isn’t creativity. It isn’t talent or lack of effort. He surely is adaptable, he rarely tells on his love!

For the still life project, he captured the tree that blocks your kitchen window. Heavy strokes in his sketchbook.

He even painted the park in blooms on a paper towel—yes a paper towel—when you justified to a cashier one day that all the crackers and deli meats were for a picnic.

So he has a muse. But he’s not a fool. Sometimes he spends so much time trying not to look like a fool, and paints so much around you instead of you, that it’s a self portrait of his own obsession.

Your face. Your curves. The many separated sections where he tried to master the texture of your hair. All those traces of you live in his sketchbook. Only twice has he turned in a portrait of you.

Being told he can’t have you makes Steve feel like he’s been too obvious. You’re his little secret. And he is no fool. He’ll have to be more careful. So here he is.

The canvas is as bare as the walls of his studio apartment.

Three jobs and a potted plant from his mom just aren’t enough to decorate life. He wishes he could capture sleep in a picture frame and hang it on the wall. When he got too tired and caffeine stopped working, he thinks he’d pick up those frames and absorb the sleep in the way he can absorb nostalgia when looking at a real picture.

Then, he thinks, that’s the sort of thing art majors say when they haven’t slept in three weeks.

The canvas is still bare. It isn’t like Steve. He always knows where to go, what he feels, what he wants.

His teacher told him to try something different. Had the nerve to clap Steve on the back after class and say something about stretching creative wings and finding a new muse.

He thinks the guy should have punched him in the face instead.

There’s nothing stuck about Steve. He knows what he wants and how to get there.

He also knows that schooling ruins the intent of art, he knows how to put love into colors, that art teachers know the least about expression out of everyone on earth, and that he works two night jobs a week to barely afford to be taught by that man anyway.

Life is full of oddities.

-

Some of life’s oddities are right there in your cart as you approach. Steve notices the rain has frizzed your hair, the lovely heart shaped curve of your lips as they stretch into a smile, and the way you yawn before you say hello to the cashier.

He makes a mental note that your hair might have a warmer tinge when illuminated by the sun. You’re already his sun. His stars too. Maybe even his whole universe.

You’re always warm in his paintings. Anything to separate you from the dreadful scheme of this commercial death trap.

What’s for dinner this week?

Your groceries thump onto the counter in practiced succession. Perishables together at the front, and non perishables as neatly as possible following behind.

So thoughtful, my sweet darling.

Your produce today mostly consists of fruit. It reminds Steve of how practiced he is with a knife. How he’d slice up your apples just right for you. He has the practiced skills of an artist. He’d take care of you.

Bucky likes to tell him that cooking is the art and baking is the science. That’s meant to mean that it’s no surprise that Buckys got a perfect little life with a perfect little baker who smiles like the sun and only trusts Bucky in her kitchen.

...And it’s no surprise that Steve’s artsy streak has led him here. Thinking about folding mandarin slices between your perfect lips and letting the flavor explode across your tongue.

He thinks about kissing you. How you would taste tangy and sweet as you try not so hard to push him off so he gets back to cooking and doesn’t burn the house down.

The house. A house with you. A home.

He sees you’re wearing a sundress, and tries not to pity you for the irony. In the closet of some cookie cutter three bedroom, you might ask him how you look in it. He would beg you to wear it just for him a little longer, but ultimately, he would have been able to warn you about the rain.

You wouldn’t have listened though, my stubborn angel.

He thinks about your thighs beneath your dress, and the heat between them.

Sometimes, his dreams betray him, and he steps through the threshold to your shared home, not an artist, but a “Honey, I'm home” suit wearing prisoner.

He fears the simple life, but with you, he believes simplicity could be enough. Maybe he would be rich enough to buy you a million sundresses.

But without his art, he’d be powerless to show you how rich you look, bathed in color, divine from his perspective.

Without his art, he has no outlet for imagination. The only thing that gets him off these days is imagining what you look like under your clothes, and how it might sound if you spoke his name.

When you buy lotion, or a candle, he makes a mental note of the scent, and uses it to color his experience later. You like warm sugary scents, or natural outdoorsy ones, with no in between.

As you small talk with the cashier, your card slips from between your fingers and clatters onto the unswept floor. Finishing a thought, you delay in retrieving it, but by the time you’re leaning down, Steve’s already handing it back.

Eyes flitting up to meet the baggage boy standing up at full height, you melt into an easier smile.

You notice first that his eyes are incredibly blue behind the dark window frames, and second that his hands are incredibly warm as he hands your card back.

Frazzled, and just a bit smitten, you smile kindly.

“Thank you,” you say sweetly, regarding him fully, perhaps for the first time, and pausing only to let your eyes drift to the knitted cotton polo stretched across his broad chest—no, to the name tag resting on it…

“Steve,” you finish with a smile that makes it ring like an exclamation point. To hear you finally pronounce his name… it’s like church bells. But they’re muted because now he can only consider your eyes locked on his.

He’s never wanted to escape somewhere and go home with someone so badly. And would it be so wrong?

He could slice up fruit for you. He could bring sausages and deli meats and blocks of cheeses whole from the market where they slipped him things free. He’d slice them up nice and wrap them in cloth and surprise you with an old fashioned wicker basket picnic in the mountains.

He’d let you eat yourself round. And after you were full, he’d still offer to feed you grapes, to pour you more wine.

Steve never understood why the rich ate bread with olive oil, but God he wanted to be rich enough to give you that. All the things that sound ridiculous to people who work to live. He wanted to work so hard you’d never work again.

He wanted to kiss you dizzy, bunch up the fabric of your dress on your hip and tell you he loves you while you’re wine drunk. He’d carry you back to the car and surprise you with wildflowers in a bunch.

Later, he’d paint you nude with them in your hair, and he’d feed you more grapes.

He would tuck you in and wrap you up for later when you woke up missing him. Maybe he wouldn’t leave at all. Maybe you would want to spend the whole day with him too.

He’s got a twinkle of charm in his eye and just a bit of sadness that looks every bit like the starving artist people believe him to be. Bucky hasn’t stopped bringing him the leftover rolls at closing since he found out Steve spends more money on paint than meals.

And is it so wrong? As Steve looks into your eyes, he musters all that charm his mom said he was born with. He blinks brighter the twinkle in his eye.

“You’re welcome,” comes Steve’s gentle, but sure reply.

You pause at that, because really it’s nothing... But people always seem to say “Don’t worry about it!”, “It’s nothing”, or maybe nothing at all.

You pause at how the reaction seemed genuine, in a world of practiced replies, and on a day that you’re feeling shitty because the rain ruined your hair and happiness.

You smile at him again, grateful for a pocket of truthful kindness, and turn back to the cashier, effectively ending the interaction.

Steve’s mind is spinning in ways he just can’t bring himself to understand. So he bags your groceries. You forgot the reusable bags, he doesn’t pause to wonder why.

Click. Click. Click. Beep!

Tomatoes. He bags them with the apples. Double bags for good measure.

Beep.

Spaghetti. The good kind that most people overlook in favor of a more common brand. New bag.

Beep.

Frozen garlic bread. He adores you. You’ve got garlic and basil and more herbs than you’ll ever need at home. You’d probably make the spaghetti noodles and parmesan yourself if you could. But you love five minutes at 400 garlic bread.

He imagines your pretty little kitchen, with all its various knick knacks, smelling like garlic and tomato sauce. He can’t help thinking you’d be impressed with his chopping skills too. Just how his mom taught him.

He imagines cooking with you in the dead of night, instead of being here. He imagines you bending over with your legs straight and your back curved and the oven mitts on to get garlic bread out of the oven. You put the tray on the cold burners Steve’s not using.

Maybe he would ask you to try the sauce, he’d hold the spoon to your lips after blowing off for you. Your eyes always flutter closed to process the taste of things, and sometimes he swears he could read your mind.

Then they would open. Wide. The same way they did when you tasted the new product double chocolate brownie sample last Tuesday. You would tell him how perfect it is and praise how he finally isn’t shy about using garlic anymore. Turning off the burners, he’d pull you into his arms, he’d kiss you til you saw stars…

-

Walking you backwards, still entangled in the breathless kiss, he wouldn’t stop until you bumped the padded kitchen bench. Then he’d fall to his knees.

“Steve, honey”—

You’d cut yourself off with a breathy moan because he’d already be under your skirt.

Kissing up your thighs, flattening his tongue against you, kissing you gently, before sucking your clit, while working it with the tip of his tongue, he’d show you again, like always, how passionate of a lover he is.

You’d moan like heaven, because you are.

You’d lean back, propping yourself up on an arm and pushing the other hand through his golden hair. You just can’t stop your hips from rolling against his tongue that’s still worshipping you.

He won’t use his fingers. It wouldn’t be proper, he’s just been cooking. So instead, he uses those hands to pull your thighs up onto his shoulders.

Still swirling his tongue around your clit, Steve is drawing you closer, your body seeming to know it’s own ways to pull him to you too.

It’s electric. You can’t stop and you’d never want to. He’d make love to you every single—

-

That’s not where he is though. He grabs the paper bags he’s bagged up with your ingredients and some other oddities, and he places them in the cart you’ve pushed forward.

He tries not to think about the fact that you’re going home alone. He tries not to think about how he’ll be sleeping alone, and in cold colors. Tries to skip forward to later when he has all the time in the world to imagine the way things should be.

A quiet goodnight and you’re on your way. You’re careful not to graze him as you walk away, and he’s careful not to be obvious watching.

The cashier leaves the station, and Steve puts his head down as he passes, before looking up in your direction as he always does.

Except… when he looks up to see your sundress swishing, it isn’t. And you’re turned back looking at him with this funny little look.

You smile. A twinkle of embarrassment, nervous to have been caught looking. He tries not to chuckle for all the irony.

He watches you as you watch him just a bit longer, before your sundress swishes out the door, and the light of your halo fades into the distance, consumed by the rain.

-

By the time his shift is up, the rain has stopped and the sky is colored like a bruise. The sun knocks at a threshold unseen, just slightly feathering light through the sky.

Steve is dead tired, but he won’t sleep a wink. Once he arrives at his apartment, he begins the project.

A mixed medium piece. Acrylic paint, charcoal shadowed details. It’s a wicker basket, full of apples, grapes, and wildflowers.

-

Later, as the sun rises, and the painting is half done, he flops into bed, finishing up a stale roll from the bakery, and dreams about waking up to you.

He pretends there’s no job to be at in three and a half hours, but instead, that it’s a quiet Sunday, and he’s waking up to you in his arms...

Soft and ethereal.

-

Thank you for reading!

Whether or not this is your type of writing, or you liked it at all, I just want to tag some authors who generally inspire me and helped in some way to motivate me posting my first piece: @threeminutesoflife @imanuglywombat @sherrybaby14 @jtargaryen18 @heavenbarnes @tropicalcap @allaboardthereadingrailroad @thotty-tatertot @sapphirescrolls