#Whoops I posted it without tags let me just add those

[veem0ling]

if you ever draw otto mentallis you must post it cause your art is literally PEAK!! and the world NEEDS a win

(you dont need 2 reply 2 this.. its just a general statement..)

Here's some Otto just for you 😌

Also taking this as an excuse to yap about him because WHY DIDN'T WE GET TO GO INTO HIS MIND????????

He barely does anything in the game but like- there's so many little morsels of lore around him

He was one of the first two founders, he brought Ford and Lucrecia together, his machine is what froze Helmut's body in the lake, he has a significant presence in Compton's and Bob's minds, Cassie doesn't like him for some reason, like I WANT TO KNOOOOW

[bp-zb1fics]

A little crazy

pairing: overprotective bf shanbin x s/o reader

genre: university au on unhingedness (same verse as perils, and no, it's not lasik), fluff

tw/tags: established relationship, some stereotypical characters, hanbin has a few quirks, character study lowkey, unwanted flirting, unintentional flirting, pet names, intimidation, he's sweet but a psycho, drinking, getting a lil tipsy, lowkey stalker vibes but not really, for plot purposes we will find it cute, threatening, idk how to tag this pls tell me if i missed something

wc: 2078

summary: your boyfriend is legitimately the sweetest person ever…except when someone tries to make moves on you. Then he gets…well…

a/n my advanced birthday fic for hanbin! Bc idk why I thought it was today I must have hallucinated but also idk if I have time to post on the actual day bc of real life commitments lmao whoops I struggle and try my best. Shout out to Kara aka @boysplanetmorelike for sparking this lil idea~

Check my pinned for more fics~

It’s not like he was perfect, even if people liked to think he was. Well, yes he is very boyfriend. That’s why he’s your boyfriend.

You, of all people, can attest to the fact he isn’t perfect. You’ve seen his hair in the morning. He’s definitely not at his prettiest. Sometimes he becomes a little control freak. You know that. You’re the one who they call to get him before he makes one of the poor freshmen cry unintentionally and then ends up feeling guilty about it and apologising profusely for the rest of the day, your poor soft-hearted man. And some might argue that yes he has his little ticks but they’re only minor character flaws if they can be considered flaws at all.

If only they knew.

Those who have had the pleasure of getting to know Sung Hanbin on a more, well, personal level are probably the only ones who will ever know. Poor souls, really.

And perhaps it isn’t as effective to explain as it is to show what exactly one of his more problematic personality issues is. Let’s take one unsuspecting, innocent afternoon.

Perspective. You’ve just finished class. It’s a pleasant day. You decide to meet at one of the benches under the trees outside your building. His class finishes a bit after yours so you wait, scrolling through your phone, peaceful, unbothered.

Enter unfortunate victim. For the purpose of this exercise, he shall remain unnamed. We’ll call him Victim #444. Or well, that guy.

He’s your typical fuckboy. Good looking in a sort of lukewarm way, hugely overconfident, probably thinks he has a bigger dick than he actually does, a horrible flirt, we’ve all met that type.

You share a class together. That’s how he makes conversation. Otherwise, he might not dare to approach at that time. Your talk goes something like this.

“Hey, you’re in Choi-seongsaengnim’s class too right?”

“Yeah?” You look up from your phone and he’s just there. He takes a seat on the same bench without asking. Well, it’s public property but he’s a little closer than you would like.

“He’s such a hardass, don’t you think? Like sure, he knows the lesson but he doesn’t need to act like this is the only class we’re taking.”

“Well, I mean-”

“-Like seongsaengnim, come on, I have a life outside of trying to figure out what the fuck your lessons mean.” You can add self-absorbed and stupid to this one’s list of notable traits.

“I think-” And definitely not letting you get a word in.

“Speaking of, have you got a partner for the latest project? Because, you know, I’ve been asked but I’m happy to make an exception if you want to pair up.”

“Actually, I already have-”

“Let me give you my number so we can contact each other? Maybe meet up, you know? I’ve got a nice little place to myself on the other side of campus.”

Ugh, as if. He’s leaning in so close that you can smell his cheap cologne. Before you can get up from the bench, arms wrap around you from the back and a very familiar voice coos in your ear.

“Ahh nae sarang, sorry I’m late.”

You turn your head, leaning into him.

“Hi Binnie-yah.”

He beams at you before directing his stare at the other guy. And so it begins.

“Oh, who’s this?”

You’re pretty sure Hanbin knew who this was. He knew who everyone was and at least one notable thing about them because he was quirky like that. Well, he wasn’t known as the university’s social butterfly for nothing. And you don’t want to spoil his fun so you let the guy introduce himself.

“Ah, you’re taking that major, yeah? So Junho-yah is your senior, how is he these days?”

“Oh, ah yes, Junho-sunbaenim’s been doing well, I don’t really see him around much actually.”

And bingo. The guy starts squirming. Faster than it usually takes. Your boyfriend’s made himself comfortable even though he’s half-hunched over and resting his chin on your shoulder, looking at the other guy with an unwavering stare. Sort of the way a spider would probably look at a fly before, well, you know.

“Really, well last I heard from him, he was complaining about how disrespectful his underclassmen are…but you’re not like that, aren’t you?”

“Ah, no, of course not sunbaenim.”

You can feel Hanbin’s smile get wider, his eyes crinkling in a way that you find adorable but you suspect might not be as cute for your unfortunate companion.

“That’s good, keep up the good work. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if any of my underclassmen were being disrespectful. Ah well, actually I can….”

He pauses and you swear that the guy stops breathing.

“...and I can definitely say that they’ll be very sorry that they even tried that with me.” Hanbin continues cheerily.

Suddenly he walks over and starts patting him on the shoulder. The guy flinches back.

“So next time, remember to be on your best behaviour and keep being polite, hmm? Don’t be so obvious? Maybe try not to be so shameless, yeah?”

“Ah, yes, of course, sunbaenim. Actually I- I just remembered I- I have to go- ah- sorry to disturb um- excuse me-”

You watch as he does a roughly 90 degree bow to both of you before walking off quickly.

“Less than 5 minutes, Binnie, that’s a new record.”

And your cute boyfriend is back, pouting and grabbing at your hands and squeezing them softly. If you were anyone else, you would have gotten whiplash.

“It’s not my fault if I want you all to myself, hmmm?”

Did you mention that your boyfriend was a little off in the head? Not in the should-be-confined-to-the-mental-hospital way but that slight sort of insanity that possesses him when someone tries to go for his little brother (rip Gunwook) or his little sister or his close friends or well, you.

And everyone else? Everyone else was not safe. If murder was legal, literally everyone else would probably be fearing for their lives. Which is probably a good thing that murder isn’t legal. Those incredibly lucky bastards.

Take one of the freshmen trying to chat you up during a party. They’ve been incredibly nice all evening, pouring you drinks and asking you all sorts of thoughtful questions about the major. So yes, you’re very happy to answer and give them little tips on how to ace a certain project.

“And it’s honestly fine if you mess up a little on your first test for Hwang-seongsaengnim’s class, he’s very nice when it comes to students forgetting a few names so don’t stress too much about it and make sure to ace the extra credit he gives.”

“Oh, thank you so much sunbaenim. That’s so helpful, I’ll definitely try my best.”

You can’t help but smile. So cute. Maybe it was the alcohol but you remember how it was like being a wide-eyed, overeager freshman listening attentively to your own seniors.

“It’s really no problem. Ask me anything, anytime. Seriously, don’t be afraid if you need advice.”

You reach over to pat them, swaying just a little from the amount of soju running through your body. They’re awfully red as well. You wonder why.

“How are you getting home, sunbaenim? Do you live nearby? I can walk with you if you’re comfortable with that, I don’t think it’s too safe to be out at this time.”

“Oh it’s no worries, I’ll be taking them home.”

“Ah Hanbinnie, meet my new dongsaeng” you’re not too sure when he got here or even why he’s here but Hanbin’s incredibly warm and his hands around your waist feel so nice. 

“This is my boyfriend.” You introduce him to the freshman. He dips his head in greeting as the other nearly tips over trying to bow. You make a concerned noise, making to catch the other but Hanbin firmly keeps you from moving, letting the freshman catch themselves instead.

“So nice to meet you, we’ll get going if that’s alright. It’s really not safe to be out this late, especially with someone you barely know.” You hardly register your boyfriend’s words but you’re not that drunk that you don’t know the smile he’s giving is about 95% fake and razor-sharp.

“Ah yes, get home safely, sunbaenim. I’ll find my way back so don’t worry.”

“Oh we won’t” You think you hear Hanbin say. Maybe. Could be your imagination. Because the next moment he’s nuzzling at your neck like a very spoiled cat, arms firmly holding you up as he guides you out of the bar and into the car.

“Nae sarang, you really need to take better care of yourself or I won’t want to let you out of my sight.” He says to you softly as he practically carries you into the passenger seat. It’s sweet, well the implication behind it is kinda creepy but you know he doesn’t mean it that way. (Does he?)

“You drove here?”

“Of course, I can’t let you go home all by yourself, can I?”

Like you said, there’s just a tiny screw loose in that head of his, considering the bar where you’re drinking is over an hour away from campus. You chalk it up to it being Hanbin. He can get a little paranoid on occasion. 

And sometimes, he goes a bit psycho. A little. Not a lot. Still, according to Gunwook, it’s terrifying. You really wouldn’t know but you’ve seen it.

You’ve come to wait for his dance club to finish when someone collides into you. It’s not too hard but it still knocks you off your feet and onto the ground with a thud.

“Yah, watch where you’re going, huh? I have a performance next week and I could have injured myself.”

It’s definitely one of the newer members because you don’t recognise them. Before you can say anything, Seo Won, one of the veterans, is already helping you up and asking if you’re okay. The one that knocked you over huffs and is about to say something else when Hanbin calls their name sharply.

Your boyfriend’s eyes narrow and maybe you’re a little lightheaded from the fall but also from the way his shirt clings to his body and his hair weighed down by sweat. It’s kinda hot but you’re not admitting that out loud. Not now, at least. He calls the other member’s name again and gestures him over.

He speaks too quietly for you to hear anything. All you know is that the other’s face pales drastically and he bows several times, walking over and apologising to you before practically hightailing out of the room.

Hanbin’s all over you in a matter of seconds, practically lifting you off the ground. It’s not good for your heart. Seo Won quickly backs off.

“My poor sarang, are you okay? Do you need anything? Ice? Are you bruised anywhere? Let me check.”

You don’t ever see the person who knocked you over again. Ever. You’d wonder about it but you’ve learned that it was better not to question sometimes. Especially when Hanbin insists on carrying you around for the rest of the day and practically waits on you hand and foot until the bruises fade. And it’s just a bruise. You do admit to him later that maybe you find it attractive when he’s a shade pissed and sweaty. Maybe you both get a little sweaty after that. And later, when you’re rightfully tired and sprawled out on top of him, you think about it.

Really, you wonder what goes through his mind sometimes.

[cut scene]

Hanbin smiles, all teeth and no sympathy. It’s like the serial killer before the murder.

“You speak to anyone like that ever again and I can do injuring for you, understood? No, don’t talk, just nod if you’ve managed to get it into that head of yours, hmm?”

A nod. Hanbin likes it when they’re like this. Quiet and white-faced and sweating nervously.

“Now go apologise to them. Sincerely. Like you mean it. And then, get lost. I don’t want to see your face for awhile, yes?”

Another nod. They take one step back and make to turn around.

“Oh wait.”

They freeze.

“Remember. Sincerely, okay? And don’t think I won’t know if it isn’t.”

A final nod.

“Very good. Now go.”

They go. Hanbin sighs. God, you’re going to drive him insane one day. (He already is)

[justcourttee]

Love, Right?

This was an ask from AO3, but I loved it so much and wanted to post it here too.

vasiliassuns asked: aaaaa!! i love all these one shots so much:)! would it be any trouble to ask for the waynes (minus alfred, he knows all) being in paris to research ladybug and accidentally see marinette transform before watching her whoop ass? (i know theres a lot of fics with this in the damianette tag, but aa!! such a good trope,,,and your writing is awesome.) its totally cool if not! i also wanna add that im super excited for the next chapter:) seriously tho your writing is awesome and i adore it

If you had told Damian Al Ghul Wayne that he would discover the love of his life in a shotty alleyway in Paris, France, he would’ve laughed in your face.

Yet there he was, his heart racing a million times a minute as he watched her swing into action sending the akumatized person sailing with a solid kick to their chest.

‘Flawless Execution, I couldn’t have done it better myself.’

Damian ignored the crowds pushing against him trying to take cover in the nearest shelter. He knew that by now his family would’ve seen his transmission from the camera contacts that Barbara had provided them before leaving Gotham. They would also be racing toward the battle hoping to catch a glimpse of how these victims communicated with the notorious Hawkmoth.

He turned the corner colliding into three other rushing bodies.

They all fell to the ground with a groan, each holding their own heads with equal scowls directed at the others. Damian was the first to find his feet as he crossed her arms, glaring down on his mess of brothers. Three voices filled the alleyway simultaneously, all as panicked at the other.

“Damian was that the coffee goddess-”

“Damian was that the flying angel from the acrobat gym-”

“Damian was that your girlfriend-”

Everyone silenced as their gazes shifted to where Jason stood. He only shrugged his shoulders in response, that familiar smirk pulling at his lips.

“She’s not my girlfriend Todd.” Damian tried to say it with the straightest face he could manage but he could do nothing to hide the red that had crept up his cheeks.

“Well, whatever she is doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the flying angel is Ladybug! That information would’ve been helpful earlier. We were already hanging out in civilian form, I mean, we could’ve been having our top-secret meetings without the masks!”

“Dick, some of us care about our secret identities unlike you.”

Dick pouted as Tim elbowed his side.

“All I’m saying is that if she can trust me to catch her 40 feet above the ground, then she should be able to trust me with her secret identity.”

“It’s not like she knows our identity’s Richard.” Damian narrowed his eyes at the older boy essentially silencing his continuous whining. “Besides, she probably didn’t want to harm us. If we showed care for her superheroine side, then Hawkmoth could try to attack us to get to her.”

Jason flailed his hand around mocking Damian’s speech behind his head earning a giggle from the others. Damian’s whole face flushed red as he tried to count backward from 10 to avoid killing Jason.

A blur of red landed in front of him, her slightly flushed face staring above them, as determined as ever.

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

Her eyes darted down to meet his, a slightly surprised look crossing her face.

“Gentlemen, please return to the shelter. It’s not safe right now.”

The boys stared at each other, calculating their best chances of regrouping if they split now. She swung off before she heard their answer shielding them from the oncoming blow. Damian wanted to rush to her side and help her back to her feet but it wasn’t the right moment.

As they made their way back toward the shelter, Damian’s mind was racing a million times a minute.

The quiet girl with a load of sass who helped him study French couldn’t be the bold superheroine who fought crime on a daily basis right? It seemed illogical.

Yet the more he thought about it, the more he could see it. The way she stood up in class to Chloe and Lila whenever they attacked him, the way she could maneuver around every situation within mere seconds of seeing how it would play out, the way those same blue eyes would shine with determination when she knew she was the smartest one in the room and was only being challenged to prove it.

“I’m so stupid.”

“Wait, can you say that again? I wanna make it my ringtone.”

Damian stuck his foot out as he skidded to a stop taking joy in seeing Todd tumble to the ground, a satisfying rip coming from his new leather jacket.

“Ah, c’mon man, it was just a joke!”

A small scream of terror caught their attention. A girl stood in the middle of the cobblestone, clinging to a stuffed bear, the Akuma looming over her as if ready to strike. Damian knew he couldn’t make it quick enough, but damn if he wasn’t going to try.

The Akuma's hand came down before he had even moved an inch, a sickening smack turning Damian’s stomach. As the dust cleared, Damian raced forward, intent on beheading any man who dared to lay hands on a child so small, but the Akuma was nowhere in sight.

The only thing that was left was a breathless Ladybug, dropped to her knees in front of the small girl, a white butterfly fluttering into the sky.

“Mar-Ladybug!”

Her head perked up at the sound of Damian’s voice as he fell beside her, checking her over for any injuries.

“I’m fine Damian, please, check on the girl.”

As if Damian needed any more confirmation that Ladybug was Marinette. Here she was not even denying that she knew him in that cute stammering manner she did. With a small nod, he turned to check over the girl, making sure the Akuma hadn’t bruised her.

Beside him, Ladybug stumbled to her feet throwing her Miraculous Cure into the air. Instantly, Damian noticed all the damage disappearing under the blinding lights as if the battle had never happened in the first place. He wanted to ask her how the magic behind it worked, but the sound of a shout cut him off.

“Oi! Get back here you little brat! I’m not done teaching you a lesson for eating my food!”

Instantly the girl in his arms became smaller. Ladybug noticed it as well as her eyes hardened, almost daring the man to take a step forward.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stop right there. You were just a victim of Hawkmoth’s powers and need to be checked over by Chat Noir.”

The blonde hero nodded warily as if ready to attack from behind if things went south.

“I ain’t doing any of that. This child right here is mine and needs to be taught a lesson one way or another.”

Ladybug glanced behind her at the small girl’s silent tears as she clung to Damian’s arms as if they were her lifeline.

“You will be doing no such thing. In fact, by the end of today, she will no longer be your child. I suggest you leave now sir, I wouldn’t want things to get ugly.”

The man had the audacity to laugh. It fueled the rage inside Damian, but he refused to let go of the girl. He feared that if he did, she would run.

“What are you gonna do? You superheroes can’t touch me if I’m not akumatized.”

In a flash, he lunged forward. Ladybug wasn’t even fazed as she sidestepped him, pushing his head down into the cobblestone below. It was only one blow, but he was out cold, a small split on his forehead.

Damian couldn’t help the way his jaw hung.

“Medic, he’s going to need stitches. Sir,” Damian shook the shock from his face as he met her eyes. “This child seems to have taken a liking to you, would you mind taking her to the police station for me? Tell them I will be there soon to make my report and check on her.”

Damian nodded, unable to find his voice as those intimidating eyes stared down into his.

“And one more thing, I’ll be checking in with you later as well. It seems we have much to talk about little bird.”

Damian’s entire face flushed red as she swung off with her partner, his eyes never leaving her figure until she was out of sight. The sound of pounding feet on the pavement brought him back to reality as his brother’s skidded in front of him, their faces as impressed as his.

“Hey Damian, this is your fair warning. If you don’t date her, I might.”

“Ditto.”

“Me three.”

Damian stumbled over his denial as he watched his brother’s burst into laughter. Dick gathered the young girl from his arms, cooing at her until she was calm once more, allowing him to finally stand.

“You all are not worthy of her, only I am.”

Jason crossed his arms mocking Damian’s half pout as he and Tim shared another laugh at the murderous look in his eyes. He could care less what these imbeciles thought, the only thing that mattered was what she did.

And he couldn’t wait to find out.

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[xbreezymeadowsx]

Chibs... an excerpt

A/N: This is an excerpt from a story I’ve been writing. I changed the OC’s name to Y/N just for this bit. Honestly, I’m my own worst critic and pretty much never post my work because I think it could be better and I tend to move onto other stories when I hit a writer’s block and all of my stuff goes untouched for months, sometimes years. But I’ve discovered some amazing writers over the last year or two on various sites but mostly here so I figured it was time I tried to give back to those that have brought me so much joy through their works. So, here’s a filthy little excerpt of some adult fun times from one of my current stories I’ve been bumbling around with.

**************************************************************************************************

Y/N stumbled through the front door with Chibs wrapped around her. They tripped over each other's feet, hands frantically exploring bodies, and their tongues, teeth, and lips clashing roughly. They giggled and snickered at their own antics, feeling like a couple lovesick teens in their tipsy state. They blindly moved into the living room, kicking boots off as they went until Y/N let out a yelp as the pair fell over the arm of the couch. Chibs landed with a huff on the cushions on his back with Y/N on top of him, gripping his kutte to prevent herself from falling to the floor. They burst into a fit of laughter.

"Whoops." Chibs giggled, watching Y/N cackle at the face he made. Whimpering from across the room gained their attention. Roscoe laid on his dog bed watching them. Chibs turned his head to see the mutt and Y/N snatched his face in her hands, pulling him back to her.

"No! Don't look at him!" She cried too late. She groaned when they heard the jingling of the dog's tags as he pranced to the couch and began nuzzling Chibs in the side of his head.

"Aah! Christ!" He shout as the cold, wet nose of the beast snuffled in his ear. Y/N pushed Roscoe's fat head away as Chibs rubbed his ear frantically.

"Lemme take them out and then we can resume this." She gave his beard a playful tug before sliding off of him.

"No, no." Chibs grunt as he followed her to standing. "I got 'em." He slipped his kutte off and handed it to her with a wink. "You go ge' comfortable." Y/N watched Reba and Roscoe eagerly follow Chibs to the back door. She went to hang his kutte on the hooks by the front door when an idea struck her.

When Chibs came back inside and sent the dogs off to their beds, he made sure doors were locked before heading to Y/N’s bedroom where he was sure she’d gone off to. There was a warm glow in the room from the table lamps on either side of the bed which had first drawn his attention when he walked in.

"Hey, handsome." Chibs spun on his heel, his back to the bed and his breath caught. "This comfortable enough?" Y/N teased, biting her bottom lip and looking up at him through her lashes.

"Uh, y-yeah. Tha' looks migh'y com-comfy, Y/N girl." He stuttered as he took in the sight. Y/N wore nothing but small black lacy boy shorts and his kutte. The leather hung almost to her knees. She held the sides of the front open just enough to see her bare torso with a tease of sideboob, most of her breasts hidden behind the kutte. She sashayed across the room to him and ran her hands up his chest before pressing herself against him.

"It's not taboo, is it? Wearing your kutte? I know how important a kutte is to an MC." She asked, suddenly nervous she'd done something bad. Chibs cupped her face in his hands and smiled softly, regaining his composure.

"No, luv. This is... this is perfectly fine. This is good." He rubbed his hands down her bare arms, watching the goosebumps breakout in his wake and took her hands, guiding her towards the bed. "Ya look so sexy in leather." He growled lowly.

"And you," Y/N reached for his shirt and ripped it open, buttons flying and ricocheting off the walls. "look overdressed." She purred, lightly scratching his chest.

"Ya shoul' bloody well fix tha'." He urged before pressing his lips to hers. Chibs yanked his arms free and flung his shirt somewhere while Y/N's hands tugged his belt undone. He broke the kiss to watch her working his jeans open and push them down his legs before he kicked them aside and pushed his kutte off her shoulders. Y/N took his kutte and carefully hung it on the back of her desk chair. When she turned back, Chibs was balling his socks up and adding them to the mess on the floor leaving them both in their underwear. Y/N's eyes zoned in on the prominent outline of his hard and ready cock straining against his black boxer briefs and had to check herself for drool. Chibs chuckled deeply and palmed his member.

"Do ya see wha' ya do ta me, leannan? How hard ya make me?" He husked. He reached out and took her wrist, placing her hand where his had been. Y/N gave him a firm squeeze making Chibs groan softly. He cupped her core in response, pressing the heel of his palm into her clit over her underwear. "Alrea'y so wet fer me. Yer panties are soaked."

"Uh-huh." Was all she could muster up as she stepped closer to him.

"So beau'iful." Chibs whispered as he softly dragged his hands up her torso and cupped her supple breasts, kneading them. He guide Y/N to the bed, urging her to lay down. She did as he wanted and watched as he studied her body, taking in every inch of her. He grinned devilishly as he hooked his fingers into her panties and slowly pulled them down her legs, tossing them aside before crawling onto the bed. He eased her legs apart, laying on his stomach and noisily kissing her inner thighs.

"Filip, please." Y/N muttered, one hand clutching the comforter as the other knotted in his hair.

"Tell me wha' ya wan'." He spoke against her skin, nipping and sucking her flesh everywhere around where he knew she wanted him most. She tugged his hair, trying to move his head where she wanted. "Uh-uh. I wanna hear ya say it." Chibs scratched his beard lightly on her skin just above her most sensitive nub. Y/N let out a high pitched whine.

"Don't tease me!" She huffed. "I want your tongue, your lips, your teeth! Please!" Chibs hummed and leaned towards her yearning pussy. Then he swiftly moved away, making his way up the bed beside her. Y/N whined and jumbled words around in protest until she took in his wicked grin and lust blown eyes.

"Up." A single word command was all it took for Y/N to do as told after seeing the look on his face. Chibs laid back resting his head on a pillow and motioned for Y/N. She shivered when she realized what he wanted and as casually as she could in her excitement, shuffled up to beside his shoulder and carefully moved to straddle his chest. "Good girl." He brought his hands up and caressed her backside, pushing her forward. Y/N moved until her body hovered over his mouth. Chibs inhaled deeply through his nose and sighed. "I bet ya taste as good as ya smell, my love." He tilt his chin up and licked a slow trail between her folds. Y/N quivered and gripped the top of her headboard for support. "Mm, jus' like Ambrosia." Chibs moaned softly.

"Food of the Gods, huh?" She gasped as he leaned up again and lapped at her dripping hole.

"Oh, yes. My Goddess." His deep voice rumbled. The vibrations of the bass in his voice sent thrills up Y/N’s spine and she let her head fall back, moaning towards the ceiling.

“Fuck, Filip. Just like that.” She plead.

“Eyes on me, baby.” He demanded, pulling away. Y/N protest his stopping and looked down at him, her hair falling forward like curtains to hide her face from the rest of the world. She bit her lip at the sight of his facial hair glistening with her excitement. Chibs sucked her swollen clit harshly and nipped it with his teeth as he watched her fight to keep her eyes open and trained on him. He slid one hand down from gripping her ass and swiftly insert a slender finger into her wet heat.

Y/N felt her orgasm building rapidly. When Chibs add a second finger, he crooked them in a ‘come hither’ motion and thrust them roughly. He was hitting just the right spot prompting Y/N to let loose a string of profanities a sailor would blush at. Chibs fingered her through her climax only stopping when he felt her full weight- not that she weighed much without bricks in her pockets- settle on his chin and neck. He helped scoot her down to straddle his chest and admired his handiwork. Y/N was blissed out and attempting to regulate her breathing and heart rate. She glanced down at him and weakly punched his shoulder seeing the cocky grin plastered on her old man’s face. Chibs swat her butt and motioned for her to move. Y/N acquiesce and dropped to the bed beside him with a grunt.

“Still wit’ me?” Chibs inquired with a knowing smirk.

“Shut the fuck up.” Y/N scoffed. Chibs put his hand over his heart and gasped.

“Ya wound me, leannan.” He exclaimed dramatically before moving to get off the bed. “I guess ya don’ wan’ anymore then.” He sighed. Y/N reached out and snatched his wrist before he could stand.

“Now, I didn’t say that.” She remarked before yanking him back to her and giggling mischievously as Chibs cover her body with his own and attacked her neck, ready for the fun to continue well into the early morning hours.

[youarejesting]

Digital Art

[SPARKS MASTERLIST]

Pairing: Robot!Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Friendship, Comedy, Soft boy, Fluff.

Summary: You are an art student, who gets regular visits from the Universities kindest and oddest AI. He explores human nature and ponders the idea’s of like and love and finds himself tangled in emotions he was never programmed to understand.

The research lab at University S had different robotic creations that were cutting edge for human consumers. The Min-meow cat that caters to the elderly works like a real cat and purrs, yet never gets sick and can analyse owners behaviour like strokes and heart attacks in time to call an ambulance. 

Kookie the rabbit was a robot made for very young children coping with disabilities such as deafness and blindness, it could translate speech to text on the screen on its back and he could even read books to them in his little rabbit voice. 

Robot Tae was just a regular AI who walked the Lab. He would talk with the students and observe many other robots. He would sometimes lay on the floor, his chin rested on his folded hands and watch min-meow cross the room. They made his hair out of tiny thin fibre optics which meant he could change the colour depending on his mood.

He would call the role and greet each student to class, he would run errands to and from the class which was his favourite Job. 

Today he called the roll and walked the classroom, helping students with their work and genuinely having a good time chatting. The girls put flowers in his hair and took selfies with him. He liked the girls; they made him feel happy when they smiled. The boys were friendly too always patting his back or ruffled his hair which after some research was a good thing.

“Hey Tae, have you ever been with a girl?”

“What do you mean? There are many females in this room and I am with them does that count?” He asked.

“No, dude we mean like sexually, do you watch porn?”

“He ran his systems, they connected him to the University Wifi, and he had his own built-in data it wasn’t hard to find out what they meant. I have never watched it before,” he shifted uncomfortably, “By the looks of the videos it is for human pleasure. The videos seem to work as stimulation of the auditory and visual responses. Is this correct?”

“Yes, do you have a dick?” They asked snickering he seemed a little off-put by their laughing, he knew the signal of laughing was usually a good sign of friendship but his data also told him it could humiliate the difference was the eyes and their eyes didn’t seem friendly. 

“I am a fully functioning humanoid robot, I have genitalia just like you do,” he said confused “are you making fun of me?”

“No dude, you are our little brother we want to help you get some. If you see a girl you like you should ask her if she wants to....” Tae wasn’t sure about his methods but he walked over to Daisy one of the nicest girls in the class and asked her the way they taught him.

“Tae doesn’t listen to them, boys don’t know how to get girls. When you see a girl or guy you like and I mean really like as in more than friends, you don’t ask like that,” She said sitting him down.

“How will I know if I really like them more than friends”

“Look you will know, you will find it hard to think, you will feel like you are about to explode” 

“That sounds scary”

“Love is scary, but when you feel that ask her to hang out, like ask her if she would like to see Min, girls love pets”

She patted his shoulder. And he was lost in thought, filing away this information. It was one of those days he was asked to carry a stack of Textbooks to the engineering offices. On his way there he saw people holding hands and a couple kissing against a wall. On the way back he saw a girl sitting on a stool, a puppy at her feet. She was doing something he understood in theory but not in practice. He approached and saw her paintbrush stroke the canvas slowly colouring the skies. 

“How do you do that?” He asked his hair a brilliant sky blue, he liked this he stored this in his data next to min-meow purring on his lap, the tasty oil drinks he gets for breakfast and freshly charging batteries. 

“Oh! You scared me” she said, watching his face fall and hair darken to a midnight blue. 

“I am sorry, I should go”

It was a few days later when he saw you again waving to him and he waved back. The days past and he would pause on his errands to watch you paint a little more. Some days you explained your project other days you worked in silence.

“Do you want to try?” You asked out of the blue one day. He beeped and nodded, his hair paling to a golden colour. 

“All right hold the paintbrush with your hand and I will guide you” he nodded holding the paintbrush and your hand wrapped around his and moved it along the paper. His face lit up and he could only make strangled beeps and squeals from his auto air gun, TSC, auto door, spindle and alarm systems. This must be it, his processors were slowing down making it hard to think and his fan belt sped up, he felt like he could explode any second now.

She laughed this was such a bright friendly laugh, her small Pomeranian started barking beside her from the sound, “you’re cute what’s your name?”

“I am Tae, what is your name?”

“My name is y/n, and this is Yeontan”

“He is so wiggly and warm and soft, I have never pet a living animal” he said playing with the dog as it rolled around on his lap. You exchanged contact information, Taehyung had a mobile number and all the social media accounts, he had posted a few videos of his adventures around the Uni even showed videos of you painting. Only after asking you for permission to film you and your painting.

“Would you like to see my quadruped companion, his name is Min,” He used the line he had worked on with Daisy a few weeks ago “Girls love pets”

“Of course, I would love to see Min, girls do love animals, can I finish my painting?” you giggled and reached up taking a leaf from his hair and he nodded sitting cross-legged Yeontan curling up in his lap, he watched you paint. Once you were finished he carried your things, you placed your canvas in the art rooms before moving on to the engineering labs.

He walked you inside, and the class stopped and he smiled “Hello Daisy, I found her, she made me feel like I would explode and I couldn’t think, she is an art student. You should see it, and I asked her to come to see Min because; girls love Pets”

You were bright red as the boys whooped from the back, “Our Tae has game, getting the chicks”

“Quick y/n let me introduce you to Min,” he said and dragged you across the classroom and you bowed low to the professor apologizing for interrupting the class. You played with Min who was a grumpy and stubborn cat. “We can’t sell him as they made him too cat-like, and he refuses to listen. And this is Kookie, he was the first model but his ears are too big so for commercial reasons they made them shorter.” You pulled out your sketchbook and began drawing Tae and the three animals Yeontan really liked Kookie the latter hopping around the Pomeranian.

After class Tae introduced you to everyone including the professor. “Ah, it is nice to meet you, I have a meeting Tae you remember to lock up, message me when you do?”

“Of course” he smiled, waving goodbye. You headed home talking with him all night until he said he had to charge.

One day was spent with just the two of you, he walked you around the university and he waved to all the students and got some photos he showed you his favourite music, his favourite place and even the little mug in the Uni store that reminded him of Yeontan. He asked why you didn’t bring Yeontan and you explained he was going for a check-up and grooming.

He brought you back to the lab, and you sat on the desk swinging your legs as you listened to him sing and sway his hips to his favourite songs. He was in a particularly good mood and he grabbed your waist lifting you off the table and spinning you around, he felt his search engines working without commands and they had brought up a web browser with videos on how to kiss. He didn’t know what came over him but he kissed you just as it explained and your lips were locked and you stumbled back together until you bumped against the lab tables.

Lost in the feeling, knowing it was wrong but unable to stop yourself. The door opened and the two of you jumped apart and you ran out of the lab upset with yourself. Taehyung was in a daze he felt cold without you, he stored yet another folder about you in his data banks.

He texted you but you didn’t reply; he got worried and continued to try texting you; he was getting worried as he plugged in Kookie and Min. He did something he had never done before. He hacked your student records to find your address he didn’t want you to be hurt or in trouble, Yeontan couldn’t call an ambulance. He ran across the city following his GPS location and the pre-programmed directions. Tae knocked on your apartment door, the door swung open and you froze when you saw him. Letting him inside shocked and very concerned. 

“Why are you here?” You asked as he sat on your couch, Yeontan making himself comfortable on his lap.

“I don’t know, I can’t stop processing and I am completing tasks without commands, things that I am not programmed to do, I can’t stop thinking about you and I was worried you were hurt, and I can’t function without you close”

“Are you saying you missed me?”

“That seems like a fitting explanation” He nodded and the silence settled over the two of you and he beeped his battery getting low. You walked him to your room and laid him on your bed, taking his charging cable and plugging him into the wall outlet. 

As he powered down into charging mode he whispered “I want to kiss you again” 

How can I save this to receive and read updates?

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[tracybirds]

Fanfic in Review 2020

Tagged by @hodgehegposts, posting on my thunderbirds blog bc that seems more relevant ahaha :D

Total number of completed stories: This took me a while to figure out thanks to that terrible habit of mine of taking ages to archive things whoops. 42 fics on tumblr, i think 38ish are on ao3 and only two active wips! I know there are others amonst that which are technically wip but shush i can’t think on all of my someday plans at once. mostly oneshots bc that’s how I roll!

Total Wordcount: well I published 118,557 words, but approx 20000 of those were from 2019 crossposting. I’d guess I have about 10000 words of unpublished stuff floating around, i’m not quite sure, so let’s say about 105,000 words. which is a ridiculous number what the heck

Fandoms written in: Thunderbirds only this year! I got a little sucked in ahaha

Looking back did you write more, less, or about what you expected to this year? hmm way more in the first half of the year. then I think I got used to writing lots and so my expectations for the second half were much higher than was realistic given my RL responsibilities, so I was def disappointed by the second half :(

What’s your own favourite story of the year? Just one? I’m actually really proud of a lot of different stories so allow me to review my own work and pick some faves ahaha :D

1. Care Packages - inspired by Thunderbird X by @gumnut-logic, and I loved writing this because it all just fell into place and flowed so beautifully. It allowed me to form my own concepts as to how exactly John might have coped with the loss of his father while in virtual isolation and I genuinely think if I had to pick my best fic of the year, I’d go with this one. 2. Reckless Meetings - this one was pure self indulgence and I genuinely had so much fun daydreaming about this AU where Gordon is a primary school teacher and Penny works in a museum :D I didn’t write a lot down but it gets points for the amount of glee I had while writing and the smile I get every time I remember that it exists :DDD 3. Trials Without Error - this one I love because I got to explore three different perspectives on one event and I loved how in doing that it almost revealed three totally different stories! I also had a lot of fun making them slot together and also exploring EOS’s more ruthless side. 10/10 would explore again, a morally indifferent EOS is very fun.

Did you take any writing risks this year? Writing some multichapter fics was definitely a risk for me! I attempted 5 multichapter fics and completed three of them which is WILD!!

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for next year? Not so much this year! I really just want to find a better balance for myself in terms of work because that will give me mental space and also writing time, but that’s a little out of my control so we shall see what comes to pass.

Most popular story of the year? Ooh, apparently Love Languages! Interesting, I wouldn’t have picked that one ahaha

Story of mine most underrated by the universe, in my opinion? I think Consequences, but I do get it - it’s marked as incomplete on ao3 because it has an ambiguous ending (which is another turn off I know) AND to add to its sins, it’s less than 1000 words... But I still think the concept is one I want to explore further so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Most fun story to write? The Bold and The Beautiful and A Captain and His First Mate were both a BLAST, I had so much fun with them :DDD First one is John and Gordon getting all giddy and borrowing their Dad’s v v pretty car, and the second is Gordon and Alan playing make believe :D

Biggest disappointment? probably that I didn’t bank in on my momentum for Earthbound - I genuinely love that story and it’s literally all planned out and prepped and I’ve written some prequels and snapshots that fit in with it and everything, but lockdown 100% killed my ability to write that story because John is just too miserable and traumatised and I couldn’t write that when I was busy being miserable and exhausted so :(( bye earthbound, I will come back to you some day, I have too much all ready to go and I love the concept to much to let it all go to waste. But I’ll probs need another year if I’m being honest with myself.

Biggest surprise? How frequently people give feedback and comments! There were several times where people would read like ten fics of mine and leave comments on all of them and I just :’) That was so nice!! Especially when I was hardly able to get online when I had to prep exams and organise well... everything (protip, don’t accept a temporary promotion the year of a pandemic that was not the intro to heading a department that i wanted, there were so many tears). My point though, is that it felt like my inbox was overflowing and I felt terrible I couldn’t respond but it made my heart jump with joy <3

[tev-the-random]

A casual Sonic Forces rewrite + some headcanons, because why not

Part 1 – Infinite and Episode Shadow

Just a warning: none of the images used here belong to me! They all belong to SEGA – the game screenshots, the official art and the comic pages.

Next Part ->

I have yet to see the Sonic Movie, because the universe seems devoted on not letting me do so, for some reason. Being as desperate for Sonic content but as determined to not receive spoilers from the movie as I am, I decided to go for the next coolest thing: writing really long and random posts about a game that came out three years ago and no one cares about anymore.

This shall be fun!

(Update: as of posting this, I have finally watched the movie! But I don’t want to throw this away, so I’ll post it anyway. We can have a nice talk about the movie later.)

*“Fist Bump instrumental” intro plays*

*“This is Our World: a New Hero” plays in the background*

I’m the type of person to always try and see the best in every game, and Sonic Forces is no different. Despite its obvious flaws, I love this beautiful game! Mostly the concept of it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this last decade, but the execution… lacks on a few things. I mostly just fill in the gaps with my imagination and enjoy it nevertheless, but, upon going through the tag and seeing that some of my concerns were shared by other people, I decided to try my hand at rewriting Sonic Forces juuust a tiny bit. Just for fun!

For this first part (and I have no idea how many parts we should have), I’d like to share some of my ideas about…

*Infinite’s Theme plays in the background as I try hard not to sing along*

Oh, my poor jackal boy, what do we do with you? Despite being so heavily promoted and having an undeniably awesome theme song, Infinite’s backstory and general development throughout the game came out as lacking, having the self-proclaimed edgelord become a laughingstock amongst most fans. Nevertheless, I still love Infinite, and it saddens me how much wasted potential he had; it’s like they were trying to write a really interesting character, but gave up halfway through.

So yeah, let’s talk about it. And let us begin with his origin story.

I believe you are all familiar with this scene:

I… I want to defend my boy here, I really do. But honestly, the way this was portrayed, it just sounded like he was throwing a childish tantrum. It seems as if his entire motive for becoming a villain was “Shadow beat him and called him weak”; dude, you’re not the only one: Shadow does this to basically everybody who’s ever crossed his way! We’re not given a reason as to why Infinite gets so bloody offended, nor are we given a reason why we should care.

So, how can we fix this? I think we should firstly focus less on “I’M NOT WEEEEAAAAK!!! URRAAAAGHH!!!” and more on:

It doesn’t need to be – and I don’t even think it can be – as sad of a situation as the Rivaille Squad in Shingeki No Kyojin or anything, but I believe that showing us that Infinite lost something important would already do wonders to his backstory.

The simplest way – that is, the way that doesn’t majorly change how things go, but does give the jackal a clearer motive – to do this would involve the ever so humble inclusion of two new cutscenes and one new in-game battle, plus a few tweaks to some already existing scenes.

Episode Shadow begins not with the usual reading introduction, but rather, with Shadow’s voice. “I was a couple of months before the Doctor took over the world. The first time I encountered him… I didn’t know what he would become.” Then we open with what used to be a couple of months prior (aka where they presented Infinite’s memory, aka where they screwed up), so we’ll go through things in a chronological order instead of having a flashback inside of a prequel, because that’s confusing AF.

Now, instead of starting the Mystic Jungle level immediately, we should get a small cutscene: Shadow gliding through the jungle, cool camera angles/lighting and all – maybe something similar to the opening scene of Episode Shadow in Sonic 06? –, on his way to invade Eggman’s base as a voice coming from the hedgehog’s communicator reminds him about his mission (yep, that’s some subtle exposition to the audience so we don’t think Shadow is there just because). My idea for said mission would be the simple task of retrieving a Chaos Emerald (yeah, remember those?) from Eggman. Nothing too serious; just another day, another emerald stolen like usual; we’ve seen this before, there’s no need for a long dialogue.

As the black-and-red blur crosses the screen, the camera pans to a group of people hiding above in the trees: Squad Jackal. Infinite is not among them. One of the jackals asks “where’ the boss?” to which another one replies that he’s on the other side of the base/talking to the Doctor/whatever and they have no time to waste; their mission is to take down the intruder and protect the base. We get something in the lines of “the boss is counting on us. Expect no mercy, show no weakness. Let’s go!” and the camera fades out as the squad drops from the trees and runs after Shadow.

I believe that having the phrase “show no weakness” – or any possible reference to “I’m not weak”, really – appear earlier as seemingly common and then have it become something the character gives a lot of importance to due to consequences and parallels sounds a bit more interesting than having Infinite’s inferiority complex come out of nowhere.

The Mystic Jungle level plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background doesn’t say that “the Defence Squad has already been completely annihilated”, but rather that “the Defence Squad is on the case. They’re the best mercenaries there are, Shadow won’t stand a chance!” because Doctor Eggman is naive like that.

Once we reach the end of the level there’s another change: a boss battle against Squad Jackal. You see, we don’t want to hear the squad was taken down like some sort of lazy exposition, because it feels incomplete; we want to participate, we want to be the protagonist and see with our own eyes just what is Infinite’s squad. This gives faces and voices to something that will become an important plot point instead of just telling us “yeah, this happened or whatever”. This could also play as some sort of sympathy point for Infinite, because we, while in control of Shadow, took down his squad; it makes the villain’s animosity towards Shadow and his general anger at least a bit more understandable.

The idea is that this battle should play as some sort of field fight – that is, differently than most boss battles in Sonic Forces, this is not a racing track where you attack your enemy while running, but rather a large secluded area, much like the one we get in the fight between the Custom Hero and the DeathEgg Robot –, where squad members would attack individually in different patterns before going for a group attack. The individual jackals would have both projectile (perhaps something like a wispon, knives or some Eggman invention to keep it family friendly enough?) and close-ranged attacks, while the group attack would consist of this mass of wild jackals changing at you, trying to run you over. The opportunity windows could be either the moment when the opponents switch or band together for the group attack.

(I don’t know, maybe some of you can think of better ways to fight the Jackal Squad? This is just a random idea! I’d like to hear different ones!)

Once the fight is over, we get another cutscene: Shadow stands among the fallen jackals – don’t worry, they’re… sleeping… yeah, there’s no visible blood, they’re not dead… except they’re totally dead – and looks around for a second or two. His expression is indecipherable, and he soon leaves without saying a word – one might say he feels bad for them, or maybe he doesn’t give a damn; we leave that open to interpretation. Not a moment passes and we get to see the leader of the squad arriving at the scene. The camera moves in a circle around him as he looks at his fallen comrades in shock. How did this happen? They were the strongest, how could his whole squad be dead? This is a rather touching moment, where Infinite sticks his sword (because in his origins comic he used to have a super cool red sword and I want to pretend we have a reason for it not existing in the game) to the ground; there’s a feeling of anger and vengeance going on as we get a closer look at the last standing jackal. He clenches his fists and faces the direction of Shadow. “Expect no mercy, show no weakness,” he says in an infuriated, strangled voice. He starts to run and the camera fades out.

(Look at his sword and his squad, man. I do wish we could have seen them in the game…)

When the camera fades in again, we get that exact same cutscene from the game. Blah blah, “destroyed my squad”, blah blah, “ultimate mercenary”, a legendary ass whooping and Infinite falls to the ground, weak, pathetic and defeated.

Now, I’d like to add just a few lines to their dialogue, because this:

Doesn’t really sound like Shadow to me. I mean, man: you beat this random guy to the ground, called him worthless and pathetic out of nowhere and then you just leave? I know Shadow is rather apathetic and he’s supposed to be savage and all, but this just felt kind of out of place…

So instead of going full rude mode, what Shadow actually says is:

‘You’re part of the Defence Squad, aren’t you? Why would a bunch of mercenaries work for the Doctor? What is he hiding?’

‘The doctor paid well enough to not have his secrets spilled,’ Infinite retorts while trying to get up. He’s too hurt to do much, but he’s still willing to fight. He looks at Shadow with fiery eyes as he continues, ‘My squad… you took them down like they were nothing… why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?’

‘Mercenary work is for the weak,’ the hedgehog states matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve sworn to protect, not to follow the dirty line of work you did.’

This blows Infinite’s mind and he simply stares at Shadow, dumbfounded. He murmurs, ‘weak? How dare you, I’m not… We’re not weak! We’re the squad o-’

‘Where’s the Chaos Emerald?’ The jackal’s statement is completely ignored. However, Infinite is having none of this, so tries to attack Shadow once again in a fit of rage, only for the hedgehog to give him a signature roundhouse kick free of charge.

(Image merely illustrative)

‘What a waste of my time,’ Edgelord Number 1 says, aware that he’s not getting any useful information from this. He steps closer and Edgelord Number 2 flinches, ‘here’s some advice: don’t show your face around me ever again, or else I will finish you.’

And with that, Shadow teleports away, leaving Infinite to his existential crisis. He wasn’t able to avenge his friends; he wasn’t able to protect the base; heck, he wasn’t even able to hold his title of ultimate mercenary! How useless of a leader was he? Were mercenaries truly weak? Everything they’ve done… was it all worthless? Show no weakness… what did it even mean? They were all defeated, and Infinite can’t shake the feeling that he’s to blame for it. Wasn’t he supposed to be the best?

‘What is this? I’m…’ He looks at his hands, which are trembling ‘I’m shaking? I flinched? I... We failed… How pathetic… All because…’

Infinite stops as if he’s just gotten a moment of clarity. He then gets up and starts walking inside Eggman’s base. ‘I’m not weak,’ he says in a decided, chilling whisper; it’s almost scary. The view is set at the entrance, right in front of the jackal so that he starts blocking the light from the outside as he slowly walks towards the camera - while saying in that scary voice, “No mercy, no weakness”.

(I can totally see Liam O’Brien delivering this line perfectly…)

Then the last expository narrating happens about the same, except that Shadow narrates it – giving continuity to the fact that he was the one who started narrating this episode for a reason I will talk about later –, so we change a few words to match his speech more; it’s all in the third person and very husky and brooding, but with a subtle note of dread (oh, if only Jason Griffith would voice it… No disrespect to Kirk Thornton, but he just doesn’t hit Shadow’s perfect voice like Jason did; for me, at least. His Orbot voice is fantastic, though).

Now, instead of having Infinite looking forward for a few seconds before he gets the Phantom Ruby out of nowhere and places it in his chest very anti-climatically, we’ll do something different: as soon as he puts on the mask, he starts walking away, and we change settings to a dimly lit room, where we see Infinite from behind, fitting the frame perfectly. Following the beat of the background music, the camera changes to a close shot of his masked face as he’s holding the Phantom Ruby, which is glowing, reflecting on his mask and giving us a beautifully red-lit scene; it’s possible to hear very low, indiscernible whispers coming from the jewel. We then hear a small, evil chuckle from the masked jackal – he already sounds rather different from the guy who stuck his sword to the ground in honour of his friends earlier. The screen goes black, the whole “I was… Reborn!” thing dramatically happens in Infinite’s echoing voice and the not-flashback is over.

(I know this last part was quite specific and oddly detailed, but I had the scenes very clear in my head I wanted to try conveying how intimidating it looked to me o3o)

Ok, now that that’s done, prepare yourselves for an intermission. And by that, I mean prepare yourselves for a long analytical commentary on what I just wrote.

*”This is Our World: Phase 2″ plays in the background*

(Who is Shadow working for again? I don’t even know, man…)

Shadow isn’t just the guy who called Infinite pathetic. He’s the guy who killed Infinite’s squad (his friends) without any apparent remorse – and to be hypocrite as to say he’d sworn to protect when he just did something like this (yeah, Infinite doesn’t know any context of Shadow’s life, so of course he doesn’t understand what he meant); the guy who ruined everything he had going with his new job as leader of the Defence Squad; the guy who put him several levels under what he thought he was; the guy who questioned his entire way of living and the guy who put him under a lingering threat; “don’t show your face around me ever again” feels more intimidating now. Not only that, but, despite how Infinite might hate Shadow, he recognizes him as strong, admirable even – “why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?” Remember that Infinite himself is a mercenary; to actually acknowledge someone would be good at something you’re good at, specially someone you don’t like, has to be a sign of admiration, albeit a frustrating one. All of this puts a lot more of weight on how Infinite thinks of Shadow and why being stronger than the hedgehog is so important to him.

I made it so that “expect no mercy, show no weakness” is something like the Jackal Squad’s motto, their philosophy. I like to think it means that they should never count on someone’s mercy, for their enemies won’t spare them; they should always go into battle aware that they might actually be fighting for their lives. At the same time, they should always stand their ground and never let anyone think they can take advantage of a squad member. This is what the jackals live for. But seeing as Infinite’s world has just been shattered and he failed hard on everything, he revises his mentality. “No mercy, no weakness” is what he’s going for now, as he wants to be above everyone, he wants to effectively be the strongest and for people to know that; he will be the one who doesn’t spare others, and he won’t be weak at all. Never again would a failure cost him that much, for never again would he fail.

To have Infinite place the Phantom Ruby on his own chest in Episode Shadow contradicts the opening scene of the main campaign. Remember the episode is a prequel to Sonic Forces’ main game, so it shouldn’t be completely detached from it; things must make sense when put together. As the main game begins by showing us Infinite inside of a tube in Eggman’s lab, we can assume one of two things: he’s either a robot/biological experiment created entirely by the scientist, or he’s a guy who’s been experimented on, thus Eggman was the one who placed the Phantom Ruby on him. With this in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to show us Infinite doing something if you’re going to tell us that he couldn’t have possibly done it on his own. But to have him hold the ruby as someone who deeply desires its powers and who listens to its ominous whispering? Not only does it line better with the aforementioned scene, but it also makes Infinite seem more prone to the ruby’s power (instead of just… you know, “random angry dude”).

As this intermission has gone on long enough, I’ll only make a brief commentary on the Phantom Ruby: I like the idea of the ruby being somewhat alive and exerting influence over Infinite. Now, I won’t say it’s the kind of influence where it justifies his horrible behaviour or the awful things he did. It’s less “mind-control” and more “that best friend who always encourages you and never calls you out on your bullshit”. Its grooming Infinite’s ego and just nudging him to keep making bad decisions, to keep shutting himself in this new reality where he’s all powerful and above everyone else. So it’s the jackal’s pride, spite and grief, along with Eggman’s overall encouragement and the Phantom Ruby’s influence all put together that, in a general sense, make Infinite what he is. (I can go into more detail about this idea once I make a Part 2.)

Mission Accomplished: “angry bitchy boy turned edgy, OP and unimpressed” changed his status to “tragic boy turned edgy, bitter and extremely power-hungry”.

Intermission’s over, let’s get back to the story!

With Infinite’s backstory slightly redone (or rather, shown under a different light), I could stop right here. But I don’t want to, oh no! I say we take this a few steps further and just finish Episode Shadow! Yeah, I told you this was going to be a long post.

*”Battle with Infinite: Second Bout” plays in the background*

Ok, now we cut to a few months later, where Episode Shadow would originally begin. Rouge comments that Omega was on recon mission in that “unknown base of operations that seems to be totally outside the chain of command for Eggman’s army” (whatever that is supposed to mean) when he spotted an unidentified masked person with strange energy readings and an unknown battle ID. Omega reported a “large scale troop” and… that’s it, he just stopped talking. Rouge then talks about that “new weapon” Eggman was supposedly developing and sends Shadow to the base to investigate along with Omega. She makes a remark about how they should get the entire Team Dark together for this (“It should be fun”), but Shadow dismisses the idea, saying that he’s enough on his own. “Omega said the same thing. You two go together like chilli and hot dogs.”

We can keep this at the whole “dialogue on screen” thing. I don’t really mind and it sure spares the budget.

The City stage plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background changes a bit, because Team Dark bickering (or just talking in general, I love this team so much) is my jam.

‘E-123 Omega here. Extermination proceeding without incident. No problems to report.’

‘Omega!’ Rouge exclaims, ‘Why have you stopped responding earlier? We- wait, extermination? This is supposed to be a recon mission, what are you doing?!’

‘I was spotted. Priorities conflicted; therefore I decided to eliminate the enemy altogether. New Mission Objective: Defeat Eggman.’

‘But you can’t go making a scene like that!’

‘See, this is what happens when you send the giant killer robot for this kind of op,’ Shadow sasses. And I’ll imagine Jason’s voice for this too, thank you.

‘I have several reports of recon missions where you retaliated, Shadow.’

‘I might have to join you boys soon enough. I turn my back for five seconds and this happens…’ Rouge comments in a tired voice.

Omega is ready to start robotically recounting the reports of failed recon missions where Shadow retaliated, but he is suddenly cut by static and the vague sound of the Phantom Ruby. Rouge tries to contact him again and we get small bits of his original lines here – “All sensors offline”, “Casualty report”, “Unidentified system intrusion. Emergency withdrawal!” and “I am E-123 Omega, the most powerf-sjfpstswq”, that stuff – before his communication is completely cut. Shadow asks something like “what’s going on?”, but his communication with Rouge is cut as well. We play whatever’s left of the level in silence (except for the sweet background music).

(Oh yeah, this happened or whatever…)

Now, I know the next scene is a screen dialogue again, and I know I just said I don’t mind it, but watching this:

… Is so bloody uncomfortable. This feels dumb. This is so dumb. I feel like they robbed us an epic scene in exchange of some awkward reading with absolutely no context. What the hell is “!” supposed to mean?! What did Infinite do?! If I wanted to imagine the action scenes all on my own, I’d spend my time daydreaming! What, did they not know what to do here so they just threw in some random lines to fill the gap between this and the next level?!

… Sorry, I got a little carried away. This simple scene frustrates me a lot by not existing. So yeah, we’re throwing in a cutscene.

(I just noticed how salty this post is getting. This was not my intention at all, I still love this game, oh dear…)

Shadow reaches the edge of the city and encounters a dark silhouette hovering just above the flames that cover the ground; there’s debris scattered everywhere. The figure has its back turned, and the world seems to glitch ever so slightly around them.

‘The world’s most powerful robot is no more a challenge than crabmeat. Even the Doctor’s most daring designs can’t compete with my power… It is without peer,’ the figure chuckles to themselves.

Shadow starts approaching silently, analysing the situation. Despite this being Omega’s location, he can’t see the robot.

‘Wonder how easy it would be to end this entire planet. Don’t you…’

Suddenly, the voice speaks close to the hedgehog’s ear:

‘…Shadow?’

He turns around to see that the unknown person has appeared behind him, which throws him off. The hedgehog takes several steps back and puts himself in a fighting stance.

It’s hard to see past the jackal’s mask, but he seems amused as he looks down on Shadow. Twistedly so.

‘How wonderful to see that our not-so-tall, dark and brooding guest has arrived. I’ve been waiting for you, Shadow~’

‘Tell me what you did to Omega. Now,’ the agent demands.

‘Oh, come now, Shadow. Our long-awaited reunion and still you spout such nonsense.’ Infinite floats down to stand a few meters away from his enemy.

‘I don’t know you,’ Shadow states. The masked jackal tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything, so he asks again, ‘what have you done to Omega?’

‘Only what is ought to be done when someone stands in your way. Weaklings like E-123 Omega are of no consequence, don’t you agree?’

‘The only thing of no consequence is that big mouth of yours.’

Shadow launches himself at Infinite, who easily avoids his attack. The jackal starts laughing manically.

‘Ah, I suppose you would think so,’ he states. ‘After all, it’s not so funny to be the one losing the battle, is it? I am Infinite. You say you do not know me, and yet I remember you so very well… I’ve lost all I was, I’ve become what I am because of you. Savour that thought as I return the favour.’

Guess what happens? That’s right, we get another boss battle! I think it’s only fair that Infinite gets to have his rematch with Shadow. Besides, it establishes a comparison with the “old” Infinite and how much stronger he’s now – from Shadow’s perspective, that is.

I have no idea how this battle would play out. Maybe something similar to his second battle in the main story (no, don’t worry: we’ll talk about the exceeding amount of Infinite battles in the next part), with the 2D layout. Let’s say Infinite is surrounded with his Red Cubes of Doom while he’s not attacking, so you can’t touch him. Maybe he makes the fire glitch and get closer to you at some point. Maybe he makes clones and you have to defeat each of them to get to the real guy, I don’t know! Tag your ideas, I’d love to see them! ^^

Anyway, once the battle’s over and Shadow “wins” (because Infinite is not defeated, he’s just done with this fight), the jackal might say something in the lines of “I suppose I’ve let this duel go on for long enough. I have other matters to attend to, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

We get back to the cutscene and Infinite is glitching a bit, quickly recomposing himself, laughing. Shadow is panting.

‘What’s the matter, Shadow? Can’t take down a measly jackal anymore?’ The masked one says sarcastically. ‘It seems like I’ve overestimated your strength. You’re no fit to be a mercenary at all.’

There’s a beat and Shadow realises what this is about. He looks at Infinite, frowning. ‘It’s you… Defence Squad Jackal…’

Infinite stares at the hedgehog. He doesn’t seem to be as amused anymore. His golden eye’s glowing under his mask, and so is the Phantom Ruby on his chest. A tense background music plays as Infinite answers dryly:

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve spared you, but now you’re going too far. It’s time to finish this! Chaos Spear!’

The spears of light simply go through Infinite as if they didn’t exist. Shadow goes for a spin dash/homing attack/kick to the face or whatever you can think of, but the masked villain glitches out of the way with ease and lands an almost perfect copy of Shadow’s roundhouse kick.

The hedgehog glides across the floor, almost falling over. Infinite scoffs.

‘This new “me” has limitless power. I have no mercy; no weakness! I am the true ultimate force that will tear this world apart, and what may have worked to bring me down before…’ the jackal starts floating again; thousands of red cubes start dancing around him and, as he raises a hand, they all group in the sky not far above them. ‘… No longer does.’

(Why yes, this is a reference to Mephiles the Dark and that time he destroyed the Sceptre of Darkness!)

Infinite throws his “Take THIS!” and Shadow does the “!” – which is him frantically trying to get out of the way as the thousands cubes of doom come crashing down on him.

The screen goes black.

Scene ends.

The Virtual Reality level should play as usual from there. I don’t even want to change the background dialogue, because I really like it: it’s confusing, it’s weird, it’s unsettling and it slaps Shadow in the face in a way that we rarely see. I love it! (Although, I do think the gameplay should have a tiny little bit more of 3D parts. We love Green Hill, but we also love the freedom to move on more than two directions when playing as the Ultimate Life Form. But it’s cool)

After that, we could get another cutscene (we’re full of cutscenes, huh? Well, this is a hypothetical rewriting with a hypothetical budget. Also, Episode Shadow is more of an exposition episode anyway). In this cutscene, we would start with some shots of different known locations: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Crisis City, Mystic Jungle, Kingdom Valley, Babylon Garden, you name it! And all of these places are somewhat “corrupted”; they’re glitching out, full of those red cubes, and there’s just this ominous atmosphere in them, as if they’re abandoned, desolated despite looking roughly the same as ever. We then see a black-and-red blur cross the screen, and a short narration takes place:

“I’ve been here for longer than I can remember. This… alternate reality, this fake world. There seems to be no escape. Rouge and Omega talk to me occasionally…”

We see Shadow leaning against a wall. His communicator plays only white noise, then Rouge’s voice comes in; it’s strangely echoed as it calls out to him. Shadow throws the device far away and sighs.

“… They’re fake too. No matter where I go, no matter how much I run…”

Shadow is skating through Pumpkin Hill or something, when the world suddenly starts to glitch out massively; we hear the Phantom Ruby’s noise and suddenly, we’re on the ARK.

“It’s like this place was made to torture me. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.”

‘I’ve moved on from this a long time ago,’ Shadow says to the void of the Universe as we hear gunshots in the distance. He’s not being completely truthful. ‘Putting me through this scenario dozens of times changes nothing. Don’t you have anything more creative at this point?’

There’s silence, except for the shouts in the Space Colony. A voice calls out to Shadow, and he promptly ignores it, albeit with a pained look in his eyes. He’s visibly tired, almost hopeless, if one could ever describe Shadow the Hedgehog that way.

He sighs.

‘Alright, how do I get out of this one?”

We then get a start of a short level in the ARK. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those hellish mazes that usually haunt every ARK level there ever was; this is more straight forward, with doors closing all around you so that you know where you shouldn’t go, and some G.U.N. robots trying to kill you, simple thing.

The catch happens when you’re halfway through the level: as you’re crossing a long corridor, the game begins to “crash” – in the sense of you losing control of the character, the visuals beginning to glitch and the soundtrack going weird, all in a way that makes the soul leave the body of the player for a terrifying four seconds of “HOLY SHIT, I BROKE THE GAME”. But nope, you didn’t break the game: the Phantom Ruby is trolling you. We soon find that out as the signature noise plays and the glitching effect on screen disperses to show a new scenario: Mystic Jungle. The real Mystic Jungle. Congratulations: you get to play in a totally different zone for the rest of the level.

‘My head…’ Shadow murmurs to himself. ‘That was too quick; this can’t be right, it- ugh, why is it so bright here? Where are all the red things? This place seems too normal… is it… am I back in the real world?!’

We then finish the level, get our nice score and head to the last scene of the episode.

Shadow is going through the jungle, taking in everything that isn’t an illusion. He passes by a red sword stuck to the ground and leans against a tree, still a little out of it, still struggling to believe that anything is real anymore. The hedgehog then takes his communicator – surprisingly intact; hadn’t he thrown that away? – and tries to make contact. There is static for a moment, when suddenly…

‘Shadow? Oh my- Shadow, is that you?!’

He’s startled for a moment, but so relieved to hear Rouge’s normal voice again.

‘It’s me, Rouge. What’s the situation? Where’s Omega?’

‘Omega? We lost contact with him months ago; the Resistance says he must have been shut down after the Doctor took over!’

Shadow raises both his non-existing eyebrows in surprise, barely holding a gasp. He then frowns.

‘Shut down? Resistance? What do you mean “the Doctor took over”? What the heck happened?’

‘What happened? What happened?! I should be the one asking you that! You’ve been offline for six months! Everyone keeps saying you’re working with Eggman and Infinite, and I couldn’t contact you or Omega, I thought… I thought we’d lost you for good…’

‘Nonsense,’ Shadow states. We start hearing voices in the distance, and the hedgehog starts looking around while still talking ‘I’ll tell you the details later, it’s long story. What’s the current situation?’

‘Shadow…’

The (Tired) Ultimate Life Form spots something from behind the trees. Still in hiding, he looks closer only to see the Custom Hero holding the prototype Phantom Ruby they just found and talking to Tails and… Classic Sonic, much to Shadow’s confusion.

‘… We’re at war.’

Shadow takes a moment to process what’s just been said. He doesn’t even pay attention to what Rouge says next (neither do we, as the background music starts getting louder than the bat’s voice). He still watches the avatar, Tails and Classic Sonic as they leave; he focuses on the Phantom Ruby.

‘Meet me in the City. I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ Shadow says.

And with that, he leaves, the scene fades out and Episode Shadow is over!

*”The Light of Hope: Menu Version” plays in the background*

Now, a few more analytical notes before we close this ridiculously gigantic thing:

The immediate reason why we have Shadow being stuck in the Virtual Reality for six months is to indicate to us why he doesn’t show up earlier in the main game. It’s not like he was being useless this whole time and just decided to show up whenever it was most Ex-Machina of him; much like Sonic, he was trapped by the enemy. A mental trap that put Shadow on survivor mode for months without any way of communicating with anybody; with twisted versions of his friends trying to get to him and remind him that, hey, they’re still out there, probably in high danger; with these illusions mocking him, reminding him of painful memories, isolating him in familiar places… I say: if you want to emotionally hit a character, hit them hard. And this experience is bound to leave Shadow with some emotional scar, alright.

(Ever heard of conveniently coming out of nowhere?)

Shadow is bound to lose his sense of reality and sometimes it should be hard for him to acknowledge that this is the real world. I hope I can showcase some of his reactions in the later parts of this o3o

The Virtual Reality isn’t all glitchy by mistake. No, no: Infinite is perfectly capable of making a “perfect copy” of the real world, but he doesn’t want to. He wants Shadow to know this is a fake world and to know that he’s completely trapped in it while his real friends and allies are out there doing who-knows-what in a world run by the enemy. He wants to throw Shadow off-balance as much as he can, because he’s spiteful and doesn’t just leave the hedgehog to the side without a second glance.

In the game, Infinite says that they didn’t really have time to tune his power yet, so we can tell putting Shadow in the Virtual Reality was more of a practice of sorts. But man, I think this is too much of a cool concept, so I’ll say Infinite did put his power to the test before all of this; because Eggman, sir: you don’t simply throw your super-secret, amazing, unparalleled weapon in the battlefield without testing it first. This is something that can be inferred, it doesn’t need to be directly told, it just- I’m telling you this right now, ok?

I know Shadow is supposedly “over” this conflict with what happened in the ARK and it probably feels over-used to add it in again, but… it’s a thing the games haven’t tackled in such a long time, I feel like this would be a nice call-back. Besides, Infinite would want to know what would bring distress to Shadow; what happened in the ARK isn’t exactly a secret, especially if he’s working with Eggman. And Shadow can be as “over it” as he wants: it’s still a scar that will never truly leave him. Even if he watches it happen dozens of times, it’s still at least a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

ALTHOUGH! I also think this ARK level could be easily replaced with some other random level if you want to argue that Forces happens in Mobius or something, where Gerald and Maria and G.U.N. maybe never existed and whatnot.

What brought Shadow back, you ask? Well, it probably has to do with a certain someone spontaneously activating a Phantom Ruby. Maybe the avatar was thinking of Shadow and how it’d be nice to have him on their side again? Maybe they were thinking of undoing Infinite’s evil deeds? Maybe the raw power of the Phantom Ruby prototype being suddenly activated by the Custom Hero just crashed something another Phantom Ruby user did, like magnetic waves interfering with each other? Who knows?

I also find it important to show the Custom Hero here not only to show that there’s a connection between Shadow’s sudden freedom and their actions, but also to establish the tiniest amount of early familiarity between Shadow and the original character. Then maybe (maybe) I’ll give them a bit more of interaction in the main game, because it’d be nice to have a cool interaction with Shadow; and as endearing as his smile after the avatar does their thing with the sun of destruction is, it feels like it comes out of nowhere, if you think about it…

(I mean... Does he even know who we are?)

Infinite’s sword stuck to the ground goes completely over Shadow’s head, as he has no idea what that is or who it belonged to or what it means. It’s really just there for the viewer to reminisce the beginning of the episode and have a slight existential crisis.

When playing the main campaign, we get some pretty convenient information from Shadow once he finally shows up. Episode Shadow should give us a sense of how he knows those things. Want it or not, he did spend a long time studying the Phantom Ruby’s power far more closely than anybody else – well, maybe Sonic spent almost as much time as Shadow in a similar state, but that’s something to cover in another part.

The fact that Shadow is the one narrating this entire episode is supposed to allude to him telling Rouge exactly what happened during those six months he was gone. But if you want to read it as him talking to himself in the Virtual Reality as he slowly descends into madness, then be my guest!

I don’t know if it’s noticeable, but I’ve tried to tune Infinite’s cheesiness down a bit. I don’t think I can rid him of it entirely – after all, he is somewhat of a pompous, edgy, over-the-top character in general; he’s a full-on drama queen 24/7 and the only character cheesier than him is Sonic. Now, what we do with Infinite is to at least give a base to what he says. Also, I wanted him to sound a bit more like he lets the power get to his head. Oh well, I surely hope we’ll be tackling more of Infinite in the future!

Episode Shadow is extremely short, even for a DLC. I mean, it’s about only 20 minutes long – even less, if you’re good at it! With the addition of the cutscenes, the small changes, the boss fights against Squad Jackal and Infinite, and the added levels, the episode shouldn’t get overwhelmingly longer, but longer enough for it to feel more satisfying!

And with that, we’re done! I hope you enjoyed this massive thing. Despite me really liking Sonic Forces, I do think a few things could be improved. It’s not like it will happen, but rewriting is a lot of fun!

And why, no: I don’t take myself seriously.

[mysticsparklewings]

On The Edge

It feels like it's been quite some time since I sat down and got to work on a more involved mixed-media project. And in plenty of ways it has, but I have been working on other artsy projects behind the scenes, which I should be posting sometime soon, I hope. Anyway, this artwork had to be moved to the top of my priority list and also my upload schedule (some of those other projects are already finished, just back-logged) because this is my entry into the Arteza Awards hosted by, shocker, Arteza, and the deadline to enter was the 24th. I actually started working on this piece a week or two early, but me being me, I procrastinated and only just barely got it posted to Instagram with the appropriate tags (per the contest rules) with about 20 minutes to spare.  Then again, maybe that's a good thing because I've been known in the past to pull some of my better work out of thin air at the last minute. If that proves the case this time, it would certainly be to my advantage. Anyway. There was no set theme for the contest. The main rules were that you had to use Arteza supplies and they needed to be visible in the image posted to Instagram. I understand why, but I normally don't photograph my art with the supplies because I can usually get more accurate colors and proportions with a scan, and you can pretty much always see the details way better on a scan. But considering the prizes on offer, I wasn't about to let that stop me. I figured I'd just post the supply image first, then add the scan so you could swipe to see it. That way I could have my nice scanned version and still follow the rules. (Also, since they specify Instagram is the main platform for the contest, I'm assuming it doesn't matter if I don't post the supply picture everywhere else. If it does...whoops :P ) For reasons I don't think I should get into here, I knew I needed to go for something kind of high-impact when you first glance at it. But it also needed to not be too involved, lest I be working on it well after the entry window closed and my efforts become somewhat less valuable. I'm not exactly sure how, but this led me around to a concept I've had floating around in my head for a while: A girl (because I am one and know I can draw them better) standing on a mountain top, that looks as if she's one step from free-falling. Originally, I dreamed up this idea hoping to make it into an acrylic painting, but (aside from that fact that I didn't get around to executing the idea until now) I do not own Arteza'a acrylic paints (though I have wanted them for quite some time--It just hasn't happened yet) and also acrylics are not my strongest suit, so now did not seem like the time for an impulse-purchase that could compromise the integrity of my work and therefore my chances in the contest. Although for the day I do get my hands on their acrylics, I now have a solid idea to use to test them out.  ;) The Arteza supplies I do have at my disposal are their tube watercolors, woodless watercolor pencils, and 72 expert colored pencils. Which as I learned the last time entered a contest hosted by Arteza, is a fairly limited variety as to what I can actually do. The watercolors by far as the most versatile and my personal favorite of the three though, so they're what I used the most of here. Also, somewhere between deciding to run with my standing-on-the-edge idea and actually doing it, I also decided to add-in the wings in this constellation style I've used somewhere infrequently but am very fond of. As a result, the whole concept has a very similar feel to me as this artwork that I found here on dA years ago and fell so in love with that it spent a good few months as my desktop wallpaper. Obviously, the two images are very different, but to me the idea of the wings is similar: Their structural integrity to fly is questionable, as the wings in the original image appear to be made of glass. Maybe it matters, maybe not. Same thing here: Maybe the wings are really there and just look like a constellation, or maybe this girl just stood in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. Is the girl even there? Is she real? Can she die? Does it matter if she falls? Would she choose to fly at all, whether the wings work or not? It's sort of a Schrodinger's Cat situation, and something about that is really intriguing to me. Anyway. I started out with a digital sketch this time, mostly to iron out the kinks with...well, everything. I knew getting the right pose would be difficult, and I actually had a pretty different one of her looking out over the edge, maybe clutching her chest or something, originally, but I just couldn't get it to work the way I wanted to and I really struggled to find references for it, so I went with the pose you see here, that I found references for by accident while looking for the other one. I have to admit, seeing the final product I think this pose might actually have been the better choice anyway. The mountain/cliff/whatever I was also having a hard time finding references for, at least for exactly what I wanted, so in the end I had to mostly wing it. I think it turned out okay, though. The wings were probably the most challenging part to plan because I wanted something between traditional butterfly/fairy wings and something that stretches out farther like bird or bat wings. I toyed with the lines for a long time until I got something I was happy with, and then I actually went in and did the constellation lines for both sides by hand instead of doing one side and making a flipped copy, because I wanted to make sure I kept the overall shape of the wing on the (our)right (her left), as after all the warping I did to get the original lines, I wasn't sure I could replicate the process again. I also drew 2 or 3 versions of a simple dress over the figure before giving up because I wasn't happy with how any of them were turning out and decided that I would instead preserve her modesty with magically misty cloud-things. Although, it's kind of a shame because that ended up mostly hiding the one piece of hair clinging over her left (our right) shoulder. :P But once the digital sketch was done so I had some idea of what I was doing, it was time to move on to the traditional, actual artwork. I cut a piece of my 100% cotton paper down to size (nice paper because I didn't want to be held back in that regard--go big or go home, as they say) and then held it up to me screen to trace my cliff lines into place, and some vague markers for the figure and her wings. My idea from the very beginning was to make the galaxy largely with watercolor in such a way that it gives the wings color and focus, without having to actually color all the individual segments. This means lighter colors towards the main area of the wings, and getting darker as I moved out/away from them. Now, because it has been a while since I was painting with watercolors regularly, I did set aside a smaller piece of the same paper and busted out a practice baby galaxy before diving into the final. I learned very quickly I was going to have to be extremely careful with my placement of this orangey color and black, less either of them ends up mixing with colors they weren't supposed to and leaving me with a big muddy mess. (The practice piece did survive though and I'll be posting it some other time.) Before I could get to the fun part [the galaxy] though, I painted the mountain with a mixture of black and blue, which actually went a lot smoother than I thought it would. It took several light layers of blending out the paint built up slowly, but ultimately I'm pretty happy with how the color for it turned out...Even if it's still kind of up for debate how much it looks like a "mountain" or "cliff-edge" or not.   With that out of the way, I cut some paper to act as a mask for that section and then spent far too long going back and forth, putting down layers of color and blending them out, dabbing color on and waiting for it to dry, rinse, repeat, trying to get the Galaxy portion just right. I was actually having a fair amount of trouble getting the right color balance, and as sometimes happens with these things, I was pretty worried about how it was looking before I went to bed that night. (I had procrastinated just long enough that I had 2 nights to do this is; the bulk of the painting took place on night 2) But the next day, once it was fully dry, it didn't look so bad. It did need just a few more touches before I went in and added the splatter/stars, though. So I broke out the colored pencils, which I really should have done sooner because they were much easier to blend out and had a bit more covering power over the watercolor than...more watercolor because watercolor is often transparent and there it can be hard to cover with it. Admittedly, I still had more worries about the "naked" galaxy, but then I went to splatter town with the white, added a few pointed stars, and as it usually does, that really brought everything together and made it look a lot better. Never underestimate the power of a good splatter-fest! ;)  I must say though, I underestimated the combination of the white watercolor and white colored pencil together when I moved on to the figure and wings. I was trying very hard to not use my white gel pen (because the rules for the contest didn't say if it was okay to use non-Arteza supplies in conjunction with Arteza supplies or not) and so I was sort of bending over backward to find another way with my limited resources. (Although I assumed using a lightbox to see the lines underneath the paint, as is a normal practice for me, wouldn't really matter because it's not like you can really tell from the final product anyway.) Still, even though a mixture of paint lifting, the white colored pencil, and the white watercolor were better than I expected, I still ended up having to punch the lines up a bit digitally to get them to pop the way I wanted them to. But oh well, at least it made a nice glowing effect and mostly worked for the cloud-mist covering. :P  Overall though, I do really like how it turned out. If it weren't a little on the small side I might actually consider using it as my new wallpaper/banner art everywhere. Maybe that's a conversion project of some kind for another day? Point being, I'm pleased. I probably won't place in the contest because I'm just too small of a fish in this pond, but I made some pretty art and it was mostly fun, so no harm done. :)  Actually, if this could maybe be the excuse my brain needs to get back into posting regularly, that would actually be really great. I miss it, despite what my most recent journal entry and my spotty activity levels might lead one to believe. If it is, I hope you guys don't mind seeing some crafty things thrown into the mix! :D  ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings 

____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[whumperwriter]

Whumptober Day 19 - Exhaustion

Fandom - The Resident

Whumpee - Conrad Hawkins

A/N - Nothing smart that I've got to say. Just that I hope if you're reading this that you'll enjoy! (Also feel free to donate a coffee in my direction at KoFi or give me a follow at @imagine-tay-tion . And if you want to be tagged whenever I post original content, shoot me a message and I can add you to my tag list. 😁😁)

XXXXXXXXXX

He's used to not stopping.

When he was a baby, he was walking before he could speak. His dad liked to joke that he could run before he crawl, but Conrad is very aware that it's bullshit. He was walking early though, and he just never stopped moving after that.

In school, he was always going. From the moment his feet hit the ground in the morning to the moment he rested his head on his  pillow at night. He would go to school, then after school practices for the plethora of sports he had on his agenda. Sometimes he would get the chance to hang out with friends, but that was only when he had time. The older he got, and the closer he got to graduation, he would stay busy getting into trouble and just trying to stay out of the house.

Then everything came to a head and the next thing he knew, he was being shipped overseas. Being a marine was clearly no easy feat. Once again, Conrad was never able to take a break and catch a breath. It was always going from place to place, just trying to help people to the best of his ability.

Somewhere in there, he injured his knee and suddenly it wasn't as easy to keep going, but he tried. He kept going for years and somewhere in the midst of it all, he became a resident at Chastain and somehow, he managed to continue the motion.

Three years at Chastain had taught him more than he can really recall, but there's one thing it hasn't. Finding time to stop and take a break.

He's never let it get too bad before. Conrad knows that once he's had three energy drinks, he needs to sit down and take a nap if possible. Fortunately that didn't happen too often, and when it does,  the staff understands. Everybody in the hospital was willing to work themselves to the bone, and he was no exception. He would do the same for them.

Fourth of July was where he really ran into issues though. It's been three days since Independence day and Conrad hasn't slept since that morning. He doesn't sleep well during fireworks, and being right in the middle of the city, noises bouncing and echoing off of the buildings, did nothing to ease him.

So he showed up to work the next day and did his job. No sleep to his name but he was doing his best. By the end of the double shifts, he hasn't had the chance to sit and rest, and he's at least six energy drinks down.

Conrad's hands are shaky and his head swims every time he moves it too quick. He's well past the point where he can walk without something supporting him.(He's spending a lot of time using the wall to keep him steady.) He can almost guarantee that he's hallucinating, something stupid like shadows or something, he's really not sure. His head is pounding. He's been snapping at people all evening. He can feel his eyes droop everytime he uses the elevators and suddenly the shoddy break room coffee begins to seem helpful when Bell catches up to him.

There really isn't much catching up to him at this point. He's down in the ER, sitting behind the nurses desk, using a wheelchair as chair. He's rolling back and forth while he ponders some of his new patients and their medical issues. He's so close to the end of his shift, and he's ready to call it and go sleep in the doctors lounge, but then here's Bell, closing on him, and Conrad knows that there is no way that this ends well.

“Listen, Bell, I don't have the energy,” Conrad contemplates his next words, before he stands up, and makes to walk away, “or the time to deal with you.”

“Conrad, I need you to work another shift. We're severely short-staffed down here, as you can tell, and I can't pull anybody else from any of the other floors.” The man says pompously, daring Conrad to say otherwise.

“I'm finishing up a double and you want me to work another shift?” Conrad asks, just to make sure he hears correctly. He stops moving as he looks up at the chief of surgery… and the CEO.

“You heard me,” the older man walks a few steps away as Conrad falls back into the wheelchair, rubbing at his eyes and temples and bridge of his nose. He sighs as he tosses the patient file that was previously in his hand, onto the desk. “And Conrad?”

Conrad doesn't even both to look up, and decides to put his elbow on his knees and hang his head. Exhaustion creeping up on him. “Try not to need me.”

Conrad waits for the footsteps to disappear before he sits back up, and looks around at the relatively quiet ER. He glances at his watch. 10pm.

“Damn it.”

He's about to get up and head to the doctors lounge, knowing that him crashing is inevitable, when Hundley seemingly materializes. “Hey Conrad, we have a multi car crash in route.”

He doesn't mean to sigh out loud, but whoop, there it is. “How many?”

“Right now we have four ambulances coming our way.” She says, almost sympathetically. She knows how tonight's about to go.

“Ok, we need help, let's get some extra hands down here.”

Thirty minutes. It takes thirty minutes to send two patients up to the OR, another to be admitted for observation, five examined, helped, then discharged and then there's the patient beneath his palms. He's trying his best, but he knows that she's gone. She's young too, which sinks to the pit of his stomach. He's doing compressions as Nic and Devon work on her injuries, trying to stop the bleeding.

He does ten more, and then calls it.

By that time, it's 10:32pm and his legs are shaking from the exertion. Conrad pulls away from the body and rips his gloves off, tossing them onto the ground, then he's pulling his gown off and throwing that onto the floor as well.

He doesn't stop to chat to either the younger resident or nurse, instead he walks out into the center of the ER and looks around, pleased that everything is under control. He stumbles to the desk, his chest heaving as he reaches for a patient file that sits untouched before rounding the counter slowly, using it as a crutch.

He's trying not to blink because every time he blinks, he feels his eyelids taking more and more effort to reopen.

He doesn't even make it to the end of the counter before his foot slips out from beneath him and then suddenly Conrad's struggling to keep both his feet under him. He glances around to make sure no one's watching him before continuing, and he makes it this time.

He collapses into the wheelchair again and falls back into a resting position, leaning on his knees and rubbing his eyes. “Hey Conrad, you good down here?”

Conrad waves Devon away, not even bothering to look up before a hand rests on his shoulders and a cup of coffee is steaming under his nose. He's lost time, he knows that for sure. He looks up to see Nic standing above him and he greedily accepts the cup, taking a long swig.

“You were here when I left yesterday. What are you still doing here?” Nic asks, rubbing his back as he pulls the acrid mixture away from his lips.

“I wasn't given a choice. Bell forced me to stay and cover down here.” Conrad normally would have attempted to comfort her, the way her face reddens as she is visibly angered by the statement. He's just so tired that he can't even scrounge up the effort. He prays the coffee makes a difference.

“He's never gonna learn. You need sleep! When was the last time-”

“The night of the third.” Conrad responds, yawning. Nic glances at her watch before rolling her eyes.

“That was days ago, you need rest.”

“I know, trust me, I'm ready to. I'll have Devon take point on all my patients upstairs and I'll just take it easy down here. It'll be fine.” Conrad reassures, grabbing her hand and smiling earnestly up at her.

“Right.” She exhales a long sigh and then turns away from him, her pager beeping. “I gotta go, don't push yourself, alright?”

He nods, his smile dropping slightly as she turns to Hundsley “Keep an eye on him?”

“You bet, Nic.”

And then she's gone.

Conrad's able to make it five more hours. Five hours of energy drinks. Five hours of small talk with everyone who walks in. Five hours of diagnosing and five hours of stumbling around. Five hours of micro naps in the wheelchair. Five hours of using anything as support as his legs grew less and less privy to the idea of carrying him around. If he's honest with himself, part of those five hours he realizes he's lost. His mind just forgot to catalogue at times.

He knows he must really look awful when patients start to ask him if he's ok.

But at 3:30 in the morning, as he's bringing suture equipment to the college kid in the fourth bed, he blinks his eyes.

The next moment, he opens them and he's looking up at the ER ceiling. He doesn't immediately recognize what's happened until Nic's hovering over him, a deep frown on her face.

“Oh boy.” He groans. It's hits him that he's lying on a hospital bed, a pillow resting under his head and his legs tucked under a blanket. He glances up and the curtains around him are all closed. ‘Where are my shoes?’ he ponders momentarily.

“You moronic, selfless, bastard. Imagine how panicked I felt when I got a page telling me you had just collapsed in the emergency department.” Nic is pissed, that's easy enough to tell. Enough time has passed that she's wearing street clothes instead of her scrubs. She's laying beside him, he realizes as she lies back down next to him.

He loves how she fits next to him.

“I'm sorry, I tried not too.” He countered, knowing there really was no excuse for what had transpired.

She sighs lightly, and lays her hand on his chest. “It's not your fault, maybe with this having happened to two different residents-”

Conrad grabs her hand and squeezes it lightly before pulling it to his lips, where he let's it sit. “Nothing's gonna change.”

Another, much louder sigh. “I know, I know.”

“Sucks that it happened. Who knows?”

“Well, everyone who was in the ER at the time, Hundley, and me. We kept it quiet. If Bell found out…” her sentence trails off and he places her hand back on his chest as he turns to face her.

“Thank you.” It's genuine and she smiles that light smile that he loves so much.

“You don't have to thank me. We just put you in a bed and let you sleep it off,” she looks at her watch, “and your shifts been over for about an hour now. What do you say we head to my place and get some sleep?”

Conrad moans in response. “A real bed sounds so nice right now.”

@whumptober2018

[curionabang]

tagged by @epiproctan, mi amor y mi estrella y mi maíz hermosa <3 gracias mi amiga perfecta! te amo mucho

What is your total posted word count on AO3? (Go to your Works, then click Statistics.)

my exact word count is 887,564! But I’m also sitting on about... 85k of unpublished writing right now? Because a little known fact about me is that I’m very bad at actually publishing things after i’m finished with them. haha whoops

How often do you write?

i try to write every day! sometimes, if i’m feeling lazy, i’ll take the weekends off.

Do you have a routine for writing?

routines are very good, and i have a whole lot of them, haha! generally, when starting a big project, i’ll make a playlist that sort of fits the atmosphere of that writing. and i’ll listen to it while i’m writing the first few chapters. eventually, i’ll start to associate that story with those songs, which makes it easier to switch between projects without finding myself in the mood for one story, but “stuck” writing another. i write at night, mostly, and i’ll try to start listening to my particular playlists about half an hour before i actually write, just to get myself in the mood for it. let’s see, uhhhhh... i try to never edit the same day that i finish writing something, and i always read my writing out loud when editing hahaha i also don’t ever shut the hell up about anything that i’m working on, which helps a lot but annoys everyone who has to deal with me 

What’s your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing?

i really like soft pairings! i think i’m becoming more boring the older i get. i like secondhand embarrassment a whole lot, love at first sight, and sort of... introducing information to the reader as the character discovers it. i also like mysteries a lot, along with easter eggs. i think i’ve put an easter egg in every single story that i’ve written since i published my first story on ao3 in... 2016. i like character-driven comedy too! 

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

oh oof, okay uhhhh... i feel like i don’t really have a “favorite”? but i think the most rewarding writing experience that i’ve had was Love & Cheese. I met a lot of really amazing people through that story, and made a lot of incredible friends! 

Your fic with the most kudos?

A reeeeeally old collab of mine currently has the top spot, but Love & Cheese  has the most kudos of my solo writing.

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

i already know that this is going to sound like the most gigantic crock of shit in the entire universe, BUT. Okay. I wouldn’t say that there’s anything that I really hate about my writing that I’m not working on? I mean, I think that’s really the whole point of being unhappy with something, right? Like, making an effort to change it once you can pinpoint what you dislike. So right now, I’m working on creating better atmospheres! And maybe using less long dashes, haha! I’ve also been reeeeally trying to add emphasis to the right parts of the story, so I’m not focusing so much on things that don’t matter.

Now something you do like?

god this one is impossible and i’m so upset. every so often, my husband will read something that i’ve written and he’ll laugh at my jokes. and sometimes people will tell me that specific parts of the writing reminded them of something that happened to them? or that it made them cry, or feel nostalgic, or that it was comforting to see something that they could relate to. and i really strive to write things that can connect to people, so that’s an incredible experience! So i think, honestly, my favorite thing about my writing is really... being able to feel as though i’ve made a connection to people even if we haven’t met. or feeling closer to the people who i do know.

god i’m so sorry but i’m tagging @peachy-keen-xv, @demon-of-ikebukuro, @wolfsan11, @solivagaunt, and @on-the-boundary-line

[seenashwrite]

Walkthrough for “There But For The Grace”.

If interested - Go read it first before continuing on. This is about the plot point stuff (i/e - hints for the end, amongst other things) and the theological drops I sprinkled throughout.

I genuinely did not intend for this to cause brain freeze. Hoo-boy. Many sorry. There’s about a 40/60 split at this point of the “got its” vs. “didn’t quite got its”, so that’s on me. Not that it was incredibly necessary to catch the loop-di-loop in order to like it, though you might like it more once you know.

So I'll walk you through my thought process in the least disjointed manner I can manage. Which... hoo-boy, part deux. Tagging folks who commented on the story/to me directly, certainly no expectation on my part for you to read and/or reply. Seriously. Legit. Etc. And stuff.

This took longer to write than the story. #no lie

Okay, lotsa screencaps, so I don’t (a) end up c-p’ing the whole damn thing, and more the reason (b) so can underline. 

And for ALL our brains’ sakes, I’ll call our dude Michael, and other world’s dude Mike from here on.  Plotting stuff in red, theological stuff in blue, randoms (Nash Be Nashin’ and SPN canon stuff) in green.

The title is from that proverb “There but for the grace of God go I”, and as ye olde wiki explains....

....and then, there’s this:

Hopefully you picked up on something being “off” with how I was writing ol’ Mike as the story went on. I got slightly tricksy in some places on purpose regarding characterization, but hey - Mike and Michael are essentially the same angel in concept, just on different planes, right? And stuff apparently took a left turn when the apocalypse went through over yonder. So while they didn’t really re-tell the history of Apocaland beat-by-beat (thank Chuck), the inference I got is that the basic shit went down - he boots Luci after he rebels, etc. Blah blah blah, y’all know this.

Quote from Michael:

So maybe Mike came at it from the same angle when he killed his Luci. Who knows. Though I will say - if it was some sort of duty for him and not pleasure, I wouldn’t think there’d be boasting about pulling Luci apart, nor would the knee-jerk be to string him up and torture him, at least, if he’d suddenly re-appeared before me one day. YMMV.

This is good summary from the wiki, whoever wrote it did a bang up job:

Michael is meticulous. He slow-plays things. It’s not about being power-hungry; he had power. He was essentially God. For him, this is tied up in honor and loyalty and righting wrongs and all that jazz.

Again - that hesitation. He never stopped loving Lucifer - and Lucifer never stopped loving any of them, we see this big time in the Elysium ep when he “killed” Gabriel. Much internal conflict with these folks. And then there’s Mike, who iced (our) Gabriel and tortured (our) Lucifer in the blink of an eye. 

There’s my characterization base of operations.

---> Could be interpreted as Michael or Mike - applies to both. Mike would find pleasure in taking inventory of what he planned to rule, how we aren’t worthy of anything but being subjects; Michael is perhaps glad to see plenty of justifications for what he feels he’s still destined to do.

---> “Learned” for Mike = the observing we saw in the finale, comparing-and-contrasting to his world; “learned” for Michael could be (a) via Dean’s mind, and / or (b) what he could’ve seen from Mike’s mind when he whooped his ass, a.k.a. Nash’s Sneaky Twisty Thing, re: Michael is now in Dean’s body. 

So, how is that, Nash? you may ask.

Dunno.

Perhaps the distraction of Mike getting wailed on by Michael allowed Dean the opportunity to eject him, maybe Dean’s been wearing Mike down mentally. And though Dean/Sam - being the ideal hosts - have greater tolerance than us regulars, it’s gonna leave them weakened, it’s just got to. Hell, just being possessed by fill-in-the-blank leaves ya with the weeble-wobbles for a bit. Primo chance for Michael to set up shop in Dean.

Then, Nash, since angels need permission, how’d Michael do that? you may ask.

Occam’s razor --> Dean gave Michael “the soul”/”the entity”/whatever permission, and that goes across the realm, alt timelines/dimensions/whatnots. Or, maybe Dean chose the lesser of the two evils, so to speak - he’s boned at this interval anyhow, so if the opportunity arose, if it’s me, I’m choosing the frying pan over the fire - at least I’ve bought myself (and my loved ones, and the world) some time. Either of those work for what I intimated in the story.

Bottom line: however it went down, that’s for your imagination to choose.

A point that’s called back to later, as well as Nash Be Nashin’, RE: I’ve no idea why they opted to dress him in that style. There’s other stylings that are stark contrasts to Dean’s without going full-court-press cosplay, but whatevs. In any event, assuming my premise is taken - that the worlds played out the same for the most part and the ‘20s were a fave and would explain the wardrobe - this can apply to both Mike and Michael.

For those of you fortunate enough to have missed slogging through Sunday school, allow me: S&G was apparently a hotbed of sin, and they were gonna get the fire-and-brimstone treatment. Abraham asked angels who visited him if they’d spare the righteous, because there was at least one group there who was: his nephew Lot’s family. Two more angels were sent to investigate, Lot was awesome to them, welcomed them in without knowing they were angels, etc. So when time came to fire things up, the angels fessed up about who they were and why they were there, and told them (Lot and his crew) that they needed to just leave and not look back. And whoopsie, Lot’s wife found out that wasn’t metaphorical, as when she turned to get one last look at her home going up in flames, wha-BAM! She got turned into a pillar of salt.

So here might be the first subconscious “Hmmm” from your mind - that doesn’t really sync up with what we know of Mike. I don’t think he gives a shit about how much he sins to get what he wants. I bet he can’t even spell benevolence. Read this in Michael’s voice, though, and I hear that whole justifying thing again, the “don’t really want to, but got to” mindset.

See above, RE: “...but I labored more abundantly than them all”. Plus, speaks to arrogance, applicable to both Michael and Mike.

---> “The” earth, eh? ;) 

---> Theology-wise, Michael’s only named a couple times, if memory serves... actually most of them are name dropped just a handful of times... did they namedrop Gabe as the one who told Mary she was preggers? I’m not looking it up.

Anyway, theologians have assigned certain “messages” delivered and punishments as being enacted by specific angels, I won’t go down that road here, I’ve no clue how they managed to arrive at those conclusions. Point is that Michael was a guardian, of heaven and of certain places/people on earth, depending on where God assigned. I wanna say Daniel and the lion’s den was one of them. Not looking that up, either.

---> "Temporarily”, hmmm.... that other world looked plenty definitively apoca-sized to me. In any event, floods is a ref to the Noah story, and if memory serves, Michael is thought by some to have been the “angel of death” that struck down the firstborn sons during the plagues of Egypt.

Also also - I’d speculate he’s taken on some self-imposed blame for Lucifer sneaking into the garden and tempting Adam & Eve, as he is so convicted in SPN land about righting the wrongs Lucifer brought upon the world, and that’s the event that kicked shit off. 

---> O.T. (old testament) God took no shit, got smitey on a dime. New Testament God (a.k.a. - post-Jesus time) flipped a switch to a more fatherly figure. 

---> The absence thing is SPN canon.

---> The differing legends is me thumbing my nose at their neglect of both their own canon and theology. #dammit Dabb

---> So, again, choose your poison - Luci getting into the garden, then Michael having to wage battle in heaven to boot him (and, let’s be real, he likely had followers that got nailed, too), etc. etc. etc.

---> The plans refer to the stuff up there from the wiki - that was an intricate damn plan. Deceptive, sure, but again that whole “bigger picture” mentality. 

---> RE: beloved - yeah, that’s not sounding like the Mike we’ve been presented with.

Now that’s a pretty detailed thing to know about a random coffee joint in a random town in a random state in a strange world, wouldn’t you say? ;)

---> Trinities, trifectas, triples - threes are trendy numbers in stories and legends and oral tradition, so it comes up here multiple times, as well. And he’s talking about Jesus, of course, and the green Nashy line is me thinking “Wonder what he thought about Amara?” 

(’Cause I’m of the thought that Amara + Chuck = God, yin-yang and all, but from the very black-and-white Michael’s perspective, I could see him playing nice but not buying into it, and I mean, he was part of the crew that banished her on Chuck’s orders, so there you go. He may not have even been privy to the scoop that they were the corporeal forms of light/dark, maybe just of the understanding that she was his meddling aunt, and of course he was gonna do whatever his dad told him to do. Anyhow, I think that adds additional texture to why it frustrates him so much that Luci couldn’t fall in line, why Luci always had to ask questions. ---> and that’s just me, there’s no way y’all could’ve inferred it from just that, you’re not psychic, I’m just sharing. I digress. I’m good for some heavy digressin’.)

There is a specific things-come-in-threes story that’s my baseline, but I’ll tell you further down after #3 hits.

On we go...

The chick we come to know as Grace does not catch his eye because she is pretty or sweet or in need of assistance or pouty or flirty or super-smart, or even beautiful or too shy and bookish, but if she’d just take off those damn glasses and let her hair out of that ponytail she might be, whatever trope you wanna throw on her - she’s a sinner, another hopeless sinner in a long line of humans who were/are fucking this joint up.

---> There’s several feet-washing stories in the Bible. I hate feet. That’s not in the Bible, and has no bearing here. Add it to your Nash factoids. Moving on. 

The one I had in mind is below, and Imma c/p the pertinent parts because lazy. Bolding is mine, natch. In Luke 7....

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, so Jesus went into the Pharisee’s house and sat at the table. 37 A sinful woman in the town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house. So she brought an alabaster jar of perfume 38 and stood behind Jesus at his feet, crying. She began to wash his feet with her tears, and she dried them with her hair, kissing them many times and rubbing them with the perfume. 39 When the Pharisee who asked Jesus to come to his house saw this, he thought to himself, “If Jesus were a prophet, he would know that the woman touching him is a sinner!”

40 Jesus said to the Pharisee, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”

Simon said, “Teacher, tell me.”

[parable]

44 Then Jesus turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I came into your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss of greeting, but she has been kissing my feet since I came in. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she poured perfume on my feet. 47 I tell you that her many sins are forgiven, so she showed great love. But the person who is forgiven only a little will love only a little.”

48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” [...] “Because you believed, you are saved from your sins. Go in peace.”

The other 4 gospels - Matthew, Mark & John - tell a similar story. (But in John’s the woman isn’t a random - it’s one of the sisters of Lazarus, the guy Jesus raised from the dead. #cool trivia digression)

 --> “Hot as hell” and “thank God” is just Nash Be Nashin’.

--> Start of the main trinity (1A)

--> Again, he’s not digging on her because she’s so awesomesauce in some typical way; she’s a dichotomy to him, sin with sweet. He’s a black-and-white kind of guy (and pretty much every angel we’ve met). It’s interesting to him, that seeming heel-turn. We’ll call back to those verses above here in a bit, with respect to how he feels about her as he spends more time with her.

Quickie trinity.

Nash Be Nashin’.

Recurring theme, forgiveness; also - that sound like Mike to you? At least, at this point? Eh. Maybe. If he’s trying to manipulate. But on the other hand - if this were Mike - has she got something he wants/needs? Manipulate Dean, sure; manipulate rando server chick? Possible. But nah. 

---> Would Mike ask that? Why would he care? But Michael might, trying to get a bead on this human. ‘Cause remember, this is an angel who has had sparing contact with humans since he’s been in charge, he’s been dispatching angels for the heavy lifting, he’s not been boots on the ground takin’ care of business for quite awhile. His only in-depth contact has been the Winchesters, and that was only when he had to step in.

---> Also, close siblings recurring theme (close because able to joke around as well as later, when she mentions he’d vent to her about his time in war but not to the same degree as he did the rest of their family)

---> the main trinity of this story, part deux (and don’t get ahead of me; fine, I’ll do it for you: no, Michael having the nickname I mention later isn’t Biblical)

---> Lucifer was called The Morning Star (see also dictionary, re: “luciferous”)

---> Now that would be a really pretty damn specific thing for Mike to know. 

---> The keep an eye out - again, reinforcing the theme that Michael whiffed not seeing the Lucifer thing coming; also lawbreakers looking out for the authorities, a contrast with an authority - God/Michael/et al - looking out for wrongdoers. 

---> Park with a sandbox, Nash Be Nashin’

---> Bit tricksy; could go to Mike coming from his world to here, could be Michael feeling like this is a world he doesn’t know anymore after all his time in the cage; regardless, sets a tone of “She gets me”

Whether you cotton to my assertion that Michael may feel guilt for not seeing the Lucifer stuff coming and preventing his initial ingress (Eden), it’s theology 101 that Lucifer brought all things evil and sin and demon and hell and blah blah blah to humankind. And Michael beat him in heaven, but it’s been less offense and more defense ever since; reacting to Luci vs. bringing the game to him. Which is what Michael was finally doing, when the Winchesters didn’t agree to be vessels and let it play out like he’d planned.

So, Saint Michael on the theology end, ruling heaven in Chuck’s absence on the SPN canon end, and Michael’s arrogant, to be sure. He assumed his plan would go off without a hitch, and maybe if it’d been the Hardy Boys instead of the Winchesters, it would’ve [shrugs]

---> Nash Be Nashin’ - trying to poke your subconscious to think about that shot of them falling into the hole, to the cage

---> Could we describe Mike as “broken”? I couldn’t. More to the point, does he behave as if he might consider himself “broken”? Hmmm.

---> I guess that last bit could go either way; for me, I’m thinking of how Lucifer must’ve behaved in the cage, which we got a taste of via Sam’s hallucinations, and perhaps it being too quiet once he was gone. Sometimes being left alone with your thoughts is a bad time.

Again, canon - Lucifer never met a quiet moment he didn’t wanna fill.

So this is just me doing a second sin in the sin trilogy for Michael, as well as adding another piece of common ground between him and Grace with the nickname thing. The only Biblical truth there is the whole “Mark of the Beast” thing. Next time you get drunk or lit on whatever, read you some Revelations, it’ll either knock you out the rest of the way or give you fantastic nightmares.

What I just said, RE: second part of the Michael Lies Super Easy When It Comes To This Chick trilogy. I mean, not really - it’s coming from a good place, he doesn’t want to scare her, and if he told her the truth, where would he even start? Especially with her not being religious. He’s so far behind the eight ball, he’s under the pool table.

---> So here’s the trinity tale that’s the base for why I put this in the story. It’s in all four gospels (Matthew/Mark/Luke/John), and it’s about how at the Last Supper (which happens right before the crucifixion of Jesus goes down), they’re talking about how one of them would betray Jesus (re: Judas), and an apostle named Peter speaks up.

(Oh! Speaking of, there’s another triple play for ya - Jesus ends up on a cross between two criminals. Okay, back to the passages)

Matthew:

Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”

But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”

Mark:

Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.”

But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”

Luke:

But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”

John:

Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”

---> Grace be shinin’, Nash Be Nashin’

---> What made him kiss her / risk the “sin”? She walked with him. (”Lord I am ready to go with you...”). She listened. She comforted him. She forgave him when he asked for it (re: for scaring her). She believed he wasn’t a horrible “person”. Prompted him to consider there might be a place/time where he wasn’t (see below, RE: “perhaps”). 

A la.... 

But the person who is forgiven only a little will love only a little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” [...] “Because you believed, you are saved from your sins. Go in peace.”

---> You may’ve noticed I didn’t call him Michael until Dean was gone during the kiss - that was on purpose. Because that was him making that decision, no (potential) Dean influence on board. And I didn’t have him call Dean by his name, being very distant throughout, until they talked about brothers, their common ground. He’s finding common ground with humans - a new kind of hallowed ground - versus being solely their guardian or their punisher, depending. This is (likely, hopefully) a good thing.

---> RE: sin - see below

---> This is your call to make - was it actually apple-flavored lip balm? Or was it strawberry/random fruity-flavored lip balm like Dean thought, and it just tasted like apples to Michael?

In any event, RE: “tasted like sin” - apples have been commonly used in art/stories as representing the fruit Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil back in the garden, a.k.a. - the original sin

HOME STRETCH!

[Full disclosure: based on early feedback, from here on out - if you were an early reader - you may notice there’s been a few tweaked lines since original publish, so I may be about to clarify things that are now - with the tweaks - obvious to you. I’m just sayin’.]

By this point, I’d hope you’d been kinda thinking, “I appreciate Nash’s effort to make Mike be not a complete asshole, but holy moly I have been suspending my disbelief like a mo-fo as this went on, why does he give a shit about this chick or about chatting with Dean all friendly, etc.”

---> That “Why didn’t we....” part should scream “THIS ISN’T MIKE”. I hope.

---> It’s been about 10 yrs. since Stull / when Michael took the dive

---> “Is there...” / “Perhaps” -- and maybe it’s this one. Maybe it’s the world he’s always known, but not been part of; remains to be seen. He’s a different dude. This ain’t the same angel that went into that cage. Like Chuck said - he’s a mess. Or maybe, now, could we say... was a mess? Hmmm. Different, though. Definitely different. Not terribly un-canon, not a huge jump to make, in my mind. 

And, you know, The Cage was Luci’s big punishment, right? And he’s fine. Anytime we saw him, in the caboose version or just-been-sprung, he’s been same-ol’, same-ol’. So maybe it’s simply an isolation room, and it’s only been BAD-bad for Sam and Adam and Michael, because Luci was there messing with them, because he’s bored off his ass. That’s why I posit The Cage may not be anything beyond blank space, as it were, if Luci’s not present. 

What Mike would “likely” bring? Nah. Mike’s on the express train to domination. He’s not messing around.

Nash Be Nashin’. I am, on occasion, poetic. “His” is a callback to “my Michael”, and the “g” in “grace” is lower case on purpose. [clears throat, c/ps from up yonder....]

Grace don’t come in just one form, yo. There’s lots floating out there. Just gotta pay attention. Know what to watch for.

And here’s the hammer:

Hmmmm....

---> Dean knows Mike’s been thinking of it; to quote Black Widow, that’s not a question that needs answering.

---> “Still”? “Do-over?” - Mike’s had his apocalypse. Do-over of what? That implies Mike’s tried to pull off Apocaworld, Part Deux here, and... he hasn’t tried at this point. He’d said they were already looking into what all other worlds they could get to before Jack’s birth caused our rift and they saw an opportunity for a better way, but Mike’s not taken a run at our world; Michael has. (Bit of a misleading, open-to-interpretation / could apply to Mike line, though, I grant you.)

---> “over there” - already mentioned “head to the cage”, ergo “there” is “cage”

---> “act” / “figure it out” - thaaaat’s nooot Miiiike, your subconscious sings!

---> Say I’m Mike. 

I’m a tactical mofo. I know how to spot an enemy, it’s why I was gonna take out Jack emotionally if I couldn’t cripple him or kill him. I hit this new world. I’m inside a very handsome I MEAN powerful bod. I am locked and loaded. What’s first on the agenda now that I’ve got the ammo?

I take out potential threats. Dean’s an obstacle, true, but he’ll be tucked away going night-night for at least a bit, and I can likely wash-rinse-repeat as needed. Obstacle, though - he’s not an inherent threat to me. Lucifer’s out of the way. Raphael’s out of the way. Gabriel’s out of the way.

Oh. Oh noooes, FML: I’m not out of the way. 

And holy shit - the holiest of all the shits - I could take myself out. Isn’t he in the Fort Knox of binding-thingy-traps-whatever?

But wait. Waaaaait, wait - that cage must be made of aluminum foil, I can see Dean’s memories. Some tacky decoder rings opened it up, his brother Sam got pulled from it, then the angel of death got Sam’s soul out of it, rando witch called up the caboose of it like it was Uber, Lucifer popped Dean and his crew in-and-out of it, and didn’t that demon Crowley use parts of it for some ill-explained ingredient to hold Lucifer hostage like it was melty MacGuffin cheese? Is there not a doorman or something?! Can they get pizza delivered down there, too, I mean TF?

Ooooh, now this is interesting. Chuckie told Dean Michael’s beyond his repair. Lucifer said Michael’s a mess... well. Consider that source. But still. Risk not too high, reward could be very high.

Yeah. I’m totes arrogant enough. This is gonna be a cake-walk.

---> Except... time moves differently in the cage, we know that. So Lucifer’s been gone for... hell, who knows how long. What state Michael might be in now is a mystery. He’s had time to regroup, at the very least, without his chief antagonist lording over him. So is it implausible that Michael could be the key to nailing Mike’s ass to the wall? Might it even be probable? 

The board of directors at NashHole, Inc. voted “Yeeeeessss”.

Again, bro-love, evergreen recurring theme. So, here it is:

If I’m Michael, my perspective would be that Mike can handle his world how he pleases, and he did. But now he’s on my turf. I’m taking great umbrage with this power-hungry twin of mine coming over here and having the audacity to make decisions, take over my destiny, etc.

And then another part of it - Michael’s not only had a lot of time in the cage to get his mojo back, he’s also had time to process the whole situation, what led him to this place, the part he played. I’d imagine a part of him is still gripping onto his convictions, while on the other hand starting to realize that there are parts of this world - and people in this world - that already make it a paradise despite all that Lucifer/demons/the supernaturals have done. 

Maybe an apocalypse isn’t the answer. Maybe Lucifer doesn’t have to die. Bottom line, that ain’t Mike’s call to make; it’s Michael’s.

Last thing!

Handful of you asked about how Mike would’ve opened the cage, how a fight would’ve gone down if Michael’s still in Adam, what about Adam, and my answer is - does it matter? I know, I know, that sounds snotty; it matters in the sense that you asked, so it matters to you. Where I’m coming from is that this isn’t what the story is about, not for me. But hey - you fill in those blanks however your heart desires, truly. Or pretend that twist at the end never happened, and think of this as Mike the whole way through. :) 

.....

.....

.....

That cage is made of chewed gum and pipe cleaners, a hamster could get in there, I’m done, I’m DONE, okay bye.

@ellen-reincarnated1967  @waywardjoy  @copperseraphim @bumbleball13  @inlovewith2dcharacters  @impandagrl  @theoriginalvicki  @mrswhozeewhatsis  @littlegreenplasticsoldier  @butiaintgonnaloveem  @salt-n-burn-em-all  @sixtysevenandwhiskey  @anticipate1003  @juppschmitz  @smi727  @casismybae  @jalove-wecallhimdean  @salvachester  

[thestuckylibrary]

Do you have a tag or recs for Sam centric fics with stucky in the background? I'm a fan of Sam/T'challa too. Thank you!

you should try our Outsider POV tag and Avengers Friendship/BFFs :)

Edit from Mod Iamnmbr3:

Whoops! I just put together an answer to this. Sorry Mod Julia. I’ll just add it and get off for now.

Anon, you may enjoy these Sam POV stucky fics.

The BBFF Wars by rinnya (complete | 2,197 | G )

James Buchanan Barnes may have been the Best of Best Friends Forever with Steven Grant Rogers 70 years ago, but that position had been given to Samuel Thomas Wilson 5 odd years ago, and it was a position Sam wasn’t going to give up without a fight.If Bucky was going to suddenly appear and totally whisk Steve away on a white horse and get a happy ever after in their BBFF fairytale. Heck no, not on Sam’s watch.

Sam and Bucky compete for Steve’s platonic affections. Or… at least, that was what was supposed to happen.

Inspired from a tumblr post: A fic in Sam’s POV where Sam and Bucky are trying to prove themselves to be Steve’s REAL TRUE BFF in increasingly ridiculous ways until Sam sees Steve and Bucky making out and is like ohshit the deadliest assassin in the world thinks I’m trying to steal his man.

the food of love by biblionerd07 (complete | 1,973 | G )

Bucky and Steve communicate through food. Sam is a good person, so he doesn’t complain about his kitchen being taken over. Not too much, anyway.

buachaill sciobail by silentwalrus (complete | 5,271 | unrated)

“Okay,” Sam says. “Okay. Alright. O-kay. I just, I gotta say, man, when you told me ‘Bucky is a selkie’ this is not… really…. what I… imagined.”“What did you imagine?” Steve says. Across his lap - or rather covering his entire body from the waist down - the eight hundred pound tube of blubber that is J.B. Barnes blows a snot bubble.

Also, these two are not Sam POV but Sam is a major character in both.

Who Let You In?* by birdbrains (complete | 19,635 | T ) *discussion of consent issues

“Is he here?” Sam asked.“I don’t know,” said Steve. “I’m—hey, Bucky, are you here? Can you hear me?”“Or whatever you prefer to be called,” Sam put in.“Yeah,” Steve said. “It’s me, that dumb guy with all the problems? Remember me?”

despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained)* by praximeter (Zimario) (WIP | 41,481 | M ) *past nonconsensual body modification and the results thereof

“They really didn’t want the mask to come off.” Hill thumbed through the scans, and pulled out a film that she then handed over to Sam, face mostly expressionless but for the flat line of her pursed lips.

Sam accepted the film and held it up to the light, angling so both he and Steve could see it, squinting at the outline of the Winter Soldier’s skull, and the blips of unnatural white that showed up, God, in his brain, not to mention about half his teeth, plus the mask, with its thin protrusions—

“Those are pins,” Steve realized. He looked over at Hill. “The mask���it’s nailed to his face.”

Hill’s face was as unmoved as ever. “Like I said. They really didn’t want it coming off.”

[pendragonfics]

Shiver

Paring: Matt Murdock/Reader

Tags: female reader, canon compliant, blind date, blind humour, bed sharing, fluff, angst and a happy ending bc why not

Summary: "And Matt, this is ________, practically my keeper and non-biological sister, and you are each other's blind date. More-so for Matt."

Foggy sets his two BFFs up, and Matt's life gets in the way of romance.

Word Count: 2,241

Posting Date:  2017-03-18

Current Date: 2017-06-11

"The last time this happened, he set me up with the non-English speaking son of his landlady, said, 'Have a good night, children', and ran off into the night." You laugh at the memory, and how you spent the whole time walking around the city repeating what little English words the guy had known. "And, ever since I moved here, Foggy has not been off my case about being single in a city like this. Says I need protection, but I've got pepper spray and a can of whoop-ass in my fist." You sigh, looking at yourself in the mirror, playing with the stubborn hair that keeps falling into your eyes. "Don't say whoop-ass on the first date. One a blind date."

It was common knowledge that Franklin 'Foggy' Nelson was best friends with you since birth. Everyone knew it. It was like a word association game; always together. In fact, your mothers had been friends, and you two had been friends, and if it ever came to it, your children would be friends too, and so on. The Nelson family and the ______'s had known each other for eons, and would always do. And that was why you followed him to this side of the city, to the only place you knew.

Of course, thankfully, you had a job, and a dinky apartment that used to be someone's basement underneath a gym, and the same guy trying to get you out in the dating world and find someone to hook up with. But that was what best friends were for, right? Getting people out of their own little ruts and out into the world where the sun shone through the skyscrapers and warmth came from disposable coffee cups.

But there was ten minutes to go until the date (meeting place: a street corner near a park and a bar) and you were still trying to figure out what to do with your hair when you heard a text alert come through your phone. But checking it, it was none other than Foggy, sending you a picture of someone's shoe (attached to somebody's leg, thank goodness) and the words don't leave matty standing around under it.

Rolling your eyes, you fluff your hair the way it normally is for everyday life, and grabbing a scarf, rush out the door. It doesn't take long to get to where the meeting place is, and once you're there, you can't help but laugh. After knowing him all of those years, and tying ties for all of yours, you swear you'd taught him how to not to tie it backwards. And the suit? You'd need to take him out around town for another - he looked like a used-car salesman.

"I'd know that laugh anywhere, even if I was in a room of ________ doppelgangers all laughing," Foggy grins, crossing the distance away from you, smothering your outfit and you in a crushing hug. "Glad you could make it."

"I'm getting the feeling that there was no choice between making it, or not," you whisper back, and add, "Being single isn't a curse, Fog."

From your peripherals, you notice a guy, wearing a suit, but unlike Foggy who looks somewhat like a child invading his uncle's old raggedy clothes pile from the spare room, this guy makes the suit look like he's on-loan from Armani for the weekend. And without really planning to, you feel yourself get flustered at the sight of him without even speaking a damn word to the guy.

"Ah. _______, this is Matty-Matt-Matt, BFF and lawyer friend-slash-partner in our business," he motions to the guy. "And Matt, this is ________, practically my keeper and non-biological sister, and you are each other's blind date. More-so for Matt."

It's only then you link the white cane and the glasses on the edge of his nose.

"He's always joking about it, don't you worry," he extends a hand to you, and like something like a magical Disney prince, he's linked his arm in yours, and your heart is racing a million miles a minute because the freaking hot blind guy has treated you like a goddamned Disney princess and you're sure you've forgotten to brush your teeth or something dumb. Leaving Foggy behind, he muses, "So, he told me you've moved?"

You nod, and realising your mistake, add, "Um, yeah. Grew up in the place beside the Nelson's, but there's nothing really left for me there. I mean, new job. I'm a typist for a clinic downtown." You tell him.

Matt grins. "I'm good with my hands too, what with all the Braille," he jokes, and adds, "Please, relax, I can take a joke, and Foggy knows that way too well." He pauses, "If you like, we can play that game where you ask a question, and then I do." You can't help but smirk, because all this time, with his cane out, he's been navigating around people and the bustle of the city and somehow managed to lead you toward a park bench in the park across the road. "You start."

Taking a seat, you hum, and chewing on your lip, deliberate on what to ask Matty-Matt-Matt, Foggy's lawyer friend-slash-partner. "Okay. Have you always been ... blind?" you ask.

He shakes his head. "Got into an accident. Saved an old man, but lost my eyes." He replies, folding his cane up, sitting the stick on his lap. "What made you become a typist?"

You blink. "I - I don't know. I remember being six and watching my grandmother on her old typewriter ... I've always had a thing for the way the keys clack. Okay, that sounds really dumb." You feel a roaring blush coat your cheeks.

"No, no, not dumb," Matt places a hand on yours, "It's better than why I became a lawyer."

You cock an eyebrow, and use up your next question on that, and go back and forward in the game until the sun seems to be fading into the distance behind the skyscrapers of Hell's Kitchen and you're feeling less than strangers with the handsome man beside you. As you shiver in the evening air, he seems to come out of a charm from your voice, and spell unbroken, he proposes moving toward a place with reservations for the pair of you. Before you know it, the night is over, and he's walked you back to your place, and you've added your number into his talking phone and his to yours, and vowed to go out again next Thursday after his rota of clients for the day.

It's like this every week until almost a year later you wake up beside him in his bed, and turn to him in the midnight air. In the darkness that isn't quiet, you see the shadow of his form in the sheets, the way his hair falls every which-way, his lips parted ever so slightly to take in the night air. But your eyes see the haunting linger of bruises and battered ribs and the blister on his hand, how they become increasingly calloused as the days pass by.

Your boyfriend calls them his accidents, but you know inside you don't believe him. You've been with him for very nearly twelve months, and you know what Matt Murdock, the guy who kisses you goodbye on his way to work, and forgets his lunch in the fridge in the apartment and asked you to move in with him only eight months after knowing him, and had the freaking Punisher as a client.

The Matt you know would never just let himself 'fall down the stairs' or 'trip over the sidewalk' and, your personal favourite, 'walk into a door'. No. The Matt you knew, the Matt you met when you first went on that date, walked proficiently around people like his blindness was only a defined term to some and not a complete concept for him. The Matt you knew would never just let a guy step off the curb too early, almost like he could sense what was happening, would never do the same for himself.

He was lying, and it was simple.

Slipping a foot from the bed, you pad over to the main living area as quiet as you can be, and curl in on yourself on the couch. It's been months since you left your apartment and assimilated into his, and longer still since you've seen your family or the dog face to face, or on Skype. Perhaps it's the fact you're wondering if Matt is either into hardcore BDSM and cheating on you or the vigilante Daredevil (which is nigh impossible) and perhaps it's that which is making you shiver on the lounge, or that you've been such an adult for so long and need to feel the arms of someone you love around you to tell you that it'll all be okay.

"________?" His voice is groggy, tantalising to hear, and you can practically picture his face as he realises you're not in the bed beside him. "I can hear crying, is that you?"

It isn't until he says this you realise that yes, it is you, and you're giving Alice from Wonderland a run for her money, as your nightshirt is soaking. You shakily give a breathy yes and hear his feet hit the hardwood, making their way toward to you on the sofa. "Matt, please, you need sleep, you've got a court date tomorrow with the Frank Castle case," you protest, but he's taking you into his arms, to his chest, cradling you like you're goddamned four years old and just had a nightmare. "Why are you so hard to understand, Matthew?"

He's still for a moment. "Do you remember that date, the one Foggy set up?" He asks you, like there's any possibility you could have forgotten meeting the best guy you'd ever come to be with. "Do you want to play that game where you ask a question, and then I do?"

"Are you cheating on me?" your voice is barely a whisper, but you know he hears you.

Matt shakes his head. "No – no, I'm not." he whispers back, his fingers combing the hair from your eyes, from your face. "Why couldn't you sleep?"

You take a breath before answering. "I just...I don't know. Mid-midlife crisis." You can't see, but hear the puff of laughter that comes from his smirk. "Why don't you trust me?" you ask. It's truly a silent night after the words leave your lips; Matt stills behind you, his big spoon to your little one is almost a statue, the flashing lights beyond the apartment of the billboard orchestrate the passing of time. "You never tell me where you go when you just disappear, and come back beaten and battered all over. I met a girl named Clare on the stairs one day, and she knew your middle name. Which, I learned, from her, Mr. Matthew Michael Murdock," you murmur your defences to the lawyer, backing up your facts, "Foggy calls a lot, and we're basically the founding members of the What Is Up With Matt club, and on top of it all, you don't tell me a damn thing!" you sit up, leaving the arms of Matt empty on his side of the lounge.

"________ -,"

You shake your head. "I'm a typist who if was better at school could be a damn court stenotype, and if you can't tell me what you've been hiding since I met you, then I'm sure that I can be out of here by the sunrise, Matt. I swear, there's nothing worse than knowing there's something going on and you can't do a thing to help." Your voice chokes up, arms tight around yourself.

"It's not that I don't trust you, _______," he starts. "I just want to protect you."

You wipe your tears on the back of your wrist, and knowing well enough it's not your turn to ask, you implore, "From what? Truth? Isn't that a fundamental thing about being a lawyer, an American?" You sniff. "I'm the same age as you. I kicked the ass of the last guy who tried to mug me. I know how to do taxes and I know there's shitty things in this world that happen for shitty reasons, but out of all of that, you're still defending your motive that you're protecting me?" You swallow. "From what, Matt?"

He lowers his head, wiping a hand over his face. "Please, I know you're upset, and I never intended you to be. But ... I have, uh, abilities. I can hear really well, and smell, and feel. I'm also the son of Jack Murdock, and I can't just step down from a fight.

You're not sure you like where this is going, but you sit there, silent, waiting for the next part to come.

"I - I'm Daredevil. I'm the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, and I just want you to know that I don't go out to do it for fun. I do it because I love you, _________. And I want to make the city safer for you."

A silence settles between you, and slowly, you reach out, and cradle his cheeks in your palms, cupping them to raise his head to face your own. "Matt, you idiot..." you whisper, gazing into his eyes.

He gives a wan smile. "But I'm your idiot?"

You nod. "Yeah. You're my idiot."

[greytulip5-blog]

Root Vegetable Coconut Curry

Each time Christmas rolls around I think this is the best time of the year. Then the first week of January comes, and it quickly takes it’s place. Those who have known Scott and I well over the years are accustomed to our very minimalist lifestyle. It began when we were dating, and has continued (pretty well) ever since. Not to be confused with those really beautifully curated minimalistic homes with one of every perfectly placed piece costing more than I make in a year. The kind of minimalistic tendencies that leave rooms empty, closets filled with just enough outfits to last through the week, the record player sitting on the floor, one bath towel per person, and barstools that double as our couch side tables (depending on where we are sitting). Part of this stemmed from having small wallets, another part came from my decluttering tendencies, and a third part was because we just didn’t care enough to see completing any purchases through – especially not when we could either save the money or go on a fun trip. Coffee table? Who needs one. (We do.)

Come January everyone is set on creating new, organized ways to interact with their life and I get really excited to let my crazy side come out a bit. Every nook and cranny gets cleaned and gutted, and as our donation pile grows I can hear our friends and family saying what could you possibly be giving away? please keep the couch, we need that to sit on when we visit. All major furniture pieces aside (because there are so few) the rest of the house is fair game. It’s amazing how little you need to lead a happy, healthy life each day. So much goes unused that need not take up space in our home.

My biggest struggle is the nature of my job as a recipe developer/photographer. Between props, free items, needed items, etc, I feel as if I can easily get swallowed in the more-is-more mindset. One of my goals this year is to break that mindset into bits. This will mean having to say no more often, and possibly creating a donation box/basket stationed in our home to move needed items to continuously as life happens. Before starting Faring Well living this sort of life came naturally, and I hope to reinstate that this year with the blog included. I hope to also invest in a few things that make home feel more like “home”. Pieces that feel like us, serve a positive purpose, and ones that even just make guests feel more comfy in our house.

Since I seem to have dove into my thoughts on the new year a bit, I’ll continue with one last thing that has been on my mind – ethical, sustainable clothing (and all items, really). This isn’t something I’ve ever poured myself into in the past, and hope to make a point to improve in this area this year. Is it something you find yourself passionate about too? Maybe we can talk about it more here in the future, and share back and forth tips and recommendations. I know I could use a few!

So there they are, not really concrete goals as much as general aspirations to hopefully work on improving upon a little bit each day this year. I’ll make some helpful choices, some hurtful ones that will set me back, and know I need to be gracious with myself. Perfection is not the goal, but the pursuit of awareness with love and generosity is (for me). I’d love to hear any aspirations you have if you feel like sharing, we can cheer each other on this year. Let’s be realistic and set no limitations, I think it’s possible to have both. – xx

I made it to the end of my post without mentioning food – whoops! It’s coconut curry. With root vegetables. Crispy oven baked tofu. Basmati rice with avocado and all of the good seasonings for some non-tratiiotnal Thai comfort food. Need I say more? ENJOY. 

Ps. Scott and I are heading to NYC for the next few days to celebrate our anniversary that happened last month. Any tips on place to get fresh and tasty vegan food? Cozy herbal lattes? It’s going to be cold – brrr!

Pss. I updated my pantry page and cookbook shelf to share with you, links to both are always in my sidebar!

SHOP MY PANTRY >>

ROOT VEGETABLE COCONUT CURRY Makes 3 servings, easily doubled to make 6.

coconut curry 1/4 cup diced yellow onion 1/4 cup sliced scallions 2 large cloves of garlic, minced 2 stalks of lemon grass 2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger 1 1/2 cups diced sweet potato (I used the purple variety) 1 1/2 cups diced carrots 1 13.5-ounce can of full fat coconut milk sea salt to taste juice from 1/2 a lime handful of fresh cilantro

tofu 1 8-ounce block extra firm tofu 2 teaspoons tamari fresh black pepper

basmati rice 3/4 cup white basmati rice 1 1/4 cups water

other fresh cilantro avocado lime juice

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Begin by making the tofu. Gently press the block of extra firm tofu between a cloth towel to squeeze out at extra liquid. Slice into 16 cubes and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Drizzle with the tamari and toss. Coat in freshly ground black pepper and gently toss again. (Alternatively you can swap the tamari with lemon juice and make a lemon pepper tofu, also really delicious.) Bake the tofu for 40 minutes, flipping once halfway through.

Cook the rice. Combine the rice and water in a small pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Let cook for 10 minutes, or until all of the water is absorbed. Remove the pot from the heat, leaving the lid on to allow the rice to steam for an additional 10 minutes before fluffing with a fork and serving.

Make the coconut curry. Slice off the top half of the lemongrass stalk, leaving the softer white portion to cook with. Remove any tough outer layer of the stalk and slice in half. Press down, slightly crushing the lemongrass with the back of your knife. Place in a medium sauce pot along with the onion, scallions, curry paste, garlic, turmeric, and ginger. Give it a splash of water and place on the stove. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and toss until the onions are cooked and the spices fragrant (adding another splash of water if needed).

Next add the diced sweet potato, carrot, coconut milk, and a bit of salt to taste. Toss together and add enough water to just barely cover the vegetables. Bring to a simmer and cover. Let cook until the vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes. Taste and adjust any seasoning if needed, then remove from the heat and stir in the juice from half a lime plus a handful of chopped cilantro.

To serve: Divide the rice between three bowls. Top with the coconut curry, baked tofu, a few slices of avocado, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze of lime. Enjoy right away.

I love seeing what you create! Be sure to tag your photos on Instagram with #FWmakers.

This post contains affiliate links (they are underlined for clarity). Purchases you make through these links will help fund the work I do here on Faring Well at no extra cost to you. Thank you sincerely for your constant love and support.

Source: http://faring-well.com/root-vegetable-coconut-curry/

[zayizzle]

Since I can't really go on Facebook and say this, I'll vent this here. This is mostly because I'm a coward and don't want my family to think I hate them. Which I don't, in fact I love them. Which is why this have to stop.

My aunt is starting to become a big annoyance to me. Which I don't like thinking of her in that way. She's my aunt and I love her. However, it don't take away from the fact she's self involved, clingy, and uses people; including me (but I won't let her anymore).

She tends to act like me and my cousin (her daughter) left her. As if we don't suppose to have lives of our own. We are adults and our time don't around revolve her. My cousin owns a online hair extension business and have a child. I'm still trying get out there in the art community. I don't have time to sit through over hour long mostly one sided, rambles of phone calls. At inappropriate times like midnight or beyond at that. I don't care if I am not asleep yet or not, I don't want to talk to anyone at that time. Which I wished she never started doing. What if there is a emergency she's in, but now I'm mentally apprehensive to answer because I'm wondering if it's another two hour drunk ramble.

In addition, she tends to bring up memories that aren't accurate or is just uncomfortable to randomly bring up without reason. Why are you randomly asking me do I remember being bullied in elementary school? With nothing to follow up why you brought it up at that. I really wanted to remember childhood trauma, thanks. In addition, my brother told my she told him she was the one that told him about our late brother's death. When she didn't know until everyone else knew, my brother learned about the death from classmates that knew our brother. Either way, it's highly inappropriate for casual conversations.

Or talking about how my late mom "spoiled" her or how if she was still here she would be doing this or that. Such as scolding me and my cousin for not calling her more, no she wouldn't. She is romanticizing and twisting my mother's legacy to be revolved around coddling her. Which she does a lot, which makes me incredibly uncomfortable. When in fact I remember my mom acting very frustrated with how dependent my aunt was on her behind closed doors and at times even telling her face to face when upset enough. At lot times she did things, because she always had a hard time saying "no" and back as a kid she did things for my cousin's sake; not my aunt.

Now she is talking about this apparent grandchild or great niece of her husband, forgot which one. That she have autism like me and likes drawing, wanting me to be some kind of mentor. Asking if I got art supplies to give her and she'll come over with the girl and all soon. No, I don't have art supplies suitable for a small child (because I surely am not giving professional supplies) nor am I buying any. That is not my issue. If you want to bring her over, do it I don't care. I'm sure she's a sweet and cute kid. However, don't treat me being a artist as being a personal Hobby Lobby store.

And don't use this child as a device to manipulate me. You already have too many times on your own.

I remember using my own money and cards so many times for her and her husband. To the point my dad said he noticed every time I'm with her, I'm spending money on something. I was growing very frustrated as why it felt like I barely have money for myself. When he said that it clicked for me, which I hate to say but made me trust her and her husband less. I still won't forgot pretty much buying all of Christmas dinner a few years back. I'm not the host and is not my responsibility, so why am I the one paying for over hundred dollars worth of food?

Nor the time I felt that her husband put me on the spot at Whataburger. My cousin was having her baby at the time and I was getting hungry. I can't drive, so he took me to Whataburger. Right when I'm finished with my order, he tells to add another burger on it. Which I did, because I felt put on the spot in the middle of the restaurant. If you knew you was hungry too, buy it yourself or if you didn't your wallet ask your wife for a for few bucks. It would be different if I offered firsthand, or he at least asked. No, he just told me to add another burger. However, back to my aunt.

In addition, treating my dad like he's some over the top over bearing father. As if he's the reason, I don't spend time with her. That I'm trapped here. No, he don't control me. While I'm still living with him I will respect and honor his house, but he don't control me. I go out plenty to the movies, events, whatever. As long as he knows I'm safe, he's fine.

I understand if she's lonely or just wanna spend time with me. Just say it, don't try to guilt trip me into it by calling me asking why me and my cousin haven't called you to spend time; but then try to it off with "I'm just kidding". I don't know if I'm wrong for thinking this way, but if I want to spend time I say so; you have to meet people half way when it comes to socializing to me. I haven't seen you since around six months on person and you live in town. Just come over or call me and ask my plans.

I remember months ago, couple of days after my birthday she called me saying "I'm gonna whoop you". No context, as soon as I answer the phone she says that. It's almost 1 am at that, so I was pretty uncomfortable and taken off guard. I think anyone would be. She said she was just "joking", but then asked why I didn't invite her to Dave and Buster's with my boyfriend and our friends. She saw it on Facebook as one of my friends posted it and tagged my name. As if I was obliged, I just wanted a small get-together with two close friends and my boyfriend. My own dad wasn't there. My birthday is the same day every year, call me up and ask my plans that day beforehand. I came back later in the day to eat cake and pizza, would have been nice for actual family other than my dad there. Even my brother spent the day after to celebrate a belated birthday, since he couldn't come on the exact day.

In addition, she lied to my dad telling him shr came over twice when I having a anxiety attack. My dad have sercuity cameras and I tell my dad personally when people come over as well. She just happened to call me while I was still somewhat stable, but on the verge of having a attack. I couldn't speak words and my hand could barely hold the phone. She told my try resting and listening to calm music. I did, then I called her back slightly better. I'm happy she coincidently called at that moment, but very disappointed with her dramatizing what she actually did with that lie.

It was so much she was suppose to do, as in commited to do though which never did. Help me get my driver permit, help me find new doctors, ect. Thankfully, info have new doctors bit that's to my dad's help. And my boyfriend's mom was previously helping learn to drive, but had to stop due just being too busy to. Point is that, she didn't do anything she promised.

I guess I just wish sometimes I didn't have grow up to realize the type of person she is. To keep those rose coloured glasses of her being zany and funny. And I do remember times where I did depend on her. However, now being an adult and having to discover this side of her really saddens me. I do love her and hate that I feel like I can't be comfortable trusting her like I wish to. She is still the same aunt that cared for me while my mom was stuck in Hurricane Katrina and helped me with math. I just want her to help herself.

[theskeleton-system]

OH! This is a pleasant surprise! Thank you @robotnikfucker! It means a lot!

10 Questions Tag Game

Rules: Answer the ten questions, add ten questions and tag ten people!

(just to let you know, you don't have to take part! This isn't a hostage situation lol)

1.

I wear glasses! I don't like the thought of putting in contacts because my eyes are really sensitive (and I have eczema under my eye lids, preventing me from wearing them)! I'm not a big fan of how I look in them but I've been told I look nice by my girlfriend and my friends!

2.

No, I don't have playlists for specific emotions, I have a playlist on YouTube called 'Music to Do Stuff To' which I always play when I wanna hear some music!

I don't really have a specific favourite song, or band that I like, but lately I've been listening to songs that you could scream along to (I'm Yer Dad for example) and on the opposite end of the spectrum, sombre songs by cavetown and such.

3.

I'm really bad at seeing myself in a good light, but my friends say I'm good at writing and drawing! Especially making characters and developing those characters.

4.

I don't reuse bottles because I think it's dirty, but my favourite drink is Milk! I drink it straight out the carton, and I've been called cursed for this fact!

5.

I'm okay with just opened diet fizzy (we don't call it Soda in England), but after 10 minutes I don't like the taste.

6.

I do write fanfiction! Mostly for whatever I'm into at the time, but I don't post onto websites or anything because I don't like my writing style! I share with my other friends that are also in that fandom!

7.

I'm obsessed with scented candles, and I collect them everywhere I go! My favourite is warm scents like cinnamon, ginger, or curry sort of smells!

8.

I'm okay with scary movies, but they don't scare me and I can get easily bored of them. I also don't particularly have a favourite genre of movie as my autism leaves me with such a low attention span I turn most movies off in 20 minutes! I mostly watch TV shows on Netflix to keep myself entertained (especially now due to quarantine)!

9.

My go to snack for ANY occasion is hot Cheetos 👌

But I also really like gummy sweets like haribos! I used to love chocolate too, but I've had to stop eating it due to my sensitive teeth!

10.

I love all art equally! I can't pick a favourite in all honesty, as I think all art is such a unique way to express yourself! (And I don't remember what adept means so... Whoops!)

The questions I'm adding are:

What is your favourite flavour of crisp/chip? If you don't like crisps/chips, what snacks do you like?

What show are you currently watching?

What would you say are your top five fandoms?

What music genre do you listen to?

What's your favourite season of the year?

If you had to pick any animal to be your pet, without rules to get in the way, what would you pick?

What's your favourite colour and why is it your favourite?

Cats, dogs or both? Why?

What thing makes you nostalgic the most? (E.g. a TV shows, a movie or a song)

Tea, coffee or hot chocolate? Why? If you don't like any, what is your favourite drink?

Sorry if my questions are boring, I'm not good at this!

Have fun~

I just realised I forgot to tag people-

Fuck-

Uhhhh

Tags: @happipoart @smol-gay-swindle @kimtiny @fuckyeahgoodomens @gayslimeblock @raining13 @lordazazel23 @laizy-boy @yellow-py andddd @dietcloud !

If you wonder why I've tagged you, you were the people I remembered the most when I think of Tumblr!

10 Questions Tag Game

I’ve been tagged by @jimbotniks​

Rules: Answer the 10 questions, ask a different 10 questions, and tag 10 people

(Small warning, I have ADHD and just took my meds so this is a little ramble-y and disjointed. I apologize, there is no way to fix this, my brain is just like that oops. For courtesy, I’ve put all the long stuff under the cut so you only have to read my monologue if you want to.)

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