#a whole host of oc’s

[charcoalhawk]

And they’ve all got the same heartbeat (but hers is falling behind)

With Casper high behind them, students from Amity park are finding out the the world around them is much different from the one they grew up in.

First Phic for Phic Phight 2023!

Prompt was from @mr-lancers-english-class: Amity Park residents often forget what feats of human ability are considered "normal" and what are considered "superhuman does not even begin to cover it oh dear god where in the world did you learn to do that?!?" This leads to some... interesting situations when Danny's graduating class steps out into the rest of the world for college.

had, a lot of fun with this. It was really fun breaking out a bunch of OC’ s and letting them just all run wild all over this.

Warning for reference to SA, Transphobia, injuries, and vomiting.

Title comes from Ecosmith, Cool Kids.

Paulina

Paulina hadn’t realized, at first, just how soft the world was outside of Amity Park. While her father had never let her attend the same self-defense classes Valerie went to, she had still learned how to protect herself from those who might wish her ill.

But, in retrospect, most people didn’t spend their high school years fighting the undead. So maybe her sense of fight of flight was just a tad bit skewed.

This wasn’t Paulina’s first time waking home slightly too drunk, during junior year at Casper she and Star spent every night during spring break bar hopping, and there had definitely been times during her senior year where entire week’s had felt like a dream.

But that had been at Casper, where all the teachers knew that students had bad weeks in which even showing up to school was a Herculean effort. On those weeks Mr. Lancer would offer you a quiet room after school to make up work in, and everyone knew to tread carefully.

But now she was in college, states away from Casper’s familiar haunted halls, and she, and Star, were starting to realize that the other girls around them maybe had slightly different experiences growing up.

Case in point, Paulina had mastered walking in heels when she was thirteen running away from an ancient dragon that had wanted her head on a spike, so even slightly drunk her steps didn’t waiver. Jessica was holding her heels in one hand while the other clutched her phone and lanyard like a lifeline, and Monica had shown up in flats and was now happily devouring a huge tub of pretzels she had borrowed from the frat house.

The party had taken place in the farthest house from freshman housing, off the campus itself. It had been free admission, a feature most freshmen all thought was amazing, but all the sophomores and juniors knew was a scam to get rid of all the old beer from the last several years that no one else wanted to drink.

It was close to three in the morning according to the last time Jessica had loudly announced from checking her phone, so there was little other foot traffic as the three of them slowly made their way back to the dorm. Paulina had noticed someone following them almost immediately after they had left the party, but had hoped it was just another freshman making the walk of shame back onto campus.

But as they near the first campus building, the figure that had been following from a distance rapidly gained on them, revealing itself to be at four gangly boys, who all swaggered towards them like they had a hive of bees up their asses. Paulina distinctly remembers turning the leading boy, Ben, down when he had insisted she give him a shot earlier that week.

They’re stopped at a traffic light where Jessica starts to rather urgently press the crosswalk button, but the light has just turned green and it’ll be at least two or so minutes before the light will cycle.

“Hey there, pretty thing,” Ben drawls, “what’s someone like you doing out past your bedtime?”

Oh, he’s one of those assholes. Paulina knows she had made it abundantly clear she had no interest in him, and if he was the kind of guy who stalked drunk girls after a party, she had definitely made the right choice.

Jessica and Monica are giving her some very concerned glances, and out of the corner of her eye Paulina sees Jessica fumbling for her phone while trying to not drop her heels.

There’s just too much traffic for them to safely cross, and even then the boys would just follow them, and there is no way Paulina is playing a demented version of hide and seek with these losers.

Paulina understands the other girl's concern, but she’s met beings who would truly wish her harm, these empty headed cardboard cutouts with overinflated egos just needed to be firmly taught a lesson.

With large steps Ben’s in her space in moments, hand reaching down to posessively stroke her cheek down her neck. His hand is larger than her’s, smooth from lack of work and well manicured. She can smell his cologne, it’s something cheap, he’s practically doused himself in it so entering his personal space means all you can smell is him.

His hand travels didn further and- nope! Paulina has dealt with a lot of disgusting men in her life, but most of them are too cowardly to get too close. Over the years she’s learned to ignore most demeaning language, as in most cases speaking up about it will get her a telling off from her parents for acting unladylike.

Her hands snap up to grab his wrist while she shifts slightly so none of him is touching her. Before he can make any comment, she yanks harshly down and hears the tell-tale pop of a dislocating shoulder. She remembers Valerie teaching her that the summer before freshman year, her then friend had been worried and had wanted to give Paulina a way to deter anyone from trying to touch her more then once when she didn’t want them too.

It had come in handy a few times over the years, but she hadn’t always been able to actually get the shoulder dislocated on the first try. It had still been surprising enough that it had gotten her out of one bad situation, but after that she had asked and both Kwan and Dash had volunteered to help get her technique down and now she knew the exact right angle and amount of abrupt force needed to get the desired result.

There’s a startled gasp from the girls, and one of the looming guys let’s out a strangled “what the fuck,” but Paulina isn’t done. Quickly she yanks, pulling Ben’s now limp arm down so she can wedge her elbow with his, before snapping it as hard as she can at a perpendicular.

This time it’s the satisfying crunch of bone and with that he crumbles to the floor, wailing.

The smallest guy darts in to help his friend up but the other two seem frozen in shock. Going from their horrified faces no one has ever been bold enough to stand up to them when they traveled in a pack like this.

“Move along boys,” Paulina gives them a smile that is all teeth, something she had learned from Manson, “next time you think about harassing someone just stay in your room with some tissues, it’ll be more productive.”

The last two guys lunge at her then, but their movements grow awkward as they both aim for the same target. One does land a half decent punch to her nose and one tries to get behind her and definitely pulls out some hair with his harsh grip, but neither of them have had to fight in close quarters with others before. it’s easy to catch her palm hard on one guy’s throat and send him down hacking.

The one behind her has the unfortunate fate of getting her nails in his eye, and really now she’s going to have to get them redone because already she can feel two of them catching in flesh and ripping off.

He screams, high and long as his hands yank harshly at hers. She allows herself the brief satisfaction of digging them in deeper for a few more moments before allowing him to push her away.

And with the last guy releasing her to clutch at his face, it’s all over. The other two have already disappeared, and all it takes is one loud step with her heel to send the other two running.

A quick glance shows that Monica and Jessica are still standing near the light, Monica’s pretzels scattered on the floor as she’s holding one of Jessica’s heels like a weapon.

Something in Paulina’s heart warms. It’s nice to know her new friends are willing to protect her, maybe during the summer she’ll invite them to Amity and Valerie can show them how to properly snap someone’s wrist.

“It’s all fine now girls. Oh Monica, you dropped your pretzels! Let's stop by the college store on the way and pick up some new ones. The girl who works the night shift always keeps the best ones in the back of the shelves so there should still be some left.”

“What the fuck?” Jessica whispered.

——————

Dash

This year’s group of freshmen is pretty promising.

Don had been coaching the football team at Ohio State university for almost eleven years now. Most of the boys that he coached had been playing since middle school, and had a decent grasp on the game, if sometimes a little arrogant about their status as ‘college football future all stars’.

Some were always more bone-headed than others, and every year Don could always predict a few of them leaving the program within the year due to an injury from being too reckless.

For all the love he has for his boys, the first proper practice was always one of Don’s least favorites. All the kids want to do is gossip instead of practice, and all the new freshmen try way too hard to make a good impression with the upperclassmen. By the end of the day, every year, he always has to make everyone run suicide’s because the boys were either being too rough or goofing off when they shouldn’t.

Over the years Don has found sprinting to be one of the best punishments for over talkative players, as it has a unique way of getting kids out of breath in a way where they would finally stop yammering on for a few minutes so he could talk to them without dealing with interruptions.

After the third time a freshman decides to describe his summer flings loudly and in graphic detail, Don has had it up to here with these kids. Bragging was for the locker room, not the field.

“Alright! I’ve had enough! Line up at the zero mark, we’re doing suicides for the last ten minutes of practice.”

There’s the usual amount of groaning and whining as everyone slowly makes their way over to the zero mark, and one of two even tries to sneak off to the bathroom, but one stern look has them stomping back with the rest of the pack.

“Alright! Everyone here should know what suicides are, but just in case any of you left your brains in the summer heat for too long here’s what your going to do- we sprint to the twenty five mark, then back, then the fifty and back, then the seventy five and back, and finally the opposite goal post and back. You will repeat until my whistle.”

Once everyone is in position Don gives a shrill signal with his little metal whistle, and they’re off.

The first five minutes go by and everything is going as it should, some kids are already slowing down, a clear sign they were not keeping in shape over the summer, and thus ones Don is going to have to push harder to get them back with the rest of the pack.

At the eight minute mark even his juniors and seniors are starting to slow a bit, but the last two minutes of sprints are almost always the hardest, even for the boys he’s been working with since their freshman year.

But, as he looks there’s one kid who isn’t slowing down. He had initially seen the kid’s slightly more sedate pace and internally marked him as a kid who would need a firmer hand, but now it’s obvious he was simply setting a pace for himself, as now almost ten minutes in his sprinting has not slowed beyond what it started as.

In Don’s experience freshman tended to put everything they had into the first three minutes of sprinting, and were almost always the first to sprint to the other side of the field and back, but also meant that they usually didn’t have the stamina to stay sprinting for ten minutes straight.

But this kid is still going. It takes him a minute to place the kid, but after a moment he realizes it’s Baxter, the kid from Amity park.

In most other cases the small town would mean nothing to him, but in this case Amity had enough of a reputation that he had been warned when one of its alumni decided to join his team.

The most haunted town in America. Sounded like a bunch of bullshit in Don’s professional opinion, but enough weird shit had happened the last five or so years that Casper high had gotten in the habit of sending, not warning letters, but an informational packet to schools so they would know what behaviors to watch out for.

Don still remembers three years ago the story of a freshman at Colorado Tech publishing a paper on the effects of being haunted by ghosts and how it affects the perception of mortality for an entire town. The young woman had been a graduate of Casper high, and when invested further it was revealed that this wasn’t some kid trying to be as ridiculous as they could, but an actual, legitimate thing that was still happening in the town.

Hell, he remembers trading emails with Baxter’s English teacher the last few months of the kid's senior year. In most cases it would have been a school counselor that he discussed a kid’s schooling and grades with, but apparently Amity had had a very bad experience in the last few years with ghostly interference and currently didn’t have a dedicated counseling team at all.

Which, Don definitely had opinions about, but the school was doing all it could to help the kids where they could. So Don would at least give them that.

Apparently Baxter had been a pretty big asshole and a bully his first two years of high school, something the school had let slide more than it should have, and had initially been excused or ignored because of his prowess in physical sports. Towards the end of his sophomore year and leading into his junior Baxter has seemed to finally learn and grow from his bullying ways.

Many teachers had observed him becoming, if not kind then neutral to those he had been harassing, and by his senior year was genuinely well liked by most acquaintances and not feared.

Don remembers the report from the recruiter that had gone down to Amity to observe the team, and nothing they had observed had even hinted that Baxter or any of his teammates acted in any way different or better then any other team they observed in that period.

At the twelve minute mark everyone else has collapsed near the post, but this kid is still going. After fifteen minutes the kid looks at him intently when he turns back towards him, his seventh time reaching the opposite end of the field, but his pace still hasn’t slowed, and he doesn’t look like he’s in any extreme pain, so Don motions for him to continue, and the kid does so without complaint.

It’s odd, in almost any other situation Don would say the kid had just switched to running, but the motions, the sharp turns and the slightly hunched posture, he's still sprinting.

Don finally calls it at the thirty minute mark, and by now the soccer team has shown up, but everyone seems just a bit too mesmerized by the sight to comment on Don holding the field almost twenty minutes late.

Baxter jogs right over to where everyone is standing slack jawed and casually reaches to drink some of his water. He definitely looks like he just exercised, his whole face is flushed red and his hair has become a solid mass lying flat on his head, but his legs are holding him up and his breathing isn’t the rapid mess he expects from someone having sprinted for half an hour straight.

After Baxter finishes his drink he looks expectedly at him, and after a moment Don shakes himself out of his stupor and motions for the soccer team to take the field.

After they’ve left the football team is still hovering around the bleachers, likely wanting to get the first chance to hound the kid for answers or beg him to spill his secrets. Don’s at least a little more subtle than that.

After checking that everyone else is ready he releases them and with some reluctance the rest of the kids leave for the locker room.

Baxter hasn’t moved, likely sensing that Don has questions.

“Kid, I say this as kindly and as without judgment as I can- but how the hell did you do that!”

“Oh, well,” Baxter doesn’t look nervous, but he does seem a bit self conscious, a small sign he has hopefully matured from the pompous bully he was said to be. “Coach Tellestaff back home was pretty insistent that we learn how to sprint for long periods of time in case something was chasing after us that wouldn’t grow easily tired, so we usually did sprints at least every other day.”

“That’s an… interesting motive. Did you often find yourself in situations running from things like that? Back home?”

“Uh well it wasn’t an every day kinda thing, but at least once every other week a ghost would attack the school, and in situations like that you wanted to be as far away from the fighting as possible.”

“Well, I just want you to know it was extremely impressive, you must have worked hard to be able to do what we just saw now.”

“Ha, that’s nothing! Two of my best friends, Paulina and Star, could sprint half way across town in heels. They offered to teach me and Kwan, but to be honest we were a little worried that we’d break our necks falling or somehow impaling ourselves with those five inch torture devises.”

——————

Tucker

There are many things Tucker enjoys about college. Not having to wake up before ten am most days? Amazing, let’s him get so much more work don’t and he can tinker into the night without worrying about his parents having to barge into his room the next morning because he overslept.

Not having to be ready to fight ghosts 24/7? A goddamn lifesaver. After four years the ghosts who frequented Amity had calmed down enough that they weren't all chomping at the bit to cause as much mayhem as possible. Danny had also gotten Wulf to show him how to make dimensional portals, so he could fight ghosts in the Zone without destroying the town. It helped that Danny had set it up so he visited Amity at least every third week for a few days, both to check in with the more peaceful ghosts who called Amity home, and to make sure his parents hadn’t caused any more trouble than they could handle themselves.

One thing Tucker really enjoyed about college was the extracurriculars. Casper high had band, football, and a few small after school clubs, but no big organized programs beyond that that could compete in competitions.

But now, at Tech, Tucker had found his people in the robotics team. Ever since that first freshman orientation where they were introduced to all the clubs Tech has to offer, where Tucker found a group showing off a robot they built that poured drinks without overflowing or knocking them over.

He had signed up then and there, and from that point forward every Monday and Thursday night were for Robotics, and Thursday and Saturdays were fuck around nights where they had almost unrestricted access to the lab and were able to test out personal projects or ideas that they might not want to hand over to the team.

Official work nights were also fun, and definitely a bit more informative with their teacher around to help them expand upon their ideas. they would share and explore code together, and discuss what they could build for the numerous robotics competitions held throughout the year.

Tucker loved participating in these events, but this upcoming one was promising to be his favorite. This competition has a very special individual event that offered a huge cash prize, and Tucker was determined to get it. A few of his friends were also competing, but most had wanted to focus solely on their big team project.

Now, Tucker loved his team, but they did tend to get a bit squeamish when he pulled parts from non-standard scraps. Having a friend like Sam meant that he had access to what was considered modern material that had already lived its course, like recently released phone models, for example. Like now, where he was cannibalizing a few very new devices for their cameras to make a drone with a multi-directional camera.

“Dude, is that an iPhone 14?” Roberto looked absolutely appalled from where he was hovering over Tucker’s workstation.

“Oh yeah, a lot of their components are shit, meant to be obsolete in like two years so you’ll have to buy another one, but I’ve found the cameras aren’t half bad once you put them on something that isn’t meant to shit itself in a year.”

“Well yeah, everyone knows most super modern phones are kinda garbage, but this hasn’t even been released onto the general market yet!”

“Oh, well my friend Sam gave some of her family’s old versions, apparently they don’t fare well after possession.”

“Possession?” Now Cassius has floated over from their project in trying to make better AI detection software, “Dude, are you still keeping up that joke about Amity and how haunted it is? I thought we had convinced you that you didn’t need to tell these crazy stories for us to want to hang out with you?”

Well, that’s rather rude of them, but as Tucker winds up and is about to begin his by now long rehearsed speech on how Amity is absolutely fucking haunted there’s a buzz from his pocket, and when he checks it’s Jazz, who in his long experience never calls without reason.

“Well.. hold on, I gotta take a call real fast.” Tucker pulled out his trusty pda, which over the years he had tinkered with enough that its internal workings barely resembled the device he had gotten his first week in high school. He had kept the outer shell mostly unchanged because after seven years, turns out he had gotten pretty fond of it.

“Hey ya! Everything ok?”

Turns out Maddie and Jack had accidentally created a small anti-matter gun when trying to find a way to make a portable portal, and Jazz was hoping he could stop by with Danny in the next ten minutes to find out how it worked in the first place and maybe accidentally destroy it or make it unusable so they would think the first success was a fluke.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Tucker glanced at his teammates who were looking at his pda like it had personality offended them, “tell Danny to hop right over.”

“Oh my god, don’t you still use a pda?” Roberto whispered in horrified awe after Tucker had ended the call, “There’s no way it can hold up, it can’t be compatible with other phone providers. It could barely be considered functional when it was first released!”

“Oh jokes on them,” Tucker checked that everything was off at his station and that there was no exposed wiring that someone could get hurt by, “like hell I’m paying for something that already exists and should be free to access.”

There’s a ripping pop behind them, and he turns around with a grin to see Danny holding the dimensions open for him.

“Well, we can argue the amazingness of my darling at a later date, I should be back in less than an hour, if not make sure you get at least one meat-lovers for me tonight, I’ll Venmo you the cost when I get back!”

“Well,” his teacher grumbles, “At least he turned his project off this time, the fire was hell to deal with last year”, is the last thing he hears before the portal closes around them.

——————

Kwan

Julius hadn’t really wanted to work at their college’s discount coffee shop during their junior year, but over the summer their parents had helped them track down the perfect car for them, and after some haggling their parents had bought it for them at a steal. But now Julius had to pay for their own gas, and having their own car meant more temptations, like 3am Nasty Burger on the other side of town, which they could finally drive to on their own without having to bully one of their friends to come over and drive them.

Luckily it wasn't too hard to get the position, they had applied early enough that most other kids were still enjoying their summers, so a month before school Julius officially had their first job.

All of Julius’ coworkers were very nice, and even after they had finished training no one hesitated to help if they were confused about how to make a drink or about a certain procedure.

Winston and Bella both came from New York, and enjoyed trying to gross the other out with increasingly outrageous drink combinations. Zack was from Washington state, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the intricacies of coffee itself. Darius, Kassidy, and Shaun were all locals who loved to recommend places nearby to eat and hang out. Victor came from the same area as Julius, and was in the process of illustrating his first book.

Kwan came from a small town in the Midwest, and was one of the most genuinely friendly people Julius had ever met.

When Julius’ car had refused to start one morning Kwan was the first person they called, and had shown up without complaint at seven in the morning to drive them to work, then afterwards helped them set up an appointment with a friend of a friend's mechanic who helped fix their car for an absurdly reasonable price.

On most days things were pretty slow until ten or so in the morning. The store itself was very small, with only a cafe area and no drive through, and the owners still refused to sign any deals with third party companies so no doordash or Uber eats. It means that a three man team could comfortably work the store at any one time, and maybe on holidays they would bring an extra person in to help the midday shift when all the college kids decided to study in packs and take up every available seat they had.

Today, however, looked like it was going to be a shitshow.

Victor had called out at the last minute, she had fallen in the shower and heavenly twisted their ankle, and given that it was spring break there was no way anyone who hadn’t already been scheduled was going to come in to cover.

Spring break also meant they were staying busy much later into the afternoon than usual. On a normal Thursday by 4pm the ravenous packs of college kids would have mostly cleared out to go to afternoon classes, and all that was left were local working adults looking for overpriced coffee and free WiFi, and kids who didn’t have classes that day.

But now at almost seven pm the store is still packed. There were two groups taking up most of the more lounge-y seating, an older man having a very heated debate on his phone, and a kid hanging by the bathrooms watching YouTube without headphones. Overall it was much louder then Julius was usually comfortable with for an extended period of time.

But the current source of conflict was a younger woman looming over the counter that separated the customer area from where drinks were made.

Her drink had taken a bit because she had ordered right after the two rowdy groups of kids, and Julius had been taught to make drinks in order of who placed their order first, not on whose order it would be easier to do.

Well, technically.

In practice people did orders out of order all the time, but the woman had pissed Julius off with her attitude and her visible sneer when she had noticed the pronoun pins everyone was wearing.

So, they would follow protocols exactly, just for her.

Her drink itself wasn’t too difficult, and in situations like these Julius always wished they could just tell customers they were better off buying the ingredients and making it for themselves at home, not spending almost ten dollars on lackluster taste.

Julius handed the coffee over to the glowering woman, and was just getting ready to signal to Shaun that they were going to go to the back to work on dishes when there was a very pointed cough and an aggravated sigh from across the counter.

“This doesn’t taste right.”

The woman’s bright purple lipstick has already stained the lid of the cup, so at least they know she actually tried it, but still. It was a regular old white chocolate coffee, with no special addendums or bells and whistles to it. And while they haven’t been working here for the years that others may have, Julius has over six months of working here to know that they made that drink correctly.

But, deep sigh, assume the best.

“Oh, I’m sorry, could you tell me what was wrong about it so we can remake it for you?”

“It just tastes wrong! I have ordered this drink every day for the last three months, I know what it should look and taste like, and this is wrong!”

The commotion had caught Kwan’s attention from where he was restocking their cups and espresso beans, and he moved over to draw the woman’s attention from Julius to himself.

Thank god, Kwan was the best with asshole customers. Julius thought if they had to deal with this woman for too much longer they might make their disdain too obvious, and then they would have a whole ‘nother problem in the woman saying they were being unkind to them.

Julius still remembers Kwan warning them about unsavory customers their first week.

Julius had been nervous because all their work in high school had been volunteer, and not in situations where people generally would complain to them about something being miss made, or just the general shit they knew true customer service often involved dealing with.

“How do you really deal with bad customers?” It’s slow right now, but just twenty minutes ago there had been a literal crowd of people in their cafe, and some had been very irate that their drinks were not magically appearing before them. Julius had been keeping their head down, attempting to make drinks as quick as they could without drawing attention, while Kwan and Bella helped dole out food and placate everyone.

“Well, that kind of depends,” Kwan makes a seesaw motion with his hand, “sometimes there’s a genuine mistake in the making of the drink or when it was ordered, and the customer is respectful in politely asking for a remake. In those cases you just simply make it again for them, and everything moves on.”

“But that’s not always the case.” Even if social media wasn’t what it was, Julius remembers the horror stories various friends had told them over the years. They’ve seen it first hand plenty of time already, but there’s always been someone nearby to help deal with it.

“Ah, no,” Kwan glances out towards the now calm cafe, “I know when the owners hired you they must have made a big stink about always being approachable and how the goal is for customers to feel welcome and comfortable here. But in practice it’s-“

“A load of horse shit?”

“-unrealistic. Sometimes people think something is wrong with the drink and demand it be made again, but they won’t tell you why. Or it’ll be wrong in some unhelpful way, like it tastes wrong or they can’t taste a flavor even though you know you added exactly as much as they asked for. In those situations you kinda just have to make it again, and hopefully this time they’ll be satisfied. If they want it remade more than twice, that’s generally the point where you politely tell them that it seems we can’t reach their standards, and that they might want to try another location.”

“What about people who just want a free drink?”

“We make it for them, if they’ve already touched it we can’t take it back anyway, so just make them another.”

“Jeez, you're definitely nicer than me about this.”

“Oh I know they’re not all in the right, but sometimes all you can do is smile and hope they leave quickly after you’ve fixed their drink for them.”

Even now, It’s almost supernatural how calm Kwan is in the face of others' anger.

“Yes ma’am, I completely understand,” and oh Kwan is giving her an absolutely dazzling smile, “we will absolutely get that drink remade for you right away.”

He’s speaking perfectly calmly, not an ounce of annoyance or anger in his tone, but all the same Julius sees the woman almost shrink back.

Julius knows part of the whole customer service shtick was to always appear pleasant and to never show anger towards a customer. But what Kwan is doing now goes way past that.

He’s kept direct eye contact with the woman since she started complaining, and his smile sits on his face like it was branded there, never wavering. He continues to hold eye contact as he remakes the drink, which a small part of Julius finds super impressive, and by the end of it the woman snatches her new drink out of Kwan’s hand and swiftly exits the store like she was being chased.

“Well, I hope she was satisfied this time, you go ahead and head back to do those dishes I saw you eying, I can hold the fort down for now.”

——————

Star

It’s almost four in the morning and Star is maybe just starting to get a little worried. She knows Paulina can take care of herself! She’s seen it! But, she still holds the right as best and oldest friend to worry about her when she goes off to three am frat parties.

Just as Star is about to call Paulina in the hopes that her phone isn’t sitting forgotten on a table somewhere, there’s the sound of locks clicking before Paulina and their two other roommates step into their little common room.

Paulina walks in with Jessica and Monica practically on her heels, and once all three were in the room Jessica turned and swiftly re-locked all the locks, and even grabbed the door jammer Monica’s mom had brought over and swiftly put it in place, making the door about as secure as it could be.

The space is a little bit cramped, four girls who all brought probably more stuff to college then they probably needed meant that most everything was an organized mess and there was not too much of the floor actually visible at any given moment.

Suitcases were still sitting unpacked by the door. Star and Paulina had visited Amity just last week to see their parents and pick up their winter clothing that they hadn’t brought with them initially because they had needed the room for all their fall clothes.

The first smell to meet her is obviously alcohol, but after that initial overwhelming moment the iron-y tinge of blood starts to permeate the room.There’s no growing puddle on the floor, and no one’s screaming for an ambulance, so it’s hopefully nothing life threatening.

As the three stand in the middle of the room Star instinctively scans them for visible injuries.

Monica and Jessica look very shaken up, but there’s no forming bruises and there’s no obviously ripped clothing.

Paulina on the other hand looks quite disheveled. A quick glance shows a growing bruise around her nose, and a finger missing a nail is already swelling.

“Oh no, what happened!” Paulina didn’t usually let things escalate to physical harm, not unless she felt seriously threatened.

“We’re fine, Star,” Paulina finally moved to take off her heels, a sign she at least wasn’t getting ready to head out again, “it was nothing, some boys with overinflated egos thought they could have their way with us on the way back from Brad’s party. Brad’s? Thad’s? The senior who told all the freshmen that his party would have free beer and all the freshmen didn’t think twice about the quality.”

“Was it at least good beer?”

“Hell no, I wouldn't even use it to disinfect my wounds, not even as an ice pack.”

They both laugh at that. Back home, everyone knows which beers are worth drinking to numb pain, and which are better used to try and soothe sore muscles.

“That is, not what I think we should be focusing on right now.” Monica sounds out of breath, clutching a large container of pretzels like it’d a shield. Star recognizes the brand from the school store, and Paulina must feel particularly close to these two if she let them in on how to get the good pretzels.

There’s another long moment of silence, before Jessica suddenly bolts towards the bathroom she shares with Monica.

“Oh, poor dear,” Paulina looks sadly to where her friend disappeared to, “I was worried that would happen, Monica at least had food to help her keep anything down, but the last thing Jessica ate was that nasty burger at lunch today, I think everything just finally caught up to the poor girl.”

“Well at least it’s just cheap beer, Jessica would have a conniption if she found out she threw up wine more expensive than her whole dorm room.”

With the metaphorical ice broken Star beckons Paulina over to the couch while she grabs the kitchen medical kit. Not as big as the one at home, but it at least has the necessities to treat small injuries.

Returning to the living room sees Paulina relaxing into the couch, with Monica hovering nearby. After a moment of hesitation the other girl collapses onto their smaller couch, still holding onto the pretzels.

With a closer look the bruise seems to be the only injury Paulina sustained, but her hair seems frazzled from possibly being pulled, and two of her fingers on the right hand are missing their nail extensions. There’s starting to be some serious discoloration at the joints of the fingers, a sign they’re probably out of their sockets.

“Well at least it isn’t too bad, I can grab an ice pack for your face and nose, but we’re going to have to pop your fingers back into their joints.”

“Wait wait wait,” Monica speaks up from the couch, “wouldn’t it be better to go to a hospital for something like this, you can seriously mess up your body if you pop a bone back in place wrong.”

“Oh that’s so sweet, but don’t worry, I have plenty of experience with sprained and broken bones.”

“Even better, didn’t you sew up Manson that one time with the helicopter?” Paulina looks up from where she was inspecting her intact nails, “that has to be at least thirty stitches, and you did it without even flinching!”

“What?”

Oh dear, what Paulina had clearly meant to be encouraging only seems to have made Monica more unnerved and horrified. Which, Star kind of understood, it was scary when your friend got hurt, but Star knew what she was doing, so Monica had no reason to fret.

“Shouldn’t we, um, go to the campus police with this?” Jessica’s voice is scratchy from where she’s leaning out from the bathroom, clutching the doorway.

Monica nods enthusiastically, but Star thinks it is a rather silly idea.

“Ha!” Paulina’s laugh is sharp, “the most that would happen would be that we get told off for being ‘young ladies out drinking late at night without thinking about the consequences’, worst case, I did much more damage to them than they did to me, so if anything I would get charged with assault.”

“But! He was harassing you! Everyone who’s anyone knows Ben has been trying to get into your pants for the last two weeks, it’s obvious he was trying to-“

“Oh like any officer would take my side in that situation. It would be all ‘oh but you didn’t give him a chance’, ‘oh she dresses like that and is surprised when young men take an interest in her’, 'oh but the young man is so nice usually’…”

While Paulina is giving her impassioned speech Star quickly pops the two fingers back into place, each making a satisfying snap pop sound as it’s put back into alignment.

It’s almost enough to cover the sudden sound of violent retching from Jessica and Monica’s bathroom.

———————

+ Danny

Jerome’s Dad is going to be so disappointed with him. Another quick glance at his phone screen reveals that it’s almost eleven pm, and that Jerome has less than an hour to file his taxes.

His Dad had been texting him every day for the past three weeks to remind him that he needed to do them ASAP, but every time he sat down in front of his computer something had come up.

A test to study for, a party he absolutely couldn’t miss, Hillary from calculus asked him to go to the movies with her and from there he might have spent the next three days at her apartment.

He just, he had never found the time. And all those hours sitting on his phone switching between Twitter and Instagram didn’t count, that was his daily time for doom-scrolling and making himself feel bad by seeing how perfect some people’s lives seemed to be.

And now it was tax day, and he hadn’t even bought the filing software until this morning. The poor cashier ringing him out that morning had wished him luck, which he definitely needed.

He needed the job. Getting scholarships had helped, but with his Dad’s single income it was still a very tight fit. Jerome had tried to get jobs as a teen in high school, but every place he had applied to wanted you to already have experience or demanded more hours than he could give with a high school schedule.

Next year Jerome was going to have to pay for at least his own room and board, and part of the tuition based on what was estimated his scholarships could cover. His Dad had emphasized that if he didn’t feel comfortable he could always come home, but so much of their savings was going towards his degree, Jerome couldn’t waste it. And Jerome liked the idea of having some spending money that he had earned himself, having his own pocket change meant he could buy books or replacement parts for his guitar without feeling guilty about using his rather limited personal savings.

At this point smacking his forehead into the desk might not be productive, but it does feel deserved.

“What’s up? Did you finally get a computer virus from all those sketching anime-watching sites?” His roommate Danny had been quietly enjoying his misery for the past half hour. The other boy had just recently gotten back from one of his late night classes, and was hunkered down under his lofted bed, playing Zelda from the sound of it.

“No, it’s- hey! You weren’t complaining when I got us the original Trigun and the Japanese sub for Ghost Stories.”

“Yeah yeah, but really, what’s got you so freaked?”

“It’s just- Oh my god, why did I ever want a job,” he questions the room and the universe at large.

“Uhh money?”

“No no no, don’t be logical with me, let me wallow in my misery for this last hour. God why didn’t I let my Dad help me when he was over for spring break?”

He scrolls through the file once again, but he still cannot make heads or tails about what he is supposed to do. All his frantic googling will tell him is that there’s some form he needs to fill out somewhere, but nothing gives him a straight answer on how filling out this form will help!

“It’s these Tax forms. I bought one of those ‘tax help’ programs but it keeps asking about all these accounts and different bits of personal information that I have no idea if they need to know.”

“Ouch, you waited this long to start?”

“Yes yes, laugh at me later, I think at this point I’m just going to have to call it quits and call my dad tomorrow and pay the late fee.”

“Maybe I could help?”

“At this point I’ll take anything,” Jerome stretched as Danny got up from his fort under his bed and walked the two feet to Jerome’s desk, “I mean you can’t make it any worse than it already is.”

“I mean,” Danny gives a grin that flashes in the low light of the room, “if I filed these horribly wrong you could get a very passive aggressive email from the IRS that you really fucked up and need to re-do your taxes again.”

Jerome has mostly come to appreciate Danny’s humor, bad puns and all, but sometimes the guy can get just a little too deadpan in his delivery. But two can play at that game.

“Maybe I’ll just suffer then-“ Jerome makes a show of trying to shove Danny away from his computer, and the laugh it brings out of Danny makes Jerome feel light.

“No no, kidding,” Danny huffs as he leans in and inspects the mess that is Jeromes’s laptop. “Ok, so what I think you need to do first is find this form here…”

Less than half an hour later Jerome is pressing the file button. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders, enough that he plops down to their slightly Cheeto dust infested carpet in relief.

(Maybe he had been neglecting other things along with doing his taxes.)

“Oh my god you’re a lifesaver!”

Danny grins down at him and offers a hand up, and once he gets to his feet Jerome’s stomach lets out an unhappy gurgle that reminds him he hasn’t eaten since breakfast.

“Wanna go down to the common room and see if Gus left any leftovers from his family’s visit last night? I think he said as long as it was in a blue container any of us could have as much as we wanted.”

“Oh yeah, I’m definitely down!”

They leave the room and arrive in the common area with little fanfare, and within minutes are enjoying some very late night home cooked chicken and rice.

“So, how’d you know how to do taxes?” Jerome asks one his stomach has stopped rumbling about mutiny. “As far as I know that’s not why you stay up until three am watching YouTube, and you said you weren’t going to get a job until next semester when you didn’t have to deal with night classs.”

“Oh yeah, my Mom showed me how to do them for the past few years, she said no one had ever helped her growing up and so she wanted to make sure me and my sister knew how to do them correctly so we wouldn’t stress.”

“Man, that's awesome. I know my dad tried to show me last year, but he already had most stuff auto-completed because of the service he used. So I kinda blew it off and just assumed I would know what to do when the time came.”

“Yeah, most of it is pretty easy, although I know my parents have to file quarterly because they’re self employed and mostly do work with an independent income and not through an established company. My dad showed me some of the forms they had to fill out once, absolutely nightmare inducing. I couldn’t imagine trying to work independently and having that much pressure from the IRS about all those different forms.”

“Why did your parents need to do that?”

“Oh because they’re independent paranormal investigators, they hunt ghosts.”

[happistar]

"Father said that this world isn't for me // I tried to pray for a new reality"

---

HELLO I just had to draw @zalliafawn's guys over at @pitiful-sermon-ask and @pitiful-host!! LOVE whatever the hell is going on with those two. <3

[catherine-sketches]

Me: God I love Valentino’s design but he is such a pice of shit

My brain: don’t worry we have Good Valentino at home

The Good Valentino at home:

So I gave Valentino a nice twin! Meet Fabio everyone!!!

In hell because he did the straightest thing you can do: kill a man (several men actually), Fabio is also involved in the sex work industry but in the “small brothel that has medical insurance and strict consent rules where he keeps all of his workers hidden from the exterminations and Valentino and his bullshit”

He meets the Hazbin gang after the battle with the angels when the writing on the wall tells him the Val and his weird stalker tv boyfriend and their lesbian mean friend will start a power grab and turf war and he feels that his small safe brothel will not remain as such for long. So off to the hotel he goes with his 20 or so girls, guys and non-binary pals.

Angel nearly has a heart attack when he sees him at the door for obvious reasons

[melisusthewee]

Sorry, but the Fade scenes in DA4 are so fucking crunchy with Quinn.

I'm clawing at the walls here.

[ne0nwithazero]

BECOME [ MARKETABLE ]

my wife

[banesberry-anomoly]

Falling through reality

Alts under cut

[sicc-nasti]

Siggh. Sometimes I look at the Communities thing tumblr has and bite my screen cuz Id love to make a TF2 + TF2 oc community. Id love to host like polls and games and collabs or contests there. Work out some kinds of collaborative stories and all that sillay stuff.

Kicks a rock and shrugs. Maybe! Maybe not. I want to keep my brain rot going >:9

[swordmaid]

playing dress ups in piccrew with my ocs as one does and now I am thinking up of a regency or victorian era based murder mystery au with thalia as main char or something ,,,, anyway chars go from thalia left shri’iia right

then yves as creepy nun and wren as the one sole dude in this line up

[birdcatt]

new guys my brain invented in a daydream

[relevant-url-incoming]

Power Games

since I've been on my roleswap bullshit, here is a little peek at how Ven's doing in the role of Sith Inquisitor (hint: not well). If you look closely you can see the moment both Andronikos and I looked at Ven and went "oh this is a baby"

Andronikos hadn’t expected to wake to the barrel of a blaster against his forehead, but then again he was the idiot who’d thrown in with the Sith.

“How frequently do you make your reports?” snarled the Sith. In the dark, he could barely make out her shape; her black eyes were luminous as they caught what little light there was. Too bad they were sparking in anger.

Mask off, her voice sounded different – Republic, for one thing. Her full mouth displayed her displeasure with a dramatic curl of her lip. Andronikos would bet anything she wore the thing just to hide her expressions.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t play stupid,” the Sith spat. “You’re Zash’s little pirate pet, and I know she wants you on this ship. The navigational blocks aren’t enough? The threats to innocents? Forcing me to do every last bit of the Empire’s dirty work until I break isn’t fucking enough for her?”

He realised with a sinking feeling that he had stumbled into something darker than typical Sith bullshit.

“Maybe not,” he said slowly. “But I don’t take orders from Zash, Sith.”

“I’m not a damn Sith!” she cried, her voice breaking, but she tossed the blaster at the wall. Andronikos sat up warily.

She was just a kid, he realised. He’d buy it if she said she was twenty, but nothing more than that. For all her cynical comments on Tatooine, there was only so much this young woman would have had time to see.

“She’s watching you that closely?” he asked. That didn’t sit right with him. There were some things he drew the line at, and freedom was too dear to Andronikos to make this kind of thing ok.

“I left Balmorra without doing the job she wanted, and the ship shut down. I tried to avoid working for the war effort, and an officer tracks me down with orders to kill prisoners until I complied. I tried to steal a different ship, and some fuck pops out of the woodwork to stop me, because apparently Imperial Intelligence has nothing better to do!”

She rubbed her face ruefully, leaning against the wall. With a clatter of armour, she slid to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. It was almost funny, seeing such a brawny woman curled up like a toddler. Andronikos wasn’t laughing.

“At least you’re telling me the truth,” she said to her knees.

“How can you tell?”

The look she gave him was withering. “Same way I know Zash is using me. Same way I know she won’t have me killed. I can tell.”

She looked away, laughing bitterly. “And I’d bet you anything that’s part of the power Zash is so fucking obsessed with.”

“Ok… So I’m not gonna mess with the Force stuff, but I know ships,” he said. She stared at him like she’d suddenly stopped understanding Basic. “Want me to take a look at the navigation systems?”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You’re serious,” she said. “You want to help me.”

“What can I say?” Andronikos said. “Pirates like freedom.”

She rolled her shoulders and stood slowly, looking thoughtful.

“It doesn’t fix the other things,” she said. “The POWs they’ll gladly throw away just to keep me in line. Whatever the hell Zash really has planned for me. And I bet this ship is being tracked in a couple ways, just in case.”

She pushed her tendrils back over her shoulders, lifting her chin with a defiant expression. It was the first time she’d looked both powerful and comfortable.

“It’ll help, though,” she said. “And as much as I hate it, I know how to play a long game. The Sith have all their power games, right? Maybe I can get control over Zash.”

“You’re getting all this from me offering to look at the navicomputer?”

She shrugged ruefully.

“It’s easier to plan when I have more than me on my side,” she said. “If you’re in?”

“Something tells me you already know my answer,” Andronikos said. She huffed out the tiniest of laughs and, to his surprise and mild offense, saluted him. Before he could ask her why the hell she’d done that, she’d left. He shook his head. He’d have to be careful around her, but he already knew that. At least this way he knew what she’d be looking for, and that he didn’t want to work against her.

And she’d left the blaster. He picked it up and tucked it away. It had been damaged when she threw it, but there might still be something he could do with it. He’d help the kid. He just wasn’t dumb enough to forget how ready she’d been to kill him.

[candycryptids]

Went with @zombiesockfuckinglovescardfight [in gold] and @hope-faery [in Blue] and [Ayane, in Red] to a fun masquerade event GOLD’s 1 year anniversary ! It was a total riot to attend I hope to attend another one soon 🥰

[arolesbianism]

Quick concept doodle for my worstie To the horizon

[quietwingsinthesky]

also important is that millie’s able to wrestle control away from lucifer at first because he’s extremely fucked from Cage 2: Electric Boogaloo and running on the archangel equivalent of that battery pack you left in your wii remote so long that it began corroding. this is probably the sole reason rowena doesn’t die, because lucifer was functioning on feral dog logic and would have torn open anything’s neck if he thought it might put him back in the Cage, and millie was. mostly able to remember who she was and what she was doing and why rowena was important amid the storm of lucifer trying to root inside her.

but he gets better. and later, it’s a lot harder to tell if millie’s grabbing control of the vessel because she’s still a match for him. or because lucifer stands down when she pushes.

[aetherarf]

Obsessing over unwilling wanderer disney princess. His heart [that he insists he does not have] is so delicate animals always innately trust him. extremely common for birds to rest atop his head perch on his shoulders, skittish foxes in a place they don't understand hide behind his legs.

He does not like this. He does not feel like he should be trusted- most days, he doesn't trust himself. He barely trusts the sun to rise in the morning.

Nahida, however, thinks it's a good thing, watching as Wanderer holds his hands out for a little bird trying to fly for the first time- if it fails, he catches it, and delicately places it back in its nest, only muttering "later, then." before going on with whatever task he was given.

[heretodefyfate]

Idk why, i always surprise when people say Aevis is the least popular protagonist

yeah, compared to, like, Alain (the irony that canon lore stated that they are not well-liked), he is not the most-picked option

but the least popular, and rare?

It's a little bit strange for me

[geee-three]

okay now that im actually confronting it this makes a whole lotta sense that im going to continue to ignore