#after the story tho...

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[giarossin]

istg the moment i saw jayce d**th threats i realised how much i overestimated cognitive abilities of this fandom. they were just happy to jump on a hate train without taking a second to comprehend what even happened. "his mind [fucking] suffered", viktor told y'all himself. not to mention what horrors he saw in arcane backrooms. not to mention viktor literally wanted him to destroy the hexcore before he became jesus and literally dumped him because he didn't do it.

[technically-human]

*Reverses your Christmas*

A gift from @i-am-as-normal-as-you-are to all of you :) we really wanted the boys to get along for once, and what better occasion than Christmas? anything to make the Edwins happy!

[ryllen]

d a m n , i t ' s ' i ' ... not 'we' i guess everybody can perish now

[evercelle]

2024 art summary! it sure has been a year

[puppetmaster13u]

Who wants a prompt entirely in memes.

[starrystevie]

18+ | cw: improper use of plumping lipgloss, mentions of alcohol, oral sex, it's steddie endgame i promise | crossposted on twitter

it’s no secret, steve likes making out. likes isn’t a strong enough word. he loves making out. loves grabbing hold of someone and pulling them close, loves laying over them on a couch, on a bed, hips just barely moving as he takes them apart with lips and teeth and tongue.

that doesn’t change once he’s had a few drinks either, body tingling with tequila or vodka or something equally strong that has his inhibitions thrown to the wind. he’s always able to find someone willing to dance with him, hips pressed together and arms wrapped around shoulders.

it’s usually girls, pretty things with pretty hair that draw steve in like a punch drunk happy moth to an overzealous flame. they’ll turn their heads with a flirty shy smile and follow him out to the dance floor before pressing up tight against his front.

they’ll curl their fingers into his where they rest low on their hips and keep him close. they’ll drop their heads onto his shoulder and let their breath ghost over the side of his face until he gets the all too obvious hint.

steve likes making out on a dance floor. no, not likes.

loves.

that is until his lips are covered in sticky, sweet lip gloss and he’s pulling away because his tongue is on fire, tingling from something other than alcohol and the thrill of being in a pretty girl’s mouth.

“what is that?�� he yells into her ear over the bumping bass.

“sorry,” the girl says sheepishly, “it’s my lipgloss. it plumps my lips.”

she goes back in to kiss steve once more and he isn’t exactly going to deny her. her lips are pretty just like her, plump and shiny and all too inviting, so he kisses her back. the gloss is spicy on the cracks of his lips, on the tip of his tongue when he he pulls her lip in between his teeth. it’s addictive in a way. he wonders if his own lips will plump up from the contact alone.

later, when they say their drawn out goodbyes outside of the club, he’ll ask to borrow the lip gloss since his night isn’t over yet. she’ll pull it out with a grin and apply it so sweetly to her own lips and then to his. her touch is gentle and precise before she puts the tube back in her purse and then connects their lips for a final time.

steve likes to make out. no, not likes.

loves.

so he goes to a bar around the corner, robin hot on his coat tails with some blonde she picked up attached to her side, and he’ll order a vodka soda that he can sip through a straw so he doesn’t destroy his pretty glossed lips. the bar is grungy, but steve almost prefers that, able to blend into smoky shadows and dark corners while he watches the crowd.

while he watches someone in the crowd watch him back.

he has wild curly hair and handcuffs on his belt and steve swears he’s staring at his lips and the way the light is bouncing off of the gloss, but he isn’t too sure. not until there’s wild curly hair and handcuffs on a belt standing right in front of him.

steve has a different confidence with guys. maybe it’s because he has to read them a little differently. maybe its because he gets read by them a little differently, too. but flirting is flirting all the same and steve finds himself biting at his lip and licking away some of the spicy lip gloss with a wince as it burns the inside of his mouth.

curly hair handcuff guy is cuter once they start talking for a while, all animated and vibrant, a bright shiny beacon in a dingy bar. he finds out his name is eddie with a lingering handshake that means something, fingers trailing and tingling like they had a spice to them, too.

they don’t dance, but they do end up out back, sharing a cigarette as drunk people stumble around them. it’s easy enough for eddie to light, flame from the lighter sparking in his big, brown eyes.

“so steve,” he says, flicker of some other kind of spark in his eye, “where to?”

and steve knows how to do this part. he grabs the cigarette out of eddie’s mouth and puffs on it himself, blowing the smoke over his head. “is it too forward to say i don’t think i can last much longer without getting my mouth on you?”

eddie grins and lets his eyes flit down. “no. is it too forward for me to say that i’d let you do anything to me, mouth or otherwise?”

he takes the cigarette back and steve can see his trace left behind on the filter, can see when the hint of gloss hits eddie’s lips if the wrinkle of his eyebrows is anything to go off of.

he doesn’t say anything, just winks over at steve. he doesn’t say anything, just drags him into a taxi. he doesn’t say anything, just wraps a hand high over steve’s thigh, just pushes steve up against his apartment wall, just fumbles over handcuffs and pushes down his jeans.

steve likes making out. no, not likes.

loves.

if he loves making out, then he really fucking craves giving head. he feels like a cartoon animal with hearts popping out of his head as he pulls eddie’s cock out of his briefs. he licks his lips like he’s starving and regrets it when the gloss singes his tongue.

steve looks up from his knees and swipes a finger over his lips, holding it up high for eddie to see. “taste it,” he whispers.

eddie’s eyes widen, but he obediently bends his neck, tongue lolling out so he can lap at steve’s finger. “your lip gloss is spicy,” eddie says flatly as he recoils.

steve nods. “and it’s going on your cock unless you say otherwise.”

which is how steve finds himself turning eddie into a writhing mess. his hands hold onto the backs of eddie’s shaking knees as he works over his cock. his hair stings as eddie tugs on the strands. his eyes water as he sucks him in deeper and deeper into his throat, spicy lipgloss tingly on his tongue and cheeks.

“you are a fucking wonder,” eddie whines, hips humping as he grinds himself further into steve’s mouth. “just fucking made for this, huh?”

steve pulls off and spits on his cock to jack his hand over it as he pulls the head to his lips. he rubs the sensitive tip over his lips just to watch eddie twitch.

“you have no idea.”

he blows a line of cool air over the gloss that’s left there and drinks in the way eddie’s eyes roll back in his head before swallowing him back down, reveling in the spice that hits the back of his throat as he does so.

when eddie comes, he pulls steve off so he can paint his pretty, puffy, plump lips with it, dragging his cock over them to make a mess. it’s not a surprise when steve licks it off, spicy and salty and a special kind of sweet that he thinks is all eddie. he leans up to place a kiss into the thatch of hair over eddie’s cock, smearing behind come and shiny lip gloss.

“you gonna wait for me to come in my pants or can i go fuck you?”

steve likes making out. no, not likes.

loves.

and he loves giving eddie head. and he loves fucking eddie. and he loves waking up with a spicy, sticky residue on the side of his cheek after falling asleep with his head on eddie’s chest.

and maybe, just maybe, he’ll love eddie someday, too.

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny dies every night.

So! Danny's secret Ghost Powers remained a secret for about 6 Hours.

After turning back into a Human, he had immediately gone back to his room and tried to fall asleep, pretending none of it was even real, that it was just a dream. The idea that he had just died was understandably hard to swallow, not to mention the fact he had somehow come back.

All he wanted to do was rest and figure it out later. It was a problem for Future Danny.

Except when he woke up, something was wrong.

He felt Cold, Colder than he had ever been before. It was as if he had a chunk of pure Ice stuck in his Chest, the cold spreading across every part of his body. With a start he realized that his chest wasn't moving at all, either from the beating of his heart or the breaths he was supposed to be taking.

He wasn't breathing. His heart wasn't pumping. The Ice in his chest was the feeling of his heart not pumping, still and unnaturally cold. At that realization, he felt his Heart begin beating again.

He ran downstairs, hoping to get his parents help. He didn't know what was going on exactly, but they must be able to help him right?! They were the leading experts on Undead Biology, they must know how to help him!

When he reached the kitchen, he saw his parents and Jazz huddled together at the table, crying together for some reason.

"Mom! Dad! Jazz! Somethings wrong! I don't know what happened, but last night I-"

He stopped when he saw their faces. Their cheeks were tear-streaked, eyes bloodshot, but the thing he noticed first was the grief and absolutely confusion in their eyes. They were staring at him as if they had seen a Ghost, figuratively of course, and they seemed to he trying to connect the dots in their heads.

"Danny?" Jazz asked in a shaky voice. "Is that you?"

"Jazz?" He asked in return, "What do you mean, of course it's me?"

She looked hopeful for a moment, before his mom stood up.

"No." She said, her voice held a hard edge. "It's not."

Danny almost fell over when she said that. "W-what?" He asked, "What are you talking about Mo-"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" She yelled. She gripped the Blaster in her hand tighter, aiming it at him. "I checked everything when we found Danny's body! He had no Pulse, no Brain Activity, and his Ecto Levels were far higher than normal! Danny is Dead! And you killed him!"

"What?!" Danny yelled in shock, "I didn't kill hi-I mean, I didn't kill me-I mean-What are you talking about!?"

This time his dad answered, getting up from the table himself. In his hand was another Blaster. "Danny's Ecto Levels could only have been that high if killed by something with a large amount of Ectoplasm, enough to leave such a mark. The Portal was open for hours last night before we found it and sealed it up, and that's when you got through isn't it!?"

His Dad leveled the Blaster to him.

"No! I'm not a Ghost, it's me! It's Danny!?" He pleaded, "Mom, I always baked you a cake on mother's day! Dad, I helped you clean up the lab the last time you blew it up! It's me!"

"Nice try." His mother said, "Die again, Ecto Scum."

That day, Danny ran away from home.

...

Ever since that day, Danny had been running as far as he could from Amity Park.

After he got out of the house, he tried to find any place he could hide as he figured everything out. His first try was Tucker, but his parents had anticipated that and beat him to the Punch. The same happened when he tried to go to Sam's, he barely escaped that situation alive(?).

At first he tried to stay in Amity, hoping he would eventually find a way to convince his parents of his true identity, so everything could go back to normal.

He abandoned that hope about a week later, when his parents got the local authorities on their side and issued a public service announcement stating he was a Murderer who killed their son, and to contact the Police if anybody saw him. The mindless Ghost they captured and presented on the Local News cemented the publics view on him.

So he ran from Amity.

The first few weeks on the Run were the worst. He wasn't used to surviving on the street, much less evading the Law Enforcement that seemed to keep finding him. He had to constantly stay on the move to keep away from the pursuit of his Parents, the Police, and the weird guys in white suits who had shown up once he passed the State Border.

His new Ghost Powers were the only thing that had let him get away most of those times. He could turn into a Full Ghost whenever he wanted, unlocking all of his powers for the time being, but also seemingly sending up a Beacon to whoever was looking for him. He found it was much easier to use their weakened versions in his Human Form.

As for his Undead-ness, he had mostly figured it out. His body was lying to him. He was Dead, but his Body was just pretending to be alive for his own sake. He didn't need to breath anymore, and his heart didn't need to pump, but they did because he felt that they needed to. He probably didn't even need to eat anymore.

The problem was that it couldn't keep it up when he was asleep. No matter what, every time he fell asleep his Body would die again, and when he woke up he would have to make it Live again.

One of the main reasons he kept getting caught recently was because well-meaning civilians would report to the Police that there was a Dead Teenager under a Bridge, or on a Park Bench, or on one memorable occasion in a Ditch. He would wake up in a Body Bag, escape, and be reported to his Pursuers.

At least his pattern of movement was untraceable so far.

Turns out, the Portal's opening had much more of an effect than his parents had anticipated. The Shockwave in the fabric of Reality when they punched a hole through it (and him), had caused dozens of Natural Portals to form across the Country, opening and closing in random places, soaking the area of Ectoplasm.

As an apparent Ghost, Danny was somehow drawn to these places. Whenever he got to one he felt rejuvenated, as if the stress of the past few days had never happened to him. He could only assume that he was Absorbing the Ectoplasm in the area to feed himself, based on a few of the things he remembered from his parents constant ramblings.

Whenever he would go to one of these places, he would find a bunch of Ghosts. Some were friendly, defying all of his expectations, while others were...less so.

They seemed to resent the fact that he was still half-alive, some simply jabbing insults at him, others straight up attacking him. It seemed that Life was a sore subject among those guys. Or maybe it was him stopping them whenever they attacked humans...that was probably more accurate.

Sometimes the Ghosts he would meet were in the middle of attacking humans to fulfill what they called their "Obsessions". He learned that all Undead, and basically all Immortal Beings, have Obsessions. They are their Sole Purpose in existence, a built in defense mechanism against insanity by giving them something to dedicate Eternity to.

He didn't know if he had an Obsession, but if he did he hoped it was easier to manage than theirs seemed to be. One of them was obsessed with attention, but got it by hypnotizing humans into adoring her. She chilled out after a while. Another loved the thrill of the Hunt, but only wanted rare game. He chased after Danny a lot in pursuit of his "One of a Kind Pelt".

He fought then off and saved people whenever he could, although sometimes it was risky. Many of them were older and more experienced than him, so he was forced to use his Ghost Form against some of them, sacrificing his hiding spot to save the people being terrorized.

He sort of enjoyed it. Whenever he helped people, saved them from danger, he felt better about his situation. As if he was making the best out of the horrible situation his life had turned into by helping as many people as he could. He always felt a bit more motivated to keep going every time he helped anybody.

Maybe that was his Obsession? Helping others? He didn't really think so, he was nowhere near altruistic enough to consider that a possibility. Maybe it was Space? He always felt that same relief when he would camp out away from the Cities. Eh, he'll probably never know.

This cycle of finding a new hiding spot, getting discovered, and running away again continued for a while. Years even.

Danny had Died at 14. He was now 17, and had been homeless for 3 years.

He hoped this next hiding spot would last a bit longer than the previous ones. This one felt different, the Ectoplasm he was wandering towards felt older than the other places he had gone. His previous hiding spots had always been the site of a recent Natural Portal, and the Ectoplasm in the atmosphere would feel Fresh and Wild.

But the Ectoplasm where he was going tasted Older, Stronger, more Set in Stone than the others had. Wherever he wad headed to next, it had been soaking in Ectoplasm for far longer than any other place he had ever been, even in Amity.

He walked up the the Sign at the side of the road, introducing the City to newcomers.

"Welcome to Gotham City" it said.

[kirby-the-gorb]

[kittykatninja321]

Thinking about how Bruce treated Jason’s legacy after his death is kinda pissing me off and the only consolation is knowing that whatever peace Bruce created for himself by warping his memory and telling himself that Jason’s death was due to his own recklessness and anger in order to cope was greatly disturbed and shaken by Jason’s return. Pain and suffering on planet earth <3

[secretsimpleness]

Don't feed the crows. .. Why not? Inej, Kaz / Six of Crows (c) Leigh Bardugo

[gracefireheart]

Just a lil' GF x Pokemon AU sketch 💃 Mostly 'cause I don't wanna draw Ford's whole pokemon team yet

[openthefobwatch]

"The doctor should be asexual and aromantic" not in a 'the doctor should never be in a relationship' way but in a 'the doctor's feelings for rose go so far beyond the traditional human structures for relationships that they cannot begin to be defined in those terms' way

[missescalientee]

Explorer au meets trolls world tour

This is the current final post since I don't have anything else ready and or queued up XD

Jade finds herself separated from her family and looking for a way back, the world is big and dangerous so she becomes a bounty hunter as a means of assisting her search, she thinks she's getting close when a world shaking tour and an interesting bounty fall on her plate.

Branch (since this is still within the N2 au just shifted a bit) has been living with Floyd so he's changed a bit, he tried to give himself bangs, which didn't work out, and he now wears a brown tunic under his leaf vest, a gift from another person who helped him and floyd out, a secret someone yet to be revealed teehee.

Poppy is mostly unchanged, as most of the N2 au effects Brozone, tho she is a bit closer with Branch than in canon due to circumstances!

[ryllen]

overblot grim with Yuu who accidentally get carried on his back

[freyadragonlord]

How do I explain how married Han Yoojin and Sung Hyunje are in the post-epilogue Side Stories without sounding like I am exaggerating or making things up...