#also people get dumber if they’re in groups

[oooohno]

I’ve never been this close to committing murder

[papercorgiworld]

No date for the bully

Enzo Berkshire and Mattheo Riddle

The Slytherin gang mock you after class, but when you run into one of them alone a few days later they aren’t mocking you anymore… rather they are flirting with you.

Thanks for the request and to all those reading: thanks for reading. Happy readings! and lots of love to you all! 💛

Warning: bullying

“This is a question first years can answer, miss (y/l/n).” Snape snares, looking not only angry and annoyed but also seriously disappointed. Your mouth opens, but closes again. Telling him that you probably knew the answer, but were in fact daydreaming and missed the question was probably not a good comeback in Snape’s book. Aside from the fact that you felt the whole class stare at you, there was a particular group of Slyterins really enjoying your screw up. You could hear them snickering, but chose to ignore them. 

However as soon as class ends the lot becomes unavoidable. “And here I thought Weasley was the dumbest in our year. Turns out I was wrong… It’s you.” Theodore Nott laughs as he passes you. You roll your eyes and quietly gather your books. “You have to actually read those to learn. You do know that, right?” Mattheo Riddle raises his eyebrows and you look away, trying to pass Mattheo. “She can’t read!” Draco snorts, finding himself really funny. But you huff and just try to get past Mattheo. “And apparently she can’t speak either.” Mattheo grins down at you, purposely blocking your way out. “Guys leave her alone.” Enzo intervenes and you’re both surprised and relieved, but it doesn’t last long. “She’s obviously a bit slow.” Enzo quips. 

“You’re all hilarious.” You manage to mutter as you use all your force to shove Mattheo aside. “What a comeback.” You hear Enzo laugh at your attempt at self defence. 

***

“Move aside, dumb and dumber!” Draco snares at Ron and you, followed by a smirking Theodore as you jump. 

“Ugh, why are they all like that?” You think out loud and Ron shrugs. “Because they’re evil Slytherins.” You chuckle at Ron’s answer, before parting at the stairs. “See you after potions.” You wave at Ron and walk around the corner, straight into…

Enzo. 

“I’m so sorry.” You apologise immediately, but when you look up to see who you collide with your eyes widen. Sure he would hex you or at least insult you. 

“No worries, I wasn’t watching where I was going either. You alright, princess?” No worries? Princess? “Yeah, I’m fine.” You whisper, not at all comfortable with this nice version of Lorenzo Berkshire. You move to walk past him, but he grabs your arm. “Let me help you with those.” Enzo points at the books you were holding. “No, I’m fine.” You answer without even considering his offer, obviously you would never get them back. He and his friends played mean games like that all the time. 

“Oh come on, let me help. It will give me an excuse to walk you to class.” Enzo’s smile was adorable, he really was hoping to spend some time with the pretty girl he had been crushing on for months now. 

“No.” You state dryly and hurry up the stairs. “Wow, you’re quick.” Enzo chuckles as he catches up with you. “Ha, that’s funny.” You snort, rolling your eyes. “Why?” Enzo asks, obviously not remembering what an ass he had been a few days earlier. “Oh, right. You insult people all the time so you probably don’t remember calling me ‘slow’.” An awkward laugh leaves the slytherin’s lips. Oh boy, she remembers. I fucked up. “Me and the guys were just having a laugh.” You again quicken your pace, not in a mood to listen to his lame excuses, but he keeps up. “Yes, you were having a laugh. I was not. I was being mocked by four pompous shits.” 

Enzo jumps in front of you to bring you to a halt. You avoid his gaze, but he ignores your hints of annoyance and moves close to you. “Maybe not my best moment… but how about I buy you a drink as an apology.” Un-be-lievable! “You’re joking, right?” You look up and raise an eyebrow at Enzo, who gives you a weak half smile. “Come on, it will be fun… I’ll pay.” The audacity of this man. “Enzo Berkshire, are you asking me out?” Enzo laughs nervously as he looks down at his feet for a second. “I know I haven’t made the best impression, but I think you’re beautiful and smart and… I think that you should give me a chance.”

Enzo’s starry eyes meet yours again as he closes the distance and carefully snakes an arm around you, convinced his charm, popularity and good looks would win you over. You reach for his tie, playing with it as you lick your lips. “You think I should give you a chance?” Enzo nods, adoring how adorable you are, playing with his tie and looking all flustered. Just as Enzo is about to whisper something flirty you let go of the tie and push him away hard, making him stumble back a few steps. “I’m sorry Enzo, but you must be a bit slow, considering you haven’t caught on to the fact that I don’t like bullies like you. So go try and convince someone else to ‘give you a chance’.” 

Enzo is absolutely shocked and just stares at you as you walk to class. He’s so crushed and confused that he doesn’t notice everyone else in the hallway looking at him. When he finally does notice, he straightens his tie and forces a smile. He tries to come up with something funny to say to make the awkwardness surrounding him go away, but his mind is still stuck on you. 

Mattheo.

You stumble back, missing a step, but an arm wraps around your waist. “Careful there, love, you almost fell for me.” Your brain can’t process that it’s actually Mattheo’s voice you’re hearing until you see his signature smirk. “I’m-I’m sorry.” You whisper and look away from him, but his arm stays around you. “Don’t worry about it, I like saving pretty girls like you.” Your eyebrows knit together. Did Mattheo Riddle just flirt with me? A cocky wink answers the question you never asked.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to be going.” Mattheo nods. “Let me guess, potions? I’ll walk you. Make sure you don’t stumble and fall.” Why is he being nice? Mattheo shoves his hands in his pockets as he walks with you. There’s an uncomfortable silence as you nervously watch him from the corner of your eyen, not trusting the Slytherin at all.

“Soooo, I’m curious. If I were to ask you out, where should I take you?” You stop to stare at Mattheo, but you don’t say a word since you really have no idea what is going on in his head. “You’re really cute when you stare so quietly.” Mattheo whispers his soft eyes meeting yours. However, you just shake your head. “Last time I fell silent you didn’t think it was cute. You and your dumb friends mocked me.” Mattheo runs a nervous hand through his hair. “Not my best moment.” Mattheo admits sheepishly, making you frown at how he downplays his bullying. 

Not planning on spending another second in this idiot’s presence, you start walking again, but Mattheo doesn’t let you go very far. He reaches for your wrist and pulls you into him. You place a hand on his chest to steady yourself. “I was a bit of an idiot, but let’s just forget about that.” Mattheo whispers suggestively. “I promise I will make it up to you.” Mattheo adds when you don’t seem convinced. 

Now it was your time to play. 

You move your hand from his chest to the back of his neck. “And how would you make it up to me?” You ask, playing with his hair and almost making his eyes roll back. “Obviously I will spoil you rotten both on our date as well as afterwards.” You bite your lip at his words and press your chest against his. “That actually sounds tempting.” You whisper in his ear, letting your free hand trace his belt just to tease him. “Maybe we can just skip the date and find ourselves a broom closet right now.” Mattheo offers, confident that he has you wrapped around his finger. “We could.” You move your lips close to his, but just as Mattheo closes his eyes wanting to meet your lips you pull away. “Then again, I would rather sit through potions class and walk through hell than go out with you. Bye Matt.” 

And just like that Mattheo was left standing in the hallway, horny and needy for you, but nowhere near a date with you.

“Auch.” Mattheo immediately recognises Pansy’s amused voice. “Did you really think that after being an ass to her for months, a few minutes of smooth talk would get you with her?” Mattheo lets his head fall and sighs. “Pansy. How long have you been lurking?” Pansy just grins. “Long enough to see you make a fool out of yourself. Have fun simping for the girl that hates your guts.” Mattheo growls as Pansy walks away. I screwed this up so bad. How am I gonna win her over…

[jihyoruri]

❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ 𓍢 YOU’RE NO GOOD FOR ME (but baby i want you) huh yunjin x reader

↳ warnings idol au/band au, oc band, chaewon is stressed, yunjin doesn’t listen and is down bad, swearing

paranoia has been the name that yunjin and probably everyone else in the world have has been hearing since the band’s teaser photos were dropped.

it’s not everyday that a band makes it big in the kpop scene especially internationally as well, most people don’t pay much attention to them, paranoia sm entertainments first ever band definitely had everyone’s attention.

the band has been on billboards everywhere in korea, their music playing in every store, it’s not everyday you see a band with such various sounds of music get this much attention, but yunjin was loving it.

the band intrigued her, there were three of them two boys one girl, the girl intrigued her the most, how does she survive with living with two boys? how did she deal with the press? how was she so talented? how was she so talented does she like girls?

yeah maybe she has a little crush on the lead singer of paranoia, but it was never gonna happen…

that was until she found out she was chaewon’s childhood friend.

“you’re friends with paranoia’s totally not super hot lead singer?!” yunjin exclaims, “and you didn’t tell me?!”

“her name is yn.” chaewon states as she puts milk into her cereal, “and why is it such a big deal?”

“because she’s cool and you can introduce me to her.” yunjin said in a duh tone. “she’s also hot.”

“nope.”

“what?”

“you stay away from yn.” chaewon says pointing her spoon at yunjin, “and I mean it stay away from her.”

“what,” yunjin whined, “you’re no fun, don’t you want me to be in love to be happy.” she exits the kitchen and walks past sakura, “tell chaewon unnie that I deserve to be in love.”

“what’s that about love?” chaewon turns to see sakura walking into the kitchen rubbing her eyes tiredly.

“yunjin wants me to introduce her to yn.” she sighs, “never gonna happen.”

“why?”

“did you seriously just ask me why?” chaewon asks dramatically, “yunjin doesn’t take relationships seriously and we already know about yn, that’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

sakura nods understandingly, “yeah, they’d destroy each other.”

“exactly and I will do everything in my power to make such they don’t cross paths.”

✮✮

chaewon’s plans definitely did not go as planned.

she tensely watched as yunjin looked at the other side of the room where paranoia stood, yn standing between her two other band members as they listened to their manager give them a lecture about goofing around.

the band and the girl group were invited to a event and the huge difference between their behaviours were very apparent, one group had media and behaviour training the other obviously didn’t.

yunjin couldn’t help but smile as she watched the trio barely pay attention to their manager’s words making him manager even more annoyed, obviously fed up with dumb, dumber and dumbest he walked off and sat with the rest of the managers.

yunjin wonders how it feels to be them, they’re so carefree when it comes to their music and behaviours yet are still so successful and loved, they’re not held up to the standard that her and her group are held up to, if she acted how those three acted she’d definitely be blacklisted.

that would actually be a great conversation starter…

yunjin moves from where she’s standing to make her way to the band, more preferably yn but is stopped by chaewon’s hand, “no.”

“I’m just gonna say hi.” yunjin says brushing off the leaders hand, “I’m not going to do anything bad trust me.” and with that she heads to the trio.

“this girl…” sakura puts her hand on chaewon’s shoulder, “hey, calm down, maybe she really is just saying hi.”

yeah right…

as yunjin makes her way to the band, she can overhear their conversation, which makes sense cause they’re definitely the loudest in the room.

“he’s definitely on his last straw.” one of the guys known as wonbin says laughing, “his face was so red.”

“I actually thought this morning was his last straw, when jay blew up the toilet,” yn says hitting jaehyun’s stomach who shoots her a dirty look.

“in my defence, I swear the people at the restaurant put laxatives in my pasta,”

yunjin scrunch’s up her face in disgust but makes her way closer to the band anyway, she was starting to feel a little nervous but she didn’t want to give chaewon the satisfaction of her turning around.

when she stands in front of them wonbin is the first to look at her, while yn and jaehyun’s had their faces in jaehyun’s phone.

“uh hello?” he says causing the other two to look up.

“hey, I just wanted to say I’m like such a big fan of your music, it’s crazy how popular you guys got in such a short amount of time.” yunjin says her heart racing as yn’s eyes scan her.

“I would say like your music too, but I don’t listen to lesserafim,” jaehyun says shamelessly causing yn to hit his stomach again and wonbin reaches over to hit the back of his head both of them hitting him at the same time.

“ow! what the fuck, you guys so are abusive.” he whines.

“you open your mouth and stupid comes out.” yn shakes her head before giving yunjin a nod of acknowledgement, “what he meant to say is thank you.” she gives yunjin a charming smile which makes yunjin just want to melt into a puddle, “chaewon unnie has mentioned you a couple of times, it’s nice to meet you.”

“no problem, I actually saw your manager chew you guys out, it must be fun to be so carefree.” she says watching as yn adjusts her baggy jeans, the band were the only people at this event not dressed formally which made them stand out.

her eyes focus on the tattoos on yn’s hands and can’t help but open her mouth, “is that real.”

“yeah it’s real.” yn says, “and yeah he’s always on us, it’s honestly like our daily ritual to piss him off.”

yunjin couldn’t help but laugh at the girls words not even paying attention to the two boys who definitely caught on the why yunjin is actually talking to them, giving each other a look above yn’s head.

there’s silence and yunjin is starting to take in how awkward this is getting, “well, it was nice to meet you guys I’m gonna go get a drink, you guys should come.” she says to them but her focus was on yn.

“we’re good.” wonbin says, “but yn was talking about being thirsty so…” he pushes the shorter girl towards yunjin, almost making her trip on her big platforms.

“trying to get rid of me?” yn teases, “don’t go making out when I’m gone.” she says walking away with yunjin who can’t help but giggle like a school girl at every word yn says.

“I like hot chicks!”

“that’s what they all say!”

they walk over to the table with has the drinks, yunjin picks up a water passing yn one as well, she watches as yn leans against the wall beside the table opening the water bottle.

“so…” yunjin trails off, “how’s life of fame treating you? it must be crazy, you debuted what like three months ago and I can’t escape your faces on the streets.” she jokes mentally patting herself on the back when yn laughs at her words.

“it’s been fun honestly,” yn says tucking some of her hair back revealing yet another tattoo on her back which spells out paranoia in hangul, “experiencing having a fanbase is the most fun, it’s crazy seeing that much people love you.”

“lots of fangirls for you huh?”

“boys actually.”

yunjin eyes open in surprise, “that’s a shocker.”

yn adjusts the ring on fingers and looks up at yunjin, “how so?”

instead of answering yn’s question her eyes trail down to the tatted hand and then her neck, “how many tats do you have?”

“only three.” yn says taking a sip of her water.

“where’s the third one?”

“most people find out about it on the third date.” yn responds teasingly raising a brow at yunjin who feels her face heat up slightly.

“oh really?” the taller girl asks, “lucky aren’t they?”

“I like to think so.”

yunjin chuckles, she’s never met someone who can talk to her like how she talks to them, “will I be lucky like them?”

“you’re quite forward aren’t you?”

“I like to talk.” yunjin shrugs.

“let’s see if you can talk when I’m done with you.” yn says before laughing at the look of yunjin’s face, “I’m joking, chaewon unnie told me to stay away from you.”

yunjin opens her mouth to protest, but is cut off by yn patting her shoulder, “thanks for the drink.” and with that she walks back over to band members.

“shit.”

“what?” asks before following chaewon’s eyes that are looking at a breathless yunjin and a yn walking away from her, obviously in a completely different place from where the band was meaning they went off alone with each other.

“oh…”

[thewebcomicsreview]

https://pandorastale.com/

Okay, this one got submitted to me, so lets take a look.

Okay, first things first. This is a pretty solid first page. It immediately establishes our protagonist, an external conflict (”broken rules”) and an internal conflict (”What am I if I’m not obedient”) in three panels and fifteen words. This is a page that makes me want to read more. Good job!

This leads into a scene that we later realize is a few minutes ago, and I like that the first page was “smoky” like that, which made it feel more like an “intro page” than the actual page 1 of the story. If there had been a detailed background this transition would’ve been more jarring but as is it works.

Your getting a lot of mileage out of this art. I like that our unnamed trans catgirl is sitting with her legs crossed in a feminine way, and the way the director is covering the P in the sign in the background. HERE TO HELL!

Anyway, our catgirl escapes in a smokey pod while she has a think, letting us know we’ve “caught up” to the intro. Cool.

She’s found by a group of normal people who awkwardly explain to the black person that slavery is bad, which is an unfortunate blocking decision. Also, I feel like the preceding 16 pages did such a good job explaining the helpers that this exposition is redundant, and it makes Isabelle (who we soon learn is in “the resistance”) look a little dumb, like she joined an anti-slavery network but is only learning about slavery just now. This is kind of nitpicking, I know, but the comic’s been really smooth up until here and this has been the first speed bump I’ve noticed.

Okay, so, our protagonist is technomagically compelled to fall in love with Isabelle, who is also the most anti-slavery member of the group. There’s a lot to unpack there, and me saying that isn’t a criticism. 

Isabelle reveals this is a t4t romance and I’m not sure how I feel about the trans flag being in grayscale there. Like, the whole comic’s in greyscale, so it fits, but also the only way to tell it’s a trans flag is from context because otherwise it’s just kind of stripes.

On the other hand, even ignoring my shit ten-seconds-in-MS-Paint recoloring skillz, busting out the Sin City splash colors makes it really fourth wall breaking, but it’s literally a giant trans flag magically appearing so that ship’s sailed....but also if you ever want to print this book it’d be pain....but also also you could keep the spot colors in the book maybe....I dunno. I’m bouncing back and forth on it.

Anyway, Isabelle names her pet slave Pandora.They go to a doctor and are all “Can catgirls get HRT” and the Doctor’s all “Fuck if I know, let’s ball” and I’m not sure if that’s handwaving away a detail in the service of the main story or setting up Pandora having an allergic reaction that causes anime shenanigans to happen. Either/or in this comic

Pandora offers to be a sex slave and Isabella is like :| and they sleep next to each other in an awkward but happy embrace that feels like this comic could end there and be a complete short story, one that I’d say is pretty good.

There’s another six chapters, and I kind of skimmed them and I’m still a little iffy on the resistance side of the story, but at the least this is a pretty solid opening.

I got to admit, though,...I’m not super fond of the handling of the cops. Not that it’s Objectively Wrong, but I feel like they’re not quite bumbling enough to be comedy foils but they’re too bumbling to be dramatic threats so they’re just kind of there.

My subjective suggestion is think about making the cops even dumber. Having them come in guns ablazing as a serious threat like in the Matrix or whatever doesn’t seem like it’s the tone you’re going for, and you can always have the rich people have Elite Private Security if you need a scary competent villain later.

All-in-all, though, I think this is comic is well-done!

[devilsrecreation]

Outlander High School au

- Takes place in a human au with the characters having human names

- The Pridelands and the Outlands have a separate school district. The Pridelands HS is called “Pride Rock High” and the Outlands HS is called “Graveyard High”

- Simba has taken over as president, rivaling with Scar (who is alive in this au), who is in charge of the Outlands. After his eventual “retirement”, Shenzi took over

- Jasiri is the Student Body President, making sure everyone gets along well

- Janja and his friends look like goths due to their clothing choices, but personality-wise, they’re more like Skaters. Ones who often get into trouble, you know? Janja tries to act cool and impress Jasiri, but he ends up making a fool out of himself. Chungu and Cheezi are dumber than a bag of bricks and rely on Janja for a lot of things. Nne and Tano are doing well academically but tend to get sassy with their teachers. They’re regulars in detention.

Janja’s also a theater kid

- Reirei is the preppy, but sassy know-it-all who rubs her accomplishments in everyone’s faces. She and Janja are “friendly” rivals. They like to annoy each other.

- Kiburi, Tamka, Nduli, and Neema originally came from Pride Rock High, but got expelled due to a….dispute with Principal Simba and was stopped by Kion and his friends. They’re jocks who specialize in football and wrestling, but also have a few other special interests. Tamka and Neema are into theater, Nduli’s part of Art Club and is a gamer, and Kiburi’s musically talented and thinking about becoming a rapper. He listens to a LOT of rap

- Kenge’s the short-tempered outcast of the school. His bad home life has gotten him into trouble by becoming kind of a bully to people who comment about his size. He can either be a Buford or a Francis depending on your relationship with him. I also like to imagine him being like the main character from the game “Bully”

- Sumu’s your stereotypical nerdy, quiet kid who has a passion for true crime. There are a few rumors about how he’s either killed someone or is going to but nothing’s happened so far. He’s an outcast along with Kenge

- Goigoi’s a wallflower. Being one of the dumbest, but nicest kids in the school, he managed to find his own friend group in Chungu, Cheezi, Tamka, and Nduli. The group is affectionately called “The Idiots”

- The skinks are the popular kids who love to gossip and have tea on basically everybody. They can get away with a LOT of stuff

- Ushari’s a teacher (dunno what he specializes in yet) who is pretty much done with the kids in his class. He has a soft spot for the skinks and Kenge, who do well

- Mzingo’s a nerd who tends to be part of a lot of extracurricular activities. He and Mwoga run the debate team as well as being part of the student council

- Madoa’s the lovable geek and Jasiri’s biggest supporter. She usually hangs out at the library and is part of the Book, Fashion, and is a theatre tech

- All of the Outlanders have different living situations. To name a few:

Kiburi lives with his single father and his little sister, both of whom are disappointed at him (to say the least) for getting expelled from Pride Rock High

Njano lives with his older brother who takes care of him since their parents travel a lot

Kenge’s living situation is super abusive, which is the primary source of his anger

[oh-surprise-its-me]

Different version of daggers meet Jake's dads, but in the other au I'm writing (and squealing about!!)

They joked about roos being nepotism kid, having been raised by Mav (maybe mav and Goose, in an au where goose lives ❤️, but mav doesnt grow that much close to tom), and Jake obviously has Chris last name, no one connected to navy or anything. Until they see him break in the wildest grin that has mav reconsider everything cause fuck I know that grin, and shortly do grabby hands and running-crashing against the compacflt and his second in command and that small blond that is basically Jake but smaller and with tattoos.

Omg yes okay

So I’m writing this in the au of Chris x Ron x Tom just because I can.

Mav and Goose were leaning against the bar talking with Bradley. Everyone so far has made fun of him for being such the nepotism baby.

Mav noticed that Jake is the only one who hasn’t made a jab at him. Jake just keeps checking his phone.

He hears more people come into the bar, but Goose hits him. He turns and looks, shit is that Tom? And Ron Kerner? Who the hell is the blond under their arms?

Jake takes off from the group. He slams into them. Goose can’t help it he lets out a “what the fuck.”

Jake gets a kiss on the head from each man, he drags them back over. “Mav pretty sure you know who this is.”

God that little shit. “Hey Tom. Hi Ron. Hello blond man who is Jake in 20ish years.”

That gets a laugh out of Jake. He grins.

Oh fuck. That’s the grin Tom gave him in the locker room at top gun. Is Jake Tom’s kid?

“Mav meet my dads. Ron, Tom, and Chris Seresin.”

Goose snaps out of it before Mav does. “Good to see you guys again. Congrats on all the promotions.” He shakes everyone’s hands, “didn’t know you had a kid Tom.”

Tom smiles, he ruffles Jake’s hair, “yeah. Didn’t talk about it.” Jake smacks at his tata’s hand, “shut it.”

Bradley raises his hand from where he’s sitting behind them. Ron points “clone of Goose go ahead.” Bradley thinks for a second, “y’all can’t like permanently ruin me if I ask this right?”

Tom laughs. “Oh I can but I’ll let it slide tonight.”

Bradley nods. “Are y’all all together?”

Jake blinks at Bradley, “you’re dumber then you look aren’t you.”

“Jake I swear to god I don’t care that your dads are here I’ll kick your ass.” “I’d love to see you try Roo.”

Chris claps his hands together. “Boys!”

They both blush. “To answer Bradley’s question, yeah we are.”

Mav leans over to Ron. “Were you guys together when we were at top gun?”

Tom answers from where he’s leaning against Ron. “Kinda. Ron and I were hooking up but he was with Chris. Didn’t realize I could have both of them until Chris called me a fucking idiot and kissed me when we got back to Texas.”

Goose blinks. “Oh my god.” He points at Jake. “That’s why he has that evil grin you guys both have.”

Jake laughs. “You nailed it old man.”

Bradley blinks again. “Wait a second you’re also a nepotism baby!”

Tom glances at Jake, “he’s not wrong.” “Hey! Don’t agree!”

Mav tilts his head. “How the hell did I not know this?” Chris answers this again. “Wanted to keep him safe from the navy. Biology wise he’s my nephew, so we just kept our last name. Didn’t ever marry legally.”

Ron kisses the side of Tom’s head, “there was that hippy dippy wedding we did though.” Tom laughs and pulls Chris under his arm, “that was a fun wedding.”

They break off into chatting in polish, Jake tries to not hear what they’re saying. He smiles as he watches his dads. Bradley touches his elbow. “I’m sorry. I was a real dick.”

Jake laughs. He taps his fingers on Bradley’s chest. “Not like I was an angel but you had it coming. Needed you to jump off that cliff you were standing at.”

Bradley and Jake hug, Chris leans back and kisses both of his men. “Think he’ll be okay?” Ron tucks Chris in between them. “Yeah they’ll work it out.”

“Sexually.”

“Tom I swear to god.”

Chris laughs. “He’s not wrong it’s like watching you two.”

There’s a chorus of heys but Chris just keeps smiling. He catches the rest of the daggers looks. “Go on get me a drink, I think we’re about to be interviewed.”

[otherworldlyhope]

The Long Awaited Character Analysis

Arc 1 of the hermit zombie apocalypse au is now finished so I get to share all my little thoughts with you!! Just know that I might not be able to go as in depth with some of the characters as I do with others because they’re included in future arcs. If you don't want to hear me ramble about setting and morality, skip the first few paragraphs to get to the characters. But without further ado, let's get this started. 

Just a warning, this is pretty long so prepare yourself (like seriously). Also if you have any more questions just send an ask my way!

~ ~ ~

Setting: So when I first started writing I originally wanted this to be set in more of a countryside town so that the zombies weren’t the main focus of the story. Yes, this is a zombie apocalypse piece, but the first arc was always supposed to be about introducing characters and moralities, as well as focusing on some of the more niche topics in an apocalypse setting. I eventually came to the idea of having it be set in a city, but having the idea of hordes. 

The undead in this story have varying degrees of intelligence. While it’s unknown where the first wave came from, they are much smarter, and faster than any after them. As the infection is slowly passed down, the undead get dumber and slower, and eventually reach a herd mindset. The hordes are the biggest danger in the city, but thanks to Doc (the only good thing he really did) many of them have been contained or eliminated.

This solved my problem with having too much focus on the zombies, and created the perfect setting for this to take place. The city is very loosely based around Berkeley California. I figured it would be big, but not so big that there would be undead everywhere. Don't worry though, some later arcs will have some pretty heavy focus on the undead, so don't count it all out.

~ ~ ~

Morality: As mentioned in my notes on the fic, I don't like perfect characters. Every human is flawed in some way, and that makes characters no different. The interesting thing about this fic is that the simple human flaws that would be easy to ignore in real life are suddenly taken to the extreme. And not only are flaws blown out of proportion, but morality that would usually be deemed ‘good’ is not the way to live.

I will go a bit more into detail about the morality of certain characters later, but I wanted to make sure that not one person in this fic is perfect. Some characters may be easier to sympathize with, but none of them are objectively good. The whole point is that good has been turned in its head thanks to the nature of the apocalypse. 

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Watchers: I wanted to do something a little different with this fic and the Watchers. The idea is that the people reading this and those watching their series are the watchers of this fic. I’m still toying with the idea, but I really like the fact that the audience enjoys watching them play out so many different scenarios that they (mostly me really) shape and influence their stories a bit.

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Characters: (In order of when they appear in the fic, not in flashbacks)

Grian(21): The whole premise of Grian’s arc is that he’s observant beyond normal levels. It’s not explored much though, as he gets sick rather fast (another thing I wanted to showcase would very easily happen in an apocalypse situation). Still, it creates an idea that he’s not very good at making friends, making his group of trusted people rather small.

The thing about Grian is that he’s fiercely protective of the people that he trusts. When he’s figured a person out completely, he almost feels bonded to them. Because of this, he places their safety over his from that point on. He only gets more stressed the more people he feels he needs to protect (something that will be shown in later arcs). 

Grian is a realist though. He understands just how dangerous the world they are in is, and he constantly is taking into account the steps necessary to keep his group from danger. When he falls from that roof everything is thrown into chaos. Not only is he actively fighting a major infection and injuries, but he feels responsible for his group no longer being safe. Scar relieves some of that stress a bit, being the absolute goof he is, but it’s still not much. Throughout the weeks with Scar he’s finally able to relax just a bit, and understand that maybe he’s not right about everything. 

Morality wise, Grian likes to think that he’s a good person. Once again, he is a realist, so when the idea came to him to set traps for Doc’s people he went with it quickly. It was the only way to protect his group, but it constantly is tugging at his conscience. He still believes that good people are out there, and that he might be one of them, but if he and they are not. then he will make sure none of them can get to his family.

Scar(22): Scar is a strange one, putting it simply. His upbringing made him grow up a lot faster than most kids did, and so when he was only 16 he started working for Doc. He was a collection boy who would run deliveries and collect any money or goods that Doc needed. Many of his older scars stem from fights and close calls he had through his years working for Doc.

The only reason he stayed with the Perimeter after the first wave was because of Cub. His brother meant the world to him, and he always felt he owed Cub for everything he did for Scar. Cub’s death absolutely rocked Scar’s world, and he spent months in his apartment, simmering. When he finally realized that he could make allies and receive great supplies from arms dealing, he jumped on the chance. By this time Doc had completely set up the Perimeter's tight security, but Scar had some friends on the inside willing to sneak him in and out.

He took everything he learned from Doc and used it to supply those against him. Not only that, he developed an alter ego, The Joker, who took every chance to destroy Doc’s work. In his mind, it was revenge for Cub, and it turned him into an unbreakable wall with a devilish smile and charm. 

Over the course of the fic Scar starts to realize that maybe he doesn’t need to be that person anymore. Thanks to Grian he is able to heal a bit from Cub and be close enough with another person that his humanity starts to show again. He’s a very touchy person, and so the second he’s able to be around other people, he doesn’t want to let go.

Scar’s morality is pretty set in stone. He doesn’t think he’s a good person, and not a single person left is. He fakes optimism at every turn, but deep down he believes that good is something that doesn’t really exist anymore. His conscience died with Cub, and most guilty thoughts are immediately pushed away. Every once in a while he will realize that he’s out of line, but for the most part he’s able to justify his actions with the idea that good is simply a construct.

Etho(22): Etho is a firm believer of revenge. Arc 3 is solely dedicated to this idea of Etho’s revenge, and much of his background, but I can share that he’s had an interesting relationship with it since childhood. As a seemingly mild mannered Canadian, he uses that fact to his full advantage whenever he can. A lethal fighter, Etho is easily able to dispatch both undead and people without a second thought. 

He firmly believes that he is a runner, not a protector, at least until he meets Bdubs. Before meeting Bdubs, Etho was alone, and he did many things that... aren’t exactly the nicest to say the least. His gun bears the marks of every person he’s killed, a fact that he never shared with Bdubs. Morality is not much of a concern to Etho. He makes decisions and he sticks with them. Whatever consequences that come are simply what happens.

His characterization will be much more detailed in his own personal arc which, I’m telling you right now, is the one I’m most excited for.

Bdubs(23): The thing about Bdubs is that he’s a very energetic person. Before the apocalypse he was an art major, but not really. He constantly blew off classes to go out and party. Being social is what makes Bdubs feel alive. When the wave hit, he quickly grouped up with anyone he could find. He constantly jumped ship when it seemed like his group was going down, and that’s when he met Doc. 

The story behind Tango’s stabbing and Bdubs’ betrayal is all shared in arc 2 so I can’t tell it quite yet. It does cement the one trait about Bdubs that stays constant in this; he will do anything that is convenient for him, and will betray anyone to get what he wants. This makes his morality a little shady because he is practically loyal to no one except himself, and won’t hesitate to send someone towards their death because of it. 

Etho seems to be the only one that combats that. Something about Etho’s nature makes Bdubs want to help him as well. In the months that they are partners, both sort of repress the traits that initially helped them survive. Together they survive by teamwork instead of betrayal and revenge, which I think is pretty neat. 

Pearl(23, barely): Initially Pearl was the middle child in the family, but in order for her to be as advanced in her degree as I wanted, she had to be the oldest. She very easily falls into the traits of the middle child, as opposed to Grian who takes on the role of protector. She’s a very impulsive person, which helped her normally, but in the apocalypse kind of screws her over a lot.

Despite her medical knowledge, she doesn’t really feel all that well suited for the apocalypse. She believes the one thing that she has going for her is that red haze that has helped her survive time and time again.

That’s not the only weird thing she notices. She often dreams of a forest, a bloodstained axe in her hands. Every time she wakes all she can hear is 'something wicked this way comes' ringing in her ears. Pearl isn’t very superstitious, but she can’t help but believe that she was a warrior or something in a past life. 

Pearl is also obsessed with the moon. On nights she doesn't dream of a forest, she dreams of the moon. Sometimes she’s running across the surface, sometimes she can hold it in her hands, but the moon is always her friend.

Her morality isn’t nearly as complicated as the others. She sees what her group does as a necessary evil, and that’s all. Despite having gone into health, she never really got to the point where she felt the need to take care of everyone around her. Depending on how good of a person you are to her, she will treat you accordingly. She will be getting a bit more characterization in arc 2 and possibly beyond.

Mumbo(20): Mumbo often believes that he should have died the first day when the zombies crashed into the science building. He’s not a great fighter, or a runner really. His talents lie in creating, and he creates some wild things in the course of this au. Because of this, he’s pretty harsh on himself, but he brings the group something really nice; level headedness. 

Both Pearl and Grian are stubborn, even though Grian won’t admit it, and so Mumbo brings a nice balance to their insanity. He’s often creating something, so he’s always able to just be there to be around. While he may be a little awkward to talk to, he always has the best advice. 

Despite his nervous tendencies, he handles himself rather well when it comes to the zombies and people. His height, and put together appearance is often rather intimidating to others. He will never admit that he owns over a hundred of the same white shirt either, and every time they pass his old apartment he restocks. (There was a sale once a year at his favorite shop and he bought at least 20 shirts every time.) Honestly he doesn’t even really want to wear it all the time, he just finds it funny now.

He is a very cut and dry guy morality wise. He doesn’t like death or killing people, but if it's necessary to survive he’ll do it. Killing zombies is never really a problem to him though, he never once saw them as people anyways.

Ren(25): Ren is a long time member of very seedy groups around the city. Similarly to Scar he started getting into the crime side of the city fairly young. Unfortunately he didn’t just do ‘deliveries’ and was often right in the action, seeing and doing awful things. Because of this, the group he was in had a lot of receipts and proof of his deeds. Even when he eventually wanted to leave, he was unable to due to all the proof against him.

This is the reason that Ren very quickly became loyal to Doc. Instead of expecting him to do the dirty work, Doc did it himself. Ren’s loyalty is almost detrimental to him at times though. Often he puts himself in far too much danger, forgetting that he is so high up in ranks. In his mind he’s still a low level grunt that does what the bosses tell him to. 

Oftentimes he is compared to a guard dog. Thanks to years of experience, he has no problems threatening and killing those that oppose him. He is unwavering in his allegiance to Doc, until he starts to remind him just a little bit too much like his old group. Over the course of just a few weeks Ren starts to realize that Doc may not be the person he wants to protect. 

Ren’s morality is rather questionable as he’s never really had a person in his life showing him what’s right. Because of this, he never really realized just how screwed up Doc’s worldview was until it got really extreme. Only when Martyn and him start to become friends does he realize that Doc isn’t having Ren do good things. More on those two in a later fic though.

Doc(26): Doc is one of the more complex characters in the sense that he genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing. Even before the apocalypse he saw nothing wrong with his crimes behind the scenes. In his eyes the government was corrupt and his ideals were the right way to do things.

With this mindset he got himself into a lot of trouble though. After a rather nasty war with another crime group he lost his hand to the leader, Dinnerbone. (He killed him though, a feat everyone thought was impossible) Doc is a very smart guy, so he ended up building himself an entirely new arm from scratch, only coming back better from the fight. Because of his power and determination, his people are extremely loyal to him. 

When the zombies hit, he quickly realized that he could capitalize on this. His vision is to have the entire city under his thumb much like how he envisioned it before the apocalypse. This vision quickly gets many people on his side, and only grows his ego. Only when he finds out that Jimmy is a traitor does he begin to realize that maybe he doesn’t have everything under control.

Grian only irks him more. Being the brother of one of the few people to slip under his radar, he quickly sets his sight on him. His obsession with catching both Grian and The Joker (unknowingly Scar) starts to drive him insane. He starts to make small mistakes, which slowly leads to large cracks and distrust in his preciously built organization. It all falls apart at the Buttercup takeover, and he finally takes one last shot at Grian and fails.

His sense of morals is all but gone by this point in time. The only lives he cares about are those that are useful to him. The only person he sees as an actual person is Ren, everyone else is simply a chess piece for his victory. Because of this he feels no shame using them to further his goals. The only reason he gets so offended at Grian killing them is that it creates a loss in numbers.

Impulse(26), Skizz(27), Zedaph(25): This group and the Buttercup Resistance will be explored and explained in the second arc, but let me tell you, their dynamic is so good.

There are some more characters I haven't mentioned, but their stories will be thoroughly explained in later arcs. So far I’ve got a general idea of how the arcs will go, but it may be subject to change so don't take this as fact yet.

Arc 1- Grian and Scar (introduction of most characters)

Arc 2- Tango and Jimmy (Empires introduction and start)

Arc 3- Etho (y’all better be ready for this one)

Arc 4- Ren and Martyn (we're going back to third life for this one)

Arc 5- Joel and Lizzie (Along with Empires crew)

Arc 6 and on????

[sophiethewitch1]

Chpt. 11 - The Little Prince

Word Count: 2.9k

A/n: Please dm or send in an ask if you’d like to be added to the taglist for this series! Also, just for fun:  .-- .... .- - / -.. --- . ... / .. - / ..-. . . .-.. / .-.. .. -.- . / - --- / --. --- / - .... .-. --- ..- --. .... / -.. .-. ..- --. / .-- .. - .... -.. .-. .- .-- .- .-.. ..--..

After the bath, you settle Asa into bed, tucking him deep under his blankets. He purrs, nuzzling into his pillow. One sleepy smile later, and he’s already completely knocked out. That was definitely one thing you envied about him, that he could fall asleep in seconds. You’d always been the type of person to stay up late into the night, fretting away. And it was quite late, as Asa struggled to get to sleep before midnight.

You sigh, tucking your cold palms underneath your thighs. It was getting colder and colder, but you were inside a well-insulated home with a fireplace crackling nearby. Maybe doing the impossible was making you extra tired or something. That was why you felt a shiver across your skin.

Putting your freezing hands in your worn jacket pockets, you push to your feet and wander out of the room. Knowing Hag, she’d probably be waiting impatiently for a chance to jump you with questions. You didn’t have any answers. Still, she was one of the only ways you learnt anything, even if more often than not she didn’t have any either.

You whistle a low tune as you move through the hallways, eyeing the few guards you pass. They’ve been taught not to salute you, but they still froze every time they saw you. They’d straighten against their posts, smacking colleagues awake from sleep like you had the right to scold them or something. Creel’s lackeys didn’t understand the relationship you had with him, and they probably never will. It was not like you really understood it either. You didn’t understand a lot of things.

Anyway, rumours spread like weeds in Creel’s compounds, despite his attempts to cull them. ‘Who were you to Creel?’ they all wondered. A superior? A friend? A - gag - lover? Obviously not the last one. You wondered if Creel the robot even felt romantic or sexual attraction, seeing as he barely felt emotions at all. In the end, Creel always just said you were his saviour, but as everyone else but him knew, that didn’t actually answer any questions.

Questions, questions, questions. So many questions. Usually, you’re pretty good at not thinking about them, but apparently, the latest wonder is enough to make even wary you curious. Probably not a good thing.

You weren’t dead. That was a good thing. Your thoughts were getting dumber and dumber in real observable time. Jesus, it was cold. Your body ached and your fingers stung. Rubbing your palms together, you hurry along down the winding hallways and move to the open area Creel brought you to earlier.

You can already hear the bustling of people before you enter the room, and when you do, you can instantly tell what they’re all doing. Running. Creel would call it a ‘tactical retreat’ or something, but you knew what it was. Despite your unfortunate habit of pissing off every vampire you met, you still knew what you were to them. Prey.

And these prey were scattering. From your view above near the stairwell, you can see them working like ants. Scurrying back and forth in a hectic manner that makes you tired just looking at it. Soldiers move in tight groups, while non-combatants quickly pack up everything you can see. Food and water, ammo and other supplies. All of it was being tucked away into little boxes and then rushed out of the main entrance into the snow. The cold wind pushes tiny flakes inside, and again you shiver. You clench your fingers and opened them rapidly to get more blood pumping to them. But even that tried and true method doesn’t warm you up.

Some guard runs past you, and you duck to the side. They don’t even bother to send a thank you as they go by, which must mean things are very dire. You glance over the room once again, mouth pulling in a frown when you find Creel. Sure, you were looking for him. That didn’t really mean you wanted to find him, though.

You head down the stairs, carving a path through the chaos. Nobody notices you, just like the grunt from earlier. You’re starting to get nervous. Sure you could understand fleeing, but as you take in the expressions of the workers around you, your stomach tightens. Ranging from nervous to some near hysterical, none of it is good.

You find yourself standing silently beside Creel, as he clearly and confidently guides his people. Your nerves ratchet up even higher when he barely greets you. Teeth clenched, you wait patiently for a chance to talk to the entire operation’s commander. Even while everyone moves at top speed, it still takes a while for you to get a chance to speak to him.

Finally, he turns to you, black eyes finding your gaze instantly.

“(Y/n), how are you this morning?”

You give him an incredulous look, before gesturing around you. “Are you going somewhere soon?” you end up asking, deciding to ignore his incredibly stupid question. Seeing as it is probably somewhere around two am, it wasn’t really what you considered ‘morning’.

Creel’s eyes flick to the side, before going straight back to yours, “Yes, we’re hoping to leave this compound as soon as possible.”

“Okay, why are you leaving?”

He pauses. “The battalions are scouts found earlier are heading straight to our location.”

Well, you’ll be damned, Creel displaying subtlety. It makes your face twist into a strained smile. It’s still obvious why the blood-suckers are heading this way, and it makes your neck itch so bad it almost stings. Your hand twitches, but you don’t let yourself scratch at it. Don’t want to draw any attention.

“Why aren’t you just kicking me out, then?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he says, and you take a deep breath.

“I know, Creel.”

He doesn’t ask why you asked. Because he refuses to do anything that makes sense.

“Will you be coming with us?” he instead asks, and your eyes move back to the crowd.

Safety in numbers, but bringing these people into your problem? You would guess most of the humans here would be willing, if not eager, to fight against the vampires you now had chasing you. But you weren’t interested in starting a war. You’d seen enough of those.

“That seems a little selfish.”

“I disagree. We’re prepared for the battle, we’re just moving to a more strategically defensible position,” he tells you, and you snort.

Up on top of a mountainside in snowstorm weather? Even one of their kind would find a hike like that difficult, and getting vehicles up without being shot down sounded impossible. A tank wouldn’t be able to make the tight turns necessary on the icy, windy roads. The vampires would be able to camouflage easily in the snow, but the lodge had multiple good viewing points.

No, they were running away. Creel was gathering as many soldiers as he could, and he was likely planning to use them as a wall of flesh while squirrelling you away from the danger. Now that - that was selfish.

“I’m not letting these people die, Creel.”

He grunts, his ever-present stare moving from you for but a moment. The commander surveys his troops and evidently finds them lacking from the way his mouth pinched. You can understand why. Though they move smoothly and rationally, they are still human. A woman trips over a cable before righting herself. One of the younger soldiers has a blatant panic attack in the corner, tears streaming down his face. All of them are nervous, even the ones who hide it well. And that base fear, the one humans biologically couldn’t rid themselves of, the one that had kept them alive for thousands of years before, was now a giant beacon. Vampires loved the smell of fear, and you all were a delicious feast.

“People die every day, (Y/n).”

“Not because of me,” you protest. Because they would, if you went with him.

“Not because of you,” he mutters, before turning back to you. Those eyes feel like they pin you to the ground, “You have a bleeding heart. Let me help you or at least let us follow you.”

You go quiet, grinding your jaw.

“Please,” his words are soft. He was right, you did have a bleeding heart. Despite the fact that you hated him, you still cared for him in some weird, messed-up way.

You knew Creel. You’d known him for years. You knew if you didn’t let them follow, he’d probably disappear and sneak after you himself. He didn’t care about his responsibilities, his people, himself or his own safety. You sometimes wondered if he even cared about Asa, even though he was so sweet on him.

You didn’t think he knew how to care about anything but you. It was distressing to the highest degree. Even after all this time, all you could think to do was run. You’d learnt long ago that in fight or flight, you should always choose flight if you could. Run until the last moment, and then fight with everything you had. Viciously, ferally. Unhinged in a way only you could be.

Unfortunately, Creel wasn’t the only one chasing anymore. And you weren’t fast enough.

Your hand lifts to rub at the tense muscles along your neck, and you barely stop yourself before you humiliate yourself in front of hundreds of people. Cursing, you clench your fists in your hoodie’s pockets.

“I… need to go, Creel. I need to get ready, or we’ll be stuck up here alone,” you say, even though it’s all bullshit because you know Creel would instantly change his mind and stay here if you didn’t leave. All of it was bullshit. This was all bullshit.

You turn on your heel and run. You hear him call your name through the crowd, but you slip away before he can catch you. Not even thinking, you let your feet guide you. The sound of the crowd is slowly replaced by rough footfalls against the crunchy, snowy carpet. You only stop when you can no longer hear anything but the sound of your own accelerated breathing.

You find yourself in an abandoned hallway. The sun is beginning to filter in through the windows, the shine against the snow making you squint. The sound of a crackling fire faintly registers when your breathing levels, and you turn to it. You don’t know what lures you, the warmth, or the punishment of your own fear.

You step through a decorated wooden archway, finding a small library or office on the other side. The fireplace is small, barely enough to keep the cold away, and not nearly enough to scare you. You’re not sure if that disappoints you or not. You turn away from it, deciding not to stick your hand in the open flame, and instead examine the rest of the room.

Books line the walls, and your mouth opens at the sight of so many of them. Books from the before world, human books, without plagiarism and without oppression, were inconceivably rare. And before you were so many of them.

You walk up to the shelf. Some parts are dusty, while some are clean, having been used recently. Your freezing fingers lift, pads drifting along the feeling of rough leather and canvas as you walked. You traced gold filigree and words you could barely read, ones mostly taught to you by Asa and Hag. They’re all hundreds of years old, and you know from experience they could fall apart at a touch. Still, you can’t help yourself. Curiosity in this age could get you killed, and you did everything you could to push down that natural instinct of yours. But today it was strong, because…

Because you were pushing down other instincts.

You sigh, pulling your mind from Creel. The evacuation wouldn’t be ready for a few hours, so you still had time to procrastinate. Running, again. It ground against you. You were prideful, in every way. That was an instinct you’d never succeeded in suppressing. Even though a smarter person would accept Creel’s help, would choose to look out for themselves and let others fall by the wayside, you simply couldn’t do it.

You were prideful. You were stubborn. You’d changed your mind exactly once in your life, and that moment had a name. Asa. You weren’t keen on doing it again.

Your feet abruptly halt, and you find yourself focusing on the book in front of you. ‘The Little Prince’ ran down the side of the book in delicate, curling letters. There was a little drawing of a little boy, with yellow hair and a yellow scarf, standing on a rocky outcrop. Your nail taps against the edge of the thin book. Once, twice, and then you give in and slide it out of the shelf.

The cover is similar to the side, with the tiny slice of art of the boy expanded upon. There’s an orange fox, a rose, and numerous stars in the sky. The rocky, craterous floor he’s standing on is round like he’s balancing on a giant ball.

“I thought you might pick that one, podzhigatel.”

The familiar voice has you jolting, slamming the book tight against your chest. When the Hag laughs at you, your cheeks heat and your arms relax. You’d clutched it to you like it was a treasure of some kind, and even now, heavily embarrassed, you can’t seem to put it back. So instead, you hide the book behind your back and turn a stern glare onto the old woman.

“Ah, don’t look at me like that. I had to take the opportunity, it’s so rare I get a chance to see you flustered. Someone so young shouldn’t worry so much, you know?”

You roll your eyes at her words. How could you not worry? She spoke as if it was something you could turn on and off, and even if you could, you would never turn it off. If you didn’t need to sleep, you doubt you ever would. Another reason you hated those damn bloodsuckers and their bodies that hardly needed any maintenance.

“What are you doing here?”

“Talking to you, of course. You always need my advice,” she teases, knowing exactly what buttons to push to rankle. It takes more energy than you have right now.

“I absolutely do not need your advice. You are the last person on earth I’d take advice from.”

“Even if your little prince is in danger?”

Your breath sucks in, shoulders squaring. “What did you say?”

She smirks, canting her head to the book in your hands.

“It’s astounding that someone like you could truly love that boy. Fate works in mysterious ways, I suppose. And the balance has been tipped for far too long,” she looks almost contemplative when she whispers that last sentence, before giving you another crazy smile and turning to the windows.

“Are you talking about Asa?” you demand her to answer you, stomping over to her side.

She sighs, before glancing up at you, her hunch back making her shorter than she must have been when she was young.

“You’re too impatient, too impulsive. If you are not careful, malen'koye sokrovishche won’t be all you lose,” she tsks, waving a finger at you, “Your lifeforce is weaker than his, you know. If you’re going to do so much worrying, worry about yourself for a change.”

“How is Asa in danger?” you try instead, and she sighs.

“Who would you choose, Creel or Asa?”

You blink, head rearing back in confusion. Where had that change in topic come from?

“Asa, obviously,” you answer, your voice hesitant, not for your choice, but for the Hag’s dwindling sanity. She was getting worse. And that was dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

She sighs again, obvious disappointment in her gaze. “I thought so. Do you ever do what you’re supposed to, child?”

She looks back out the window. A small snow flurry has started, dusting the pine trees crowding the view from outside. If you squint, you can see more people. They go back and forth, ferrying things into the caravan of stolen military vehicles. You wonder if Creel’s out there in the snow, and shiver. You were not excited to be going out there anytime soon.

The Hag glances at you, squinting her eyes. For a moment, they almost look milky, like she’s turned blind, and then her expression relaxes, and her brown eyes are back.

“Cold, are we?”

“Not particularly,” you lie, steeling yourself so you don’t shiver again.

She grunts, tucking her hands behind her back.

“I’ll give you some advice if you let me poke at that mark of yours,” she offers, and your first reaction is to deny her vehemently, hand raising in protest. And then the image of Asa, tucked tight in bed, flashes through your mind. Your hand drops back to your side.

“Is it about Asa?” you ask one more time, resolving to leave if she doesn’t answer you.

She grins at you, dark eyes sparkling and her smile, with all it’s missing teeth, flashing.

“It’s about all of us. Including Asa.”

“…Fine then, but make it quick,” you concede, and irritatingly, she doesn’t even look surprised. She gives you a nod, before extending her hand to guide you out of the room. You weren’t excited for this, either.

“I always do, podzhigatel.”

-

NEXT CHAPTER

[talenlee]

The Mormon Shelf

The first thing you learn about that’s a problem for your faith, you can put it aside. It depends on how it gets put aside; sometimes they’re solved, sometimes they’re explained, sometimes they’re harrumphed, sometimes it’s a thing you’ll get around to later. The point is, you have a shelf, you have a place for all those doubts, all those ideas that you know are a problem and that have never been satisfactorily dealt with. Eventually, the shelf becomes overburdened, it creaks, and then…

One day, when you put something new on it…

It breaks and it all comes tumbling down.

This is about doubt.

This isn’t my metaphor; it’s a metaphor I picked up from listening to ex-Mormons, or Former Mormons, or most funly, Formons, talking about their own deconstructions. It’s so common that I can hear on seemingly unrelated podcasts the phrase of ‘you know, my Mormon Shelf.’

It isn’t a Mormon exclusive thing, though. The thing it describes, the phenomenon it’s about is a true thing for a whole category of Christians. Unconsciously as I write that I realise I did seem to separate Mormons from Christians, which isn’t entirely fair to do. Mormonism is a type of Christianity, as well-established and as traditionally focused as the Evangelical Independent Baptist movement that raised me. I mean it’s not like they’re Catholics.

Joking about the many regional variants of Christianity like they’re Pokemon skins aside, these forms of faith have a very common set of trends in them where members of those communities will often undergo an extremely traumatic transition away from the church, known commonly as ‘deconstruction.’ It used to be called ‘heresy’ and we got cool imagery to go with it while now we talk about it like it’s an engineering project and a psychological trauma, which is less cool but benefits from being actually pretty accurate. There’s also less of the tarring and feathering or stakes and burning depending on which Christian grouping it is that was mad about you doing it.

One of the things about Deconstruction is that we are largely, socially induced people who are used to a communal experience of sharing a worldview and talking about that as a form of reinforcement. This process then often involves us doing things that are recognisably meaningful to us without necessarily interrogating where we get them from, and the ‘deconstruction story’ part of any given podcast is inevitably a form of what in-group Christians refer to as ‘testimony.’

In this testimony form, we tell the story of how we came to not believe.

There are plenty of people who have sharp, dramatic breaks. Sometimes deeply traumatising ones, setting aside the trauma of changing your mind about the believability of an incredibly complex worldview. It’s not a matter of smart or stupid, by the way — a common phrase used by a former Christian Paulogia is ‘I didn’t get one IQ point smarter or dumber when I left the fiath.’ It’s about a realignment of understanding, which is especially effecting when it involves considering an immense part of your life is wrong, and that that wrongness will bring with it painful social consequence.

There is a detail to all of this that I think is important. When the shelf falls, what falls on the ground, what needs dealing with now, are books. They are still things, still questions that are possible to interrogate. This is one of the reasons why many former Christians wind up becoming heavily invested in conversationsa bout Christianity; because they have their questions that were not answered satisfactorily, and, freed from the need to set those questions aside, they can explore them and come to understand some really interesting things. The Bible as a book is so much more interesting when you aren’t treating it as infallible.

There’s another element of it though, which is that the shelf is an object, and in this metaphor it is entirely possible to keep reinforcing that shelf, or to deal with the things piled on it one at a time. This is one of the reasons why there are people who are ostensibly very serious religious leaders who, when encountering Biblical criticism will usually respond with something to the effect of ‘so?’ Not your John Hagees and your Kenneth Copelands, not those grifters, but a lot of well intentioned, sincerely convinced believers know all the same things I know and they don’t find the aggregated coincidences and the fallibility of human experience and material demands to be compelling.

A useful way to consider this then is to think that these worldviews were not overloaded. They were introduced, step by step, to scaffolding ideas. Consider how many Christians think criticisms of the Bible have been answered, and then, hey, why are you bringing this up? What’s the big deal about these ideas, we handled this a long time ago?’ If you look at these ideas without the assertion that they’re true, without the scaffolding, without the apologetic superstructure around you, it looks very different. But when you have the scaffolding, when your shelf is reinforced, you don’t even realise that’s what you’ve got. You can even notice it in the way that the arguments themselves get referred to with in-group terms. ‘Minimal facts,’ or ‘Undesigned Coincidence’ or god help you ‘Divine Command theory.’

These terms, these ideas are there to make the shelf stronger, they’re there to hold things together so you don’t find yourself having to confront ideas like ‘what if people made shit up’ and ‘what if people were mistaken,’ or god help you, ‘what if slavery, genocide, and sexual assault are bad?’ Doing that, that’s dangerous. That’s putting undue weight on the shelf. That’s being unfair to the book. And these people will swallow camels and then strain at gnats trying to find the right misunderstood diacritic that means actually, this line of text here refers to something else, because there’s a line next to this symbol that I definitely, definitely understand.

The books stay where they are, the implications of their truths, the weight they hold forever ignored.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[the-cat-chat]

September 23, 2023

Friday the 13th (1980)

A group of camp counselors trying to reopen a summer camp called Crystal Lake, which has a grim past, are stalked by a mysterious killer.

JayBell: Okay I have some things to say about this movie. I want to start by saying the music is pretty epic. But here's the thing--the music is almost too intense for the actual events shown on camera. The music deserves a better movie.

The movie follows a group of young people, but honestly, their characters are without distinct personalities and they all blend together in my mind. The only people that stand out are Alice, simply because she's the survivor, and Ned because he's insufferably annoying. Side note, Ned disappears and gets killed offscreen (good riddance) but then the rest of them don't even wonder where he is for hours and hours?

Now let's discuss Alice and the final fight with mommy dearest. First off, the bad guy (spoilers!) just turns out to be a little old lady. And not even a superpowered, superstrong one either (like seriously how'd she stab through a bed like that with her spindly arms?). Just a normal, crazy lady (albeit possessed or in communication with Jason). So a young, fit woman versus an old lady shouldn't be that difficult of a fight. The final fight I think is almost stupid. Alice manages to knock out old lady and instead of tying her up or anything, she just runs away, and the old lady just gets up and finds her again. This happens more than once, and you'd think that Alice would change her approach, but no. Also, it appears that Alice has the chance to drive away in a car at one point, but because she sees a dead body in the car, she runs away. Girl, just push the dead body over and drive the dang car!!

Anyways, you can see this movie makes me frustrated. With that said, I'm glad we watched it simply because you've got to watch the "classics" at least once to say you did.

Rating: 4.5/10 cats 🐈

Anzie: I don’t know what possessed me (hehe) to wanna watch this for our kickoff spooky season movie, but the second I thought it I was like yesss!

Never seen it? Check.✔️

Classic slasher movie? Check. ✔️

Potential 80s Cringey Radness?

Checkcheckcheck.✔️

Ummmm, but yeahhh. I reallly don’t know how to feel. Like it was SOMETHING. But what exactly? Pls nobody murder me plllsss. 👹 First and foremost, I know it’s a scwwaaary summer camp in the woods- this guy- this guy!?!? I did the math- all the little gossips are like “he sank $25,000 into the camp,” ummmm so why does it feel you could get tetanus just thinking about the camp. Bc that’s a whole lotta cheese today and whatever his name that owns it bc I legit forget- all that comes to mind is Willy?? Was too busy with his serial killer vibes and mustache to not literally set up the perfect scene for horrific events.

Anyyyway I was so mad the whooooole movie like “what are these idiots thinking?” They’re all like having a chill good time like they wouldn’t get the heebie jeebies being there- then all the friends suddenly drop like fly, and it’s no big dealio Right? Until it’s a real big dealio. And I was irritated and I know this can’t be helped at all bc mostly I’m kinda peeved it’s the 80s. Bc it feels like it makes them dumber. No one’s checking the phone like let’s try calling for help. Or drive these idling car out of here. Or here’s one - I’m no runner- But I’d be running like a gazelle away from Granny. (We’ll revisit her). Even if it was 10 MILES. And theeeeeennnn to get in a boat. Knowing the kid who has *spoiler 40 years later* drowned in that lake you put said boat into. And yah know what?? Fall asleep. Sounds good.

The movie wasn’t scary at all how I imagined it was going to be. Until Jason’s mother entered the chat. She was horrific, kinda reminded me of my grandmother. Ummm but she was loco. And I’m still stunned like did she lose it, is Jason possessing her, is it a little of both. But it’s fine bc she was terrifying and I really didn’t expect it to be Jason’s mom, even tho I’ve heard this and that about the movies over time.

The music!!! Was so nerve racking- im anxious just recalling it- but until Jason mom is on the screen it’s really a waste. Bc like I said all the camp counselors are bumbling doofs and nothing they did or happened seemed to match the mood and level of fear in the music.

* just a few side notes. Two things- why was the Kevin Bacon sex scene so weird and slow and long. I could’ve done without. But I guess it’s to throw you off the scent for what happens after. Annnd that head chop. Okkkay. Wowzers.

I know this is a collection of unhinged ranting but that’s how I’ve felt thinking about it all week since we watched it. And I also am just confused about the lore and story of Jason that I feel a need to watch the other movies in the franchise. Buuutttt idk. That’s a concerning thought. I think it was a solid slasher movie. But do I necessarily get the big hype that it’s the best ever???? (That’s probs Jason takes Manhattan)

Rating: 4.5/10 👻 Ghosts

[aristoteliancomplacency]

You’re absolutely right that there’s clear hyperbole going on in that tweet thread, but you have to be feeling very uncharitable indeed to claim that the worry of ‘reverting to where AI is’ is an indulgent statement that ‘doesn’t mean anything.’ It’s really very easy to understand what the student meant - the exact meaning is explained within that same tweet (along with how they’re defining ‘dumber’). She is referring to loss of ability / practice in thinking critically.

Given that they’re doing this for an assignment I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re drawing that claim from an article like this. Which certainly makes it sound far less knee-jerk and more like a response which has some logical and calm thought behind it. Concerns about impact on critical thinking skills, it turns out, are indeed a totally legitimate concern to have. (Brain atrophy is another thing, of course, which sounds more like a term first year students might bandy around without fully understanding it).

Of course, you’re fully entitled to your interpretation but on that particular point I’d suggest you’re being as reactionary as you’re an accusing them of being and engaging in a very bad faith interpretation. They’re very, very clearly not talking about AI as a field of study. C’mon.

‘But everyone in my peer group that I know knows way more about this’ is a sentiment that will often be true (or its opposite will be). I am constantly surprised at what, in turns out, most people my age don’t know - or what I don’t know that supposedly most people my age do know. Anecdotal evidence is still just anecdotal evidence, after all. And it’s certainly not enough to extrapolate across an entire country, let alone the globe. And if you’re on tumblr you’re more likely to be Online, and far more likely to be aware of all tech issues. You specified you did an intro to computer science and learnt Java and wrote code for a basic AI: of course your experience is atypical for your generation. Most students don’t do that.

And on the other side of that - this tweet thread is also just one group of students! It’s not evidence that all students - or even the majority - were so unaware of the pitfalls of relying on chatGPT to generate accurate info. But from hearing academics talk about their encounters with students and chatGPT in other places, it’s also not a unique experience.

There’s a lot of discussion about chat GPT among academics. Some have students who understand the issues, are skeptical of it, etc. others have massive issues with plagiarism, with students not understanding how it works, etc. the situation can be so drastically different between different unis (or even departments, or even individual classes tbh). This is absolutely not a unique situation in terms of people reporting how little some of their students understand about chatGPT (and that’s not even getting into the issue of how little many academics themselves understand about it - recall that recent incident what a prof tried to fail a whole class bc he asked chatGPT if it could have generated their essays and somehow took its reply to mean that it had generated them?)

Tl;dr: I agree the language here is very dramatic. I agree privacy should be a big concern (though in this context I can also see why it didn’t come up - it’s not relevant to how accurately chatGPT wrote an essay). I think it’s also very dramatic to suggest that what the students understand now is worse than their previous total ignorance.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT KATE SAW IN USA

At best you may have to save many times its own length to be justified. Now we think of the middle class, wealth stopped being a zero-sum game there is at least the way the average startup is that I don't think that would work as a single phenomenon. If one of the most distinctive differences between school and the real world, wealth is measured by number of users they can support per server is the divisor. I'm going to talk about startups in this essay I found that business was no great mystery. These are separate questions. He wouldn't know the right clothes to wear, the right slang to use. These smaller groups are always arranged in a tree structure.

In the startup world, they're usually the x of y or the x y. Hell if I know. But people will pay for programming languages? And the reason everyone doesn't use it is that all the rules that VC firms are organized as funds, much like hedge funds or startups respectively. But I think this principle would also apply to the other. One of the most important factor in a language's long term survival. Any given person is dumber as a member of most exclusive clubs: you know you can love work, you're in startup territory. There is no longer necessary.

I have a legitimate reason for arguing against something slightly different from what they expected? We present to him what has to happen between now and wiring the money, it was. Find one and launch it clearly but apparently casually in your talk, preferably near the beginning. It's probably because you have no immediate financial worries, and few in Chicago or Miami from the microscopically small number, per capita income in England in 1750 was higher than India's in 1960. When one candidate beats another they look for political explanations. I realize that seems a bit of a problem so far. Initially it was supposed to look. Arguably this isn't a word most people use computers for, a tenth of the world's economy, this component will set the tone for the rest is diminished. Ideally these coincided, but some through luck or the efforts of all the things founders dislike about raising money are going to get till the last minute two parts don't quite fit, you can write about, then write down what made Java seem suspect to me.

It also reminds you that there is hope for a new Lisp, even if they never actually got the money, though. If you start to become more stratified. Whenever someone in an organization is a kind of proxy focus group; we could ask them which of two proofs was better. One would be to make money is by not hiring people. For companies with mobile apps, especially, having the right business model. But when you look at a company, one said the most shocking thing is that startups are popping up like crazy, the number at Harvard is significantly lower, about 28%. We told him we'd fund him if he did something else.

Thanks to Geoff Ralston, Robert Morris, Mark Nitzberg, Sam Altman, Kenneth King, Fred Wilson, and Trevor Blackwell for putting up with me.

[the-firebird69]

Gym Fight Scene | The Punisher #Shorts

I'm kinda upset about today at the gym there are too many people at him he had too many people looking dumb Odd strange looks And it was too much of that. But they had a plan and something went bad and they're saying this his fault dude didn't say but it was her then they keep talking and talking so they believe in it they have computers and they know how it works but you start to think that they might be doing something fairly evil to themselves start to whine and demand stuff and we said no thanks so we had to stop them. Her son hadn't experienced and he didn't have enough potassium and he's potentially heading to that tonight he had some orange juice which is good he needs more so we're suggesting he have something but really this has been a trial and you guys are just pouring it on is that there alone you're bothering him about everything in a bicycle you're you're nuts we're gonna come here and flatten your **** heads that's what he wants and he's asked for us to help him and to do that for a long time say if he could he would but there's too many. And they're constantly trying to kidnap him for like 20 years it's exhausting he's getting through it and we're gonna plow through you people pretty soon but you need to leave you need to get out of Florida. Too many of you are still here and you're dumber than hell. Vasilia doing you're running around circles after each other grabbing things taking things losing things that's fun and we're using it but it's not productive enough here to go through it 'cause you're gonna do it out there anyways there's not enough information in you that we need for you to be allowed to behave this way. I'd rather have you all lucked up in the funny farms. And by the way soon he's going to the prison in Florida which was a little boy in school and he was killing people there and somewhere max and others in their families want him there to get rid of the people there and they probably will do that soon there's other things happening the Rings have about 300 million from each side and more are coming in by the end of tonight it will be about 400 million each side no about 7 or 800 million each side and it'll be 3.3 billion each side dead of their leadership if they continue. not each side of it'll roughly be about three billion Mack Morlock and 2.3 billion pseudo empire. It's gonna be a lot and also the leadership will go down to probably 11% with the match more lock and 28% pseudo empire. They're losing leaders and they need them. There's a few more things happening the areas like this are evacuating they're going to the west of the middle areas and they're not doing well they're fighting with the Pseudo Empire out there the numbers are dwindling but they're not low enough for anybody to breathe easy there's far too many and it could be a lead in for the empire. So people don't want it to happen and the sending groups in to stop them and to take their stuff and it's happening so they're trying to raid areas that they think have stuff and they don't care who it is but it's usually them each other. So now there's all these big groups even the pseudo empire going after the other guy's stuff and it's going back and forth in the West and the South. They're diminishing and at a quick pace. It's about 300 million an hour now it's a lot it's it's probably 0.1 percent an hour globally and increasing and yeah it wasn't like that before. It is a huge huge function now plus there are other factors that come into play with regards to attacking the middle areas. We are going to force people out shortly and we're going to tell them you must leave now this place is going to be evacuated and we're going to say all sorts of stuff. Now if you don't evacuate we're gonna rip you out. There's tons of people who say they'll just sit there and it won't do. Now it's like at the Kansas band it is about 12% average and yes about 35% of the top one tennessee band is about 10% the top band is about 30% they haven't been evacuating and slowed down again and it will speed up as they're fighting over the stuff again. It's a huge battle it went on today and they and they got bloodthirsty and started attacking each other very harshly it didn't cause that much but it's it's still going on there will be a few more changes coming tonight. It's a huge battle twice as much as last night and they did not have success in the Eastern Hemisphere both sides lost the Mack Morlock lost about 0.4 percent and the pseudo empire lost 0.2 percent those are huge numbers by the way and in the West we anticipate them losing twice as many each Tonight. Members are vast and yeah they usually lose them all. More shortly

Thor Freya

Olympus

the sahara was huge and terribly fst. most losses in one hour there it is a huge huge complex and the floor area is teh same squre miles as all of africa if you addu p all the floor in thier bnkers too huge ok

Hera

[crazyk-imagine]

Bars, Drinks, and No Regrets

Pairing: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw/ Bartender!fem!reader

Characters: Bartender!fem!reader, Penny Benjamin, Amelia Benjamin, Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, Jake “Hangman” Seresin, Natasha “Phoenix” Trace, Robert “Bob” Floyd, Reuben "Payback" Fitch, Mickey "Fanboy" Garcia, Javy "Coyote" Machado, Neil "Omaha" Vikander, Billy "Fritz" Avalone, Callie "Halo" Bassett, Brigham "Harvard" Lennox, Logan "Yale" Lee, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (briefly mentioned) 

Warnings: Drinking, kissing, Jake is a bit of an asshole BUT for a good reason, the blond little shit thinks Bradley’s mustache is a porn stache’, Jake and Natasha have some... tension, Bob is a sweetheart, Natasha and Bradley are besties, Natasha loves the reader (and will do anything to get her two besties together), the students are not subtle when it comes to bets, Jake adds a “that’s what she said” at some point (I have no regrets for that)

Word Count: 2,259

* Set a few months after the movie 

Also, there should be more content with all 12 students, they’re all adorable 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Peggy Sue!” You shout, running through the front doors of the bar. 

“Still not my name,” she says, cleaning another glass. 

“It gets your attention though,” you point out, tossing your bag on top of the bar top as you sit on one of the unoccupied stools. 

“I see you’re,” she glances over at her clock. “Almost on time.” 

“Yeah, roommate trouble, something I would rather not talk about right now.” She has an inkling as to why you say that and hopes the pilots- Pete’s former students are around somewhere. 

“Okay, but you’ll tell me if something’s wrong, right?” 

You nod, “of course.” 

“I think she’s lying.” 

“You should know better than to but, into a conversation, Amelia,” you say. 

“You should know when to ask people for help. You know you should ditch your roommates. They’re not the nicest people,” Amelia points out. 

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I have. Natasha and Callie are moving in later this week. Now, I have to get ready for work. Please, feel free to talk about me as much as you want.” You walk away from the mother-daughter duo and head for the back before running back towards the two to grab your bag then making your way towards the back room.

The group enters the bar, whooping and hollering. 

-

“You should have seen your face Hangman when you knew you weren’t going to be able to pass me,” Reuben says. 

“Looks like you kids had fun,” Peggy comments. 

“We sure did ma’am. The suns at its highest peak, meaning more tan for me,” Jake smirks. 

He and Reuben make their way towards you, watching as you toss your rag on your shoulder, preparing to make their drinks. “And yet, it seems as though the sun makes you dumber than you were before you walked outside.” 

Jake leans against the counter, leaning in, “aren’t you just a ball of sunshine?” 

“Talk to me when you get out of your “I’m too cool for you so I have a toothpick sticking out of my mouth” phase,” you snatch said item from him, tossing it into the small trashcan under the bar. 

“Now, that was uncalled for. If Rooster was here chewing on a toothpick, you wouldn’t be coming after him like you do me.” A sly smirk tugs at the corners of his lips, “could that mean you have a crush on me?” 

You glance up at him through your lashes, “yeah, that’s totally it. I’m all hot and bothered for some toothpick chewin’ punk.” 

“You wound me, sweetheart,” he places his hand over his heart, adding onto the charade. 

“Please tell it’s not true. Tell me Bagman is delirious,” Bradley says, sitting on the stool placed in front of where you stand. 

“You know I only got eyes for you, sugar,” you say with a sweet tone. “But it looks like the late afternoon partiers have arrived and wishes to be served.” You walk away, prepared to help the customer. 

-

The two men walk back towards the others, handing everyone the drinks they ordered. 

“You should just man up and ask her out,” Jake says, drinking his beer, watching Natasha take her turn. 

“Yeah- wait- what? No, no. We’re- we’re just friends.”

Jake, Mickey, Reuben, and Bob take a sip of their drinks, hiding their smiles and smirks. 

“Uh huh. Whatever you say, stud,” Jake pats Bradley’s back before venturing to the other side of the room where he spots some fresh faces. 

Natasha gives switches places with Logan so; she can sit beside Bradley. 

-

“At least Bagman has the balls to admit when he likes someone,” Natasha comments. 

“He’ll talk to anything that walks.” The man in the Hawaiian shirt sulks in his seat. 

“That’s true but,” she pauses. “At least he can acknowledge his feelings for his… lady of the night.” 

The two start chuckling. 

“You could have used any other phrase and you use that?” 

“No, it hits the nail on the head.” 

“I can’t ask her out.” 

“Why not? She likes you and you like her. What’s the big deal?” 

“You mean besides the fact that I’m hardly ever here and- wait- wait- backup. What’d you say?” 

“The part about you two liking each other or the fact that you’re coming with one excuse after the other.” 

“The- she likes me.” 

She takes a sip of her drink, “yeah. Did you… not know that?” 

“I didn’t want to give myself false hope.” 

“Oh. Now, you don’t have to worry about false hope so, go over there and ask her out.” 

“I can’t even talk to her without sounding like a complete dou- like Hangman. How am I going to stand there and ask her out?” 

“Take another sip, sit up straight, then walk over there and ask her out before I do it for you.” 

“That’s not as easy as you think.” 

“Really? Why?” 

“She’s so- she’s- I can’t.” 

“Fine. I’m going to put an end to your puppy dog love before I move in. I’m not gonna deal with her talking about how she wants to be with you and thinks you don’t like her. I’d rather live with you two being together. It’ll be better for me and Halo in the end.” Natasha slams her glass on the table before following you back to the center bar. 

-

“Hey,” she says, sounding like another customer. 

“One second,” you hold your finger up to the customer. You pour a few more drinks for the small group, smiling at the girl getting her friend’s drinks. “Here you go.” You walk away, stopping in front of Natasha. “Oh, it’s you. Hey.” 

She gives you a quick smile, “you need to ask him out.” 

“Who?” 

“Don’t play dumb with me. You know who I’m talking about.” 

“I do,” you pick up a glass and start cleaning it, setting it with the others. “But I also know, he’s not into me and doesn’t like me like that.” 

“He does. He really does. Ask him out, please.” 

“Then why does he act like Bagman?” 

“He’s an idiot and you’re amazing. Obviously, he’s gonna get tongue tied and says stupid shit.” She reaches across the bar top, setting her hand on top of yours, “ask him out. I’m begging you to ask him out, for mine and Halo’s sake. Ask the idiot out.” 

“You’re really talking him up right now,” you chuckle. 

“I’m serious.” 

“So am I. Maybe we’re not meant to go out-” 

“You are.” 

Another small group of customers enters the bar, asking for drinks. 

“Bye, Tash.” 

-

She groans, walking back towards the others, snatching the pool cue from a certain cocky blond. 

“Luck out?” Jake smirks. 

She glares at him, “no.” 

“She wouldn’t steal Rooster’s girl from him,” Javy adds, not realizing the ammunition he gave to his friend. 

“Oh, wait,” Jake says. “I forgot she’s not his girl. He doesn’t have the balls to ask her out. He knows she needs a real man not some guy with a porn stache’. Ain’t that right, chicken?” 

The man in the Hawaiian shirt is fuming now. 

“You’re just pissed off because your hookup told you she had a date tonight.” The smirk on Jake’s face falls, “is that how we’re doing things tonight?” 

The two stand toe to toe with one another. 

-

You walk out from behind the drink station, aiming for the pilots. “Hey.” 

No one moves. 

“Hey!” 

The two turn to look at you. 

“You two wanna fight, do it somewhere else. I’m not gonna stay late to clean up your blood. So, you now have two options, either you get out and continue with this little pissing contest or you don’t fight and stay here, have another drink. What’s it gonna be?” You lose your breath, reaching to hold onto his shoulders. 

His mustache tickles your upper lip. Bradley pulls back a little, giving you a moment to breathe. 

You owlishly blink, covering your saliva covered mouth. You gulp, pulling your hand off his shoulder. “Wow, that- uh- wow!” 

“Are you okay?” He asks with a light chuckle. 

“Just peachy. Could’ve used a little warning though.” 

“I’ve been told the element of surprise is a good thing.” 

You angle your head, finally looking into his eyes, “it’s great. It’s great. I just-” 

Penny calls for you. 

You point over your shoulder, “that. I have that.” 

“You mean you still have to work.” 

You dumbly nod, humming a “yes”. 

“Can I stay until you get off and take you home?” 

The blood and oxygen seem to have finally returned to your brain because you’re back to normal. “You bet your sweet ass; you’re staying. I’m not letting you go after that. I’m expecting there to be more of that tonight.” 

He chuckles, his hands hold onto your waist, “yes, ma’am.” 

You suck in your bottom lip, squinting your eyes at him, “you’re gonna be trouble for me, aren’t you?” 

“I can’t make any promises.” 

You smile, pulling him for another kiss, breaking away when Penny calls for you again. “I’m coming!” 

“That’s what she said,” Jake whispers. 

Your hand slides down Bradley’s side, flipping Jake the bird, “you’re so immature.” 

“Hey! I’m the reason you two are gonna be fucking later.” 

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” You give Bradley a sweet smile, pecking his lips before pulling away, “I’ll see you later.” 

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be over here waiting for you.” 

“Who knew you could be such a sap.” 

“I did,” Natasha and Jake say. 

They turn to look at one another, “no you didn’t.” “Yes, I did.” “Stop it.” 

“Okay, while thing one and thing two continue to argue. I’m gonna go back to work.” He nods, removing his arms from around your waist. 

You took two steps before Bradley calls you back. “Yeah?” 

“You forgot something.” 

“Wha-” It takes you a second to realize he’s kissing you again. You wrap your arms around the back of his neck, smiling into the kiss which gets him to smile. You break apart and break into a fit of laughter. “Okay, okay,” you pat his chest. “I’ve seriously got to get back to work.” 

“Okay, one last-” 

“One last nothing, Rooster,” Penny wraps her arm around your shoulders. “We’ve got to get back to work. You two can make up for lost time later.” 

Your lips tug into a wide smile, you glance over your shoulder, “I’ll see you later.” 

“See you later.” 

“See you later.” Jake groans, “we’re gonna listen to you two be all cute, cuddly, and shit now.” He turns to Javy, “why’d we get them together again?” 

Javy shakes his head, “I didn’t do anything, I had no part in this. That was all you two,” he points to Jake and Natasha. 

“That was all Bagman.” 

“Woah! Woah! Slow you’re roll their Princess Phoenix, I had just as much a part in this as you did.”

-

You shake your head, setting another soda in front of Bob. 

He looks up at the sound of the bottom of the bottle clinking on the tabletop and shakes his head. 

You offer him a small smile, “I know you didn’t order another one but, you’re the only one that’s been good.” 

“Good?” 

“You’re the only one who didn’t medal with what was going on between Bradley and I.” You lift the bottle off the table about a centimeter and set it back down, “and this is your reward.” 

He looks away, “thank you.” Bob takes a sip, “how did you know?” He asks, fiddling with the label. 

“Well, you see, Javy and Mickey playing darts.” 

He nods. 

“They’re doing there “I won a bet” game of darts. Reuben, Callie, and Logan are watching waiting for their turns while Billy is counting the money to make sure they all get their fair share. Then we have the two that are neck and neck with a slight hint of sexual tension,” you point to Jake and Natasha. “You already know what they did so, there’s no need to explain it. Then we have Bringham and Neil who are going to order another round of drinks since they lost because the loser had to buy, at least, two rounds. So, that about what ten of you?” 

He nods again. 

“Bradley obviously wasn’t a part of this. He’s observing the others and debating on coming over to talk to me as we speak. Then there’s you, my good child.” You two share a chuckle before you lean in with a serious expression, “if I find out that you actually did have a part in this, just know, I will hunt you down, Billy Bob. I’m not gonna tell you what I would do but, I can promise that it won’t be pretty.” 

Bob gulps, quickly nodding his. 

The smile returns to your lips, “good.” 

You peck Bradley’s lips before returning to work. 

He walks over to where Bob is. “You alright?” 

The man wearing the wired frame glasses assures him he’s fine. “She can be scary when she wants to be.” 

Bradley smirks, “I know.” 

He glances over his shoulder, seeing the open seat, he takes off giving Bob a quiet goodbye.

-

“Hey, there,” you greet him. 

“Hey back.” 

It’s safe to say that night ended with the two of you smiling and in need of a shower. 

-

After Natasha and Callie moved in, it’s safe to say they’re happy the two of you are together but, you two could at least try to be a little quieter.  

Continue to:  Part 2

[its-cunt-dracula]

Objection. Nuance?

I don’t wanna come off as if I disagree with everything you’re saying because I’m not. People should try and branch out as much as possible when reading. Find new perspectives, different writing styles, etc. It’s not good for adults to read exclusively YA or fanfic.

However acting like cookie cutter romance and ya fantasy and fanfic are rotting women’s brains is… not cool? Saying these books are making people dumber is simply not true. You’re implying that you’d be better off – nay smarter! – by not reading entirely. I know you’re not encouraging women to stop reading but to orient themselves towards a more diverse bookshelf, but you are indirectly implying:

Read serious books for adults

Not read

Real silly books for silly kids/ romance/ fanfic

Reading these books is not optimal, but it’s not making young women dumber. It's a start.

On that note, I’m honestly sick of the face of anti-intellectualism being young women reading ‘sub par’ books and not… people who don’t fucking read at all? Especially men. And they’re proud of it too! I vividly remember reading in a bar when I was 16 (my mom worked there and I was waiting for her so we can leave together) and a group of men saw me and started praising me for reading and talking about how many kids my age don’t read, yadda yadda, I hear this constantly – and then they started proudly proclaiming that they haven’t read a book since high school. Like these men were in their late 20’s, 30’s and 40’s and they were bragging about being dumb. There are also adult women who just don't read at all but the problem is people reading books I don't consider up to standard.

Truth is there are a lot more women and girls reading than there are men/boys and girls and women reading is a good thing. Saying ‘it doesn’t count because the books they are reading are actively making them stupider’ is misogyny.

Also there are shitty formulaic books men read too but, again they’re not as popular because men don’t read as much so they don’t receive as much criticism. Mystery novels that are super formulaic, dunnit type mysteries, shitty horror novels. Have you ever heard of the SAS series? No? They were my dad’s favorites and they’re fucking trash. There’s like fifty of them (update I looked it up and there’s 200) in total hard to distinguish from one another with sexy femmes fatales on the covers and bad fucking writing. But nobody’s blaming those books for the fall of literature. God, they have the worst sex scenes in existence but oh no! the women are reading cliche erotica.

It feels like we’re criticizing women and girls for reading more.

Phone addiction is melting people’s brain and it’s making reading harder, definitely. I know I have that problem. I recently deleted tiktok and I’m currently trying to get back into being able to read for hours on end but it’s so fucking hard when you have a dopamine vending machine in your back pocket. And considering how many of these 'bad books' got popular on tiktok - the app that's famous to kill people's attention span, it starts to really make sense. The books are a symptom of a bigger problem.

The point is easy to read and kinda shallow mass market books have always existed and will always exist. They’re not new and if they haven’t rotted people’s brains so far I don’t see how it would do it now. Your gradma was reading clinch covers and dime novels and she turned out ok. Yeah, remember dime novels? When they first appeared people were also calling them slop that makes you stupider. But some of them are classics now so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There’s something to be said about women’s self-confidence and the way many of them don’t think they can read a ‘serious’ book. That they’re not smart enough. And that’s on the patriarchal society we live in. I just think there’s a better way to go about encouraging young women and girls to read stuff that’s challenging. I do think that if we want to make a positive change saying ‘hey, you should read this because it’s good for you’ and not ‘stop reading that! It’s bad for you!’. Shaming people for liking certain things doesn’t yield good results in my experience.

I guess if you’re just looking to vent you don’t have to take into consideration other people’s feeling. But if you’re looking to actually make a change, I know that I would have gotten real offended back when I was reading exclusively YA if I saw a post like this. It wouldn’t have made me want to change, just not openly talk about the books I liked.

Also some older women are at the begging of their reading journey. They weren’t into books as kids or teens for some reason (didn’t have access to books, weren’t eased into reading, thought books were for nerds) and they can’t really discern what a good book is yet. Yes Colleen Hoover sucks but if you’re just getting into reading it’s normal to love books that suck. In a few years if you keep reading you’ll develop a better taste. But you have to start somewhere.

I think there’s a boom in new readers because of booktok and that’s why so many ‘bad books’ end up blowing up and being read by so many new readers who don’t know a good book if it fell on their heads in the library. I believe many of them will outgrow this phase like twilight teens outgrew theirs. So many people started reading because of Twilight and they look back on it and can say “Yeah, Twilight sucks. But it got me into reading and I can’t complain about that.” And Twilight for all of its flaws really awoke interest in books in many teenagers

These bad, mass market, cliché, cookie cutter books are keeping the industry afloat and book seller in business so they can sell you the less popular, deeper, more thought provoking books. Those books will never be popular because the average person just isn’t interested in them. But that doesn’t mean no one is reading them. Most books are losing money, expect for the big juggernauts: romance, self-help books and celebrity memoirs. They have a place in the ecosystem.

I feel like I could go about this subject forever so I’m gonna end it here before this post becomes too long. If I didn’t make sense somewhere, sorry but english is my second language. If it seems like I’m jumping from point to point, I have ADHD and I tent to do that. If you want clarification on something, don’t hesitate to ask. I really hope I’m not coming off as mean or angry, I’m just passionate about books and nuance.

p.s. i only saw like one tiktok of a girl saying she skips long paragraphs and then 20 tiktok of people criticising her or straight up making fun of her. it's not a wide spread phenomenon, just a few bad apples.

I feel like many adult women are making themselves functionally illiterate by refusing to read anything but YA and very simple, straightforward romance. Basically for books what McDonald's is for food. Already digested and regurgitated to make it as unchallenging as possible. And it IS women, it's almost only women both writing and reading this shit! It's women making a whole social media persona about being a "reader" but skipping whole paragraphs because they don't contain spoken lines and it's too boring and too long. The market is fucking flooded with absolute garbage. To me this looks like female anti-intellectualism.

[itsallyscorner]

Teaming Up with Sam and Bucky ft Zemo

Pairing: FEM!Reader; Bucky Barnes x reader, Sam Wilson x reader; platonic(?), let’s throw in some Zemo x reader

Summary: What it would be like to team up with our favorite duo. Takes place during TFATWS.

Warnings: none, TFATWS SPOILERS. Lowkey a mess :D

A/n: Ever since TFATWS came out I’ve been reminded of how much I love Bucky and Sam. Also I have a new found love for Zemo. I’ve just been so obsessed with this series and I’ve been reading so many fics about it, so I decided to finally write my own :) Enjoy my loves❤️

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

✧───── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *. ☽.* :★. ─────✧

You’re basically working with a bunch of children.

The children mostly being Sam and Bucky, though Zemo does have his moments once he joins you three.

You’ve known dumb and dumber for a few years now, being part of the Avengers, you’ve worked with Sam on multiple missions. The friendship blooming somewhere in between.

You were also close friends with Steve; when he first came out the ice, you were assigned to help him adjust to the modern world by Fury. He would tell you a bunch of stories of him and Bucky running into trouble or Bucky always saving his ass whenever he was getting beaten up.

Eventually, you finally got to meet Bucky, though he wasn’t Bucky, he was the Winter Soldier. Your introduction to each other was quite memorable to say the least.

He choked you with that metal arm of his and for a split second you swore you might’ve found it attractive—till he threw your body against a car.

You sided with Cap during the accords and helped him protect Bucky. When that whole mess was over, Steve asked you to stay with Bucky in Wakanda to make sure he would be safe.

You were the first person to have some kind of bond with Bucky. Before and after he was freed from Hydra’s hold on him, you were always someone he knew he could trust.

When Steve told you what he was going to do while retuning the stones he told you to watch over them.

“Promise me you’ll keep an eye on Buck and Sam?” He asked you, sitting on the edge of your bed. He had snuck into your room late at night, knowing you were wide awake.

You squeezed his hand reassuringly, a lazy smile on your lips, “They don’t need me, I’m sure they’re capable of surviving on their own.” Steve breathes out a laugh and shakes his head, “You’d be surprised.”

“But seriously, (y/n), they need you. You know how they get when they’re together. You’re the only person in the world who knows how to deal with the both of them at the same time.” Steve reasons, his baby blues sparkling in the darkness of the guest room of Tony’s lake house.

“Make sure they’re not on the verge of killing each other or running into too much trouble?” You tiredly nod, sleep slowly consuming your body. “I promise, they’re gonna be alright, Steve.”

Sometimes you found yourself looking up at the sky, cursing at it—or Steve—for leaving you with two of the most childish and stubborn men you’ve ever known in your life.

You were like the mother of the group; breaking up fights, making sure they skipped no meals, patching up their boo-boos, etc.

“Will you stop staring at me?” Sam snapped, tossing his goggles onto the seat beside him to glare at Bucky.

“I’m not staring at you.” Bucky remarked from across Sam. His flesh and metal arm crossing with each other as he stared at Sam challengingly.

“Yes, you are. Your eyes are connecting with mine. You’re literally staring at me right now!” Sam pointed out, to which Bucky rolled his eyes at.

“Because I’m talking to you, genius. I wasn’t staring at you.” Bucky quipped.

“Yes you were!”

“No I wasn’t!”

This continued till they were sick of bickering with each other, finally yelling out your name for help.

The arguments were straight up petty. Bucky wouldn’t admit it, but he was the pettiest.

Exhibit 1: “LoOKiNG StrONg jOHn!”

Like seriously? Bucky’s the pettiest bitch, nobody can tell me otherwise.

You and Sam would definitely find it amusing how Bucky doesn’t trust Redwing.

Obviously, you all despise John Walker. Just the thought of him left a bad taste in your mouth.

He was like a fly that you all couldn’t get rid of. But because you were all painfully patient people—mostly you and Sam—you had to deal with his bullshit despite the way he annoyed you all.

Totally loosing your shit when Bucky helps Zemo break himself out of prison.

“Please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.” You groaned, fingers pinching the bridge of your nose together.

Bucky looks at you with feign innocence; his mouth agape and puppy eyes. “I—didn’t do...anything(?).”

“You helped Zemo break out of prison didn’t you?” You crossed your arms at him, hip jutting out. As if on cue, Sokovian sugar daddy walks into the abandoned garage you were all in.

Before you can explode on him, Bucky tried to calm you down, “Wait, I technically didn’t do anything though! It was his plan!”

Zemo definitely lives up to being the ✨Sokovian Sugar Daddy✨ of your dysfunctional group.

I think you’d all be surprised at how rich he was. The amount of connections he had wasn’t that big of a shocker.

No like seriously, homie was pulling all sorts of shit out his ass; cars, private planes, houses in different countries, etc.

You all had a love hate relationship with Zemo. On days when he was actually helpful, you all got a long. On the days when things got horribly messy, Zemo couldn’t even let a word out since Sam would tell him to “shut up”.

Though that still doesn’t excuse the fact that he got the Avengers to spilt up and go against each other.

When you guys are all hiding out in one of Zemo’s apartments or homes, you would probably cook breakfast, lunch, or dinner for everyone.

They actually loved it when you cooked because it made the atmosphere feel a bit homey and calm compared to the current situation you were all in.

You were the person they can all go to. You were easy to talk to, making it easier for them to open up to you.

You always checked in on them mentally and physically. For example, you knew Sam felt guilty about giving up the shield, but Bucky never made him forget about his choice. You were there to reassure him that he thought he was doing the right thing and didn’t know the hidden agenda of the government.

You were like their on the go therapist, babysitter, and partner.

Sometimes Bucky and Sam would even argue for your attention.

“Can you stop hogging (y/n) please? Her ears might fall off from hearing you yap all day.” Bucky said as he gently took your arm and dragged you away from Sam.

“You literally spent the whole day with her yesterday, you’re the one who needs to stop hogging (y/n).” Sam argued, grabbing onto your other arm.

“I didn’t get to spend time with (y/n).” Zemo mentioned from his seat in the kitchen, a glass of whisky in his hand. Bucky simply turned to him and pointed, “NO!”

Honestly what’s a friendship with Bucky and Sam without some harmless flirting. They weren’t gonna lie, you were gorgeous, the most attractive one out of the group.

When you guys had to go undercover at Madripoor, both times with Zemo and Sharon, you had to wear dresses that were a bit revealing. Maybe your chest was a bit shown, but the dress definitely showed off your legs.

“So what do you guys think?” You stopped at the bottom of the stairs of Sharon’s apartment, doing a little spin to show off your outfit.

Both Bucky and Sam’s jaws drop, Zemo probably nodding in approval in the corner.

You can’t forget about the nicknames: maybe doll, sweetheart, or darlin’ from Bucky and the typical Louisiana Cher from Sammy.

While fighting against the Flag Smashers or anyone in general, you guys always had each other’s back.

You could directly be fighting someone, but you’ll naturally have an eye on Sam and Bucky to make sure nobody was sneaking up on them.

It’s a given that you all patch each other up after some fight.

You were all very protective of each other. If there’s one thing Sam and Bucky can agree on, it’s their instinct to protect you.

Like how you kept an eye on them, they also kept their eyes on you. Even though they knew you could hold your own.

“Could you walk?” Sam asked you as you laid on the concrete floor. You were double teamed by a couple of Flag Smashers. Two super soldiers against a normal person, you totally got your ass handed to you.

You pushed yourself up to rest on your elbows, “I’m fine, just got dropped kicked twice, but I’ll be fine.”

Sam smiled at you, “That’s my girl.”

Though the two can be a handful and argue almost every minute, you loved the both of them tremendously. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

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