#and there was a mass shooting by my house anyways not even at a school

[aaaaatillathenun]

ugh we love cognitive dissonance a middle schooler was killed in a school shooting by a teenager there. 5 more people are injured, 1 in critical condition. When will this stop. When will there be a ban on guns

[cleolinda]

(For our purposes, listen to it without the visuals first.)

I wasn't going to keep posting about Unreal Unearth, but something happened yesterday.

It's been five months since I first heard this song, and I'm still astonished by it. You know the tiktok skit about the Star Wars wedding music, and the guy is grooving along until the Imperial Death March filters in, and then he's kind of alarmed, like, wha—? And then he realizes it slaps anyway and he keeps dancing? That is "Eat Your Young."

It's the morning of March 17th. The EP with the first three singles from the new album has dropped. I've got my phone blasting the song on the bathroom counter, I don't understand half what the man is saying nor did I expect to, I'm cheerfully mumbling along in the shower, grooving along,

wait they did what for a war drum

Get some Pull up the ladder when the flood comes Throw enough rope until the legs have swung Seven new ways that you can eat your young Come and get some Skinning the children for a war drum Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns It's quicker and easier to eat your young

What the fuck, this song goes so hard. That's the chorus. The conceit of the whole album is that it loosely follows Dante's Inferno, so this is the third circle of hell, gluttony. Hozier himself says that he wasn't specifically thinking of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal—

“I don’t know how intentional the reference to Jonathan Swift was in this. That essay [Swift’s 1729 satirical essay A Modest Proposal in which he suggests the Irish poor sell their children as food] is such a cultural landmark that it’s just hanging in the air. I was more reflecting on what I felt now in this spirit of the times of perpetual short-term gain and a long-term blindness. The increasing levels of precarious living, poverty, job insecurity, rental crisis, property crisis, climate crisis, and a generation that’s inheriting all of that and one generation that’s enjoyed the spoils of it. The lyrics are direct, but the voice is playful. There’s this unreliable narrator who relishes in this thing which was fun to write.” [Apple Music album notes]

—and I believe him. The song's not a suggestion, a proposal; it's an invitation to atrocity in progress. I also believe he probably wasn't thinking of Greta Thunberg's iconic speech at the UN Climate Action Summit, not specifically, but that's what I hear in the song, like the flip side of a coin:

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! [...] You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil.

I feel like on some level, even coincidentally, "Eat Your Young" is the answer to the question, what would you sound like if you were that evil? Who would you be? I can think of a dozen possibilities just off the top of my head or looking around my blog, from something as petty as studio executives mangling trees to deprive striking workers of shade (while hoping they lose their homes), all the way up to the US school-to-prison pipeline. The National Rifle Association keeps politicians in its pocket while the US has more mass shootings than days in a year, Nestlé fucks shit up around the world as a way of life, even ChatGPT sucks up water while threatening jobs—and for what? And yet, I promise you most of these things weren't the inspiration for an Irishman’s song—some of them hadn't even happened yet. There's just that much fresh You Would Be Evil to go around. I am certain that Hozier wrote the song partly about (as one article puts it) "Ireland's housing crisis: Millennials, a generation sacrificed," given that time back in the day when he helped occupy a building—a housing crisis happening in multiple countries. There's so much of the world I'm not touching on. I can stuff a paragraph with links and it's utterly inadequate.

I haven't even mentioned war.

There's an overwhelming sense this decade of the future being fed into a meat grinder. That sense is in this song. What would it sound like to be in the head of someone who didn't give a shit about anything but profit? Well, it might sound like this.

And if you haven't heard it, well—I'm going to sound absolutely out of my mind after saying all that, but "Eat Your Young" has a beat and you can dance to it. It's sexy. And I'm certain that's on purpose. You get seduced into the sound of it, as if by something demonic, something that enjoys sucking down the future and is not going to stop. And the sheer fucking catchiness of the song keeps you listening to it—thinking about it—when maybe you push away the dry headlines we get everyday. If you let this song stay in your head, it becomes a lens. Five months later, I still think about it when I read the news. Maui was on fire and tourists stayed. Within days, the prospect of developers swooping in to buy up land reared its head. If there's something still to take, there is ground to break, whatever's still to come. Get some.

I was born in 1978 —I'm late Gen X. In my forties, I'm young enough to worry about the future still; I’m neither so rich that I can just plan to retire to Mars, nor so old that I can know I'll be safely gone before the world might go up in flames. But I'm also not my nephew, whose school year just started back up, or the neighborhood kids who race him home down the sidewalk in the afternoons. Yesterday, he had his very first mass-shooter lockdown drill. He’s six.

I think music can put the feeling back into numb fingers, and I think that's why "Eat Your Young" works so well—Hozier calls the song fun and playful, and I think you have to have that, something you can live with rather than just switch off for your own mental survival. We need music to feed spirit at protests; we need something to keep our feet moving. Don’t give up, don't close your eyes and slip away. Those kids, they have dreams we could try to steal back for them.

Since I mentioned Maui:

Why Hawaiian sovereignty has undeniable context for the Maui fires

The Climate Crisis and Colonialism Destroyed My Maui Home. Where We Must Go From Here

How You Can Donate and Help Support Maui Communities Right Now

The Maui Strong Fund

[sparkleboiswagger]

I need help crafting head canons and backstories for a BSD au I'm creating

I'm working on making head canons for a normal world no mafia no Ada or whatever au. For the most part I'm trying to take canon events and adapt them in a way where they could realistically happen, but for characters with more unknown or vague pasts I'm great for any HCs

Starting with Dazai, Dazai is not an orphan he was removed from his home by CPS when he was about 2. He was in the foster care system for a while, tossed around until he ended up in a home with Mori from ages 9-16. Mori was abusive, so Dazai ran away and lived in a shipping crate for a bit. Eventually he was taken in by Oda, who was a foster parent to mostly younger kids. He was there for 6 months but when he was out with Oda, Oda was killed in a mass shooting.

I know Dazai "improved" in canon after Oda died but I didn't give him a chance for this big long speech and there wasn't any reason for Oda to anyways, so Dazai completely spiraled after that. I have like a whole story written about that. But short things is his alcohol addiction got worse, he often spent days just not moving from Oda's grave and since you see him inject himself in season 5 and pop a pill in season 2, I have him experiment with drugs like fenty, shrooms, and heroin. Not addicted, just trying them out. Dazai is my most fleshed out in the au I'm creating, idk why.

Dazai bullies Akutagawa in school because of course he does.

Now for Chuuya I haven't finished stormbringer so my HCs for him might change. But.

He was also in foster care. I haven't fully fleshed out his life yet and I want some ways to integrate the sheep some how? But he entered the system when he was 8, I don't know why because I haven't finished storrmbringer. It varies from Verlaine killing his parents to them dying in a car crash so. Working on that. Verlaine went to a different home from Chuuya, he doesn't know him well he just hates him. I've been debating between having Kouyou be his sister or foster mother, but since I put Dazai with Mori I figured Chuuya could go with Kouyou and she'd just be a younger foster mom. I was also thinking I could find a way to make them in the same house? I really want the whole betrayal thing where Dazai leaves Chuuya and I thought it could be cool where Dazai left Chuuya in an abusive home to deal with it himself but I'm not sure, would it even make sense for him to have been with Mori?

Chuuya is in college, Dazai is struggling to get by. They still have their personalities obv so Dazai isn't like this sad mopey mess he's just a sad mess who mopes when he's alone and everyone doesn't really realize where he's at mentally

Mori has also fostered Yosano and Q, while having Elise as his bio daughter.

Atsushi and Lucy's backstories are basically the exact same as they are in canon

Akutagawa is homeless ofc, he just moves from place to place with his sister. His clothes are shit and he smells because he never showers so he isn't treated well at school. I'm tryna think if he'd go to college, also he's still got his terminal illness. I'm not sure how his need for Dazai's validation would come out in this au

Ranpo was adopted by Fukuzawa. His life was also basically the same. Yosano was also adopted by him.

I'm thinking Kunikida has a normal ass life with normal ass parents, just too much of an overachiever and on the verge of burnout but not allowing himself to burn out

Poe is rich. He was born rich, he's got money, that's all. I've got for him lol.

I'm trying to find ways to add the rest of the cast, I want to get all the characters in and get them lives and stuff made up.

If you have any suggestions to how I can expand this world I want to write fan fiction on it once I've fleshed it out a bit. Feel free to be like "actually no I dont like your idea, I think this would be better" because I'm open to any criticism on this, I just want it to be good and I'm not stuck on my ideas

[michellezagenda]

TW: Shooting

I can definitely sympathize with your anxiety surrounding being shot while at work. I was taking classes at Santa Monica College and while I was there (2013) some psycho committed a mass shooting. It was really fucking disturbing because he killed his brother and his dad first, burned down his house with their bodies inside, he shot a woman and car jacked her, and drove to the SMC campus, shot at a bunch of commuter busses, killed a woman and her father, and then went on to shoot more people just before being gunned down by police just outside the school library. Obviously that was deeply traumatizing, and I’ve never been able to forget it, but just a few days ago a university I attended had a guy walk onto the south entrance of campus and started firing shots into the air and it not only reignited my fear (that never went away tbh) it made it so much harder for me to even function while attending classes there. This country is so fucked up and it doesn’t give a FUCK about how traumatized Americans suffer from ptsd and anxiety regarding gun violence. I’m so sorry for your anxiety and fear, but you’re not alone 🩷

oh my god, i’m so sorry you went through this anon. how traumatic. im sending u love and peace ❤️ No one should have to go through this while being at school or anywhere.

I’m getting realllll tired of people saying “you’re more likely to die in a car accident 🤡” despite guns being the leading cause of death amongst teens and children. And schools having shootings but not getting reported.

I remember last year my family and i went to a carnival and everyone thought there was a shooter (turned out to be some guy running from the cops for stealing) but anyways, i remember that night and the fear my family and i felt. I remember holding onto my sister really tight but having to let her go in fear of getting trampled on and seeing everyone call out for their family members, hiding and crying. (despite not hearing one gun shot). It was fake but even that traumatized me, i can’t imagine being in a real situation and hearing those gunshots. And also being in class right where you’re supposed to be.

This country is awful and i’m hoping to start attending protests to advocate for gun control or ban them altogether. It didn’t take elementary school students losing their lives to an angry coward with an AR15 so i wonder what will..

[ericleo108]

03/24/2023 Click here for Spotify or Apple Music. This is my 36th official release and honestly it took forever. This is has been my most complicated and expensive track to date. I am very proud of this track. I think it deserves a lot of attention and, as I will discuss, really gets at the heart of the problem.

I remember listening to Russ’s “3:15 Breathe” and it made me cry. It made me think about school shootings and lyrics just naturally bubbled up about the situation. I originally wanted to make the song with Russ’s beat and just redo the lyrics, and I even emailed his management, but after not receiving an answer and sitting on it for a while I decided I wanted to make it anyways and would just pay to remake the beat. You can definitely hear the similarities. You can still find the Russ demo on my soundcloud. He’ll probably never see this unless it blows up but I just want to say thank you to Russ for the inspiration and although I can’t afford to pay you a lot I can give you a nominal fee if desired and of course give you high praise and credit like I’m doing here. Thank you very much Mr. Russ, sir.

My vocals were self-recorded. The beat was made by TheyCallMeHeat from Crack House Recordings in Lansing Michigan. The female feature is Daneikashley from fiverr, and the boys choir was sung by the kids of Martymind from fiverr. The track was mixed and mastered by Sam Peters at La Luna recording studio in Kalamazoo Michigan. The cover art was made by ArtworkGang from Fiverr.

My position on guns and the mass shooting problem is as follows. I have talked about mass shootings on my blog at EricLeo108.com. You can find the specific blog post by going to FarmingHumans.com. But to give you the Cliff Notes, we basically have this problem with guns because of corporate rule. The research is clear that basically more guns leads to more violence.

The real problem is America is a militaristic nation (arguably the most militaristic, especially considering how much of the federal budget we spend on defense) that is (also by consequence) the largest producer of guns in the world. To sell more guns the gun manufacturers, through the NRA, have lobbied the government to make guns legal. They support Republicans and this tactic has worked considering when Democrats have tried to pass gun legislation Republicans have filibustered the process.

So it’s the Republican’s fault, sponsored by the NRA, which is the result of corporate rule, that we have such a problem with mass shootings. This is a uniquely American problem, so much to the point that the number one cause of death to children is guns, above cancer and car accidents. The problem is so ubiquitous every year there are reports of trampling at the Fourth of July celebrations because people think it’s a mass shooting and run. This shows, as the song says, politicians make American’s live in fear.

Ignorant people will say banning guns only takes them away from law abiding citizens and not criminals but the fact is most mass shooters obtain their firearms legally. And even if they didn’t, a ban on guns would raise the prices for them which would outprice them making guns inaccessable or at least a lot harder to get. We need a nationwide ban of guns.

The fact is that mass shooters buy guns legally from different states and bring them into states that have banned guns to commit mass shootings.  The reality is we don’t have common sense gun policy in America because Republicans block it. The number one indicator of weather you’ll be a mass shooter is if you’ve previously been charge with domestic abuse. So the logical thing to do is forbid domestic abusers from having guns, but that has been blocked by the conservative (Trump appointed) supreme court. 

The truth is corporate propaganda has a hold on America, or at least tries to justify the mass shooting problem. It’s like 80% of people want stricter gun laws, it’s just a few Republicans holding the country hostage. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have all banned guns without a genocide or martial law against their citizens. But ignorant conservatives are quick to quote Hitler by saying “To take over a nation, first disarm their citizens” but given how other countries have had mass shootings and banned guns and they no longer have a problem is proof that’s a better alternative.

The fact is we have pursued a genocide and martial law in this country all while having guns, and guns never prevented it from happening. All you have to do is look at the history of Native Americans and blacks (respectively). We have always had the “right to bear arms” and they were persecuted by the government. Gun ownership is more prevalent than ever but that hasn’t stopped the Republicans from pursuing the current genocide against trans people. It’s only when white people think that the government is gonna take their guns away do they spread fear-mongering and misinformation about guns.

You can see me talk about this blog post from the last Sunday Update here:

Lyrics

All I ever wanna do is help you understand and grow But we sit back watch the country as we lose another soul Wonderin when its gonna end but then we never reach our goal I swear the politicians say they care to give a show  I wish you would own up to your flaws And say that you're wrong when you're wrong Instead of actin' like you're right, then it turns into a fight Then another child dies and we haven’t made it right  I watch you

Bleed I'm so ashamed of what my country do I tell myself that I won’t vote for you But I don't wanna sleep, and I can’t really eat And I just watch you bleed I ask myself why I ignore the news About mass shootings at malls and schools The result of corporate rule But I won’t be your tool They’re in my head like

Please I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die yet Please I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die yet Please I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die yet Please I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die yet

You ignore their calls for help and make money as they die  It’s obvious your conscience is that something you can buy How cold, how cold I guess the cost of doing business is another child’s life I guess we can’t do what’s right unless the children pay the price How cold, how cold It’s business, over people It’s the guns, that we feel for Don’t deny it, what you choose to Is protect guns, over kid’s schools We need better mental health and then reform for all the guns Politicians rule with fear and now the people on the run Somethin' tells me that I'm right about you Go head and prove me wrong They say democracy is right But got no gull the sing along

Cuz I just watch you bleed I'm so ashamed of what my country do I tell myself that I won’t vote for you But I don't wanna sleep, and I can’t really eat And I just watch you bleed I ask myself why I ignore the news About mass shootings at malls and schools The result of corporate rule But I won’t be your tool They’re in my head like

Please I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die yet Please I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die yet Please I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die yet Please not yet 

And I just watch you bleed Will you refuse these All the pain and harm we cause, now do you see?  We need better mental health and then reform for all guns Politicians rule with fear and now the people on the run

[absolutelybatty]

That's good enough for me.

I'm still working on the fine tuning here, but I'll do my best to share my general theory.

Warning for spoilers for all the Postal gamed (except maybe 3 since I haven't played it), brief mention of suicide, religious trauma, fictional mass shootings, and a total lack of scientific accuracy related to cluster b disorders, though I talked to a friend with DiD for formulating this in hopes he could help me not be unintentionally insensitive or harmful in my discussion of a game series that's over two decades old.

Anyway, I call this the "voice actors theory" since it's so heavily linked to the voice actors of the different Dude's.

Postal Dude is, in this theory/alternate universe, a system. I'm not sure what caused his initial split, but I suspect it had to do with childhood religious trauma that resulted from his stepfather. I'll be referring to the different alters as P1, P2, and P3.

P1 is fronting in Postal 1997. For the sake of this theory, I'm going to be placing 1997 and Redux as being the same time/story. The voice we hear isn't him audibly speaking; that's the voice of P2 that P1 hears through auditory hallucinations during his breakdown. This is why his journal entries are that of a cornered animal, but his voice lines are that of a sadist. After he's unable to go through with the elementary school massacre, he disassociates, hence the visuals of the world spinning around him, and awakens in the asylum from the end of 1997.

Up until this point, P1 had been the main one to front, but once he reached the hospital, his delusion broke, and he became aware of the true severity of his actions. This caused him to disassociate more frequently until he was essentially never fronting. P2 takes over as the main Dude at this point. Here's where Redux becomes important. This ending was almost definitely a lame way to promote co-op, but let's look at it in context.

We can take this two ways. Either P2 was behaving well enough and responding to his treatment well enough that he was released, or the image is more literal and the fronting alter (probably p2) broke Dude/the host body out of the asylum. If it's the former, then I can see him being granted release under the conditions he takes his medication and is assigned a service dog (Champ! We never see him in 1, only a dog house which may or may not even be his, so let's assume he's a service dog to help with the delusions). So, he takes Champ, and they go to Arizona for a better life. (I know that Postal 1997 takes place in a place called Paradise, but I think this is a different location due to the snow and generally more mountainous appearance of Paradise in 1)

Dude, being on a bit of a tight leash, can't buy firearms, hence why he gets them exclusively by stealing them in 2. Things get wobbly here.

We can either take P2's view of things literally and assume he's a reliable narrator (ha) and the town is just batshit (or it follows my poisoned water theory) or we can assume that everything happening is being exaggerated to make P2 seem less, uh, unreasonably sadistic if/when he snaps.

But let's work off of the assumption that it's all real. Everything from Monday-Friday, with Friday being where things get even weirder. Honestly, you could make the argument that Dude's suicide attempt at the end of 2 worked and the rest of the franchise is either hell or his dying brain coming up with whatever. But that's not as fun, and I'm here for stupid fun. Dude wakes up in the hospital, hallucinates a TON, then tries to leave Paradise with Champ after dropping a nuke on it. Paradise Lost picks up at this point when Champ runs back into town, and Dude swerves to follow him, crashing his car and putting himself into a decade-long coma. During this coma, Dude dreams as his new alter, P3. After he wakes up from his coma and goes looking for his dog, P3 begins to show up in his mind as "alternate dude" before manifesting visibly to him. I don't think there's any point that P3 is acknowledged by anyone other than P2/main fronting Dude, which makes sense if he's a hallucination.

So, if you get the normal ending on Paradise Lost, Dude takes Champ and runs off to Edensin to start over again. We can mostly ignore the overall plot of Postal 4 for this theory. The important thing for keeping in mind is that Postal Dude in this one is likely P2 (though you can pick any voice you want). When the game starts, Dude has had his trailer stolen. Supposedly. Throughout, you're given chances to do good for the town around you and can beat the game as a pacifist (not that I did but like. Other people did!) You also regularly meet someone referred to as "the stranger" who has a shadowy face so we can't really make out who he is. He seems to exist only to taunt Dude, leading him to sleeping in barns or alleyways with the promise of better accommodations. At the end of 4, it's revealed that the stranger stole Dude's trailer. If you get the normal ending, Dude has to pay an insane amount for his own trailer back, another punishment for him at the hands of the stranger. But if you play the pacifist route, the stranger returns his keys to him, and Dude refers to a guardian angel. Which is when we see the stranger do this.

The wings are accompanied by the sound from Postal 1997 for selecting the menu, making it feel like this is the demon from the original, only further backed up by this visual as Dude and Champ drive away.

So, is this the demon from 1? Not exactly, no.

P2 is the demon from 1, speaking to Dude and expressing sadistic delight at the carnage. P2 is also the Dude we've followed through all of 4. This demonic figure isn't P2, it's P1. P1 imagines himself as somewhere between an angel and a demon and seeks to punish P2 for his sins, hence stealing his trailer and putting the host body in the gutter. P1, inversely, rewards P2 by giving the trailer back for free if P2 behaves (aka, doesn't go on a rampage).

"Why would he want to lose his own money?" I could be wrong, but I don't think P1 cares that much about his own health and safety.

So, P2 is the demon when P1 is fronting. P1 is the "guardian angel" when P2 is fronting.

Okay, so what about Brain Damaged? It seems to me that the Dude from Brain Damaged is either another alter all together or P3 (based on the voice, since that's where a lot of this comes from).

Other Dude is almost definitely P2 again, not only because of the voice but because P2 is consistently sadistic so it would make sense for him to either want to front because that allows him to be a dick in the real world, or to just harass the less sadistic/violent Dudes.

Do y'all wanna hear my questionable Postal headcanon/au?

[depravity-n-savagery]

Sunshine's Sinners

Ch 3 - Pity Party

[ Ch 2 ]

🥨Pairings: Billy Hargrove x (fem)Reader / Eddie Munson x (fem)Reader / Mungrove x (fem)Reader

🥨Summary: You spend some time with Eddie, avoiding Billy after what happened outside your house the other night.

🥨CW: Mild bullying, sibling arguments

🛑 18+ MINORS DNI 🛑

🥨Word Count: 2k

🥨A/N: We're back!! ♡ I'm coming out the sickness AND my writer's block 🤣 So I'm feeling good ♡

Nope. No way. Not touching that today. Mothers could really be clueless sometimes. Or maybe it was a ruse, and they were actually pushing you towards something. Your mother was the 'pushing' type. She pushed you into several different hobbies as a child. She pushed you into social situations, like the night you walked Billy and Max back to their house. Now she was suggesting an option that had you burning with embarrassment.

"He seems like a sweet boy." Billy's charm really won her over, if that was her image of him. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind giving you a ride to school. I mean, you go to the same school anyway. It makes sense."

"Not happening, mom."

She knew that tone of voice was a brick wall going up, shutting out any further arguments. Her hands went up in passive acceptance. Leaving the subject alone for now. "Well, be careful on your way to school. I'm gonna try to catch up on sleep." Just saying the word 'sleep' made her yawn. "I finally have a day off today."

No amount of sleeping in during the day was going to fix her body's clock. All these overnight shifts made her basically nocturnal. Wouldn't be surprised if she was secretly a vampire or something.

A cheek kiss and a sideways hug later, you were turning the knob of your front door. Happy to see that the lock was still secure and hadn't been tampered with. "Will do. Catch you later."

After the events of last night, you were more careful than you've ever been. Especially as a teenager. A span of life experience practically made for reckless behavior. Like the idiotic way you walked up to a grown stranger and questioned him as if you had any chance of defending yourself against him. God, and to make it even worse, Billy was a witness to the whole thing. Your family's dirty laundry strewn across the lawn for his eyes to see. So much for being a perfect princess. He made a term of endearment sound like an insult, but it somehow still made your insides fluttery.

Walking the halls felt like tip-toeing your way into a guarded facility. Every careful step held the risk of setting off an alarm. Alerting a certain head of curls that you were stupid to think you could avoid for long. Any amount of time would have to do. A day. A few hours. Or… ten seconds. The ten seconds it took for you to reach your locker, and look in the direction of the gymnasium's big double doors.

As if his stare put a bright spotlight over your head, his teammates followed his line of sight. Busted. You couldn't see pity or annoyance in his eyes. No matter how deeply you searched the ocean for it. The waters were calm. Unusually void of life for something so vibrantly colored. Like his pink lips mouthing something at you, too fast for you to read. Too far away for you to hear. All you could make out was your name, and it pissed you off how quickly your mind conjured up a fantasy of him moaning it. The more you tried to wish it away, the more detailed it became. Filling in the spaces with his warm breath and the smell of cigarettes and mint gum. His sticky sweet cherry chapstick.

By the time the bell rang, you took the long way to class. One tardy wouldn't harm your grades. Walking past Billy would. "Hey!" You heard his booming voice shoot over the crowd and kept walking. Doing what you did best in a mass of hurried students. Becoming just another face in the crowd. A privilege that your next target would probably never have.

Eddie always stood out like a priest in a whorehouse.

That just made it easier to find him once lunchtime came around. Follow the rambunctious laughter and wild gesturing; there was always one Eddie Munson at the end of that rainbow. You were one of the first few people to enter the large room. Looking over rows and rows of empty tables until you saw the tell-tale shag and denim vest. He was quiet without his usual group of club members surrounding him. Elbow propped up on the table so he could rest his face in the palm of his hand and slowly stuff pretzels into his mouth from a small ziplock bag. Pretzels? Everyone else had a tray. You had one. Wasn't he hungry?

With a little extra motivation in your step, you approached Eddie's table and put your tray down beside him. He lazily shifted his focus up towards you. "You uh…lost?"

"Nope." To emphasize that point, you plopped down into the seat. "Just wanted to sit here." Eddie was hard to read, but he was probably thinking the same about you. He watched the doors, looking for either one of his friends or someone that could be in on a set-up. "I wanted to thank you. Gave me some quality shit." An honest-to-goodness smile formed, and even Eddie was no match for it. He gave you a smaller (and confused) smile in return, turning in his seat to face you. His fingertips ran over the salty ridges of a small pretzel and you wondered if the skin there was rough.

"So you risk social suicide to thank little old me?" Eddie fluttered his eyelashes like a Disney princess. Comedic intentions aside, he was pretty. Unexpectedly. A wildflower in a cemetery. "I don't usually get a review from my customers, so thanks." He leaned in, like it was a secret. As if everyone didn't already know that he deals.

Then the silence came. He looked you over quizzically, hiding it less with every minute that passed. "Hungry?" Just to ease the tension, and quiet the nagging voice in the back of your head, you slid your tray closer to him. "Think Jeanette has the hots for me or somethin'. She always loads my tray with fries." You pluck a few from the pile and nibble on them, hoping he'd feel more open to sharing instead of feeling pressured to eat it all himself.

Hesitantly, he dipped his hand into the warm pile and ate one fry. Somehow finding the one with the most salt sprinkled over it. His stomach gurgled loud enough for you to hear, demanding to be fed more than his ziplock bag would've given it. You kept on as if you heard nothing. Don't know what's the situation with his eating, but he clearly needs it more than I do. It was enough to share food in comfortable silence. That is, until the usual suspects started coming in.

"Check it out, The Freak's got a new little friend!"

Freak. You've heard them harass him in the hallways over the years, and it sort of faded into the background. All part of the high school ambience. Now you noticed how ugly it felt, and you weren't even on the receiving end. Eddie dropped the fry he almost put into his mouth, instead using his salt-dusted fingertips to give a dainty wave towards the couple of jocks that stood beside the table. "Awe, Andy what's wrong? Feel replaced?"

Two jocks became five, and you were starting to feel a bit nervous. Where the basketball team was, there was usually their newest star Billy. So far he was nowhere to be seen. Just 'Andy' and the anger he spewed towards you after Eddie's teasing comment. "Fuck off, Freak! Don't get bold because you've got some bitch giving you the time of day."

A loud, masculine voice parted the gathering cluster of team jerseys and basketball shorts. "Hey! Cool it, Andy." Despite your mission to avoid him, you wanted to catch a glimpse of him. Sunny curls coming to your rescue once again. Sadly, the closer he got, the more you saw that it wasn't your neighbor. It was Steve Harrington. "Leave em'. Got a game coming up, and we don't need you getting into any more trouble."

You hadn't spoken to Steve since Barbra was still around. Since Nancy still considered you someone worth entertaining a friendship with, instead of an ugly scar leftover from having Barb ripped away too soon. There was a soft thanks on your lips for him that died when you saw the way he looked at you. Shaking his head like a disapproving parent before leading his teammates away to their table.

Right after they cleared, a familiar bunch entered from the door farthest away from you. Three boys wearing shirts just like Eddie's. He cleared his throat, saying your name just above a whisper. "You don't have to pity me, y'know. Most of the people who buy from me either act like I don't exist or throw me into a locker when they get the chance. I know the way it works."

"I don't pity you, Eddie." You try to brighten his spirits with another smile, but he wilts. "I wanted to sit and chat with you. You're cool to hang with." As his friends get closer you see him tense, so you stand. Leaving the tray behind.

"I'll save you a seat tomorrow. If- if you want."

"Thanks." You throw him a wink for good measure. That puts the color back in his cheeks. "See you then."

"Y/n! Over here!"

There he was. You had made it through the day without seeing him, it was a shock to hear him call you directly. Standing there beside his Camaro as Max came over on her skateboard. He must've been waiting for her. And you.

"Get in the car. I'm taking you home." He said plainly, turning to open the driver's seat door once you were a couple feet away. Even Max looked at him in shock, but kept her questions to herself. "Backseat, Shitbird. You know the drill." I guess it wasn't the first time he had a girl along for the ride. Already? He's only been in Hawkins for like, five seconds.

Long enough to have you swapping spit with him in the middle of the night. Maybe you weren't as special as you stupidly let yourself believe. Whatever. Special or not, you regretted your stubborn insistence on walking to school this morning. If he was offering a free ride, then who were you to turn it down? It's not like he'd bring up the situation in front of Max.

Instead, he'll argue with her. From the moment he pulled out of the parking lot. Bickering about whose turn it was to do whatever chore, when to be back home from the arcade, and most of all… how much he hated moving here. "Watch that fucking tone with me. You don't like it, then you shouldn't have done what you did. Whose fault is it that we had to move here?"

"Yours…" Max grumbled, folding in on herself with a hope that he didn't hear her. The snap in his neck as he turned to her made her curl up even tighter.

"What was that?" Billy was full-blown yelling, lurching the car forward with increased speed. "WHOSE FAULT, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!"

The trees along the road were becoming a blur. Zooming by so fast you were starting to feel sick. "If I say it was my fault will you calm down?? You're gonna kill us!"

"Mind your goddamn business." He lowered the volume, but all the ice remained. Being on the receiving end of Billy's anger was starting to be one of your least favorite occurrences. "You don't even know what she did.."

Home in one piece, you leaped up from your seat and exited the Camaro before he came to a complete stop. The grass did look greener, when you feared that you'd never see it again. "Thanks." A ride is a ride. Deadly or not. Maybe you should walk more often. 

Somewhere in his grumbles were sounds that resembled 'your welcome'. Heavy-footed, he charged on toward his front door and slammed it behind him. 

"Thanks.. for helping with Billy." Max said, spinning the wheel on her skateboard. She hurried after Billy to avoid another altercation. You couldn't blame her. It was scary being yelled at like that, but Billy had a point. Whatever issue he's so upset about was in the making before they even moved here. There had to be something stirring up all that rage.

Masterlist , Series Masterlist , Ao3 ☆

Taglist: @sidthedollface2 , @bontensbabygirl , @killing-gremlin

[danny-chase]

Warnings: violence, blood, realism in comics, me mentioning things stans want to ignore to make a point, you don't have to consider them canon, I'm just making a point don't hurt me

Right. Been seeing dialog about Jason's decision to give up guns that i feel is missing a few points.

1. Bruce is traumatized by guns. Yeah he jumps in the line of fire every night but that doesn't mean he isn't scared of/triggered by them:

[Image ID: Oracle!Babs and Robin!Tim roll/walk through the clocktower. Babs: (about guns) Hates them. But doesn't fear them. Tim: Not the way he jumps in the line of fire night after night. Babs: Line of fire... Babs: I was afraid of them for a long time. I'd go faint at the sight of a gun on TV. Tim: You have reasons, Barbara. So does Batman. Babs: But I. worked through them. Babs: Maybe Bruce hasn't. Maybe he's not the rock we thought he was. Tim: He bought a gun as therapy? Babs: Look at the facts. He bought it just like any other citizen. Like he wanted to experience it as someone else would. Tim: I don't think- Computer: Keyword media search alert. Tim: What's that? End ID]

Birds of Prey (1998) #40

Bruce's opposition of guns is partially based in trauma - it's not completely a moral stance or completely logical rule. Jason giving up guns is for himself, but it allows him to be closer to Bruce and for Bruce to be more relaxed in his presence -> can make their relationship closer.

2. [X] weapon isn't even lethal. Getting cut/hurt + no health care = possible death from infection -> shooting a henchman with regular bullets in the foot can be lethal. Or cutting them with a batarang.

[Image ID: A girl walks home getting off the school bus. Girl: "Mama, I know you don't want to hear this, but --" She opens the door to an empty run down house. Girl: "Mama? Mama are you --?" She opens up the bathroom door, revealing her mother sweating and bleeding out on the ground, trying to press a towel to a wound on her side. Her mom is wearing a henchman outfit for the H.I.V.E. Girl: "Mama!" Mom: "Why -- Why are you home so soon?" The girl holds her mom in a sitting position. Girl: "This isn't the flu. You said you had the flu." Mom: "I -- I will be better soon. I just need to rest." Girl: "You need a hospital, mama." Mom: "No. If they find out -- they'll take you away from me. Send me back to Guatemala." The final panel shows a wisp of Ravens cape, the view zoomed out. Girl: "I know you want to protect me, but you need help now -- no matter what happens later." Raven: "Maybe I can help." End ID]

Titans: Titans Together #4

Similarly could ppl stop acting like rubber bullets are non lethal, everything the batfam uses can be lethal and cause scenes like above. Literally none of them can claim moral high ground they've all thrown batarangs in people's faces (off the top of my head, Jason nailed Dick with one in the face in BoC and Bruce got Jason in the neck in UTRH so there's the two characters at odds).

3. Jason/Bruce has never hurt an undeserving person. Jason isn't a mass murderer and you're slandering him. Bruce is the best dad ever you're an idiot for thinking otherwise.

...did you miss the times he tried to kill Tim? Or sprayed Dick with fear gas? Or shot Damian in the chest (not rubber bullets mind you). All of this happened in Battle of the Cowl. He poisoned 82 prisoners indiscriminately in Batman and Robin (2009) #23, went around killing random "thugs" in Brothers in Blood arc of Nightwing. Is it slander if he did it? Idk. If anyone can answer that lmk but everything is canon now so the point is moot.

And let me also say if everythings canon Bruce has also hurt/hit/abused his family (i don't have the specific issue numbers but runs that I've seen bad dad Bruce in are The New Titans, Batgirl (2000), Nightwing (1996), Tom Kings crap, RHATO rebirth, etc. I don't feel like going into detail but if hard pressed i will) don't try to paint me as a Bruce or Jason apologist/hater please

Also literally see the panel above 💀 the mom is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala with an engineering degree she can't use because the US gov is literally fucking flaming garbage, so she had to take that job to provide for her daughter. Quit thinking extrajudicial murder/vigilantism is a woke take. No. Stop. Bad. Criminals have rights for a reason.

Can you choose to call the above things Jason and Bruce have done ooc and bad writing. Yep. Go ahead, be my guest. Just it's weird to me that ppl always seem to do it for one character and not the other. Like... that's not productive dialogue? And yeah both Jason and Bruce stans do this i just happened to see a post from a Jason stan so he got to be shamed first. If you think i think my fave is wrong, i literally made a post publically shaming him at one point, and wrote an entire fic dedicated to me pointing out why i think characters would hate him the most 🤷‍♀️ if someone read a comic that shows your fave in a bad light don't call them stupid for not liking that character just point them in the right direction and if you don't want to. Don't. Just block them. I'm tired of watching ppl act like their better than each other because they don't consider things canon (unless you stan a minority character and don't consider their racist/sexist writing canon in which case, same, you're the best ppl in this fandom)�� or referencing fanon as canon and telling ppl to go read more comics 💀

Anyways the takeaways I've come out with are, this debate between the two is more than just morals, they've both wronged each other, and trying to simplify it down into victim and abuser is just - missing nuance and ignoring their full histories in my opinion and kinda just ends up flattening both characters and making both of them less relatable

[radfae]

the potential protective effects of guns r outweighed by the negatives. having a gun in the house, whether purchased by urself or another, makes u much more likely to get injured or die (murder or suicide) by gunshot. even when attacked by someone else, if u use a gun to try to defend urself u are more likely to be injured than if u had called the cops or ran away. there are numerous studies confirming all this. since 2020 the leading cause of death for 1-19 y/o is guns. women r less likely to buy/use guns anyway, and women are threatened most by men close to them, not strangers, making women even less likely to turn their gun on them. yes criminals can try to find a way to get guns if they’re illegal but we can make it much harder to do so, otherwise what’s the point of laws? ppl murder ppl everyday, should we legalize murder since the law doesn’t stop em?

when australia, the UK, canada, new zealand and norway implemented gun control measures in response to mass shootings, gun violence of all kinds including mass shootings fell dramatically. here in the US, a law in 1994 that banned assault weapons & large-capacity mags lead to a decline in mass shootings. in the decade following the ban’s expiration in 04, mass shootings more than tripled.

the real problem is male violence, i agree 1000%. but easy access to guns makes that male violence so much more extensive & deadly, esp to women (more intimate partners are killed with guns than by all other methods combined) & children (familicide, anyone?). it’s so so easy and so so quick to kill a person or multiple people with a gun. common sense gun laws (universal background checks including at gun shows & private sales, mandatory waiting periods, banning assault weapons & high-capacity mags, raising the minimum age to buy a gun, closing the “boyfriend loophole”, hell we could even throw in a national buyback program) work. a few studies: https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/19/1/26 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26905895/ https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1619896114

i totally agree w/ u that male violence needs to be addressed, along with the necessity of a radical restructuring of society with women in charge and female separatism (add banning males from owning guns too, fuck it). but until that happens, we can do other things to save ppl NOW. don’t let perfect be the enemy of good

…yes, it’s a given that you’re much more likely to die by gunshot when there’s a gun in the house. i never said guns were safe. owning one is a responsibility and involves a level of risk. and a lot of the times people can’t run away, and calling the cops takes time (not to mention common police biases against women, the proletariat, black people, mentally ill/disabled people, etc) that may not be available to a person needing immediate defense. which is why, once again, i’ve said that in the event we do restrict gun access, it would be acceptable as a temporary solution for damage control purposes. i just don’t really think that’s feasible; the government isn’t going to give your guns back after successfully passing a law that so massively benefits them. besides, there’s other things we can do for damage control—upping security levels specifically at schools, making it so that people can’t enter the building as easily without a verification process, bulletproof glass, metal detectors, updating protocol so police don’t sit on their ass and wait for backup when there’s an active shooter on site, etc. those are only ideas off of the top of my head but there’s really a lot more we can do than taking away guns while we deal with the root of the problem

since you provided studies, i might as well throw one out there too:

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/gun-ownership-provides-effective-self-defense-gun-control-p-142-149

A follow-up study of rape found that using a gun or knife for protection reduced the likelihood of a completed rape, and using a gun reduced the likelihood of injury to close to zero.

though, we could throw studies back and forth at each other all day—there’s so many out there regarding guns, since it’s been such a hot topic the past so many years. the fact of the matter is that i’m still going to be pro-gun 🤷‍♀️ i went down a liberal rabbit hole a while back and was pretty anti-gun before i was more radicalized and realized it’s a very flimsy solution with a lot of cons that benefits the bourgeoisie a lot more than the common man or woman. it’d probably take a lot to have me revert back

[lovelylogans]

spring cleaning

there’s a pack rat in the family. who it is will not surprise you.

part of the wyliwf verse.

warnings: food mentions, alcohol mentions, general messiness, jokes about hoarding

pairings: patton/virgil, offscreen logan/roman

word count: 2,412

notes: hi! this is just a quick little fic as i beta and finish off the next chapter of debutante. this is based off the gilmore girls season three episode twelve “lorelai out of water” cold open. takes place the spring after the main storyline, after alliance but before debutante.

⁂

virgil’s phone buzzes at 10:13 am on a sunny spring sunday. he pauses just after he drops off the brunch plates for mrs. torres, babette, and east side tilly, digging around in his back pocket to squint at his recent texts.

logan sanders: Please help.

any other time, this kind of text would probably send anxiety flooding his veins like ice water. as he’s been warned, sure, he’s a little anxious that he’s misreading the situation, but he shakes that aside and snorts.

“called it,” he mutters under his breath, before he wipes his hands on his apron and types out christ, you’re folding easy this year. is that a new record?

a brief pause. then, No, the record was twenty-four minutes. To be fair, that took place when I was ten years old, we were moving into the house, and you were already going to be involved, so I perhaps I should propose that does not count against my spring cleaning record.

ah, that’s right. god, helping patton move had kind of been a nightmare. helping anyone move is a bit of a nightmare, but with patton there’s a whole new layer of shenanigans.

Another buzz. Also, I need this to be hastened along. I have a Socratic seminar in English tomorrow, and though we have settled on a tentative truce I refuse to let Dee achieve the highest grade in the class.

he shoots back i’ll be there asap.

“jean,” he calls to the counter, but jean, having been warned as well, waves him off.

“i got it, at least he waited till the we hit the between-masses lull.”

“you’re the best,” he says, hanging up his apron and ignoring mrs. torres’ hoots about his arms—he's like ninety percent sure she’s spiking her own orange juice so she can have a screwdriver with her pancakes but he hasn’t caught her with a flask in hand yet—and heads out the door.

the citizens of sideshire are fully soaking in the pleasure of a sunny spring day—it’s one of those days, where the weather’s warming up slowly, but there’s sure to be more cold snaps before they fully settle into spring, so lots of people are taking advantage of it. families are sprawled with picnic blankets in the grassy town square. the “long-haired freak” (taylor’s nickname, not his. virgil’s pretty sure his name is dave, but also, he’s not totally sure his name is dave, and as such usually avoids any complications by saying “hey, man,” whenever virgil sees him) is out hawking fruits and vegetables from his garden. lots of people are out on walks, some with earbuds or headphones on, some calling out jolly greetings to other people taking advantage of a blue sky and temperatures that are soaring above freezing.

“hey, virgil.”

“hey, felix,” virgil says, craning his neck to catch sight of—well, he guesses felix and riley are technically his tenants? but that always feels weird to say���his neighboring business owners. felix is busy making sure a promotional poster’s taped to the window. “how’re things?”

“ah, y’know, y’know,” felix says, waving their hands around. “weather’s warming up, so we’re getting into busy season. guess people want to be able to flaunt new ink in the warmer weather, y’know?”

“hey, speaking of—” virgil says.

“oh, yeah,” felix says, scratching at the half of their head that was once shaved bald but is now growing in stubbly. “you wanna have riley do one this time? they can draw up some sketches for you, if you want. or i can, if you want, but it might be a minute ‘cause i’m all hands on deck for this massive full-back piece.”

“nah, riley’ll be cool, it’s been a minute since they’ve done one for me,” virgil says. “i’ll drop by later with some reference photos, ideas and stuff.”

“i’ll make sure they’re refreshed on what your style is before the consultation,” felix says. “appreciate the business.”

“appreciate you and your spouse taking over this empty shop so taylor didn’t get a chance to,” virgil returns, as he usually does whenever felix or their riley thanks him for something. he’s really awkward about accepting gratitude, he’s working on that with emile and patton.

“god, could you imagine taylor next door,” felix says with a theatric shudder. “bad enough he runs half the town.”

“i’ll call tomorrow to make the appointment?”

felix flashes him a thumbs up, and virgil raises a hand in farewell as he continues on his way.

he ends up pushing his sleeves up to his elbows as he walks to the sanders’ house, occasionally saying hey to other residents of sideshire, or tilting his face up to the sun. 

this winter’s been brutal, even worse than it usually is for the northeast, with absurd amounts of blizzards and ice. on the days where it wasn’t shoveling ridiculous amounts of snow on the whole town, the sky had been gray and overcast, and what little sun there was could barely stream weakly through the clouds. 

but now, the sun sinks softly into his exposed skin, warming him without overheating him thanks to the breeze, carrying the sweet scent of tentatively blooming flowers planted by particularly audacious gardeners.

it is a perfect, lovely spring day. 

by the time he gets to the cheerful yellow clapboard house, he’s taken enough deep, calming breaths to ensure that he is a calming presence. he ascends the stairs of the wraparound porch—oh, huh, looks like patton or logan’s making an attempt at being a gardener, that looks like mountain mint—and knocks lightly on the front door.

“please come in,” logan shouts, sounding exasperated, and virgil obligingly pushes the door open.

he toes off his shoes, even as he overhears patton’s voice, cajoling.

“hug-a-world! c’mon, you’ve gotta remember your hug-a-world!”

hug-a-world, virgil mouths to himself, before it comes back to him in sudden, vivid technicolor and he rounds the corner.

and, sure enough, surrounded by the detritus of the sanders home, patton and logan sit in a hastily-cleared space in the middle of their living room, patton holding a stuffed ball tight to his chest.

“of course i remember the hug-a-world,” logan says, still with that tone of exasperation, but lessened now at the sight of a beloved childhood toy. 

“you can’t make me throw away your hug-a-world,” patton declares viciously, which would almost be believably threatening if he were not clutching a stuffed ball made to look like a globe to his chest, and if his curly hair was not sticking up in a configuration that virgil thinks of as chaotically unruly, and if he were not wearing a pink-and-blue sweater he usually busts out around easter, and if someone did not know patton as a person. “you learned all seven of your continents on hug-a-world!”

see, without fail, almost every year patton gets suckered into the whole concept of the spring clean. and, without fail, logan or virgil will try to point out that he does this every year, and patton insists no, really, this time for sure he’ll get rid of some of the clutter around this house, it’s about time!, and then he gets sidetracked getting attached to objects he finds that he suddenly cannot bear to get rid of, despite the fact that said objects have typically been buried away in a dark closet all the rest of the year.

which means that logan and virgil sit with him and try to point that out, and patton wavers, before he decides to keep or donate or trash it, and it seems like it’s going okay, until the next thing he touches turns out to be another thing that he suddenly cannot bear to give up.

it’s gotten a little better since that time they introduced the marie kondo method, but also, that much worse, because of course he insists that everything sparks joy! 

but this is way more mess than usual. there are cardboard boxes and piles of clothes and bits and bobs that are in piles that come up to his ribs. virgil squints it at it suspiciously.

“attic,” logan says wearily, in explanation. “he got boxes out of the attic.”

oh, shit, the attic. god, that thing is stuffed to the brim with boxes, no wonder the living room looks like someone upended the odds-and-ends drawer for a giant into the house.

“but—c’mon,” patton says, in that same sweetly coaxing tone that usually makes them all throw up their hands and leave the rest of this spring cleaning mess for next year’s spring clean. he holds out the hug-a-world to logan. “hold it. marie says so.”

“marie does not realize that she has a special case with my hoarder of a father and therefore should customize the approach of sparks joy, because you have too wide a definition,” logan says, but he reaches out and takes the hug-a-world with both hands anyways.

virgil examines logan holding it, thinking suddenly of a much tinier logan with a gap in his front teeth holding the same toy in the same way, though the fabric had been much more vibrant shades of blue and green then. there had been a solid stretch of time that the hug-a-world had been the toy that logan had hugged falling asleep, back in the poolhouse. he’d taken the hug-a-world to the diner and to school and all around the inn and to the princes’ apartment and back again.

a side of logan’s mouth twitches up, and then, as if suddenly conscious of it, he forces the corners of his mouth to turn down as he stares at it.

“remember?” patton repeats, staring at logan and the hug-a-world fondly. “we used to take turns to squeeze it as tight as we could and then wherever our pinkies would end up, that’s where we were going to go together when you grew up.”

“yes,” logan says, and then loses the fight against his mouth, because it twitches up into a smile again. “many a trip to uzbekistan was planned that way.”

“look!” patton says, pointing and tilting his head. “that’s canada, then, where’d your other one get you?”

logan moves his other pinky in order to squint at the faded fabric. “i believe that’s cambodia. possibly vietnam, i was rather splitting the border.” 

“why not both?” patton says pragmatically, or as pragmatically as he can sound planning a potential trip based off hugging a ball. 

logan hesitates, holding the ball.

“look,” patton says. “hey, how about virgil helps clean it up, and the hug-a-world can live in your room?”

logan chews at the inside of his lip.

“if it sparks joy,” patton sing-songs.

logan heaves a sigh.

“the hug-a-world will live in my room, then,” he says, before looking to virgil. “we’ve started a pile for you right here,” and pats a pile of what mostly looks like clothes that can be either repaired, repurposed, or sneakily donated.

virgil takes a breath, and says, “i’ll crack open a window and put on some music, then. patton, you take your allergy medicine today?”

patton tilts his head to think about it.

“that’s a no,” virgil says. “i’ll grab it on the way. water, snacks? we’re gonna be here for a while.”

“are we?” logan says doubtfully, twisting to look at him.

“we are finishing spring clean this year!” patton insists. “i mean it this time!”

logan arches his eyebrows at virgil, and virgil mouths play along, and logan sighs before he turns back to the pile, pulling out an old jacket at random.

“i have never seen you wear this. it should be donated.”

“that was from raf, we can’t just toss it!” patton cries out in dismay, and virgil heads for the kitchen.

he fills up three glasses of water, chops up some celery and apples, fills up three mini ramekins with peanut butter, and sets it all on a tray, along with the round white pill that patton takes for his allergies. 

he plugs in his phone and scrolls to a roman-made playlist, lowering the volume so that they’ll be able to hear each other, and proceeds to make his meandering way around the piles of Stuff as best he can without knocking anything over.

on his way, he moves to crack open the windows of the living room, allowing the floral-scented air to waft into the messy room, to hear the chirping of the birds under patton and logan’s debating.

he pushes aside a pile of old books on the coffee table and sets the tray down, mostly ignored as logan manages to triumph and tosses the jacket into a box labeled DONATE.

virgil settles down next to his pile, sitting in criss-cross-applesauce, and gosh all of the clutter of patton and logan’s lives looms over them like a mountain at this angle. 

“okay,” virgil says encouragingly. “good, that’s good! raf’s old jacket will probably make some other teenager very happy to have it.”

patton sighs, staring after the jacket. “yeah, i guess.”

“this is good,” virgil says stubbornly, before tugging at a piece of fabric sticking out at random and unearthing a blanket.

“oh, i was wondering where that got off to!” patton says, delighted. 

“i thought that got lost in the moving shuffle,” virgil agrees, because the last time he saw this he was pretty sure it was tossed over the back of their rented apartment couch.

“so this blanket has not been washed in at least six years,” logan says.

“well, that can be fixed!” patton points out. “i say keep.”

“we’re never going to finish,” logan groans.

“of course we’re gonna finish!” patton says.

“yeah, logan,” virgil says unconvincingly. “listen to your dad.” 

patton beams at him, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek; logan rolls his eyes, before he turns his attention to the blanket.

“so, you claim keep for your room,” logan says. “you already have so many blankets.”

“well, we can always use more blankets!” patton points out. “worse comes to worse, we’ll put it in the linen closet.”

logan tilts his head, before he sighs, and places it in a pile of other fabrics that they seem to have decided to keep.

“all right, fine,” he says, then fishes out another piece of fabric. “next item—”

“look how fast we settled that!” patton says brightly.

“pretty fast,” virgil agrees dutifully.

“we’ll totally finish spring clean this year,” patton says confidently.

(they do not finish spring clean this year.)

[gloriafc]

Baby

Slight greys anatomy mention

You're Eddie's daughter. You were the product of a teen pregnancy, the reason your parents got married. They had Christopher as an attempt to save their marriage and it worked for a little bit. When your mom left you were also graduating high school and ready to go off to college.

"Dad I don't have to go. I can take a year off. You need help with Christopher." "I can handle it mija. You go and become a doctor like you want. Make us proud okay?" And you do just that, the year you graduate med school is the same year he joins the 118. You take a trip to visit them and help them move before your internship starts, Christopher of course is very happy to see you without a screen separating you two and your dad is happy to see how much you've grown.

You start your internship in Seattle, becoming a surgeon at Seattle Grace.

When the fire station finds out about Christopher, no one finds out about you, your dad not knowing how to bring up that he has an adult daughter.

When the incident with the bomb in the or happens, your dad is worried about you resulting in him finally telling the firehouse about you. "Why didn't you ever say anything?" "I don't know. I don't put pictures up, there was never any reason. But now." "Now she's been injured."

They don't get the chance to meet you until the mass shooting, you've been shot twice in your side protecting others. Your dad is your emergency contact and gets the call while he's at work. He freezes as he listens to the doctor talk, "She's alive though right?" Everyone can hear the worry in his voice an immediately question him when he gets off the phone. Bobby immediately gives him time off as he and Christopher head to Seattle to visit you.

It kills Eddie to see you injured, you're his baby girl after all, but you hide your pain well around Christopher. After you get discharged you decide to head back to LA during your time off to heal and to be with your family. So you finally get to meet everyone. Of course Buck quickly becomes the protective uncle you never had, and you're happy to see that your dad has a friend like him.

Halfway through your visit is when your mom comes back, and you don't really know how to feel. You've always bumped heads with her, but it got worse when she'd fight with your dad, even worse when she decided to leave and never made it to any of your graduations. And now you're an adult who watched you're dad build up everything she tore down. She didn't know that you were staying with your dad and tried to hide her reaction when she saw you sitting on the couch with Christopher playing a game of cards.

You tried to keep things civil but you can only do so much on your part. You kept your responses short or hardly spoke unless spoken too, until one night you both finally snapped. There was nothing Eddie could do, he loved you both, but he knew this was something you both needed to work out. "Admit it mom. If you knew I was here you never would've come back, not yet at least." "Y/N-" "No! I bet you don't even know the reason why I'm here. Fuck you couldn't even show up to my graduations. You say you left for yourself but what about your kids? You said dad never made time because of work, but he did. He was there. Me and Christopher forgave him for the things he missed because he made up for it. And you were too busy being pissed that once you got the chance you dipped. You probably don't even know that I went to medical school. That I put in so much effort I graduated early. That I'm a surgeon and one of the ones at the top of my class. And you can't even be proud because I'm a mistake." No one knows how to respond so you continue, "Admit it. You never would've married dad if I wasn't born, if I wasn't a mistake."

You leave the house and as much as Eddie wants to go after you he knows you better than that, better than your mom. He stands in the kitchen doorway as your mom sits at the table with her head in her hands, "She's always been difficult." He can only look at her, "No she hasn't. She's hurt and she has every right to be. She's right she was a mistake, but I wouldn't have it any other way. But what about you? She's here because she was shot twice in a mass shooting protecting others from the shooter, but you didn't know that. You didn't know your daughters a hero. You probably didn't know that she was injured by a bomb either. But I did because I was the first person she called, because I am her father. I made up everything I missed for them because of how much I love them, they both understand that I made a sacrifice to keep us financially stable. They learned love comes with sacrifices from me. You had your reasons to leave and I know that but she's right, you had no reason to leave your kids behind, you could've sent them post cards or something. I had the decency to write letters while I was on yours. I'm so proud of her, of the things she's done. She tried to take a year off of school to help me with Christopher because I had no idea what I was doing, but I figured it out. She lives in Seattle but she still finds time to call and text so Christopher doesn't think he's the reason shes gone. She's sacrificed just as much as everyone else, so if you still think she's a mistake, then what did you think our marriage was? Why did you come back thinking she wouldn't be apart of things like she's not your daughter as well?"

Athena's the one to see you walking the street at night, recognizing you from one of the pictures Christopher showed her. "You're Eddie's daughter right?" "Uh yeah, Y/N." She sits with you, "Athena, Bobby's wife. Why are you out here so late?" You don't know why but you vent to her, "My uh. My mom came back. And we got into a fight." You explain everything to her and she offers her couch to sleep on seeing that you don't want to go home just yet.

In the morning Bobby is the one to drop you off, your dad opening the door when he hears the car in his driveway. You walk passed everyone not wanting to say anything, but your dad follows you to Christopher's room where all your stuff is. "Where'd you go?" "I met Athena she let me sleep on her couch. I already ate, Bobby made breakfast." "Mija-" "Dad I just want to take a shower. I'll probably catch a bus and head somewhere. I'll be back before dinner." He can only sigh as he looks at the floor as you rummage through your bags, "She might be staying." "That's your marriage dad, not mine. You work out what you need to work out. I'm going back to work in a couple days anyways. I'll have to deal with a therapist there. Everything will be fine." He moves and pulls you into his arms sighing as you wrap your arms around his waist and press your face into his chest like you did when you were little, "When did you grow up?" "When I got boobs." You both laugh before he kisses your head and tells you he's heading to work leaving you in a quiet house with your mom in the kitchen.

You quickly shower and head out before your mom can even say anything to you, getting back just as your dad arrives. You end up leaving a note for your dad and leaving in the middle of the night with all your stuff, catching a cab to the airport and catching a early flight back to Seattle. Of course Eddie is upset but he understands that you and your mom will just continue to bump heads and if you think it's what's best for yourself, who is he to argue, you're an adult.

Of course you text and video call all the time, sometimes catching him when he's at the fire station and he's just happy to see you're happy and healthy.

When the plane crash happens he finds it weird that he hasn't talked to you in a few days but brushes things off thinking you're just busy. The day you call, he's at the firehouse with Christopher for a family dinner, he happily answers the phone. "Hey baby! We're having dinner, do you want to talk to Christopher?" His smile quickly faulters when he hears your shaky voice, "Daddy." He quickly walks off after checking that your brother was with Buck, "What happened?" "There. There was an accident. We had a case. We. We had to fly to Idaho. The uh. The plane. The engines were faulty and the plane crashed. My. My right side was, uh. They have to do surgery to repair my right side from my ribs to my knee."

Eddie can feel tears threaten to fall just listening to how scared you are but you continue talking, "They did enough to fix everything but they're sending me to LA for the rest of the cosmetic surgeries and physical therapy while they work out everything with HR. I'm already at the airport with some medical staff, were getting on the plane." Your dad runs a hand down his face as he tries to stay calm, "Uh okay. Call me when you get here. I'll meet you at the airport in a few hours."

Your mom is the one to find your dad outside, "What's going on? Christopher's waiting for you to play the game with him and Buck." "I'm uh I'm going to the airport. Tell him to start the game and I'll play tomorrow." "What happened?" "Y/N was in a plane crash they're flying her here." "I'll go with you." "No. Just stay with Christopher. We don't. We don't need a recap of what happened last time. Not while she's like this. And I need to be alone. Before I see her, with her injuries."

Your dad waits for hours at the airport, the staff tell him where the airplane will land and offer to take him out when the plane lands so he can stay with you. You're out cold when he gets to you, "She started freaking out before the plane took off, which was understandable we sedated her to keep her under for the plane ride, she should be waking up soon."

Your dad sits by your side as you sleep. He counts and recounts all the IVs connected to you, quickly standing when he hears Christopher, "Dad what happened to Y/N?" He looks at your mom and the rest of the firehouse behind them, "What are you guys doing here?" Buck answers, "You left without saying bye. We figured you needed some support, that she needed some support after we heard what happened. She's family too." While everyone is distracted Christopher makes his way to the spot your dad was sitting in and grabs your hand. You're laying on your left side due to your injuries and Christopher can only wonder what happened to you. After a few minutes you open your eyes squeezing the small boys hand in yours, "You're awake Y/N/N." "Hi Christopher."

At the sound of your voice your dad is immediately at your side, "How are you feeling?" Your sarcastic side comes out, letting your dad know you're okay for now, "Like I fell out of a plane."

Of course everyone quickly learns how bad doctors are as patients, "The stitches are wrong." "They should've done this, it's faster." Buck easily jokes with you, "The doctors are probably ready to discharge you and your whining already." "They wouldn't be if they knew how to do their jobs right."

After you get discharged your dad takes you home. Everyone can see you're out of it, so someone is always with you, even your mom, but the conversations stay short but trying for your dad and brother. One day Athena offers to take you out to lunch. "How've you been feeling?" "I don't know." "Your dad's worried about you. Everyone is. You're putting on a brave face." You blink away tears, something that doesn't go unnoticed by Athena, "What's wrong?" You look around thankful you got a corner table and it was a slow day for the restaurant. You take a deep breath before looking at Athena, "I haven't told my dad yet, but a few days before the accident I found out I was pregnant. I'm not anymore... Obviously."

Athena sits with you, talking about the news that is no longer news for anyone, "Are you going to tell your dad?" "I don't know. I think. I think I'm still trying to process everything. The baby. A miscarriage. The crash. The fact that I was only a few seats away from getting crushed to death." Athena nods, "Do you know what's happening with everyone else that was on the plane?" "Uh yeah. The hospital is taking fault for using that airline service with known cases of faulty engines, were basically sueing the hospital for damages up to 15 million each. It'd shut down the hospital, but we all plan on purchasing it." "So you're going to own a hospital." "Part of it along with the others that were on the plane. So I'm not actually pocketing anything right now, but over time."

After a few more days you tell your dad about the miscarriage as you both sit on the porch, "Did you tell the dad?" "No. Uh we were never in a relationship. At least I don't think we were. It only happened once and we were both pretty drunk."

After another month you go back to work to finish off your residency. You apply for fellowships, but know which one you're going to accept. You never tell your dad, opting on surprising him randomly. You show up at the firehouse, your dad running over as soon as Hen points you out, "What are you doing here?" You smile, "I decided which fellowship I'm taking." It takes a second for it to click in his head, "The one here?" You don't get the chance to respond before your dad's picking you up in a bear hug. "Wait until Christopher finds out."

You jump into working, even though you live in your own house now your dad and brother are both excited to have you close again. After a few years, and after your mom's death, things fall into a normalcy. You get invited to any family dinners Bobby and Athena throw and you always find time to spend with your dad and brother.

You manage to become chief of trauma, you still have your board seat in Seattle and occasionally fly out sometimes taking Christopher and your dad for a getaway.

The first time anyone in the firehouse actually sees you in your natural habitat is when they have to bring in a druggie with a gsw. Athena is also there since the patient is the one who had the gun. Buck was grazed by a bullet so the firehouse was still in the ER while he got patched up, as Athena asks you about the patient. "I wouldn't try questioning him yet. He's still whining like a baby." "Can't you give him something for that?" "If I give him morphine I'd have to pump his stomach. And considering he knows the exact name of the morphine I'd have to use. I'm deciding against that. It's one bullet that was at the surface and has been removed. He can suck it up, I'm not gonna be the one to aide in his addiction."

All the beds are in the open with curtains as dividers so everyone can hear the man complaining and pulling against his restraints. The firehouse can hear everything go down when you declare he's ready to leave. "You gotta give me something for the pain." You simply look at him before shaking your head, "I really don't." "You bitch." You push the man back down on the bed making him since since his wound is on his shoulder, "You're the bitch in this situation. The pain you're feeling is from withdrawal from all the drugs in your system you idiot. You want something for the pain fine but that comes with your stomach getting pumped. Do you really want that considering you're over here bitching about a small bullet wound?" The man looks at you before seething, "You don't know the pain I'm in!" "Try me. Your bullet was at the surface and has been removed, the area was numbed with cream so you didn't even feel it. I've been shot twice in a mass shooting both bullets imbedded in muscle. I survived a bomb incident, a plane crash, and a miscarriage while stranded during that plane crash. So tell me I've never felt worse." When the man doesn't say anything you look at Athena, "Get him out of here."

Your dad looks at the spot you were standing, he's never heard the things you've been through ever leave your mouth like that. Bobby sets his hand on his shoulder, "She's tough Eddie. She's fine."

When a natural disaster occurs the hospital sends out surgeons to aid first responders for the people who wouldn't make it to the hospital otherwise, you're one of the few that get sent out due to your trauma certification being more than qualified. The firehouse is lightweight surprised to see you in the field working the tent. "You got sent out?" "You do realize I worked in a trauma one center right? My first year we had a ferry crash." Everyone is amazed with how fast and calmly you work, half of the patients you get wouldn't of survived even getting on an ambulance otherwise.

There is one patient who's stuck under a piece of cement inside a building but is in critical condition. Unfortunately you're the only one small enough to fit through the gap to get to him. "No! She's not going in there!" You can only look at your dad, "We have no choice. We can save him." Reluctantly your dad lets you go knowing you'd go anyways and he doesn't technically have a say in what you can and can't do. They give you your dad's jacket and helmet as a precaution before you slowly slip through the hole. You yell out when you reach the patient allowing the firehouse to continue trying to get the guy out.

You manage to move the patient under a stable piece of metal before suddenly yelling out making everyone stop, "What's going on?" "It's starting to collapse!" Before anyone can respond the building shifts closing the hole they were making. You dad starts freaking out, "We have to get her out of there!" "And we will. Eddie calm down or sit out."

When they finally get to where you and the patient are they can see the patient is stabilized and sort of groggy but they find your body a few feet away. Due to you having your dad's protective gear he wasn't allowed to enter the building but Buck is at your side checking on you, "I got a pulse! She has a leg stuck under some concrete. She probably knocked out after she got stuck." Bobby nods, "Let's get them out of here!"

Your dad watches as Chimney and Hen bring out the man, "Where's Y/N?" Chimney sets the man up on a gurney as Hen talks to your dad, "She moved the man out of the way. She has a pulse but her leg was caught under some concrete." Just as she finishes Buck and Bobby leave the building with you in Bucks arms. Eddie is instantly taking you into his arms as he slowly sets you down on the ground, "Baby wake up." You let out a groan before slowly opening your eyes, "Why are you so loud?" Everyone chuckles, even your dad, at your ability to bounce back so fast even with a broken leg.

Everyone helps you out while your leg heals, Christopher decided to spend the night with you one night and before your dad left he sat with you on the porch. He looks at the cast that everyone has signed and Christopher has drawn multiple pictures on before throwing his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into his chest, "When did you grow up?" "The day you told me go to college to make you proud. Did I?" "You did... You're still not dating until you're 45." You can't help but laugh and shake your head as you both watch the street lights come on and the stars come out. "Aren't you the one that had a kid at 16? The irony." "You're my baby I can be as ironic as I want."

[hidden-otaku-stuff]

On a Run

Word count: 1.1k Pairing: Ushijima x reader Genre: fluff Tw: One swear (I’m sorry, I swear like a sailor)

AN: Happy birthday to handsome soft boy Ushijima 

“Hey, behave yourself,” you scolded, tugging on the leash that was tied to your waist. Your dog blinked up at you, tongue lolling in a cute way. “Don’t look at me like that!” You whined, looking back up as you continued down the road. The dark sky was turning purple as the sun rose. It was 6 AM, your Bluetooth earbuds were blasting your favorite workout playlist, a leash tied your dog to your waist as you embarked on your normal routine. “Oh shit!” You exclaimed as your dog suddenly left your side, darting in a random direction. Footsteps pounded against the concrete as you struggled to keep up. “Mana, stop!” You frantically tried to grab at the leash, only for her to tug you down towards a school track. Concrete turned into sand, causing you to slip slightly. Digging your feet into the ground, you skidded to a halt, forcing her to jerk back into you. What you couldn’t predict was the force of doing so would cause her to careen into your general direction. As the lumbering mass collided into you, you went flying to the ground. 

Your hands flew out, trying to catch yourself. You fell onto your butt, hard. “This is why I hate taking you with me,” you swore, glaring down at the golden retriever that had rolled over to lay besides you. One of your earbuds had fallen out, causing your music to stop. Pain coursed up your body as you pushed yourself up. Angry red welts appeared, catching your attention as you tried to dust off the sand from your palms. “Oh great,” you grumble. You’d scraped both of your palms. Cursing, you sat there picking out the pebbles, shooting a glare at the dog. “This is all your fault.” Mana licked your arm, smiling at you. 

“Are you alright?” 

You flinched, jumping out of your skin. Looking up, you were greeted by a massive male looming over you. “Oh, uh, yeah, I’m fine.” 

“That looks painful.” He stared down at your palms. 

You shrugged while your gaze refocused on your hands. “I’ve been in worse scraps.” 

“Come with me, we should get that washed and treated.” He extended a hand.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” 

“My apologies. I’m Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

He stared at you for a moment, waiting. You cleared your throat, redness creeping up your cheeks. You were glad that it was still dark out. “Right, I’m (L.Name, Name).” Ushijima continued to look at you expectantly, hand still extended. Using your fingers to latch onto his, you pulled yourself up. “Thanks.” You looked down at Mana, tugging slightly on the leash. “C’mon girl.” Ushijima led the way, your fingers still hooked around his. 

“I assume you do not go here.”

“Here?”

“Shiratorizawa.”

“Ah right, yeah, I don’t. How’d you know?”

 “Dogs aren’t allowed in the dorms.”

You snorted. “Fair enough. I was just on my run, and Mana decided to drag me here for some reason.” He led you into a dorm building, pulling you towards the bathroom. “Hold on, I don’t wanna go to the restroom with you!” 

“I’ll wait here with your dog then.” 

“Hang on, I thought dogs aren’t allowed in the building?” Your brow furrowed.

“Just be quick.” He crossed his arm, taking the leash away from your waist. You flushed red and ducked into the bathroom, avoiding his gaze. The cool water did little to soothe your pain, and the soap definitely aggravated it more. 

You swore as you dried your hands, at least it wasn’t completely cut up. Stepping out, you were greeted with a random red-haired guy bending over Mana who was being spoiled with belly-rubs. “Who’s a good girl? You are!” He cooed, aggressively scratching.

“Uh, who are you and why are you touching my dog?” 

The male straightened up, grinning at you. “I’m Tendou! You must be the person who fell.” He brandished a first aid kit. “I’m Wakatoshi’s best friend, he texted me asking to bring you stuff.” 

You pinched your nose, embarrassed. “Ah yes, please just tell the whole world what happened, why don’t you, Ushijima?” 

The male shrugged. “I couldn’t leave you here alone or bring Mana to my room.” He handed the leash to Tendou, taking the supplies. “May I?” 

“Let’s just get this over with then.” 

He leaned against the couch, placing the box besides him as he opened it. Tendou became preoccupied with spoiling Mana with more belly rubs. “Why do you run with her if you can’t control her?”

Your jaw dropped. “It’s not that I can’t control her!” You spluttered. Ushijima’s olive eyes pierced yours, raising an eyebrow. “Okay fine,” you admitted. “I sometimes have issues with her. But I hate running by myself. So when my friends bail on me, then I’ll either skip my run too or I just suck it up and bring her along.” You winced as he applied the ointment.

“I’ll run with you then.” 

“What?” 

Ushijima placed a plaster onto your scrap, moving onto your other hand. “None of my team-mates run with me either, not in the morning anyways. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“It’s ‘cause you run too fast and too early,” Tendou threw in, playing with Mana’s ears. He picked them up before letting them go, letting them flop onto her head. Her tongue lolled out at the attention. 

You looked up at Ushijima. “Too early? What time do you even go?” 

“5 AM.” 

You blinked. “Make it 5:30 and I’ll join you.” 

“I’ll run at 5 and meet you at 5:30 at your house since I’m assuming you live off-campus.” 

You hummed, wincing again. The right hand had been even worse. “I guess that works for me.” Ushijima patted your palms, smoothing over the plasters.

“There, all finished.” 

“Thanks, Ushijima!” You bent down, grabbing Mana’s leash. “Thank you for taking care of us.” You bowed to them. “Bye!” You made your way out, securing the leash back to your waist. “C’mon, troublemaker. We gotta finish my run still.” 

You had barely stepped off campus when footsteps echoed behind you. “You forgot this.” Ushijima held his hand out, holding your earbud. You flushed scarlet.

“Thanks.” You grabbed it, fingertips brushing against his warm palm.

“Can I get your number?” 

“Huh?”

“To plan our runs.” 

“Oh right.” You pulled out your phone, handing it over as you avoided his gaze.

“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow then.” Ushijima bent down, patting Mana on the head three times before he stood back up. 

“See you tomorrow, Ushijima.” He nodded once, turning and heading back to campus. You scowled down at Mana’s face. The retriever looked happy, her tail wagging furiously. “This is all your fault,” you scowled, before you turned back down the street and began jogging away, your thoughts filled with the male you’d see soon enough.

A/N: The Japanese translation for Mana is ‘love’!

[thathopelessromantic]

Reckless Good (1/?)

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Fic Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Teen+

Pairing: Todoroki Shouto/Midoriya Izuku

Note: Part of the @tododekubigbang for 2021! I'm super excited to share this AU with everyone. And please check out the awesome compaion art from @cryptidcatgod for chapter six!

Todoroki Shouto had accepted his fate as a public figure when he became a pro-hero, but there are some parts of his private life he would like to stay private. When he gets invited to be a speaker in a college lecture series, he goes to the meeting with one goal: to give the coordinator a piece of his mind and finally put an end to people hounding him for information about his family.

The last thing he expects is the curious, and quirkless, hero- and quirk-study professor, Midoriya Izuku, who has no interest in his family's history, and, somehow, even more ties to the hero industry than Shouto. Intrigued by the professor, Shouto tentatively agrees to the lecture series, unknowingly intertwining their futures.

But the more Todoroki sees of Midoriya, the more questions he has. When a villain attack leaves them living together until the culprits are apprehended, maybe he'll finally get some answers.

AO3: (x)

Dear Pro-Hero Entropy,

On behalf of Musutafu University, I would like to cordially invite you to be a speaker in our first annual Hero Talks series. We anticipate university students, as well as members of the public from all walks of life, will be interested in hearing from 10 different pro-heroes, over the course of ten-weeks between September and November, as they discuss their experience in the hero industry, the details of their jobs, and the unique quirks they’ve encountered or that helped them in becoming the heroes of today.

I would be extremely grateful if you were willing to share your expertise and be a part of the series. You would be an excellent addition to our program, and our line-up of great heroes that already includes current number one, Pro-Hero Lemillion, the Permeation Hero, and the well-respected, Youthful Heroine Recovery Girl.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you!

X 

“I think you should do it.”

Shouto pauses with his cup half-way to his mouth as the silence that had fallen over them is finally broken. Momo primly takes a sip of her tea, pointedly avoiding his astonished look.

“…What?”

Momo clears her throat, placing her teacup back on the table and sitting up, somehow, straighter in her chair. Despite the fact that they are in her home, she looks decidedly more uncomfortable than he feels, even by the bizarre direction of their conversation. “I think you should do it. I think it would be a good opportunity for you, Shouto.”

“Have you met me?” he asks incredulously. “There’s nothing ‘good’ about anything that includes me and talking.”

His phone, with the offending email still pulled up on the darkening screen, sits on the table between them. He doesn’t realize he is glaring at it until Momo plucks it up and away from his line of sight. Waking up the screen, she reads over the email again. He doesn’t know why she bothers – they must have poured over it together at least three or four times when he first arrived, dumbfounded by yet another invitation and nearly laughing over the ridiculous concept of him giving a talk on a college campus.

“It’s not like you would have to wing it, it’s still only April now, so the series won’t be taking place until the second term. You would have time to come up with a topic, write a speech, prepare.”

“No one wants to listen to me read from a piece of paper for an hour,” he replies drolly. “And I don’t have anything to talk about that long, anyways.”

It is her turn to stare at him incredulously from across the table. He resists the urge to squirm under the disbelieving look. Finally, Momo sighs, returning his phone to the table.

“I think you underestimate what people would be willing to listen to,” she clears her throat. “You have a unique perspective on the hero industry that very few have, or get to hear about-”

“Because my dad was a dick?”

“Due to being raised by a hero," she continues on, as if he hadn't spoken. "And not just any hero, but someone who was the number two hero for a very long time, and even briefly the number one hero. Very few heroes nowadays have children, and even fewer have children who go on to follow in their footsteps. You’re a legacy.”

“I’m the only one of any of Endeavor’s kids to become a hero. If they wanted to hear about hero family legacies, they should have contacted Iida.”

Momo sighs, rubbing her temples. He’s noticed her doing that around him with increasing frequency these days. “Well I believe they did, actually. And he agreed.”

Shouto leans back in his seat. “Then he can talk all about being a legacy. What would they need to hear from me for?”

Momo is quiet for a very long time. “…Well-”

“No.”

“You brought it up.”

“Not seriously. I’m not going to talk about that.”

“It was just a suggestion. You, your family, have kept things remarkably quiet after it all went down, and I understand wanting to protect your privacy, considering it really is none of their business, but people are always going to have questions. It’s been years since the trial and the media still asks you every year. At least this way, if you talked about it, you could control the narrative.”

Shouto looks away. The setting sun is just out of sight from the dining room window, but it paints the neighbor’s house and the trees along the road a warm orange. The anniversary of the trial, of his father’s fall from grace in the public eye was just a few weeks away, still looming over him, even years after the fact. He has no interest in ‘controlling the narrative.’ He’d rather not think about it at all, actually. But just like every year before, as the date grew closer, the media got more frantic, more invasive.

You would think after more than ten years of radio silence from the Todoroki family they would finally get discouraged, and yet…

Sensing he wasn’t interested in pursuing this topic of conversation any longer, Momo changes tactics, carefully pulling his thoughts from a dangerous spiral. “Or you could have a meeting with the person who invited you. See what topic they had in mind for you.”

Shouto glances at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Well they didn’t just mass invite heroes, the invitations have only gone out to a select few. I’m assuming the coordinator had some idea of what they thought those particular heroes would talk about.” There is a quiet click of her nails against the glass table top as she picks up his phone once more. “You could set up a meeting with him and see what he had in mind. If the topic is something you’re comfortable talking about, wonderful. If not, you can decline the invitation, and all you’ve wasted is an afternoon.”

Something clicks in his head and Shouto sits up again, an idea brewing. He turns his attention back to her. “I still don’t want to give a talk,”

“Shouto-”

“But you have a point. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

Momo smiles, but her brows shoot up, a clear indication of her surprise at – and her suspicion over – his quick surrender. “I’m…a little shocked you agree.”

“Well you’d just keep bothering me about it if I didn’t at least talk to him, wouldn’t you?” She glares at him but doesn’t refute the accusation. “But isn’t it just the dean of the school that sent the emails? He’s probably not the sole coordinator.”

“No,” She shakes her head, handing his phone back over. “It says here he’s a professor.”

 Midoriya Izuku, Ph.D.

Professor of Hero and Quirk Studies

Musutafu University

midoriyaizu@mu.edu

X

It takes two days after his talk with Momo for Shouto to get around to even opening the professor’s response to his request for a meeting.

Kyouka watches him suspiciously from where she’s draped over his office chair as he paces in front of his desk. “What’s wrong with you?”

She takes an obnoxious sip of her coffee. The smell has permeated the entire room and it makes something in his stomach curl with longing, but his doctor made it explicitly clear that he was to take an extended break from the drink after letting it serve as breakfast, lunch, and dinner a few too many days in a row. Something more painful than longing – perhaps an ulcer he may or may not have given himself from his liquid diet – twists his stomach.

“Why are you even here?”

Kyouka sighs at his question, her head lolling back as she sinks deeper into the chair. He’s not totally sure what she’s doing. He knows for a fact those chairs aren’t comfortable. His best attempt to keep people from staying in his office longer than absolutely necessary.

“Kyouka?”

She takes another sip of her coffee. He has absolutely no idea how she doesn’t spill it all over herself in that position.

“Momo asked me to talk to you.”

He stops pacing long enough to determine that she’s telling the truth. “…Why?”

“Because she doesn’t think you’ve emailed the professor back about that hero series yet.”

He glances at his computer. At the unread email blinking at the top of his inbox, taunting him. “I’m not saying she’s right…but why does she want you to talk to me about it?”

She swings her legs off the arm of the chair to sit up right and glare at him. “I resent the insinuation that I am not a great candidate for making you get your shit together. But,” she stands up, dropping her cup onto his desk and crossing her arms. Her expression is fierce, but he recognizes the barely-there flush high on her cheeks and the nervous twitch of her earphone jacks. “I was also invited to be a part of the series.”

Shouto stops, sinking into his desk chair. Invitations like this were usually a pain for him. For one, he hated public speaking – or even extended conversations. As one of the top students at U.A., however, and as the son of a well-known hero, he had been getting requests for talks and interviews and special features for years. Most of which he usually ignored, knowing what it was they wanted him to talk about. But he knows an invitation like this can be special. Especially for someone like Kyouka, who doesn’t have particularly strong connections with the hero industry, even after graduating U.A. Her parents’ reputation and her internship with Present Mic made her more of a celebrity in the music industry than a well-known hero, despite all the great work she did.

“Kyouka,” he says quietly, earnestly, so that she pays attention to him. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she replies with a small smile, before her expression changes again. “But shut up, Todoroki. That’s not the point. Momo thinks you’ll be dragging your feet over getting back to the professor. But when she told me about how quickly you agreed, I got a feeling there was something else going on.” She braces her hands on his desk and leans into his personal space, jacks floating threateningly close to his throat. “You were gonna set up that meeting, and then just give him a hard time, weren’t you?”

Shouto freezes, caught. “Uh…”

It’s not exactly an admission, but Kyouka throws her head back and laughs, anyways. “I knew it. We’ve all been waiting for when you finally got fed up and picked a victim. I’m honestly surprised it’s taken this long.”

Shouto doesn’t mean for the quiet, astonished chuckle to slip out, but he supposes if it’s Kyouka, it’s alright. There’s a devilish glint in her eyes as she drops back into her chair.

“So,” she asks. “What are you waiting for?”

“You’re really not going to stop me?”

“We’re public figures, the media has never been interested in respecting our privacy, but we’ve all spent years watching you get hounded over your parents’ divorce and your father’s trial. If this is just another asshole trying to get a scoop, or recognition for finally getting you to spill, he deserves it. Everyone would agree. Well…Tenya and Momo might frown at your approach, but I still think they’d support the general idea. And well,” she shrugs. “If he is just an asshole, all the better for the rest of us to know now so we don’t support what he’s trying to do.”

He hesitates, mouse hovering over the professor’s email. “Are you sure?”

She scowls, though there isn’t any heat behind it. “If I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t say it.” She comes around the desk to stand behind him. “Now hurry up, I have a patrol to get to.”

Reaching down, she opens the email before he can react.

Thank you so much for your interest! Of course we can meet to discuss the details of the series more. Below are my office hours when I will be on the Musutafu University campus. If you are not available for any of those times, please let me know when would work best for you and we can plan a meeting then.

Kyouka leans over his shoulder to read the email.

“Tuesday’s your day off next week, right?”

Shouto rolls his eyes but opens a new draft to reply.

Kyouka grins. “Good boy. I will report your excellent behavior to Momo.” She ruffles his hair before heading for the door, grabbing her coffee cup off his desk as she goes.

“Fuck off.”

She tosses her head back and laughs again. “Give ‘em hell.”

X

They make plans to meet in a few days, when Shouto has some time off, and the professor forwards his office room number and three different maps of campus “just in case.” Which Shouto found ridiculous….at the time.

Now he’s here, and has been wandering around for God knows how long. It takes approximately ten minutes for Shouto to admit he’s lost, and another five minutes for him to get frustrated over still being lost. He wasn’t sure what to expect of the university campus, but, clearly, he did not prepare enough in advance. The large, sprawling buildings remind him of U.A.’s campus, but rather than extra training grounds, the spaces between are grassy plots filled with students relaxing under the shade of trees or soaking up the sun on blankets. Instead of practicing hand-to-hand, the students sit in clusters pouring over textbooks or typing away on laptops. And they, of course, all appear perfectly at home amongst the labyrinth of lecture halls.

The paved plaza in the middle of all the activity hosts a large fountain and a statue of a man with large, curling horns coming from his temples that Shouto assumes has some kind of importance to the school, but that he doesn’t recognize.

He forwent his hero-suit for jeans, a button-up, and a leather jacket – in addition to sunglasses, a mask, and a baseball cap. The clothing seemed to blend in well enough with the other students, if not a tad understated, but his distinct hair and scar are not so easily hidden and soon enough he notices students staring, following his movements back and forth across campus or whispering amongst themselves.

Eventually, a few brave students manage to catch him as he is trying to reorient himself. Again.

“Um, excuse me, are you pro-hero Entropy?” a girl asks. Two friends flank her, staring with wide eyes.

Caught, he pulls down his mask. “Ah, yes. Hello.”

“Oh my gosh! Hi-Hello, I’m wow…I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s really great to meet you!”

“Are you here about the Hero Talks series!?” one of her friends asks suddenly, quickly slapping a hand over her mouth after the loud outburst.

Well…they aren’t wrong, and maybe they can help him. “It’s…something like that.” He agrees carefully.

The three light up with smiles, two of them jumping up and down in excitement.

“Dr. Midoriya is going to be so excited, oh my gosh!”

“You know the professor?”

All three nod excitedly. “We’re all in his Intro to Combat Analysis lecture! He’s been gushing about this series since he got permission last semester!” the third student finally chimes in.

Perfect. “Do you know where I could find his office? I’m supposed to be meeting with him, but I’ve gotten a little turned around.”

The three jump to help direct him to the right building, gushing all the while over the professor and his classes. By the time they finally part ways, Shouto feels a little guilty about his plan to give the professor a piece of his mind over the whole thing and misleading them about his intention to join the series. They were nice girls after all.

Someone bumps into him before he reaches the building, sending him stumbling off the sidewalk.

“I’m so sorry,” a bright voice calls, gently pulling Shouto back onto the pavement. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you alright?”

Large, bright green eyes behind thin, wire-framed glasses give him a quick once-over, as if looking for injuries. The man meets his gaze through his sunglasses for a moment before glancing down at his wrist watch again. Somehow, he feels even more dazed meeting the man’s eyes than simply being booted off the sidewalk.

“…yes I’m fine, thank you.”

The man gives him a dazzling smile, flashing one dimple and further accentuating the smattering of freckles over his cheeks. “Good, good. Sorry again.” With a quick bow, the man is on his way again and headed into the building before them. The same building Shouto was headed.

Shaking off the strange feeling left behind, he waits a few moments, so as not to appear as if he was following the bright-eyed man, and goes inside. Along the wall there are signs directing visitors to particular room numbers or restrooms, and a bulletin board nearly as long as the wall is tall, full of posters advertising events happening around campus, and Musutafu, as well as ads looking for roommates or a reminder about signing up for a study abroad program. Right in the corner, as if attached as an after-thought, or a secret, there’s a small, handwritten flyer declaring the First Annual Hero Talks series could be counted as credits for Quirk or Hero Study students looking for an independent study if they met with Dr. Mirdoriya before the end of the term. Shouto almost takes the flyer before he realizes, realistically, that the students who might be interested in such a thing would probably benefit from it more than his brief curiosity needed to be sated.

Turning from the wall, he sets out for the stairs. The students instructed him to take the staircase on the far end of the east hall (the closest to the professor’s office, supposedly), to the third floor, where the professor’s office would be the third door on the left.

Midoriya Izuku is written clearly on a small sign hanging outside of the office. A small box sits under it, stuffed full of papers and folders that Shouto assumes are from students. The professor’s half-open door is covered in colorful posters and stickers – including, Shouto realizes, another copy of the flyer about the series and a poster of him, Pro-Hero Entropy, from his debut year. He looks away from his younger self and knocks on the door.

“Dr. Midoriya?” he calls, poking his head into the office.

The first thing he notices is that the hero-memorabilia on the door has absolutely nothing on what’s inside the office. More posters cover the entire front of the professor’s desk, and from the looks of it the top of his computer. Mixed between dozens of books on the shelves and filing cabinets filling two of the four walls are hero-figurines and framed pictures of heroes or preserved comic books. Even more posters and framed pictures cover the rest of the walls.

The second thing he notices, is that the broad-shouldered man dropping a beat-up, leather satchel to the ground besides the desk, is the same man who ran into him outside.

Dr. Midoriya whirls around, greeting him with another 100-watt smile. “Ah yes! Hello- oh! It’s you.”

“Ah, yes.” Shouto shuffles a little further into the office, he pulls his mask down under his chin and takes his sunglasses off, tucking them into the collar of his shirt. After a second's thought, he pulls off his cap as well, shoving the bill into his back pocket.

Dr. Midoriya’s jaw drops, his eyes comically wide, for approximately three seconds, before he comes back into himself, steeling his expression. His hands flutter nervously around his head for a moment and then he smiles again.

“Entropy! Welcome! I’m so sorry I did not recognize you before. Please, come in. Take a seat. Did you find your way through campus alright?”

Shouto gives a small bow, mumbling a thank you, as he comes further into the office to sit in one of the two small chairs before the desk. A poster of some of his old classmates is hung at knee-level, and even on paper, Momo's serious expression is judging him. Kyouka is egging him on.

Dr. Midoriya still stands behind his desk, staring at Shouto like he’s not sure what to make of him sitting in his office.

“Uh…Dr. Midoriya?”

The professor snaps back to life. “Yes! Sorry, sorry,” he sits down finally, pulling off his glasses and putting them to the side. “Welcome, again, to Musutafu University. And thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to consider our series! I really can’t tell you how thrilled I was to get your email.”

Shouto shifts in his seat. The professor talks with his hands, and every movement seems to pull the beige-colored cardigan he’s wearing even tighter around his biceps. Shouto isn’t usually one to speculate about others’ quirks unless in a fight, but he wonders now if the professor has some kind of strength-augmenting quirk – and if he does, how adept is he at using it if Shouto pisses him off? The potential of getting his ass kicked has never stopped Shouto before, but he can already hear the lecture he’d get from Momo, and probably Fuyumi, if he made the news for destroying a college building in a fight with a civilian professor.

Honestly, the property damage would probably be the least of their worries if he starts fighting with civilians.

“I know you don’t normally work with the media or make non-heroic work public appearances so I figured it was a long shot for you to even consider being a part of the series, but I really think you would make an amazing feature.”

Shouto shifts in his seat. Here it comes, he thinks. He really should have prepared what exactly he was going to say more, but he figured it would just come to him in the moment. Now, for some reason, he’s nervous. As if he would accidentally agree or something else equally absurd.

How this sweater had contained the man’s arms so far was a miracle, honestly.  

“…but quirks are mutating, or rather evolving, at an astonishing rate. Every generation we see quirks getting stronger than those of previous generations but more and more we are now seeing children with quirks that have little to no relation to their parent’s quirks, or a manifestation of some kind of combination of quirks. You gained attention early on for being one of the first heroes, or even hero-in-training, to have multiple quirks.

“Now that it’s becoming more common, hearing first hand from someone who has had to learn how to control and gain mastery over two separate quirks would be invaluable information, especially for many quirk-study students who will be working with parents and children who are going through this for the first time, and for those who may have some form of a combination quirk but did not have the benefit of a hero-course education that could teach them proper control.”

Wait…what?

“What?”

Dr. Midoriya startles, glancing between Shouto and something unseen in the air around him. “Oh…” he winces. “I’m sorry. Was I mumbling again? I apologize, sometimes my brain works faster than my mouth and I get carried away, where did I…never mind, I’ll start again…slower. So, when quirks first appeared-”

Shouto holds up a hand to stop the professor and his jaw snaps shut with an audible click. “You want me to talk about my quirk?”

“…Yes?”

“Not…my family?”

Dr. Midoriya lowers his arms to the top of his desk, folding his hands together. Shouto thinks it might be the first time he has seen him completely still since they first ran into each other outside.

Now that they’re closer, and his hands aren’t moving, Shouto can also see surprisingly large scars running over the professor’s fingers and onto the backs of his hands. Those definitely don’t look like something you would get as a teacher. At least not as a normal, non-hero course teacher.

“Do you want to talk about your family?”

He shifts awkwardly in his seat. The professor’s serious attention directed all at him is suddenly unnerving somehow. “Well, no, I don’t.”

Dr. Midoriya nods, once. “Okay.” A pause. “Honestly, I was surprised to even hear you ask, I hadn’t considered broaching the topic for something like this.”

“You didn’t?” he asks incredulously.

Dr. Midoriya pins him with an expression he can’t interpret but inexplicably reminds him of Aizawa back in high school when he was frustrated with students or a lesson or even a fellow teacher. Especially All Might.

“Entropy, you have made it very clear in the past that you have no interest in talking about what happened to your family publicly. And that is your right. No one is owed anything about your personal life. If you suddenly decided you wanted to talk about what happened, and you wanted to use the Hero Talks series as your platform, you would be more than welcome to do so. Honestly, the publicity from that one lecture alone would probably be enough to guarantee the university allowing this series again in the future. But that is not why I asked you to be a part of it. You want to keep your private affairs private, and I respect that. I picked heroes who I knew the public would be interested in hearing from, but also who would have the most helpful information to offer to the students who are studying these topics, and, frankly, they would learn far more hearing about your quirk than your…homelife.”

“I…I wouldn’t know what to talk about.” Shouto admits awkwardly.

Dr. Midoriya smiles softly. “That’s okay. I can give you some general topics to consider, or more specific questions to think about as main points if that would be more helpful. Let me see…” he turns around in his chair, shifting to the side, and Shouto can see the shelves just under the view of the desk are stuffed full of identical notebooks, each with a carefully penned number on the binding. The professor pulls one out and flips through it. Almost every page is crammed with scrawling handwriting, some written sideways or upside down, squeezed into every blank space he could find. The slightly-less busy pages have drawings of heroes or costumes or diagrams Shouto can’t interpret from the quick, upside-down glance he gets of them.

From his seat Shouto could see there were, at least, two shelves of these notebooks. Were they all like that?

Finally, the professor finds what he’s looking for with a satisfied hum. He sets the notebook on the desk, turning it so Shouto can see. The page is marginally less chaotic than others he saw. At the top, in surprisingly neat handwriting and underlined three times, it reads: Questions for Multiple-Quirk Usage (Entropy).

The rest of the page is made up of dozens of questions about his quirk. Some, Shouto imagines, are just general questions for anyone with multiple quirks to consider (Do you activate both quirks the same way?  Can you use them both simultaneously?) and get progressively tailored to questions about his quirk, like if there are places he can’t use one quirk or the other and the temperature ranges of his fire and ice, if particular environmental factors affect his ability to use either of them.

“Uh…”

Dr. Midoriya scratches the back of his head sheepishly. He hides a nervous laugh with a cough before taking the notebook back and closing it. The light isn’t strong in the office, but Shouto is positive the professor is blushing.

“Of course, if a list of topics or questions is something you would be interested in, I can provide you with a neater – and shorter – list. This was just a-a demonstration that there is a lot to consider when it comes to multiple quirks. Of course, not all of that would be relevant for a lecture, and admittedly some are just personal curiosities, but…anyways,” he clears his throat. “I’m assuming if you came here thinking I was going to ask about your family…you don’t actually want to be a part of the series.”

Shouto crosses his arms over his chest, sitting back in his chair. Does he want to be a part of a public lecture series? No. But now he is undeniably curious about this professor and how the hell his brain works.

“Do you have a notebook page like that for every hero?”

“Every hero? That would be impossible…well maybe not impossible-” Shouto raises a brow and the professor bites his tongue. “Maybe…most Japanese heroes since…early Silver Age and well-known international heroes? And any American heroes who would have overlapped with All Might’s time either learning or working in America.”

“How long have you been making those?”

He looks down a little wistfully at the question, thumbing gently at the corner of the page. “I was probably four or five when I started my first one,” he admits with a quiet laugh. “None that are here are quite that old, though.”

Shouto has…so many questions.

There’s a quiet buzz of the professor’s phone going off. He excuses himself for a moment and pulls the cell out of his pocket. His case has the design of All Might’s Golden Age costume.

“I’m sorry, Entropy, I have another meeting and I teach a class after so I can’t talk much longer today.”

“I should be getting going anyways.” Shouto says, standing up and Dr. Midoriya shoots out of his chair.

“Right, yes, of course. I’m sorry we probably took up more of your time than you meant to. Thank you for coming in, it was an honor to speak with you.”

Shouto feels like “honor” is a bit much, he didn’t really even say much at all, and he came here with rather rude intentions but, he doesn’t really know how to argue with the professor’s enthusiasm.

His brain and his good sense, and the small bit of self-preservation he has left, all tell him to keep going, to accept the professor’s gracious dismissal and move on, but he finds himself hesitating in the doorway anyways.

“Uh…Entropy? Is everything alright?” Dr. Midoriya asks, looking at him curiously.

Oh hell.

“If you send me the list, of topics…I’ll think about it.”

Dr. Midoriya’s entire being lights up. “Really?”

Oh, he was really going to regret this.

“…Yes.”

“Thank you! I will forward it to you right away!” He drops into a bow so deep, so quickly, he slams his head into the top of the desk.

Both of them freeze at the resounding crack that echoes in the small room. Shouto takes a step back into the office, already reaching for the professor.

“Are you alright?”

Dr. Midoriya straightens, looking a little dazed but mostly just embarrassed. There’s a bright red mark on his forehead. “Oh my God.” He whispers.

Shouto is surprised, and a little ashamed, by how hard it is to keep himself from laughing at the horrified expression. “Dr. Midoriya, are you-”

The desk gives a sudden, heaving creak and tips sideways. The two watch helplessly as the desk collapses, sending the clutter on top flying across the floor.

Dr. Midoriya makes a strangled noise, covering his face with his hands. “Not again.”

Again?

There are rushed footsteps outside and a young woman with six eyes and lavender hair piled in a high bun peeks her head in through the half-open door. “Dr. Midoriya, did you break something again?”

“I’m sorry Kobayashi.” He bows his head again, though not nearly as low this time, and keeps his face covered.

Kobayashi tuts disapprovingly. “I’ll call for another,” she says, already turning on her heel to leave.

“Thank you, Kobayashi.”

Shouto bends down to gather some of the papers that scattered around his feet. Dr. Midoriya lowers his hands, immediately stumbling over the mess when he sees Shouto cleaning.

“Please Entropy, thank you, but that’s not necessary.”

“It’s fine,” he waves off the worries. “Where would you like these things?”

“Uh,” Dr. Midoriya looks around the office for a moment. “Here, thank you.” Taking the papers from him he makes a neat pile on his un-damaged desk chair.

It’s quick work for the two of them to straighten up the rest of the room, though the professor takes a moment to mourn his cracked eyeglasses, and then again when he realizes some of the posters were damaged by the desk’s fall.

“Thank you again, Entropy. I’m so sorry about all the trouble.”

“It’s…fine.” Shouto says dumbly. “Well I should…go, now.”

“Yes, of course! I’m sorry about taking up even more of your time. Thank you for coming in.”

Before Shouto can reply, two new people arrive, knocking once before they shuffle into the office. Shouto moves further into the room, out of the way, as they collect the broken desk and carry it out of the room.

For a moment, they stand in silence, Shouto coming up with about a hundred more questions about the professor, while Dr. Midoriya stands nearby, twisting his hands together in embarrassment. Finally, his common-sense kicks in enough that after another short good-bye, Shouto manages to walk himself out of the office and down the stairs without doing anything else stupid or impulsive.

He passes someone on his way to the doors, so focused on getting out of the building that he doesn’t notice until they call his name.

He recognizes the wild purple hair and slouched stance of the man approaching him, but nearly dismisses the similarities on principle.

“Shinso? Since when do you come out while the sun’s still up?” He asks.

Ignoring the jab, Shinso pulls off a pair of sunglasses and looks him up and down. Despite also being a part of U.A.’s hero course in high school, Shinso promptly went underground after graduation and has been working in the shadows long enough that only some other pros and hardcore hero-fans are able to recognize him out of costume. “What are you doing here?”

“I was…I had a meeting with a professor,” he admits.

Shouto doesn’t know Shinso well, but he swears he looks surprised by the admission.

And then he laughs. “I can’t believe he actually did it. Good for him.”

Shouto isn’t totally sure he heard him correctly, but when he asks, Shinso makes an expression he can’t figure out and changes the subject.

“I’ll see you later, Todoroki.” He says with a wave.                                                                         

Shouto waves back, unsure of what to make of the interaction, and watches as Shinso disappears up the same stairs he just descended.

Shoving the strange interaction out of his head, he pushes open the doors and steps outside.

Then he calls Kyouka.

She picks up after two rings. “Did you make him cry?”

He can hear Momo scold her from the background.

“No, but I think I fucked up.”

Kyouka is quiet for a moment but based on the noise he hears in the background, he thinks she’s moving further away from Momo. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “Fucked up how? Like news crews are coming to report the damage and you might be going to jail for beating up an old, civilian professor-fucked up?”

Faintly, Shouto wonders what it says about him that both he and Kyouka assumed the worst-case scenario for this meeting was him fighting with a civilian.

“No, fucked up like…I didn’t tell him ‘no’?”

[neeterloveschenford]

RNM 3x07

Hello my fellow lovers of all things alien! Another episode down and six more to go. First I’d like to start by congratulating Heather Hemmens! What an accomplishment! I hope you can continue to pursue your passion for directing. Also I would like to once again put forth my deepest desire for someone to rescue Lucky out into the universe. He’s a good boi! He deserves better!! And on that note, let’s dive into this episode.

I know I can get flip floppy when it comes to Maria, but just a few days ago she was jumping off rooftops and shooting up adrenaline to try jump start her powers. Now she’s strong enough to put Jones in a cage? Maybe if there had been a time jump, but we’re still on day 7. I don’t buy it. I don’t think they know what to do with her even after 3 seasons. I’m not expecting any kind of comeuppance for last season. I think they are completely correct in sweeping that all under the rug. It’s not the show for something like that. If this were Dawson’s Creek or One Tree Hill, sure. But I want to see sci-fi and aliens more than friendship and relationship drama. So I’m not sure where they think they are going to end up with her, but so far it’s been hit or miss for me.

Next we have Liz being all sciencey. I love seeing her, Michael and Isobel working together. But I gotta say, her plan was kinda rubbish. I mean, Jones has been one step ahead of everyone and Liz is gonna Mata Hari him? Don’t think so

Dear Deputy Pete, why are all men so dumb. Every moron on this show hates Max but wants to get into Isobel’s pants. I get it, but it’s so cliche.

Hello Father Dallas! Betcha Rosa’s not gonna miss mass this week! I like him. He quoted Biggie. I already like his relationship with Rosa ten times more than her relationship with Wyatt. I liked his advice too. He works on the Res. Does he know Greg? I wanna know. And he was in a bts picture with Vlamis and Trevino a few days ago. Guess we’ll be seeing more of him.

Alex keeps talking about Afghanistan this season. The last two seasons he only talked about Iraq. I know he served both places, but shouldn’t his line have been something along the lines of he survived the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq instead of just one of them? Maybe I’m just being nitpicky.

Why is Kyle just being kept in a barn? Is there someone with medical knowledge there taking care of him? Did Eduardo just take him there and hook him up to that equipment and leave him there? What the heck is going on? That barn can’t be that sanitary. And where was Maria in that flashback? Did he just leave her there? Did her shooting Kyle up with adrenaline make things worse for Kyle? Does Eduardo have medical training? Does Kyle know he has an uncle? Who were the guys that were breaking into Max’s house. So many questions. So few answers.

Poor Lucky! Can we find him a new home please?!? HE’S A GOOD BOI!!

I like Isobel having female friends. She has grown so much since last season. But this plan is sooooo bad! Seriously. How did they think this would work? I know they were getting desperate, but seriously!

I’m gonna need Michael and Rosa to have a scene together every episode from here on out! I love their dynamic. And Michael is such a great teacher. Patient when she needed it. Challenging her when she needed it. And the sass coming from Rosa! Also, how stinking cute is it that Michael played baseball! I can just imagine my sweet little Guerin making a home run and being all smug about it. And I’d just like to point out that Heads Up 7Up was my favorite game when I was a kid. I would be devastated every single time we played at school and my thumb didn’t get put down. Memories.

Seriously Liz. How could you not realize Jones was onto you. When has Max ever referred to Maria as DeLuca? She has always been Maria to him. Wait. Hold up. Michael was the only one who ever refers to her as DeLuca. Was this a clue to the big reveal later on? We may never know.

I really love Greg, but he’s really kind of bland these days. I really hope when Maria gets out of that coma that he starts to challenge her. She needs Greg the former drag racer. Not Greg the super sweet boytoy. Michael let her run their relationship last season and look how that turned out.

Rosa’s new power is cool. That’s all I have to say on the matter.

So if Trevor went crazy and committed suicide while working on the Lockhart machine, how did Travis become so nuts? Did Alex referring to Trevor as the crazy boot maker who chased them through a corn field a continuity error? (I mean yeah, it’s gotta be.) Who’s in charge of checking things like this? Can I apply for this job? I think I might do a better job.

Obi-wan Junkyardy could be the best line this show has ever come up with. Especially now that Michael is, in fact, a jedi.

I think Liz has more chemistry with Jones than with Max. Nathan is an amazing actor. I had forgotten, since Max was so bland. But Jones reminds me of how much I loved him on General Hospital. Jones is just sexy. There’s no ifs ands or buts about it. And Liz knows she’s attracted to him. It’s impossible not to be. Cause he’s HOT! And as much as I wanted to bash my head against the table with how dumb her plan was, I loved watching the cat and mouse between them. And then she punched him. It was glorious!

I love that Eduardo knows about Malex. It was a nice parallel that last week we got the Michael and Sanders conversation, and then this week we got the Alex version. Even when they don’t have scenes together, they are still ever present in each other’s lives. I think Alex might not have even realized that the real reason he joined Deep Sky was Michael. And I don’t think that the Lockhart machine is going to drive him crazy like it did everyone else. Maybe Nora built it to be accessed by whoever Michael “bonds” with. He’ll figure it out and I’m very certain that it will hold the key to defeating Jones.

I would just like to point out that most of my theories get debunked pretty quickly. But I was 100% correct about Jones being the Dictator and Michael’s father. I am pretty darn proud of myself. I still think Louise might be Jones’ sister. Which would make Michael and Isobel cousins. That would be cool.

Also I love the fact that Rosa wound up saving the day. Cause she’s a badass.

Which brings us back to Maria and her mindscape. Jones is going to use her to access Patricia’s memories. But memories of what? The Lockhart machine? Whatever she was a part of at Caulfield? That part does interest me. But I do hope that Maria beats Jones by the skin of her teeth. Or maybe because of a fluke. If she kicks his ass or something I will be disappointed.

So lastly, I would just like to point out that today I read a review of this episode on another website and the reviewer referenced Gargamel. 👀👀 I don’t know how to feel about that.

Anyway, all in all it wasn’t a bad episode. But it’s not my fave. And I’m not even going to get into nobody worrying about Kyle. But next week I am expecting much bigger and much better things. Cause, you know, Malex and such. So until next time my lovelies!!

[bookandcranny]

Entertainer in a Minor Key

Pale light filters in through tears in the canvas. Rows of bleachers and folding chairs stand sentinel over a ring of sawdust, where in the center sits a wooden box with a star painted on the side. A prop chest or maybe a crate of old costumes, forgotten like the rest of it. Whoever left this place in such a state must have been in some hurry, Tanis muses.

Curious, she steps into the ring to investigate. The look of that box brushes against another of those deep-down memories and brings to mind a child’s toy chest. The big padlock is a bit atypical though. Mindlessly she reaches for the multitool in her back pocket and kneels to fiddle with it. As she fits it into the lock, the lid props open an inch and a round, blue eye peers out at her from the shaded darkness.

summary: When you’re traveling across the country on foot in a world overrun with every kind of horror movie monster the mind can imagine on an ill-fated quest to go beat up your former boss, it’s important to maintain a sense of humor, as well as an open mind.

content warnings: descriptions of violence and gore

length: about 9k words

The fairgrounds have been long since abandoned by the time Tanis stumbles upon them. A big top tent sways gently in the wind, its candy-colored stripes looking faded and grim under the shadow of the oncoming storm. A loose bit of canvas flaps against the dark mouth of the entryway in a two-four rhythm. Pap-pap, pap-pap. 

Tanis’ inclination is to duck inside before the lazy drizzle of rain has the chance to start falling in earnest, but first, the test. Rolling up the sleeve of her flannel reveals a list written on her forearm in black marker.

NO:

Abandoned houses

Dark caves

Graveyards

Wax museums

The last bullet point is underlined. Never again.

“Well it doesn’t say anything about old circuses,” she says to herself. “But that’s probably because I’ve never been to one.”

It’s not what she’d call an inviting looking place, but neither does it seem especially dangerous, and the longer she spends deliberating outside the entrance the colder and wetter she’s getting. With no sign of any other half-decent shelter to be found, she steps inside.

There’s something oddly nostalgic about this place, she thinks. Odd because she doesn’t remember ever going to the circus as a kid. Maybe it’s the smell: wood chips and an unidentifiable sugary sweetness that reminds her of playing on the playground behind the school, the ice cream truck that parked there during the summers, popsicles melting onto careless sticky fingers. 

Pale light filters in through tears in the canvas. Rows of bleachers and folding chairs stand sentinel over a ring of sawdust, where in the center sits a wooden box with a star painted on the side. A prop chest or maybe a crate of old costumes, forgotten like the rest of it. Whoever left this place in such a state must have been in some hurry, Tanis muses.

Curious, she steps into the ring to investigate. The look of that box brushes against another of those deep-down memories and brings to mind a child’s toy chest. The big padlock is a bit atypical though. Mindlessly she reaches for the multitool in her back pocket and kneels to fiddle with it. As she fits it into the lock, the lid props open an inch and a round, blue eye peers out at her from the shaded darkness.

“Oh, um. Hello in there.”

“Please let me out,” a voice whispers from inside.

“Aw, ‘course I will. It can’t be too comfortable in there.” After a tense minute of probing with the head of a screwdriver, the lock springs open. “There we go! How’d you even manage to…”

A bone-white hand crams itself through the gap, fingers skittering spider-like over the clasp. The lid creaks open and from within rises a doll, a slender circus clown with long ball-jointed limbs tucked into its chest, unfolding like the petals of a flower. It’s taller than Tanis by a head at least and its painted face looms over her with an open-hinged smile.

“Ah. I see now.”

“Ooh, thank you thank you!” the doll trills in the voice of a bubbly young woman. She raises her legs out of the box with the wobbly grace of a drunken ballerina, head bobbing above a moth-eaten ruffle collar, causing her eyes to roll from side to side in their sockets like pale marbles.

“No need to thank me. I just popped in to catch a show but it looks like I missed my window so I’ll just be on my way.”

She makes to leave the way she came but the doll leaps in front of her with surprising speed. 

“Don’t go yet. Play with me,” she says. “Oh won’t you please play with me?”

Tanis thinks about it, weighing her options. She reaches for the guitar case slung over her back. “Yeah, alright.”

“Really?”

“Sure, it’s been a while since I had a good jam sesh. What do you play?”

The doll freezes, then with the crackling creak of stiff wooden joints it bends its body backwards and begins rifling through the crate. She fishes through frilly costumes, loose kernels of stale popcorn, packing peanuts, and emerges with a bright red toy piano. It makes a bouncy, tinny sound as she strikes the keys.

“Avant-garde. I like it.”

“If you could do me the kindness of turning my key.” She turns around and points at a brass windup key jutting out of a whole in her leotard. 

In for a penny, in for a pound I guess. Tanis gives it a few twists. It clicks, spins, and the doll jerks forward, striking a shrill note. 

“Oh that feels so much better!”

She lays her rosewood fingers across the piano keys and this time a full, rich sound echoes from the little toy. Suddenly a spotlight shines down from somewhere above them, piercing through the shadows. Tanis’ blinks against the glare. She squints up at the rafters but can’t for her life figure out where the light is coming from.

“Nice trick. You’re a performer of many talents, Ms Clown.”

“Silly! My name is Caroline!”

She nods, strumming a few experimental chords. “Tanis. What’re you doing in a gloomy place like this?”

In lieu of a response, Caroline begins to play faster, and as she plays the circus seems to be transported back in time. The ubiquitous signs of wear and age fade before Tanis’ eyes and the empty tent begins to fill up with cheers and laughter and the awed murmurs of a captivated audience. When she tries to look at them, however, like a half-remembered dream the faces of both the patrons and the other entertainers alike are replaced by churning mass of blurry gray features.

“I was the secret show-stopper, the dancing doll! The ringmaster had me made special. But one day, the show was stopped for good, and I was left alone.”

No intonation betrays her thoughts, yet as she speaks the ghosts of the past begin to fade, returning the tent to its dour state.

Not sure what to say, Tanis replies, “That’s a shame. Is that why you were all shut up in that box?”

She takes her hands off the keys, but the music keeps playing. A new vision appears; the hazy forms of strangers, travelers like Tanis whose curiosity or search for shelter drove them to this place before her. They murmur amongst themselves as they peer and point at the oddity in the ring. Caroline reaches for them and they recoil in horror before vanishing like smoke.

“No one wanted to play.”

Tanis shifts uneasily on her feet. This is awkward. “Aw jeez, I’m sorry about all that. But things’ll look up soon, I’m sure.”

No reply. Tanis’ hands still. She doesn’t really feel like playing anymore.

“Anyway, thanks for the song but it sounds like the rain’s letting up so I better be on my way.”

The music cuts out. Suddenly all is silent but for the quiet clicking of the spinning key.

“You don’t want to play anymore?” Caroline asks softly.

She put up her hands. “No offense. I just gotta keep moving. I’ve still got a long way to travel, you see.”

Once again she tries to leave and once again the doll bars her way. Standing up from the piano she twists her dexterous fingers into Tanis’ shirt collar and lifts her off the ground.

“You can’t go,” she implores. “You mustn’t go. It’s so very dangerous out there.”

Tanis struggles in her grip. “Seems pretty bad in here too.”

“Oh but I don’t want to harm you! I only wish to entertain!” 

The spectral spotlights return twice as bright, causing the woman to wince. She kicks at her captor’s wooden limbs. The thing doesn’t so much as flinch.

“Come on now, let’s be reasonable and put-” Thunk. “Me-” Thunk. “Down.”

“You’re quite spirited, Ms Tanis! I’ve so missed having a lively audience.”

She spins her around and pins her up against the bleachers. Sneaking a hand into her back pocket, Tanis pulls out the multitool and jams the knife edge into her side. This at last gets a reaction from her. She makes a small startled noise, closer to offense than pain, and throws the woman to the ground. 

The fall itself isn’t bad, but she doesn’t relish the feeling of her guitar slamming into her torso. Tanis groans and pushes herself up while Caroline continues to fret over the pocket knife lodged in her. She pulls and pulls but it's gotten all twisted up in her frilly costume and every seam she tears with her tugging makes her whimper like a distressed child. 

Taking advantage of the distraction, Tanis picks up her guitar, the closest thing to a weapon she has on hand, and swings it at her head. There’s a satisfying pop as one of her marble eyes shoots out of its socket and rolls under the stands. The doll bends double with a piercing wail. 

“Sorry about this, Caroline. You seemed alright.” 

With that, she reaches over and rips the brass key out of her back. The clown-creature slouches, then falls to her knees. The hole in her back oozes with a trickle of something-- not blood, thankfully. Something darker and more viscous, almost like molasses.

Tanis sighs and plops down on the sawdust floor. She’s relieved to find her guitar not much worse for wear in spite of her rough handling, although she’ll need to replace a snapped string. She lays it gently back into its case and fishes out a marker from her sparse bundle of belongings. 

NO:

Abandoned houses

Dark caves

Graveyards

Wax museums

Circuses

She rolls the dancing doll’s key around in her hand. After a moment’s deliberation, she lifts the oversized toy up over her shoulder and drops her back into her box. She plugs the smooth chunk of brass back into the weeping wound; Caroline shudders but otherwise remains dormant.

“There we go, no harm no foul,” she tells her limp form. “You rest up now.”

Tanis has come across her fair share of monsters already but rarely has one shown so much emotion. Most of the beasties she encounters don’t seem to know more than the bottomless hunger that drives them. She hasn’t had much reason up until now to consider what they might’ve been before, but now that the seed is sewn, she can’t help but feel a bit bad for the poor thing. 

Loneliness is a bitch and to be a performer without any audience is a plight she’s all too familiar with. She remembers the desperation, the despair, the things it could drive a person to do.

With the weight of the case back on her shoulders and the firm earth back beneath her feet, the traveler sets off again.

--

It feels like she’s been trudging through the mud for an age and a half before she reaches the next human township. Her burdens feel twice as heavy today and she’s eager to find someplace to lay them down if only for the night. 

The quaint settlement is surrounded on all sides by a high wooden wall and there’s an exposed duct trailing around the perimeter, the stagnant water turned pink from where the red soil flooded in with the rain. A tired looking soldier waves to her from his perch above the gate.

“Hello down there. What’s your business?”

“I’m just looking for a place to stay the night. If you can point me in the direction of a boarding house or a shelter I’ll be right out of your hair, sir.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I can’t let you in until I know you’re not a monster.”

She scoffs. “You guys get many monsters that look like me?”

“You never know these days. Last month we had some…  troubles.” His expression turns dark. “We’re still recouping from our losses, you understand. Can’t take the risk.”

Tanis shrugs. Fair enough. “My name’s Tanis Lahey and I’m a traveling musician.” She gestures to her guitar. “I ain’t got much in the way of money and even less to barter, but I’m not expecting luxury, just a place to rest my head and maybe a hot meal to keep me going.”

“Where do you come from, Ms Lahey? And where are you going?”

“I come from over west; Ohm Town, Oklahoma. Destination: Bigge City.”

The guard scratches his stubbly chin. “That’s a hell of a trip, especially to make on foot.”

“I had a car but it broke down as I was crossing the state line. A pack of ghouls spiked the highway. I dipped out before things could get messy.”

He nods, only half listening, she suspects. She isn’t expecting sympathy for her tale; it’s hardly one of a kind.

“Any weapons?”

“Nothing but my razor sharp wit, sir.”

He levels her an unimpressed look. “What’s your business in Bigge? Family?”

She shakes her head. “Work, sort of. I’m meeting with my manager to renegotiate a contract.”

“Good on you. Good work’s hard to come by these days.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“You said you’re a musician, right? We haven’t got much for music here. There’s an inn in the center of town that’d probably put you up in exchange for a good show.”

He turns and makes a motion behind him for whoever’s working the crank on the other side and the gate begins to rise. The wooden creaking stirs a feeling of discontent in Tanis, too reminiscent of recent events.

“Thanks for the tip, I’ll be sure to do that.”

Finding the inn isn’t hard, considering it’s one of maybe four buildings that’s more than a pop-up shanty. Settlements like this aren’t so unusual: a group of refugees from an infested district cobbles together some cheap homes, a couple municipal buildings, maybe even a business or two, and most importantly, a hefty monster-proof security system. In a few decades if the place is still standing it becomes a destination for those unlucky few like herself who are caught out traveling the wilds and secures a tidy profit in trade and touristry, if you can call it that.

It’s clear however that this particular patch of civilization has hit some hard times, even by the usual standards. It’s almost startlingly easy for Tanis to strike up a deal with the innkeeper: room and board in exchange for a few hours of music in the pub downstairs, or until the night’s patronage dries up, and she even gets to keep the tips. 

“It’s been a hard winter,” says the manager. “Folks walk around as if in a fog or else mad as hell at every little thing, just looking for a reason to start a fight. Some music might lift their spirits.”

“That’s what I’m here for, ma’am,” says Tanis. “Just give me a few minutes to tune up and get my things in order.”

She guides her to her room and then leaves her be, telling her she’ll try to get the local rumor mill turning, get the word out about her before she takes the floor. Alone now, Tanis sets her things down on the bed and opens the case, falling on her ass for the second time today when out climbs none other than Caroline the dancing doll.

“You-!” She sputters and looks around for something to put between the two of them.

“Surprise!” The one-eyed puppet throws her arms wide, wiggling her hands for emphasis. “Oh wait don’t-”

Tanis lobs her shoe at her. It hits her in the face, but she doesn’t seem bothered, or else it’s simply that she’s not capable of expressing a very wide range of emotion with her painted on expression and nutcracker-like jaw.

“No no no, don’t be afraid,” Caroline insists.

Tanis reaches down to untie her other shoe. “I’m not afraid, I’m pissed. Serves me right for taking pity on you.”

“It was fairly foolish from a strictly objective standpoint, but also very kind.”

Her narrow shoulders tuck in close, creating an almost sheepish effect.

 “Nobody’s ever done a thing like that before. Nobody’s ever taken the time to play a song with me and listen to my story.”

Slowly, Tanis lowers the shoe.

“I don’t mean to harm you or cause you any trouble,” Caroline continues. “It’s only, you’re a terribly strange human, and I wanted oh so much to keep playing with you. I thought to myself, ‘if I can’t keep Ms Tanis from leaving, I’ll simply have to go with her’. So when you weren’t looking I curled myself up all teensy tiny and climbed in with your lovely instrument and away we went! In addition to my myriad musical abilities I also happen to be a fabulous contortionist, you know.”

She demonstrates this by tipping forward and pulling her legs behind her head in a position that would’ve been truly disturbing on a flesh and blood body. 

“No wonder my case felt so heavy,” Tanis grumbles, standing up. “Look, sweetheart, you can’t be here. This is a strictly no-monster zone. We could both get in a huge amount of trouble. Not to mention I’m still not positive you won’t kill me in my sleep.”

“Please don’t leave me! We can play more music together! Or, turn my key and I’ll show you another magic trick! We can play cards or do each other’s makeup. I’ll make you look like a tiger.” She shuffles forward on ball-jointed knees, pleading. “You’re the only one who’s not afraid of me.”

Tanis can’t help but smirk at that. “Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that.”

“Oh I know, it’s because we’re best friends.”

She frowns. “No, no it’s… it’s a long story, hon.”

“I love stories!”

“Not a fun story, Caroline.” She shakes her head, rakes a hand through her short curls, growing longer and messier by the day it seems. “I’m not scared of you because I physically can’t fear any fear. Someone took it from me.”

She cocks her head. “Took… your fear?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that I guess. Sort of hard to explain.”

“Perhaps you should start with ‘once upon a time’. All the best stories start like that.”

Tanis sighs through her nose. “Agree to disagree but I’ll give it a shot. Once upon a time, in the far away land of Oklahoma…”

--

Once upon a time there was a young musician named Tanis. She worked in her parents’ bakery in a town where nothing ever changed, not in summer or winter, not in rain or blizzard or tornado. Even when the monsters came and the natural order of the world was turned on its head, for the most people still went on about their business as usual, just with an added tinge of constant dread, and even that wasn’t off-beat enough to endanger the status quo.

Tanis had big dreams of making it as a rock star and leaving her small world behind, but the people around her didn’t quite see things her way. Eventually she struck out on her own, intent on proving wrong all the naysayers wrong. Unfortunately, talent and raw gusto aren’t enough to make a star, and passion doesn’t pay the bills, as she soon discovered. 

After only just scraping by for more than a year, fameless and friendless, she was about to call it quits and head back home in shame when she was approached by a strange gentleman.

He called himself Mr Slyme, which maybe should have been a red flag on its own. But Tanis didn’t care. She was willing to do anything for success and he was promising her not only a paying gig but, if the show went well, an entire sponsored tour.

The very first time she stepped onto that stage she knew she’d gotten in over her head. In their dealings Mr Slyme had failed to mention that she’d be playing for an audience entirely of monsters. Still, if she shut her eyes while she sang the screeches and howling cries didn’t sound so different from the cheers of an adoring crowd. Skin warm from the limelight and stars in her eyes, she knew she couldn’t go back to the way things were, whatever the risk.

Mr Slyme was very pleased with her performance and had her sign a contract with his company right away. After that it was tours and autographs and show after show after show. Time seemed to blur together in a single crashing wave of euphoric adrenalin. She felt like she could go on like this forever.

Then, that last concert. The one where it all went wrong. A darkened auditorium and the metallic tang of blood in the air. She hadn’t thought to ask questions before stepping on stage, and by then it was too late. The ritual was already underway. 

It felt as though her hands were not her own. A chant bubbled up from her throat in a voice she could barely recognize. The lights were fiery hot yet her blood ran cold when she heard, above the hysterical clamour of the crowd, the word “sacrifice”.

Tanis was never entirely certain how she made it out alive. Maybe someone up there was still looking out for her, despite it all. All she knew was by the time she escaped she was in a bad state, her clothes in shreds, her hair coming out in chunks, her whole body shaking as the blood cooled on her skin, much of it her own. She got in her car and drove, no destination in mind except home. Facing her family might be the worst part of all, but there was nowhere else to go. 

She prayed that it was all over now.

The morning after her final concert Tanis woke up in a motel with a strange feeling of absence, like the tugging in your brain when you can’t remember what you’ve forgotten. She was jolted into awareness by the sound of her phone ringing, and when she answered she was greeted by the sneering, insidious voice of Mr Slyme dripping into her ear.

By refusing to see the performance through, he told her, she’d breached the terms of her contract. As recompense, he had taken something of hers. Something precious. 

Tanis wasn’t one to put her faith in the intangible, the mystical. Or, she hadn’t been back then. Even if she had paid proper attention to what she was signing she probably wouldn’t have given the clause very much thought, perhaps written it off as a joke. As it was, the sudden loss of her mortal soul wasn’t quite what she might’ve expected. No demons appeared in her motel room to drag her down into a fiery pit. To tell the truth, she didn’t feel very different at all. Still, something had changed.

As days went by Tanis began to notice herself becoming more careless. She burned herself cooking simply because it didn’t occur to her to not touch the hot pan with her bare fingers. Where pain used to be a teacher now it only made her indignant. The daily dangers of reckless drivers and unfriendly dogs and strangers coming too close to her as she walked down a darkened street no longer gave her any sense of unease. Several times she had to consciously stop herself from walking into a busy crosswalk simply because she couldn’t remember why the outcome might be undesirable. 

It may have been more tolerable, she thought, if she simply wanted to die. That’s what people tended to assume of her anyway in the wake of this new affliction. But there was no sadness or suffering in her, not even when she remembered the events of the ritual that she’d thought would scar her forever, only a slow creeping apathy which grew stronger every passing moment.

Against the odds, she did come to relearn fear, the basic mechanics of it if not the actual feeling, and stopped regularly endangering herself in such ridiculous ways. Fearlessness, she realized, didn’t have to equal reckless stupidity as long as she remained mindful of it. 

Still, this couldn’t go on forever. Mr Slyme wasn’t taking her calls, naturally, and so she set off for the one place she knew she could find him: the main offices of Slyme House Incorporated. 

--

“So, that’s me,” Tanis finished with a lackluster shrug. “I’ve managed to keep myself in one piece so far but it’s kind of difficult when you have zero sense of self preservation and there are monsters literally everywhere. I’m not sure what’ll happen to me if I die or if I even really care, only I figure if I do kick it I won’t be able to play music anymore.”

She gives her guitar an idle strum as she finishes tuning.

“Music is pretty much the only thing that ever made me really happy. If I couldn’t do that, I don’t know. I can’t feel fear but I can still feel happiness and sadness and all the rest.” She clenches her fist. “Anger too, definitely. I’m angry that I was duped like that, the kind of angry that I don’t think’s gonna let up until I put my fist all the way through Slyme’s ugly face.”

“I’m sure you’ll be quite good at it! You’re very strong.”

Tanis snaps out of her stewing, sparing a guilty glance towards Caroline’s empty left socket and the cracks still faintly visible through the tear in her leotard. 

“Listen, I’m sorry about what happened back there. I’m not really used to meeting monsters that don’t wanna, you know, kill and eat me, and my fight or flight response is pretty much just fight at the moment.”

Caroline laughs, or rather, she vocalizes a robotic sounding “ahaha!” that must be her version of laughter. “I would never eat you. I don’t even have a digestive system!”

Tanis presses her lips together. “Right.”

There’s a knock on the door. 

“Oh shit, right, I’m supposed to play.”

Caroline jumps up. “I want to come too! Please please pretty please!”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She pauses, considers. “Unless… do you think you can pretend to be, you know, a normal doll for a while?”

“Pretend? I love to play pretend!” She claps her wooden hands together. “Lead the way, Ms Tanis!”

There’s an itching at the back of her brain that tells her this may be a mistake, the ghost of her good sense hanging on by a thread. But without concern for her own wellbeing her sympathy for the dopey doll takes the reins, and together they take the stage. 

It’s a sad crowd, both in terms of size and demeanor. Hopefully, she thinks, they’re deep enough in their cups to not question the windup automaton that stands before them.

“Good evening, folks, my name’s Tanis and this is Caroline the fantastic dancing doll.”

Caroline gives a robotic jerk and bows at the waist. It’s a surprisingly convincing performance, but then, it probably comes naturally to her. A few patrons give an amused chuckle at Caroline’s antics. Tanis takes it as a good sign and begins the first song.

Despite not having the time to rehearse, Caroline manages to play her part well, improvising along to the music the other provides with sweeping, exaggerated movements that hold the crowd’s attention. It’s actually sort of nice, the guitarist thinks, to share the stage with someone else for a change. Even if the “stage” is just the corner of a dingy inn stinking of bathtub booze. 

The atmosphere is infectious and after a few songs the crowd has doubled in number, everyone bobbing their heads or tapping their feet along with the music. It feels good. It feels better than most things have felt in a long time.

Halfway through the night Tanis breathlessly declares that they’ll be taking a break. In her excitement, she’d put some more pepper on those last few numbers than usual. The place is packed now, the staff happily passing around refills and lining their pockets. 

Caroline pretends to wind down to stop while Tanis takes a seat at one of the tables to recover. A server brings her a glass of water and she downs it in seconds. She makes a point of staying in practice while on the road but she’d forgotten how intoxicating it could be to play for a crowd, and one where no one wanted your head on a platter to boot.

While she flexes her fingers and rolls her neck in preparation for the next set, Tanis happens to overhear a conversation taking place amongst a group at the next table over.

“All I’m saying is, we know what it's after. Why are we sitting around when we could set a trap and finish the thing off once in for all?”

“If you’re looking for someone to be the bait, I call not it.”

“I don’t think something like that can be killed. My grandpa always says--”

“Nobody cares what the old man says, Jonah. I’m telling you, if it bleeds, you can kill it. That’s just common sense.”

“Excuse me,” Tanis pipes up. “Am I hearing you right? You folks are monster hunters?”

If she were looking, she would see Caroline’s head roll to the side, her good eye following her warily.

“Something like that,” says the woman at the table with a rumbling laugh in her throat. “I’m Luanne and this is Phil, and the kid is Jonah.”

Jonah, a young man with rusty red hair, grumbles under his breath. Phil gives her the barest nod of acknowledgment before launching back into his argument.

“I can’t get to sleep at night knowing those things are still out there, lurking around, feeding off our scraps all fat and happy.”

“If it keeps them from breaking down the wall and carrying us off instead…”

“What’s the point of the wall if monsters are just gonna get in anyway!”

“Ignore the boys. What’s your interest in monster hunting?” asks Luanne. “You thinking about quitting the music business? Trust me, this job doesn’t have as many perks as you’d think.”

“Nah, that’s not for me,” she says. “I’ve run into monsters aplenty on the road, but never on purpose. I just have a knack for getting into trouble, and I was hoping you could point me in the direction of someplace I could get myself a weapon. After tonight I might actually be able to afford it.”

“Don’t waste your money,” Jonah insists sharply. “Monsters can’t be killed, I’m telling you. You can hurt ‘em, sometimes real bad, but they just come back in a new shape.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means. I’m just saying.”

“What are you saying? You think it’s pointless?”

“No, man, you know I’m not. Just that we need to be looking for long-term solutions instead of just shooting or building walls that’ll fall down in another few years. We’re not cavemen. We ought to be studying monsters, finding out what makes ‘em tick.”

“And where are you gonna find a monster to study?”

The younger stammers at that, coming up empty. Tanis smirks against the lip of her glass. Have you ever tried playing music for them until they follow you home?

Soon her time is up and she takes the stage again. By the end of the night she’s collected a hefty bit of coin and she’s more than ready to retire. A couple of the lingering townsfolk meander over to try and make conversation as she finishes collecting her dues, the trio of ameteur hunters among them.

“Don’t quit this music thing,” Luanne tells her. “If you get yourself killed tracking some beasty the world’s gonna be down a damn good singer. You write those songs yourself?”

“Some of them. Most of them are covers. People don’t usually seem to care one way or the other, and writing’s not really my forte.”

“Don’t say that, kid. You put on a hell of a show. Especially with that whole dancing doll shtick.” She gestures at Caroline who’s playing dead on the floor. “Where’d you find this crazy looking thing?”

“Oh, well, she- it used to be a circus prop. I just kind of found her.” Sticking with half-truths feels like the safest bet. She has no idea how she’d explain her away otherwise.

Phil nudges Caroline with the heel of his boot. “Kind of creepy if you ask me.”

“No one asked you, Phil.”

He grunts and turns away. Caroline pops her head up and makes a face behind his back.

Biting back a laugh, Tanis says, “Sorry to cut this short but I am beat.” 

She hefts the doll up over her shoulder-- she’s not exactly lightweight, but no heavier than the big bags of flour she would drag out of the storeroom for her mom in the mornings.

“Can we count on catching another show tomorrow night?”

“Sorry, I’ve got to be on my way first thing in the morning. I’ve still got a long road ahead of me.”

“That early? You’re sure in a hurry to get out of dodge.”

There’s something strange about the way he says it. Tanis frowns. 

“I just like to get an early start. With that said, goodnight folks.”

She hustles Caroline upstairs and shuts the door tight behind them. The moment she does, the doll springs up, fully animated once more.

“That was great fun!”

Tanis huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I guess it was.”

--

Under the golden lamplight Tanis sorts her bounty of bronze and silver coins into neat piles. Tonight was a better night than most; the folks here aren’t exactly wealthy but with so little trade coming and going what coin they have hasn’t been going anywhere except perhaps into the hands of the bartender, who’s probably faring even better than she. 

After a moment’s deliberation she pushes a stack towards Caroline. It’s not quite an equal share but then, she reasons, what’s the doll going to spend it on anyway? Even so, the thought of keeping all the spoils to herself doesn’t sit well when Caroline’s certainly put in as much work.

“For me?” she asks.

“Yup. You did good tonight and no one suspected a thing. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Caroline, if possible, looks even more joyed than is her default state. “I won’t!” 

She then tips back her head and pours her earnings down her throat. Tanis can’t claim to understand the creature, but whatever makes her happy.

“I’m ready to turn in. What do you wanna do about this… whole arrangement here?” she asks, yawning as she nods towards the bed.

“Not to worry! I don’t require sleep, nor desire it. If you need me I shall be in your instrument case.”

Her brow wrinkles with a frown. “You sure? It looks like kind of a squeeze.”

“I’m used to resting in boxes. Frankly I prefer it. I suppose you could say it’s in my nature.”

“Whatever floats your boat.” She sheds her outerwear, stripping down to tank top and boxers. The weather’s due to turn before she makes it to Bigge, she thinks; might be worth it to invest in a real coat, maybe some nice thick socks. “‘Night, Caroline.”

“Goodnight, Ms Tanis!”

She puts out the light and closes her eyes. Sleep comes easy, tired as she is, and as dreamlessly as it has been ever since that fateful final show. Nothing short of a new apocalyptic event could get her up once she begins to drift, which is why she’s unpleasantly surprised to find herself awake not a few hours later. That, and the gun barrel tucked underneath her chin.

“God, this better be good,” she groans as the bliss of well-earned rest leaves her.

In the dark she can’t make out the figures standing around her bed. She reaches for the lamp and the shotgun at her throat cocks a warning.

“If you’re here to rob me, couldn’t it at least wait until morning.”

“We don’t want your money, hellspawn,” a voice rasps.

“Well,” says a second. “I wouldn’t say no to--”

“Shut it!”

Tanis recognizes the voices now. The monster hunters, Phil and Jonah, and she’d bargain that’s Luanne hanging back blocking the door.

“What’d I do to you guys? You didn’t like the music or something?”

“Quiet!” Phil shouts. “I knew there was something off about you the moment I saw you, so I decided to do a little investigating. Why don’t you say it again, how ‘no one suspected a thing’.” He gives her another jab with the cold metal of the barrel. “Who were you talking to, all alone in your room? Ain’t nobody here. What devils do you answer to, you traitoring rat?”

Tanis puts up her hands. “Whoa whoa whoa, I think you’ve got the wrong impression of me.”

“I said quiet!”

“You asked me a question.”

Phil continues, “You’re not a monster, not all the way through anyhow, I can tell. But you’re not all the way human neither. I can see it in your eyes. Empty eyes. And that doll of yours, that’s your familiar, isn’t it?”

“Are you gonna let me answer this time or--”

He smacks her hard across the face. She hisses in pain-- that sensation certainly hasn’t run empty.

“You’re a traitor to your own kind, bringing that darkness in past our walls. But now at least we got that live bait we’ve been missing.”

There’s a sudden sound of movement, a scraping against the bare floor from across the room that makes Tanis’ aggressors freeze. It’s Luanne who breaks the tense silence.

“Uh, fellas? What was that?”

On cue, Caroline rises from her makeshift bed with the gravitas of a movie vampire awakening from its crypt. Tanis should’ve expected she’d be the type to relish in dramatics. She cocks her head, surveying the scene around her, and then without further preamble grabs the closest person-- poor unlucky Jonah-- and thrusts him out of her way as casually as if she were rearranging the furniture, crashing him into Luanne and sending them both into the wall.

“No more songs tonight,” she says cheerfully. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Luanne staggers and pushes the young man off of her, thrusting a large hunting knife in the monster’s direction. “Get back, creep!”

“Silly billy, knives are dangerous. Not to me, of course, but to you.” 

She knocks the blade out of her hand. Jonah drops his own weapon before she has the chance, his hands trembling too hard to keep his grip.

“Hey!” Phil barks. Caroline’s head swivels towards him. “Maybe I can’t hurt you, but I can sure hurt your master here.”

He grabs her chin and presses his thumb to her swollen lip, swiping up a drop of blood. 

“If it bleeds, you can kill it,” he murmurs under his breath like a mantra. 

“Silly,” Caroline repeats, taking a step closer. “That’s not my master, that’s Ms Tanis!”

The hunter’s eyes move frantically back and forth, from the doll to the woman. He affects a false bravado and demands, “Then who- who do you answer to, monster?”

“Oh he’s quite dead,” she replies. “I killed him!”

Before he can react, a hand shoots out and grips the man’s neck. His companions, recovering some nerve, shout and grab at her from either side. Their combined weight unbalances the dainty doll but, with her grip unrelenting, she takes their leader with her. His finger locks on the trigger but the panicked shot goes wide. A chorus of frightened screams sounds from outside-- the manager and another couple guests that had gone to fetch her when they heard the sounds of a fight.

Tanis leaps from her bed to wrestle the larger man off of Caroline. The other two have her arms pinned down and for a moment she goes very still, but as Jonah leans in to investigate, a bizarre whining noise sounds from deep in the doll’s throat and a stream of coins begin to shoot out of her mouth. Jonah screams and falls backward clutching his face, Luanne soon to follow.

“What demon do you serve!” Phil howls. 

Tanis grimaces as spittle flies into her face. “You are really stuck on that, huh?”

She grunts and puts all her strength into shoving the man over, cracking his head against the nightstand. 

“I don’t fucking serve anybody.” She spits. “Asshole.”

When the manager finally gets the door open, the scene is not a charitable one. There’s a man unconscious on the floor with a probable broken nose, his friends scrambling for the door in terror, a bullethole in the ceiling, while the traveler and her seven foot living wind-up toy stand amidst the chaos.

“Okay, I can explain.”

“Is that blood,” the manager deadpans, going pale.

Indeed a sizable puddle has formed around Phil’s head where he lies. Tanis sucks in a breath through her teeth.

“I didn’t mean to hit him that hard,” she mutters under her breath. “I mean, he deserved it, but still.”

She nudges him with her foot and hears a faint, gurgling groan.

“No worries, he’s still alive.”

“I don’t care about that!” hisses the manager. “Shut the window, fool! Monsters can smell fresh blood from miles away!”

Tanis looks to Caroline as if to say, Did you know about this? Caroline shrugs.

“I think that’s just a myth.”

There’s a loud, guttural shriek from somewhere outside the inn, followed by the shuck shuck shuck of claws piercing the walls, coming rapidly closer. A toothsome muzzle crams its way through the window and starts snapping blindly at the air. The onlookers scatter, and even Tanis has the wherewithal to leap back and out of the way of those grasping jaws. It sniffs wolfishly and a long barbed tongue protracts from its maw, flopping onto the floor.

“Geez louise,” Tanis remarks. “Just can’t catch a break tonight. Caroline, can you, I dunno, talk that thing down?”

“I shall try!” 

She walks over to where the creature’s head remains stuck in the window. 

“Pardon me, but you are being very disruptive and I--”

The monster’s tongue lashes out and smacks her in the face. It probes into her exposed socket and, apparently deciding that whatever the doll has in place of blood is good enough, begins straining to pull her into its mouth. Tanis yanks her away just in time.

“Oh dear, that was not very polite.”

“Why’s it wanna hurt you? You’re a monster too!”

“You’re a human, and those other humans were hurting you.”

“Huh. Fair enough.”

The wooden panels around the window begin to strain dangerously as the bloodsucker starts to push through.

“Okay, we gotta go.” She rushes to collect her things and then, with a sigh, grabs onto Phil’s unconscious body to drag him out of the room. “Help me pull.”

Caroline does so, but not before asking, “Are we rescuing this man? Even though he wanted to hurt you and called you nasty names?”

“Yeah,” she huffs. “It kind of sucks, but that’s just what people do.”

Together they drag Phil into the hallway and slam the door behind them, though it’s anyone’s guess how long it’ll hold. Hopefully the pool of blood will keep the creature occupied for a short time while the other guests evacuate. Luckily there are few of them, so a short time is just enough.

Drawn out by the commotion, townspeople begin to pour out of their homes and into the street. In the chaos and confusion, nobody seems to notice the traveler and her doll fleeing the scene. 

Tanis makes a beeline for the gate. “I don’t know about you, sweetheart, but I’m ready to get the hell out of dodge.”

“Will they be safe?” asks Caroline.

Tanis stops and stares at her. “What?”

“With that large bitey fellow on the loose? Will the audience be alright?”

It’s hard to divine much emotion from Caroline’s wooden features, but in this moment Tanis can tell she’s being sincere. 

“Why do you care about something like that?”

“It’s a good entertainer’s responsibility to make sure the audience is happy.” 

She points at the crowd that’s forming in the town square: a handful of soldiers-- if they can even be called as much-- with their meager armory of shotguns and spears and some assorted farm tools, and the huddled mass of paralyzed civilians trying to think of where to run to. Many are still recovering from the last attack of this kind. They don’t have the means to defend themselves the way they need, nor to flee the way they should, and the resident monster hunters are either unconscious or god-knows-where.

“They don’t look very happy.”

“What am I supposed to do about that? No, really, Caroline. If you’ve got an idea, I’m all ears. Just because I’m fearless doesn’t mean I’m suicidal.”

The doll seems to think on this for a moment before she simply says, “Turn my key.”

Tanis gives her a dubious look. “The key that makes you act like even more of an evil Looney Toon? The last time I did that you kinda tried to kill me.”

“I did not! I wanted to keep you from the danger.” She actually sounds offended at the accusation. “I wanted to keep you safe in my circus forever. I couldn’t understand why you would want to go out into the big scary world, where people are unkind and ever so unhappy.”

She doesn’t frown necessarily, but she hangs her head, one lonesome blue eye staring into her own. 

“But when you sing, you make people happy. When you make them happy, you are happy too. I do not think you want to run away.”

Tanis watches Caroline. She listens to her speak. She groans, frustrated to realize that, against all odds, the big goofy clown doll is right. “Turn around.”

Caroline claps her hands with glee as Tanis grips her key, still faintly tacky to the touch. She turns it once, twice, thrice, until she can’t turn it anymore. The doll spins around with a revitalized sort of glow and begins bounding towards the beast as it bursts through the wall of the building. 

What else is there for Tanis to do? She follows after her. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, this is the greatest show on what’s left of earth!”

A spotlight shines from nowhere, brilliantly illuminating the daring dancer. As the soldiers’ weapons glance ineffectually off the bloodsucker’s hide, Caroline overtakes them and kicks it square across the face, causing the beast to stagger a few steps backwards. 

At her command, a swarm of chattering windup dolls appear out of the night. Spectral and red-eyed, they pile their porcelain bodies on top of the ravenous creature. When crushing one knee-high nuisance doesn’t yield any blood or ichor, it hisses its displeasure and tosses the rest off. It stomps and snaps them until they return to nothingness, but the attack disorients it, enough for Caroline to gain the definitive upperhand. 

She seizes it by the scruff, wrenches its mouth open, and rips out its long propping tongue. The beast howls in ear-splitting pain, more of that syrupy dark substance dripping from its fanged mouth. Caroline pulls the tongue taught in her hands and cracks it against the creature’s forepaw like a whip. She faces the townsfolk.

“And now, a spectacle unlike you’ve ever seen! The dancing doll tames the ferocious beast!”

She evades another snap of its jaws and climbs atop its back, straddling it and wrapping its own tongue around its meaty neck. The monster begins to rear back, swiping at the doll with its claws. Those grasping paws, clever enough to scale walls, find purchase on her leg.

“Uh oh!” the doll remarks.

It flings her to the ground.

“Caroline!” Tanis yells. “Just kill it already!”

“Oh but where’s the fun in that?” 

Nevertheless, she pulls back her free leg and jabs her heel into one beady black eye with a gruesome squelching noise.

“Now, for my final trick, I’ll make this rude fellow disappear!”

The mystical spotlight goes out, in fact every light in town goes out, and from somewhere Tanis can hear the sound of a drumroll. When the lights return, the monster has indeed vanished, replaced by a pile of ichorous innards which have been strewn about the town square. A few members of the “audience” begin to retch.

“Ta-da!”

It’s probably not the reception she was hoping for, but there’s one person in the crowd clapping. The fantastic dancing doll takes a sweeping bow, more gore sloughing off and onto the cobblestone below.

--

“So that’s a town we can never go back to.”

Caroline pouts, as much as she can. “I thought it was a lovely show.”

Tanis shrugs. “You can’t please everybody.”

She’s back on the road, strumming a few notes on her guitar as she walks along. She’d offered to hold onto it so Caroline could have some more wiggle room as she rode along on her back. The extra baggage wasn’t exactly ideal, but despite single-handedly taking down a monster twice her size, traversing wide open spaces still made the doll nervous after so long spent confined to one place. It was the least she could do for her, she figured.

Besides being a real powerhouse when it comes to fighting humans and other monsters alike, Caroline had become an invaluable addition to Tanis’ little traveling act. She made more than twice the tips as she usually did when Caroline was dancing along to her songs. Everyone was always so perplexed: how did she make that doll move like that? It was almost like she was alive!

Yeah, almost. She snickers to herself. 

“Are you thinking of a joke? May I hear it?”

“Nah, just getting lost in my own head again,” she says. 

Privately, there’s another reason she’s glad to have kept Caroline by her side. It’s strange, she thinks, to have found a companion in a creature like her. A friend, even.

“Where will we be touring next, Ms Tanis?”

“For now we just keep heading east.” She glances back at the doll. Her head is poking out of the case, watching her again. It’s probably a good thing she’s physically incapable of finding that as creepy as it undoubtedly is. Instead, she just shoots her a sideways grin and says, “You know, you don’t have to keep calling me ‘miss’. Just Tanis is fine.”

“Okay, Ms Just Tanis!”

“Oh so she’s got jokes.”

“I know lots of jokes. What’s big and grey with lots of great big horns?”

“I don’t know but I hope it’s not following us.”

“An elephant marching band!”

God, that was terrible. “Ha. Good one, Caroline.”

“I know more!”

“Why don’t you hold onto those for now. Wouldn’t want to waste ‘em all on me before you’ve got a proper audience.”

“I will, but not because it would be a waste. Even if I was to never have another show, I should enjoy telling them to you very much.”

It’s quiet for a while after that, and Tanis, more than used to the solitude, has almost forgotten about her passenger until she pipes up once more.

“Ms- Pardon me, Tanis. What’s that tune you’re playing?”

Without hardly noticing Tanis’ hands have been feeling out the shape of a familiar melody, a slow and sentimental thing.

“Ah, it’s just this old country song I used to practice with a lot when I was still just learning. It’s funny, I can’t actually remember the last time I played it. I wanted to be a rockstar for so long, you know. But then once I was on my own again, after everything, it’s these sort of songs I ended up coming back to.”

She expects Caroline to request something more cheery, but she merely settles her head against her shoulder and lapses back into silence. For the first time since that night Tanis finds herself thinking of what the peculiar doll had told her. She had said that her singing made people happy. What did that mean for someone like her who was always happy anyway? Or seemed to be, that is.

Does my singing make you happy, Caroline? Is that the real reason you started following me? 

Softly, uncertain as the kid at her first audition she could barely remember being, Tanis lets her voice rise.

“This world is not my home

I'm just passing through

My treasures are laid up

Somewhere beyond the blue…”

[anon-e-miss]

Primus Help the Outcasts 3

Frag. Frag. Frag. Jazz had largely been removed the news. Once he had left the Elite Guard, he had removed himself from the business of international affairs. Of course he had known about Praxus. Everyone knew about Praxus. But he did not get his news from tabloids or the court of public opinion and he had been delighted to see the young Praxians and their originator turn up at the dojo. He had not expected to see Praxians in Simfur, but it had been good to see them. There had been so many deaths. Prowl, as he had introduced himself, had seemed stiff when he had returned later and registered Bluestreak in the Twins class after their mechlings had paired up in school. Master Yoketron had been his hope and his lifeline. Arriving at the dojo and hearing the news of the Master’s death had obviously put a wrench in his plans. Jazz would honour his mentor’s legacy. It was the right thing to do.

In the evening, he would touch base with his contacts in the Elite Guard to see if he could verify any part of Prowl’s story. But even if it was a self-serving lie, Jazz preferred to house a liar than see two mechlings on the streets. He realized he could probably just ask Smokescreen for confirmation but asking the mechling if he had been raped or molested by a trio of Seekers was not something he was about to do. It would be brutally unfair to him. Prowl, would probably kill him for it too, or try to at least. Jazz had seen the smooth, controlled flick of Prowl’s servo when he had removed that priest’s servo from his aft and then broken his digits. He had used the perfect amount of force. After he had left Simfur and the dojo, Jazz was willing to bet he had kept up his training.

“Ori, Geni, Genitor, I got someone for ya to meet,” Jazz called when he led Prowl into the shop. Rumbler, his geni poked his helm out from the workshop. His ori, Punch and his genitor, Sprocket, came out from behind the shelves they had been stocking. “This is Prowl. Ya met his bitlets, Smokey ‘n Blue, at the dojo. They’re needin’ a place to stay. I offered them Ric’s old place.”

“I’ll get some fuel,” Sprocket said, his optics raking up and down Prowl’s emaciated frame. “‘N we’ll talk shop... in the shop? Rumbler?”

“Nothin’ explosive right now,” Rumbler replied. “I’ll pull up the table.”

“I saw yer faceplates in the news quite a bit, a while back,” Punch said. Prowl tensed.

“Ya know the Senate ain’t gonna tell the whole truth,” Jazz said.

“I don’t got much use for the Senate,” Punch agreed. “Ya got a good youngling, Prowl. He’s helped us in the shop a coupla times when we needed an extra set of servos.”

“I did not realize,” Prowl replied in a stilted monotone. “He is a great help with his brother.”

“He seemed a lil thin when I saw’m last. He’s gettin’ ‘nough fuel?”

“I... he fuels.”

“Ya don’t.”

“Ori, let’m sit before ya interrogate ‘m,” Jazz sighed. “I caught the fraggin’ priest groppin’m when I dropped in. ‘M thinkin’ it wasn’t a one off.”

“No...”

“Priest. Heh,” Punch sneered. “Cut from the same sentio-metallico as Sentinel Prime, that greedy creep.”

Sprocket returned with a tray laden with his fresh baked goodies and Punch let the way into the back workship. Prowl hesitated. Jazz watched him. Given Ori’s opening salvo, he might have thought rejection was coming, but Jazz knew his procreators better. As Prowl continued to hesitate, Jazz was patient. The mech was clearly tired, fuel deprived and traumatized. How many times had mechanisms tried to take advantage of him since he had arrived in Simfur? Had he even seen a medic, had any of them seen medics since the disaster in Praxus? Fragging Pit, the only thing Jazz missed about Polihex was Ratchet.

“They ain’t gonna bite,” Jazz promised and he took Prowl’s servo.

“Your originator...”

“Is testin’ the waters. It’s a’ight. Come on. Let’s get this scrap sorted out before we gotta pick the mechlings up from school.”

Prowl servo was cold yet their was a film on condensation on his palm. Jazz guided him into the workshop and over to the table and chairs they usually used for family poker-cycle. Sprocket pointed to a chair with a plate already filled with baked goodies and a tall cube of mid-grade set in front of it. Once again, Prowl hesitated to sit, but Jazz gave him a little nudge and took the chair next to him. He took a quick look around. They were surrounded by the tools of his procreators business. Machines in various states of disrepair covered the floor space. Rumbler was a talented engineer but the family did more business doing repairs than custom builds. Mechanisms in Simfur did not need war machines.

“Genitor’s a mean baker,” Jazz said. “Best energon nuts around. Eat up. I know that pressed energon didn’t fill ya up.”

“Thank you,” Prowl said. For a mech who had to have been famished, he ate slowly and neatly. Jazz watched his genitor watching him. It was going to take a lot more than this to put healthy mass on Prowl’s frame.

“Ya been lookin’ for work, Prowl?” Punch asked.

“Yes,” Prowl replied, faultlessly polite as the interrogation continued. “I was recently fired and evicted by my employer...”

“Lockdown,” Jazz interjected. All three of his procreators sneered.

“We won’t hold that against ya,” Rumbler grumbled. “Didn’t wanna handle stolen goods?”

“I...” Prowl paused again. “No. I was working security...  I did not... he wanted to interface. I did not.”

“Sounds like that piece of scrap,” Rumbler said. The questioning continued. Where had applied to work, where he planned to apply. Jazz understood where they were coming from. He had the biggest bleeding spark in the family. They did not want to get stuck with a tenant who could not pay the rent.

“Did ya lose yer appetite?” Punch asked, changing the subject so quickly that Jazz jerked his helm. He looked down at the Praxian’s plate, and found it not even half eaten.

“No...” Prowl was not a good liar. Jazz almost patted the back of his servo.

“Take lil bites,” Punch ordered. “Ya won’t be any good to yer mechlings if ya waste on ‘em will ya?”

“Y’re a’ight,” Jazz said as he looked at his procreators, feeling a little defensive. “I ain’t worried ‘bout rent. I’ll get’m a job. I got one for Bumblebee, didn’t I?”

“Ya did,” Rumbler said. “It’s gonna be harder for this one, though, ain’t it Prowl? Ya got the deck stacked against ya.”

“It is,” Prowl replied. “My Conjunx was a popular mech amongst his peers.”

“Do ya have regrets?” Punch asked.

Jazz hissed at his procreators: “Enough.”

“I regret not shooting him,” Prowl said. His plating clattered as he started shivering. Jazz looked over to him with concern. He thought better of holding him, thinking it would scare him and kept his servos on the table. “But I didn’t know where my sparkling was. I looked everywhere for him when we got away. I stared at the cameras and the transports they were loading and I could not find him.”

“Y’re a’ight,” Jazz soothed. He brushed his servo over the back of Prowl’s servo. His plating was still unnervingly clammy. “Ya got’m back.”

“They made him watch the bombing before the dropped him in the rubble,” Prowl’s digits curled into the table and he stared down, unseeing. Jazz looked over to his procreators, silently asking, could you just not? “Revenge against me for killing the Trine that raped me after they molested Smokescreen. Crosscut gave us to them. He prostituted us in hopes that Wing Leader would designate him Vassal Lord in reward for his cooperation.”

“Sounds to me like his death was too easy,” Sprocket ground out.

Of Jazz’s procreators, Sprocket had the fiercest temper. His function had been as a reconnaissance specialist but his intelligence packets had tended to be coordinates of the smoking ruin he had left behind. His brother had built him an exoskeleton that had given him more firepower that one would have expected of a scout. Punch fondly called his sparkmate flashy.

“I do not want to fuel anymore. I am going to be sick.”

“Y’re a’ight,” Jazz crooned, and he rubbed Prowl’s back as he lowered his helm to the table. “Y’re a’ight.”

“We’ll have to get furniture,” Rumbler declared. “Ricochet took his scrap ‘n, anyways it wasn’t the slag a pair o’ mechlings need.”

“The Megastore does same-cycle delivery,” Punch suggested.

Jazz smiled as his procreators talked back and forth and made a list. He left them to it and focused on Prowl who remained folded in half in his chair as his fans revved and his intakes wheezed. At least he did not purge. His helm was hot, Jazz realized when he touched his neck. Ratchet might have been half a world away but Simfur had medic’s a plenty. If Prowl had an infection brewing, then they needed to make short work of it. There was no way the mech had a functioning self-repair system. It was a relief when Prowl lifted his helm and stared owlishly at the Polihexians.

“What?” He asked.

“What’re yer favourite colours?” Sprocket repeated. “Mechlings’ gotta have favourite colours. I was guessin’ blue for Smokey but yer sparkling’s a mystery.”

“Red,” Prowl replied. His servo brushed over the chevron on his helm. The red paint was chipped and faded. “He insisted on getting paint to match mine when his colours were done.”

“That’s sweet,” Sprocket smiled.

“Smokescreen likes blue, yes. He like yellow and red. Colour. He likes colour.”

“What ‘bout ya?” Jazz asked. There was something just a little off with Prowl. His expression was pinched and his optics were glassy.

“Red... I suppose. I like whatever they like. Why?”

“Cause we gotta make sure their berthroom’s just how they like it.”

“Mm?” Prowl made a questioning sound. He looked lost and Jazz frowned, as did his procreators.

“Ricochet took his stuff when he moved,” Jazz explained. Wondering how Prowl had missed the entire conversation. “Habsuite’s empty. If we’re gonna get all new scrap we outta get what mechlings’ll like right?”

“Mm?”

“Ori?” Jazz said. “Somethin’s wrong wit’m.”

“Put’m on the ground, I think he’s crashin’,” Punch replied.

Punch’s glyphs rang true. Prowl fell out of the chair as his frame trembled and clattered. His arms and legs contracted violently and with the most hideous squeal. Jazz caught him, falling on his knees next to the chair. As Prowl twitched, arms and legs contracting and released over again, Jazz lowered him down onto his back, and cradled his helm as his spinal struts contracted and released, throwing Prowl’s helm back into Jazz’s servos again and again. It felt like it went on for joors, but it could only have been a few kliks at most. When the spasms finally ended, Prowl’s optics were dark and his frame limp.

“Put’m in our berth,” Punch ordered.  “He don’t need to lay on the cold floor.”

“Shouldn’t we get a medic?” Jazz asked.

“He’s got an etchin’,” Punch said,  turning Prowl’s arm so Jazz could see the inside of his wrist. Processor Glitch – Crashes. “If he don’t come ‘round in a half joor I get’m a medic.”