#apple setup in school

[zepskies]

Take Me Home - Part 1

Pairing: Beau Arlen x F. Reader 

Summary: You are another lost soul at Sunny Day Excursions. You’re aiming to settle in Helena, Montana, where Beau Arlen is the new sheriff in town. But you’ve both got a past you’re running from. 

AN: Welcome to my first ever Big Sky series! I’ve been wanting to get to this for a while now. I’m so glad I finally get to start sharing this with you! I truly hope you enjoy the ride. (Note: This is set towards the beginning of season 3.)

Song Inspo: “Fly Away” by John Denver. And remember, you can listen to the full Take Me Home Playlist ⬅️ here.

Word Count: 4,400

Tags/Warnings: A bit of angst, a bit of setup, “Glamper Girl,” and a side helping of cops enjoying baked goods…

❤️ Series Masterlist

Part 1: All of Her Days

“This really feels like cheating,” you mused.

Yet again, you surveyed the sheer size and luxury of this tent you were supposed to be “camping” in.

Between the giant king-sized bed with crème and burgundy comforters, a two-seater dining table, a dresser (with a vanity), and even a small bookshelf, it looked like the Taj Mahal of glamping.

“Can’t you just enjoy it?” your best friend replied, poking a teasing finger into your side. She smirked when you flinched and gave her some playful side-eye. “My parents are the ones footing the bill, anyway.”

“Of which, I intend to pay them back for my half,” you said. Mary just rolled her eyes and waved you off. Her parents’ money was something she’d never had a problem spending.

“Come on, they’re getting ready to go on the hike without us,” she said, tossing her little purse over her shoulder. You were a bit more practical with your backpack, filled with a bottle of water, a couple snacks, bug spray, and your sketch pad.

Mary bumped your shoulder with hers as you two walked out of the tent, and you gave her a smile. You were glad she insisted on this little week-long excursion. It gave you exactly five more days to enjoy the fresh air of no responsibilities, before you returned to reality.

“So where are you guys from?” you asked a couple of walking companions on the early-morning hike.

The woods of Helena, Montana were vast and deep, and you found them a bit intimidating. You were a city girl, through and through, but you were learning to appreciate the mountains and the steep trails flanked by dense trees. You were also grateful that you weren’t alone. 

Emily seemed to be a nice girl around sixteen, while her stepfather Avery was a lightly graying man in his 40s. You pegged his accent as English, the “casual posh” kind. On a scale from Dame Maggie Smith to Dick Van Dyke's attempt at cockney, you’d put Avery on a Benedict Cumberbatch level.

“Well, I met her mother in Houston,” Avery replied, nodding at the girl beside you. “She and Emily joined me here in Helena after we were married this past spring.”

Emily confirmed with a nod. “Yep, starting school here in a few months.”

At that, you could smile. “Me too, actually.”

Emily gave you a confused look while she fiddled with an app on her phone.

“What? You’re still in school?” she asked.

“No,” you laughed. “I’m—”

“She’s a college professor,” Mary tacked on. “AKA: a giant nerd.”

Emily tried not to smile at your expense. You just shook your head at your friend.

“Thanks,” you said wryly, despite your amusement. “We can’t all be personal trainers. One can only take so much Spandex.”

Mary rolled her eyes and prepared to fire back a retort, but your attention shifted back to Emily, who seemed to be debating whether to press a red button on her phone. You thought it looked like a voice recording app.

You followed her line of vision and saw Paige and Luke up ahead—a young “happy couple” here at Sunny Day Excursions. They were whisper-yelling at each other, sniping something about Luke’s birthday. Apparently, he had a problem with getting another year older.

Don’t we all, you thought, with no small amount of sarcasm. The guy had been a sour apple since the start of this trip, and to be honest, he was starting to get on your damn nerves.

“This is like, prime time stuff for my podcast,” Emily whispered.

You looked over at her. “Oh yeah? What’s your podcast about?”

“Relationships, lies, that sort of thing,” she replied.

You almost grimaced. Good luck finding willing subjects for that one.

Mary snickered on your other side. She leaned close to your ear so only you would hear.

“God, Paige’s voice is so effing annoying. Like a chipmunk on helium,” she said. “I feel sorry for him.”

You shot her a dry look. “He’s the one asking for it, if you ask me. But they’ve been going at it the whole time. Makes me feel sorry for both of them.”

You shook your head and kept walking on the trail. Mary sobered as she stared back at you. She was reminded of why you two were really here, and what you’d been through this past year…

What you all had been through.

You and Mary fell behind Avery and Emily on the trail, giving Mary the opportunity to touch your arm and stop you in the middle of the trail.

��Do you really plan to stay here?” she asked. “In dusty-ass Montana? With the snakes and the bears and the old hicks?”

“Well, I got the key to my apartment before we got here,” you said. And she knew that. “My aunt is letting me crash with her until the rest of my things ship over in a couple of weeks, and I start a new job in the fall. So yeah, I’m staying.”

Mary’s lips pursed. She gave you a long look, but you held your ground. You even popped your Airpods in for good measure. You were done with this conversation.

She huffed and kept walking.

You watched your friend go in annoyance. You knew she would try to talk you out of your decision at some point on this trip, but you hadn’t expected it to be so soon.

Heaving a sigh, you looked up at the clear sky above you, filtered through the tall trees. You took a moment to collect yourself in this great big no man’s land, where you could finally let yourself slow down for a minute, and breathe.

You raised the volume in your Airpods when a particular song came through.

“All of her days have gone soft and cloudy. All of her dreams have gone dry,” crooned the soft melody. You nodded to the rhythm of the mellow notes, but all the while, you tried to blink through the sting of tears.

“All of her nights have gone sad and shady. She's getting ready to fly…”

You rubbed your left hand, where you still had the tan line of the ring you used to wear.

“It’s really okay, sweetie,” Mary tried to console you, rubbing her hand between your shoulders.

After the hike, you all had returned to camp and sat down to brunch. It was an amazing spread, with waffles and muffins and Danishes, eggs done three different ways, toast with jam, assorted sandwiches, coffee and orange juice (and sparkling wine for the adults).

But even with a huge plate of appetizing food in front of you, you were sulking a bit. You had your face covered by your hands as you rested your elbows on the table.

“One of my only goals on this trip was to ride a damn horse, and I couldn’t even do that,” you said.

Sunny Barnes and her husband Buck were the heads and hosts of this whole trip. And after the hike, their son, Cormack, had tried to help you onto the nice chestnut mare the handler had brought out of the stable for you. But your entire body had locked up in fear at the prospect of being vaulted onto the horse.

In fairness, she was huge. And you were both afraid of heights, and animals that could buck you off its back and trample you.

You hadn’t been able to speak. You just shook your head vigorously every time Cormack asked you if you were okay.

So he’d graciously patted your back and gave the mare to Emily instead.

“I’ve never been able to ride a horse either,” Avery offered in commiseration. You lowered your hands and gave him a wan smile.

Emily was carving an apple with an impressive (and somewhat scary) looking pocketknife. She shrugged.

“It’s not so hard,” she said. But, perhaps realizing how she sounded, she looked up and gave you an apologetic look. “Sorry. I mean, I’m sure you’ll get it! It’s hard in the beginning, but once you get used to it, it’s like riding a bike.”

Right. A bike with hooves, you thought, ripping a piece of bread from your egg and cheese sandwich.

Mary bumped your shoulder with a teasing smile. “You just got showed up by a high schooler. Again.”

You pursed your lips in amusement. You tossed the piece of bread. It hit her dead between the eyes. You giggled at the way she jumped with a start.

“Real mature,” she shot back.

“Yeah,” you replied, taking a giant bite of your sandwich for good measure. “I learned from you.”

Even Emily snickered, making Mary roll her eyes in amusement.

Shortly after, Avery and his stepdaughter were finished with brunch and got up to get back to their tents.

You glanced over and noticed that Emily had left her knife on the table, now closed in its sheath.

Sheriff Beau Arlen may have still been relatively new in town, but he considered himself a consummate professional.

He’d agreed to accompany Cassie, the local private investigator (and his friend), up to this mountain pass to look for a missing backpacker. Questioning Buck and Sunny Barnes and their crew was just good old-fashioned, thorough police work.

But if it also gave Beau a chance to check on his daughter up here “glamping” with her half-baked stepfather, then he couldn’t pass up on that opportunity, now could he?

After talking to Buck and Sunny, who hadn’t seen hide or hair of the backpacker, Beau let Cassie take care of questioning Cormack Barnes while Beau found his daughter outside her tent. After giving her a big hug and inspecting her “tent” (Really? he thought. Looks more like a hotel room than a tent.), he asked her how her trip was going so far.

“Good, Dad. But you really didn’t have to come all the way out here just to check up on me,” Emily said. She was amused, but no longer surprised to see him.

“No, no, no. I didn’t, okay?” Beau refuted. Though at the look on her face, he knew he wasn’t fooling her. She was a sharp kid. “All right, maybe not the only reason. We had to talk to Sunny about a missing backpacker. It’s something Cassie’s investigating.”

Emily’s amusement faded into surprise, and then concern.

“Wait, what?” she said.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. Just, you know…parents probably didn’t get the memo that ‘off-the-grid’ was part of the deal,” he said, giving her a meaningful raise of his brows. Maybe his daughter didn’t have to screen so many of his calls while she was on this trip.

“Overprotective parents, huh?” Emily dryly remarked.

“The worst,” Beau agreed, shaking his head.

But he smiled. Just seeing her made his whole week better…and it alleviated some of the hurt in his heart. Not getting to be with her on a trip like this stung. And knowing Avery was the one who got to be there for her grated on him.

Beau was already missing too much of his daughter’s life, and he still wasn’t too sure on how to deal with that.

Speak of the devil, he thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Avery approaching. Beau forced himself to look as close to pleasant as he could get around his ex-wife’s husband.

While Mary went back to the tent to freshen up, you grabbed Emily’s pocketknife and went to look for her so you could return it. It had a wood-carved hilt and had her initials, E. A., engraved on the side. The knife looked special, not the kind of thing you wanted to lose.

You found her outside her tent with her stepfather, and a man you didn’t know. He had broad shoulders and short brown hair that swept above his brow. When he turned to look at you, the first thing you noticed was the cut of his bearded chin, and then the green of his eyes.

You didn’t realize it, but your insides stilled, just for a moment. Then you remembered to smile.

Avery looked a bit tense, as did the newcomer. You sensed you were interrupting a tete-a-tete. 

“Uh, hi. I’m sorry,” you said, and extended the sheathed knife toward Emily. “Just wanted to get this back to you. You left it at the table.”

“Oh! Thanks,” Emily said gratefully.

“Well, hi there,” said the new guy. He was tall, you noted, wearing a beige jacket over a buttoned-down shirt, some jeans, and boots. It was a casual look, but all worked very well for him…in a rugged cowboy sense.

“This is my dad,” Emily supplied.

“Sheriff Beau Arlen, ma’am,” he said, giving you a more friendly smile that you matched in kind when you shook his hand. You also gave him your name to go along with it.

“You here for a little belated vacation, Sheriff?” you added.

“No. Matter of fact, I’m here on police business,” he replied. That concerned you, but he was quick to wave a dismissive hand. “Everything’s okay here. Just checking on a missing backpacker. But it looks like we’ll have to continue our search for him elsewhere.”

You hummed at that in concern. “Well, I hope you find him.”

“I do too,” he agreed with a nod.

Then, Emily took the slight pause in the conversation as her chance to escape.

“Okay, Dad, well, we’re gonna go hike down to the lake,” she said, gesturing at Avery. “But as you can see, I’m fine. We’re fine.”

Beau’s smile became a bit tight, but he nodded in understanding. He gave her a big hug, and you could see he was reluctant to let her go. Avery stood behind them. He held tension in his shoulders. You felt a bit awkward yourself, being in the midst of what was clearly an uneasy family dynamic.

Beau released his daughter. After she took off with Avery following close behind, Beau turned to you next. You tried not to blush at the sight of his handsome face.

“Sorry, again,” you said, raising a placating hand. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

His lips twitched upward, and he shook his head. “You’re fine. Though you don’t look like a local. You from outta town?”

I could say the same thing about you, cowboy, you thought. There was a slight southern drawl in his voice that sounded like Alabama. Maybe Texas?

“You got me,” you nodded. “I’m from Chicago originally, but…I’ve actually just moved here to Helena.”

“Ahh, a city girl,” he remarked. “Small world. I just got here a few months ago myself. Houston, Texas.”

Your smile brightened. Right on the money.

“Yeah, I figured,” you couldn’t help teasing him a little. His grin kicked up in the corner.

“How’re the mountains and fresh air treating you then?” he asked. “Better than that blanket a’ smog in Chicago.”

“We do not have smog…or, well, not that much,” you laughed, “but yes, I’m actually really liking it here so far. I mean, I just got here about a week ago. I’m still learning. Though Emily actually tried to help me ride a horse today.”

“Yeah?” His brows raised. “How’d that go?”

You had to laugh. A kind of self-deprecating laugh that had you half-covering your face to stem off your blush.

“Not well,” you admitted.

Beau ducked his head with a smile. He met your eyes in amusement, but not without kindness.

“Well, here’s a tip for ya,” he said. He planted his feet, held his hands up into lightly clenched fists. “The trick is in the legs. Grip tight, but not too tight. He’ll think you’re rarin’ to go.”

You blinked a bit wider. Was that just honest advice…or was he sort of flirting with you?

It made you blush in earnest.

“Ah. Good to know,” you said with a laugh. He treated you with a tip of his imaginary hat.

“Hey,” someone called out.

Both of your heads turned to a tall black woman with long curly hair. She gave you a polite smile before she nodded up at Beau.

“You ready to go?” she asked.

“Ah, yep,” Beau nodded. He gave you an apologetic look. “Sorry, gotta get back to the station.”

“Oh, of course,” you said. But you held up a finger. “Wait, just a sec.”

You hastened back over to the table of confections from brunch and offered them a chocolate chip muffin each for the road. Cassie politely declined, but Beau gladly took his.

“Although, are you trying to stereotype me or somethin’?” he teased.

Your brows furrowed in confusion, but after a moment, it hit you. You’d just given a cop a baked good.  

“At least it wasn’t a donut,” you quipped, despite your embarrassment. Beau still looked bemused, but he let you off the hook.

“That’s okay. I’ve never been known to turn down free food,” he assured.

“He really doesn’t,” Cassie confirmed. You noticed how she was waiting, arms crossed.

“Well, there you go! Sorry for keeping you,” you said.

“Not at all, darlin’,” said Beau. His smile had a charming gleam. “Nice to meet you.”

You quirked a smile back. “Wow, you are from Texas.”

You didn’t think you’d ever been called darlin’ in your life.

Beau’s good humor shifted into slight embarrassment himself.

“Sorry. I’ve been told to stop doing that,” he said. When he chuckled, you did along with him. You weren’t offended by it, just surprised by the old-fashioned endearment.

“It’s okay,” you said. “Nice to meet you too, Sheriff.”

You raised a hand in goodbye, and Beau returned it, watching you go. Meanwhile, Cassie watched him with a small smirk. He stepped down from the short platform in front of Emily’s tent to meet her.

“Were you just checking out Glamper Girl? In front of your daughter, no less,” Cassie remarked.

Beau shot her a look of denial. “I did no such thing. I’m a professional. And a gentleman, mind you.”

Cassie rose a brow at him. It stirred up a bit of his defensiveness. 

“But, I’ll have you know that Em had already moved on when I had a friendly conversation with the glamper,” he said.

Cassie rolled her eyes. Right.

That afternoon, you decided to bring your sketchpad and your modest collection of paints to the lake. You sat on the bank and tried to paint, while Mary joined the others in swimming.

“That looks nice,” Emily’s voice startled you from behind.

You twisted to look at her, and she gave you an apologetic look. She was dressed to go for a swim in a one-piece bathing suit and some shorts. She seemed more of a conservative dresser than typical high school girls her age. Maybe that had something to do with a policeman being her father, or maybe that was just her personality.

“Sorry,” she said, raising her hands.

“It’s okay.” You waved it off and gestured for her to sit beside you if she wanted. She did so, admiring your work over your shoulder. You felt a little embarrassed by it, but you didn’t mind her watching you try to paint ripples of light on the water.

“Are you an artist?” she asked.

You shot her a smile. “You’re very sweet, but no. I just started this year.”

You’d just Googled some therapeutic techniques instead of, you know, going to therapy. You just knew that if you did, your aunt would probably tell your parents, who would never let you hear the end of it. Specifically, why it was a waste of time. Your father especially would have something to say.

But one of the sources you found suggested trying out some creative outlets to calm the mind and think productively, but not create more stress for yourself. You’d tried a few different things, but landed on painting. It was working for you so far, even if you didn’t think you were that good.

“How do you like Montana so far?” you asked your companion. “Your dad told me you guys just moved here too, a few months ago.”

“Yeah, when my mom got remarried, my dad moved to stay close to me,” Emily explained.

Your brows raised. Your painting hand paused with the brush near the page.

“Well, that’s a good father,” you said. You smiled at the thought of Beau Arlen. The way he hugged his daughter before, like she was his entire world, and the fact that he’d moved entire states just to stay with her, told you a great deal about the town’s new sheriff.

Emily nodded, but her lips were pressed. “He’s a bit overprotective.”

“Well, he is a cop,” You said, smiling. “I assume that’s just part of the package.”

“I get that,” she said. “It’s just…a bit much sometimes.”

You gave her a sympathetic look. “I understand. My dad can be like that too. He’s got his soft moments, but he can be a real tough nut too… He’s a retired fireman.”

“Wow, that’s cool,” Emily said. She looked impressed. “Did you ever want to be a firefighter?”

You chuckled. “No, and he never wanted me to. It just wasn’t my beat, anyway.”

In the many years before your father had risen in the ranks to firehouse chief, your mother had often worried about him when he was on shift. Being a firefighter in inner-city Chicago had brought some hard and dangerous calls.

But you had always been more bookish, and both your parents were grateful for that.

You sighed. Your paintbrush made a stroke of deep green on the page, creating darker shades in the bottom of the lake.

“I did end up dating one though. Almost married him too,” you muttered, before you could stop yourself. You forgot you were talking to an insatiably curious girl.

“Really? What happened?” she asked. You looked over at her, and she was staring at you with her full attention. You remembered then that her podcast was supposed to be about relationships, but you had no desire to be a subject.

“It didn’t work out,” you said at last, and with difficulty.

“Why?” Emily asked.

Your internal struggle kept you quiet. It gave time for Emily to really see the withdrawn, almost pained look on your face, the slight hunch of your shoulders. She deflated guiltily.

“Uh, sorry,” she said.

You offered a small smile. “It’s okay, honey.”

“I’ll uh, just let you get back to painting,” she said. You waved her goodbye after she got up and left, giving you one last look before she joined her stepfather in the lake.

You let out a deep breath. The teen was tenacious, and naturally curious. That in itself wasn’t such a bad thing. But as you watched her splash at Avery, laughing that weightless laugh that kids got to have, you realized how much you missed being that young and free in your heart.

Again, out of habit, you set down your brush and rubbed at your empty left ring finger.

Mary finally joined you back in your shared tent after a long night of socializing by the fire. You had kept to the tent, reading Much Ado About Nothing for one of your classes that would start in the fall. It wasn’t your first time reading the Shakespeare play, by any means, but you did want to brush up on it.

“You know, you’re actually supposed to be vacationing on this vacation,” Mary pointed out. She started changing into her pajamas for bed. You were already cozy in one of your old college hoodies and some shorts, not to mention snuggled under the warm blankets.

“I am,” you said defensively. “I hiked, I painted, I ate no less than one burger, a basket of fries, and three smores, and now I’m reading.”

“Yeah, for school,” she pointed out. “I may not be as smart as you, but I know homework when I see it.”

You shot her a smile. “You’re plenty smart, M.”

She snorted and slipped into bed beside you. It felt like the sleepovers you two used to have in college, years ago, when she’d come to crash in your dorm, or you in hers. She’d been a philosophy major (despite not giving two shits about Socrates), forced to attend college by her parents. You were an English major, working three part-time jobs just to get you through until graduation.

“Hey,” she said, laying a hand on your shoulder. You turned to her in question. She seemed more serious than usual.

“I’m worried about you,” she said. “And I’m not the only one.”

You sighed. Lowering your book, you leaned back against your pillows and stared up at the tent’s fairy lights.

“I know,” you replied. “But you don’t need to be.”

“Yeah you keep saying that, but you know the real reason I’m here, right?” Mary asked. Her insistent hand on your arm made you meet her eyes.

“You don’t have to do this," she said. "You don’t have to move out here and leave everything behind. You should just come home with me. Your parents, our friends—everyone wants to be there for you, like we have all year.”

Your lips pursed, and you shook your head.

“I’m not going to change my mind. So if that’s really why you’re here, and not to just spend some time with me, as my friend, then you should just go home,” you said. “I’ll leave here and go to my aunt’s house. I’m sure your parents can negotiate some kind of refund.”

Mary got angry and huffy, just like you thought she would. You weren’t playing around though. This was your life, and your decision.

If your friends and your family couldn’t be happy for you, or at least understanding, then they could at least respect you. You just weren’t sure when they’d get the hint that this was real.

You were moving to Montana, permanently.

On the drive back into town from the camping site, Beau ate his chocolate chip muffin and tried his best to listen to Cassie—to her theories on where the backpacker might’ve gone, and how best to tell the parents to keep her on this investigation.

A good part of him was still thinking about his daughter, wishing he could be there with her right now. 

And maybe, his mind occasionally wandered…thinking about the pretty shade of your eyes when you smiled at him.

AN: And there we have it, Part 1 of a new series! If you liked it, please let me know! 🥰

And a special Happy Birthday to @jackles010378! 💖 I was going to say we're both Aries (mine is next month) but forgot Pisces comes first lol. ♓

Next Time:

The trees were tall and dark now. The moon was filtering through them like the sun had during other day hikes, but it was much more ominous at night.

“Shit,” you muttered. You gripped your flashlight in worry as panic started to well up in your chest.

Now you were lost.

You jumped with a start when the hoot of a bird passed by overhead.

Shiiiit. This was very bad.

You kept moving forward on what you thought was the trail. That was all you could do, keep moving forward. You made a few turns around some trees, occasionally calling out for Sunny, or Mary, or anyone to hear you.

▶️ Keep Reading: Part 2

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[evilminji]

As I have recently discussed, with the ESTEEMED Quirk Scholar @mayfay !

Suprise Quirk Accident Babies! Gotta love um!

They're the, ironically enough, love child of "suprise child acquisition" and "suddenly pregnant" troupes! But SPEEDRUN! Because THAT IS A TODDLER/BABY! Right here. Right now!

Just?

POOF!

✨️~BABY~✨️

And now YOU! Yes, YOU! Get to deal with it. All those vague "do I want to be a parent someday? Would it be SAFE? I am READY?" Questions AND MORE! Suddenly NOT SO VAGUE.

Suddenly VERY RELAVENT. Immediate. People are asking you questions you are GOING to need to answer. And?

You are not the only parent.

You might be JUST out of fucking high-school. Staring down a top lister, high 20, maybe TOP TEN, Hero. Who is society gonna choose here? Your barely adult ass... or them? You might never see your kid again if they decide to take them. Decide to be an asshole.

They have enemies, too.

Can... can you HANDLE those enemies? To protect your kid?

It's been less then fifteen minutes. Fight has barely ended and your sitting under a shock blanket. Decisions are going to have to be made. And all you can think is the sound of your own panicked screaming. Static white noise. The reporters and shady Goverment officials already circling like sharks. Gotta make a decision. Gotta make a decision. Gotta....

It is? The BEST.

The more unlikely the combos the better! My asexual ass is thriving! Fuck yeah! Free baby, no sex!!! You can have platonic child rearing shenanigans! Interesting Self Insert Setups! New OCs! Character dramas! Or romance, if your into that sorta thing!

But you know what I think would be funny as hell?

The continued bloodline curse of AfO being so Platonicly Yandere at his own kin that they go Rabidly Feral Wet Cat and try to claw his throat out, bare minimum! Because obviously HE isn't the problem here! No, no, it's everyone ELSE that caused the issues last time! He doesn't have to learn from past mistakes! He's perfect! (Spoken by the world's most delusional man)

He ALSO has lost track of how many minor quirks he has shoved in metaphorical pockets at the moment. As he is, as always, a kleptomaniac. The way the react to each other? Cascade and shift? React to OTHER outside quirks?

Ha! He's never fucking studied that. Why would he study that!? He has power to steal.

So... set the scene~

Toshinori v. Afo: Kamino Ward.

Make the changes you please, add or subtract Heros, but the BIG TWO are there. They clash. Like Titans. Like GODS. AfO getting frisky with his quirk use, throwing everything at the wall. But?

Oh. This time. THIS TIME, you bastard! Toshinori is NOT ALONE!

The power of community, of an ARMY, is not to be underestimated. They make be struggling. Have broken bones and worse. But they know he just... just needs ONE shot! They... they can give him one shot.

Even if it's the last thing they ever do.

Because? They are god damned HEROES.

AfO feels his legs rip out from under him, just as he's about to dodge. It's going to be a killshot. He may... potentially... THEORETICALLY... conceivably... possibly... panic... just a bit. MAYBE. A microscopic amount.

He lashes out.

With everything.

And he DOES mean everything. Yes, including that "grow flowers" and the "summon apples towards you"Quirk, for all the good THOSE would have done.

Something? Happens.

The blast hits the Oaf infront of him... and? Resonates. Like the striking of a great clear bell. It RINGS. Deafening. Without noise. The damn brat...rewinds? No. He's not younger. He RESETS! OH YOU MOTHER FU-!

Something sliding off him. Like dust. From the reset. Drifting towards other dust.

Swirling. Some merging, like planets forming. Most not enough. Turning grey and falling to the ground. But... but he can SEE it. A whisp of white hair gets in the way. HIS hair. Ha. Ha ha hA HA HA HA HA!!! Reset! NOT JUST YOU, ALL MIGHT!

The heroes are getting up. It doesn't matter. He'll just put them BACK on the ground.

INTO it this time.

But then?

The dust from him, all might, so many others. Solidifies, compresses, the pops like a firework. Dumping a very started black hair, blue eyed, toddler on the ground.

AfO connects the dots first. He has AfO hair texture. Quirk weirdness just happened and their is ALWAYS a cost or drawback to Quirks. Such as... any overflow creates an infant? Did he just make his own child?

Not risking it.

He lunges.

All Might lunges for the simple reason of "oh GOD SUPERVILLIAN AND A BABY!" D:> same as every other hero there.

Meanwhile DANNY? Retired Halfa Superhero, Zone Councilman, and LATE to his DnD night... is beginning to suspect THIS is what Clockwork meant when he said "some roads take longer to get home".

Was that that a "Lol good luck buddy"!?

@mutable-manifestation @babbling-babull @legitimatesatanspawn @hypewinter @hdgnj

[darklydeliciousdesires]

La Dolce Vita - John Shelby/Cosima Changretta (OFC).

Part two is here, besties! :) I hope you all enjoy it, as I am loving writing these two together. You'll notice too that I gave John a few less kids than we see in canon, just to make it a little easier on myself as the writer, lol!

Words - 4,218

Warnings - Each part will be adult only content, from swearing to eventual smut and violence. Minors DNI.

Part II - Purgatorio

Countryside living was something John had become accustomed to during his marriage to Esme, his beautiful country pile and vast grounds a much more desirable location than the smoggy suburbs of Small Heath. After her death, he had sold it, returning to the latter until he was married again.  

As predicted, Cosima detested living in a back-to-back. Her continued complaining as well as his desire for what he had come to enjoy was what led him to purchase another countryside property, choosing the small village of Wythall in Bromsgrove, buying a beautiful, spacious cottage for her to spruce up. It was far enough from Birmingham to leave his troubles within the swirling smog and looming viaducts, but near enough that he could be back on Watery Lane for his business endeavours in just over forty minutes by car.  

Married life was not ideal, being a person wed to someone he didn’t like, whose tempestuous nature often put him directly in her firing line. However, he could not discount her qualities. A spoiled princess with expensive tastes (the cottage renovation had cost him a fortune) she might have been, but god, she worked her fingers to the bone. 

“Oliver, Mary, Katie, Freddie, Seamus, come along! We’ll be late, get your skates on!” she called, hurrying back to the kitchen were five sandwiches lay on the chopping board, freshly baked bread with liberal fillings of egg and ham, Cosima cutting them into their required shapes. Squares for Oliver and Seamus, triangles for Katie and oblongs for Mary and Freddie. She knew well the likes and dislikes of her stepchildren.  

Wrapping each in baking parchment, she placed them into individual brown paper bags, an apple and a couple of custard creams put in too, five lunches folded neatly and handed to each child as they filed into the kitchen, smartly dressed in their immaculately pressed uniforms. “Give your father a kiss and let’s get moving, come on. We’ll miss the bell! Blinking hell, Seamus, look at your mouth. Toothpaste all over, come here!” 

His son’s mouth was wiped with her handkerchief, the boy squirming, Cosima bopping his little nose with her finger once done before she herded them through the kitchen. “Quickly, quickly, come on!” 

John couldn’t believe she was the same woman who had originally thrown a puce faced fit upon finding out she was to be stepmother to five children, with how well she’d taken to mothering his brood. For Cosima, she’d eventually seen the little ones as a blessing, something to take her mind off the fact that she detested being married to their father.  

Picking up her wicker basket, she followed them out the door without looking at John once, leaving him to sigh and return to the sitting room, drinking tea while reading the morning paper. With the addition of the wicker basket, this meant she would be stopping at the local village shop on her way back from the school, meaning he had roughly an hour before she would be through the door and ready to scrub the house from top to bottom.  

That was something else he couldn’t fault her for; she kept a beautiful home. John just preferred to be nowhere near her while she was going about it. She’d always find something to pick at him about, and he was tiring of it. He did try, to have something more resembling of an actual marriage rather than a setup of convenience with his beautiful young bride, but she shot him down at every step. Her contempt did nothing but continually fester, it seemed. She still couldn’t forgive him for the demise of her father and brother.  

Keeping an eye on the grandfather clock, he waited until fifty minutes had passed before whistling for Dot and Bo, his two faithful springer spaniel bitches. “Yeah, that’s right. We’re off to get a couple of grouse, maybe a pigeon or pheasant an’ all.”  

The dogs began to circle and yap excitedly as he pulled his shotgun from the cabinet, packing ammunition and draping the gun over his arm, heading into the kitchen and wrapping himself some cheese scones in a clean tea towel, placing those in his bag, too. If there was another thing his wife excelled at, it was all things culinary. He’d come directly in her vexed crosshairs upon eating his first meal prepared by her three months before, stating that he did not “eat wop food” as he’d coined her lasagne, without actually even trying it.  

As soon as he’d put a forkful into his mouth, he’d been a very, very rapid convert. It had been perhaps the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, Cosima standing with her arms folded, smirking at his swift change of heart over her food. He now looked forward to every meal she prepared for him with gusto, although couldn’t bear to sit in her company while eating it. He’d try and make conversation, and she’d sulk and pout. It was irksome to say the least.  

His leaving the house was timed impeccably, seeing Cosima walking back down the lane as he was heading out of the garden and into the few acres of lush, green fields that came with the cottage. She even got the money out of that, too, allowing local people to graze their horses upon it when resting their own pastures. While John and the dogs headed for the woods, Cosima let herself into the cottage, putting her apron on and beginning her housework.  

Once her beautiful home was sparkling – not that she allowed it to be any other way – she took the rugs out to beat the dust from them and then returned to the kitchen, making preparations for the children’s dinner. A local lady from the village was coming by to that evening to keep an eye on them while she and John headed back into Birmingham, the family gathering for Polly’s birthday meal at a restaurant upon Broad Street.  

Although she held her husband in a more or less permanent state of contempt, she did actually like Polly. She found her to be strong, intelligent, and once you got to know her, very loving towards her family. It had taken a while for her to thaw, but now the women did get along well. Certainly, Cosima had much more time for her than she did John or Tommy.  

Stirring the pasta sauce in a large pot upon the cast iron range, an original Victorian fixture of the cottage, Cosima sighed. She should be happy. She had literally everything she’d ever wanted, a beautiful home, huge garden, a couple of lovely dogs, a brood of children – and although not her own, they adored her as much as she did them – as well as a handsome, successful husband; whom she couldn’t stand.  

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. John was a nice man, he had a wicked sense of humour, he was a staunch provider, and he was so handsome she caught herself swooning over him all the time. She could see him trying hard to at least have some semblance of a meaningful connection with her, but she couldn’t help herself in shooting him down each and every time. Why?  

Guilt. 

He and his family were why two fifths of her immediate one no longer breathed, and she was to simply forget that and be content, happy in her new life with John? Her father would turn in his grave to know she had now acquired the surname of Shelby. He would be utterly livid. 

“But he isn’t here.” Her statement fell from her lips along with the little splashes of tears from her pretty eyes, eyes so blue that her beloved father had often joked that she couldn’t be his. “She’s the milkman’s, isn’t she?” he’d say in jest to her mother. Of course, she was his, though. A tear landed in the sauce she stirred, Cosima pulling her handkerchief from her dress sleeve and drying her eyes.  

The sound of barking became audible, the kitchen door opening, Dot and Bo being told to sit. “You got that towel, Cosima? I don’t want their muddy feet ruining your clean floor.” That was another thing about John, he was always appreciative of how immaculately she kept their home. Some men merely waved it away as a woman’s work and had no respect for such, but not him.  

“Hold on.” Moving to the cupboard under the sink, she pulled out one of the more raggedy tea towels she kept for the purpose of paw cleaning, handing it to him. 

He took it, a small frown creasing his handsome features. “You been crying?”  

Immediately, she straightened, sniffing as she held herself with her usual dignity. “Garlic, in the pasta sauce. It made my eyes water.” 

“Ah, right.” Moving back outside, he made sure each paw was clean and dry before letting the dogs in, removing his muddy boots and leaving them at the back door. Making his way in, he sniffed the air, half wishing that they were staying at home to eat whatever it was his wife had crafted, it smelled so good. “Let’s have a little try of that, give us a spoon.” 

“No, it isn’t ready yet,” she bustled, returning to the pot.  

He bit his tongue. “I got two pheasants, a grouse and a couple of pigeons. They’re in the outhouse hanging up. Just let me know when you wanna use ‘em and I’ll go pluck ‘em. I know you don’t like doing that.” 

“Okay. Oh, John? That floorboard by the front door has come up again. Can you go and fix it down? I left nails and a hammer on the phone table.” 

“Yeah, in a bit. Wanna have a tea and warm up a bit first.” 

She sighed, chewing her cheek. “No, now please. Before the kids come home. I don’t want them tripping on it while they’re playing.” 

“They ain’t coming home until gone three. Just give us half an hour, eh?” 

“Bloody get it done now, John! Before you forget!”  

Ahh, it had almost been quite civil for a moment. “Oi, watch your fucking tone, woman. I told you I’d get it done and I will. Fucking bad tempered mare.”  

“Stop calling me a mare!” 

“Well stop behaving like one in season then, and I might, eh?” he shook his head, chewing on his toothpick aggressively. “Always fucking blowing up at me for no fucking reason. Sort yourself out, for fucks sake!” 

“Fine!” she raged, flinging her arms in the air with her usual dramatic flair, “I’ll go and do it!” 

“You do that.” He moved to the kettle, filling it with water, intent on having his tea before he went and helped her with the task. He wouldn’t have forgotten either, but she couldn’t just let him be for five minutes while he had a drink and thawed out from the February chill, oh no. She had to pick at him.  

A few minutes passed, John letting the tea steep in the pot as he snacked on a slice of bread slathered in butter and Cosima’s homemade blackberry jam, the sounds of her swearing in Italian drifting through the house until suddenly, a yelp.  

“What the bloody hell’s she done,” he muttered, placing the bread down and moving to the hallway, finding her kneeling down, holding her thumb in a tight grasp. “You alright?” 

“No, I’m blinking not!” she cried through her tears, “I’ve hit my fucking thumb with the cursed, wretched hammer!” 

“Here, let me see.” Pulling her hand from her grasp, he examined it, the knuckle bright red. “At least you ain’t split the skin. Come on, let’s get it under the cold tap.” 

“No, I’m fine,” she snipped, pulling her hand away and attempting to grasp the hammer again. 

“Leave this, I’ll get it done. Come on.” 

“Fuck off, I’m alright!”  

Again, he bit his tongue. “It’s gonna swell unless you get it under the cold water.” 

“I said I’m fine!” 

Rolling his eyes, he pulled her up, her screaming protests falling on deaf ears as he lifted her with ease into his arms, carrying her through to the kitchen. She struggled, swore at him, batted at him with her hands, John tiring of it. “Oh, stop all this malarkey and just let me help ya!”  

He forced her hand beneath the tap, turning it on, holding it there while she winced and continued to cry. All he was trying to do was help her, and she couldn’t even let him do that. Finally, she relaxed a little, sniffing and wiping her tears, her thumb throbbing angrily. “Have I broken it?”  

“Give it a wiggle.” She did. “Did it feel like someone pushing a hot pin into it?” 

“No. It smarts, but it isn’t as bad as that.”  

“Then nah, ain’t broken, bab.” She went to move her hand, John gently directing it back under the stream of cold water. “Few more minutes, or it’ll blow up like a bloody golf ball.” 

“Then I’d look a right state, all teary with my golf ball thumb.”  

He chuckled, putting an arm around her on instinct. What was even more surprising? She leaned into his hug, allowing herself to be comforted by her husband. It was a first, a little thread of connection woven between the warring spouses, John turning the tap off after a few moments and reaching for the soft, white hand towel. “Come sit down and have a cuppa. I’ll go and finish the floorboard.”�� 

“No, it’s okay,” she protested, shaking her head. “I should think about getting ready, I have to do my hair and it takes forever.” 

“Sure? I’ll drop a nip of brandy in it for ya?” 

She pulled from him, whatever it was that had opened up closing again rapidly. “No, I’m fine.”  

For the sake of a quiet life, he left it, recognising that there had been a little progress there between them, if only very small. He went and finished fixing the floorboard, done within minutes and returning to drink his tea, his little brood coming crashing through the door half an hour later, the house once again full of noise.  

A few hours later and they were ready to leave, the children happily eating their spaghetti al Forno while Mrs. Baxter sat knitting, keeping a watchful eye upon them. Cosima was quiet all the way to town, John giving up in the end and letting the car be filled with nothing but the sound of their strained silence, glad to see his brothers and other family and friends once they arrived at the restaurant.  

His wife continued to be sullen throughout the meal, only really talking to Polly and Lizzie and even then, the women had to work hard to keep the conversation going with her. In the end, the former took it upon herself to pull the newest Shelby aside a little later that night, steering her over to the long, oak bar after she had returned from the ladies. 

“You’ve a face as long as Livery Street, madam,” Polly observed, passing her a gin cocktail. “What’s the matter? You can’t still hate our John, not after how good he’s been to you regardless of that contempt.” Her words were delivered with care, but they did not lack their usual bite. Polly would be protective of her nephews until she drew her last breath, no matter how much she genuinely did like Cosima.  

The young woman took a sip of her drink, placing the dainty glass down, accepting one of Polly’s clove cigarettes with thanks. They were a rare treat from her usual preferred brand of Park Drive, Cosima loving the warm, spicy scent of the burning clove, yet unable to smoke more than a couple at a time on account of how much they made her cough when she did. “I want to be happy with him, Pol. I honestly do, but I can’t get past it all.” 

She didn’t need to elaborate. “It’s been and gone, love. You feel guilty though, I see that.” This woman, god. She was so remarkably perceptive. “You have to move on with your life. If your brother and mother could, then there’s fuck all stopping you, is there?” 

“But my papa...”  

“Cosima, your father is gone, and you are still here,” Polly cut her up with, reaching to lightly grip her forearm. “We women, we suffer the collateral damage in the wars fought by our men, and your father was not blameless in his part. He was a gangster too, just as my boys are, just as your brother is. You know this world we live in, and living is what you have to do, sweetheart. If you keep on holding that burning contempt for John, I’ll tell you now, you’ll be the one who ends up scalded.”  

Her eyes were fixed upon her, unblinking, drawing on her cigarette before lifting her glass to her mouth. “Let it go. Set yourself free, for god’s sake. You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, you hear me?” 

She nodded. “I do. Easier said than done, though, it seems.” 

“Horse shit.” She slapped a gloved hand off the bar, shaking her head as she tutted. “Life is as hard as you make it for yourself, my girl. Stop punishing yourself because you think that’s what your father would do, should he still be alive.”  

Again, Cosima was startled by Polly’s intuitive assessment of the situation, straightening and knocking back the rest of her drink. “Thanks for the chat, Pol. I know you’re right, but...” 

“But you’re a typical hardheaded, fire blooded Italian. Listening to others don’t come easy to you, I know. Just know that if you made it easy on yourself, that man over there? He’d soon treasure you like you were the rarest jewel on earth.”  

Cosima got up, heading past the table and outside, finishing the cigarette and reaching into her little sequined bag to pull out her own gold case, lighting up one of her own. She felt agitated by Polly’s words, pacing up and down as the discomfort of being told what to do rolled through her ceaselessly. She knew why it annoyed her the most, though. Polly was right.  

Still, it was in Cosima’s nature to fight it at any given opportunity.  

“How’s ya thumb feeling now?” 

Turning, she looked into the radiant, cloudy blue eyes of her husband. All she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts for a little while, but no. “Stings a little, but it’s okay.” 

He nodded, taking a pull on his cigar. “And you? Thought we were actually starting to talk to each other kinda civilly earlier, then you went quiet on me.” 

Her stare was through narrowed eyes, the magma in her blood rising in heat. “Always my fault, isn’t it?” 

“That’s not what I said, Cosima.” 

“No, but you meant it, didn’t you?” 

For fucks sake. How much harder was this tempestuous madam going to make his life? “You need to stop putting words in me mouth, love. Getting right tired of it, I am.” 

Her beautiful lips were held in pout a little longer, drawing angrily upon her cigarette, not able to escape the intensity of her husband's stare as finally, she pushed her pride down. “I’m sorry.”  

“Well, look at that. Twice since we were married, you’ve said you were sorry. Some fellas make it to their diamond wedding anniversaries without hearing it once from the missus. Ain’t I lucky, eh?” His attempt of a joke fell flat, her face unmoving. God, she was whittling him down to his last nerve, and rapidly. “Ain't you ever heard of smiling, Cosima?" He charged her with, eyeing her defiantly. 

She pulled the white fox fur warming her pale curves tighter around herself, taking one last drag upon her cigarette before flicking it away. “If you give me something to smile about, I might.” 

Oh, he had his work cut out for him, John scratching his jaw. “I’ll stick my fucking face between your legs for about half an hour, then you’ll be grinning like a loon, you miserable cow.” he muttered, but not nearly quietly enough 

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” 

“Nothing, bab,” he grinned, gritting his teeth behind that forced smile. “Nothing at-fucking-all.” Give her something to smile about? She had a nerve. He’d bought her a beautiful cottage, gave her fifty pounds a week to buy whatever she wanted for herself completely aside from the housekeeping money, and was working his arse off in an effort to be a good husband. He felt like telling Tommy where he could stick his Changretta truce. Nothing, it seemed, would make her warm to him.  

He headed back inside, leaving her standing there alone, lighting herself another cigarette as she pouted, but mainly at herself. She knew it had to stop, she had to cease being – as he had quite rightly coined her – a miserable cow. The guilt of it, though. Oh, the guilt.  

“Oi, love,” an approaching man called to her, flanked by two others, “how much for a bit of how’s your father, eh?” 

“I beg your fucking pardon?” she spat, her mouth dropping open.  

Looking her up and down, he smirked. “You’re a bird standing on a street corner with a low-cut dress on. Ain’t hard to see you’re touting for business, so how much?”  

“Wait there,” she gritted, lifting her chin defiantly. “Let me go and fetch my pimp.”  

Marching back into the restaurant, John thought she was coming to have a go at him all over again, taking in her thunderous expression. “John! There’s a man out there who just accused me of being a fucking prostitute!”  

Arriving with him at the bar, she drew stares from all around, the less coarse clientele tutting and muttering, Tommy touching a hand to her elbow. “Keep your voice down, love.” 

“I will bloody not!” 

John cut in, nodding to his brother. “Take us out to him.” Her heart all but stopped dead at seeing the look in his eyes, the immediate, highly angered state her words had caused to rise within him like a leviathan. He might’ve been annoyed with her, but still, one mention of her being spoken to disrespectfully and he fired into action. Taking her hand, he walked her from the restaurant, Tommy at her other side.  

“This your pimp, is it? Oh, two fellas, eh?” 

“Ar, lad. She must be good!” one of the other jokers with the man who had disrespected her offered, the three laughing.  

“Gonna be laughing on the other side of your face in a minute, mush. Now, which fucking one of you called my wife a whore?”  

“Me,” the central man spoke, stepping forward, “Cos’ she looks like a whore, don’t she?”  

John eyed him with cool defiance, lifting his chin while stepping closer, their noses almost touching. “Wanna know what you look like, mate?” 

“What?” 

“A man with a really fucking nice smile. A Small Heath smile, as I like to call ‘em.” Removing his cap, he swiftly headbutted the man before him, shattering his nose across his face before grabbing him, gripping his throat in a formidably tight grasp. Using the razorblades upon the peak of the trademark flat cap, he slashed open his face at the corners of his mouth, the skin tearing. “You’ll never fucking speak of my bloody wife like that again, you fucking hear me?” 

While he took care of him, Tommy laid punches upon the second and third, one of them breaking free and beginning to beat John across the back with his fists, Cosima setting her bag down in one of the flowerpots that flanked the restaurant entrance, removing a shoe.  

Charging with a wobbly gait, she hitched up her dress and jumped onto the man’s back, beating him in the face and head with the heel of her shoe, until he was bloody, the heel hitting his eyeball as she snarled. “Don’t you dare touch my fucking husband! Don’t you dare!” 

The men got out of there quickly once Cosima had neatly dismounted her target, John calling after them. “Next time, you lose your fucking tongue, ya cunt!” Breathless, he turned to his wife, raising an eyebrow. “Well, at least I managed to put a smile on someone’s face tonight, eh? Nice work with the shoe an’ all, by the way. Didn’t know you cared.” 

He turned to head back inside with Tommy, straightening themselves after the ruck, Cosima reaching for his shoulder, turning him. He was about to speak again, his words of further sarcastic retort blocked by her lips landing upon his, her arms tightening around his neck. 

Her kisses were blooms of roses growing through wildfire, soft yet burning, John clasping her dainty body to his as he felt his insides cinder upon her heat. He’d fantasised for months about how it would feel to kiss those plump, pink lips, desire running rampant through him. Pulling away, her cheeks flushed, pupils inking, John leaning in for more she happily gave.  

When they parted again, she smiled. Finally. All it took was a smidgen of violence.  

[homestuckreplay]

get dave strider a home cooked meal 2k09

(page 587-606)

9/5/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: Brother Committing Puppet Crimes (And Real Crimes)

9/6/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: Silliness Gone Too Far

Homestuck loves to slowly dispense information about a character’s guardian and the relationship between the pair long before said guardian actually makes an appearance. I kind of love it. It’s like hearing stories about a friend’s parents for months at school before going to their house one day and actually meeting these long fabled adults. In Homestuck, it gives these characters a lot of power as they have so much influence over the characters without even being around, it makes them mysterious in the ways that the lives of adults often are to younger people, and it adds another thing to look forward to in the story, another reason to keep coming back and reading the new pages every day.

John’s dad’s car was seen on p.29 – presumably with Dad inside – and Dad was visually seen on p.79 via a portrait on the wall, before showing up for real on p.88. Rose’s mom was seen in silhouette on p.231, but it took until p.388 to actually meet her. Dave’s bro’s appearance was actually foreshadowed on p.456, as he uses his baseball cap and triangular glasses as a lock screen, and again on p.587 with the baseball cap collection, and we get his full silhouette on p.592 where he REALLY looks like a guy with a skateboard. It could be a long time before we see him in detail, but given that Dad and Mom were both revealed during a Strife sequence with their kids, I’d guess that the same will be true for Bro.

But honestly, Bro continues to get worse and more sinister. It’s explicitly confirmed on p.595 that Dave isn’t able to put food in the kitchen, which puts a whole new spin on how excited Dave got about finding the apple juice in his closet (p.320) – that could be the first thing he’s had to drink all day. And depending on how often he’s able to leave the house, he probably lives mostly on snacks, maybe takeout since I imagine that’s how Bro eats. It’s gotta be affecting Dave’s health. No wonder he’s such an asshole.

Dave slicing a puppet’s snout off with a sword and putting it down the garbage disposal hurt me too because I get that Dave is doing this out of anger and fear, but his bro is absolutely provoking him into it, he’s obviously got more cameras pointed at all these setups ready to make more content for PlushRump. The line ‘Besides, it's not like your BRO is around to see.’ on p.591 definitely feels like an omniscient narrator giving a nod to the reader while still accurately reflecting Dave’s thoughts.

There are things Dave still isn’t getting about his situation. He’s caught in this space where part of him realizes how fucked up his relationship with his bro is and he’s scared, another part of him is reacting by doubling down on how cool he thinks his bro is, and a third part of him is still just oblivious. The internal conflict and the moment to moment uncertainty are very real for an abusive power dynamic in general, and although in the abstract it’s funny to imagine a jumble of shitty swords stored in a fridge, I really can’t laugh at any of this.

Dave’s bro is the first character that I don’t enjoy thinking about, but all this stuff is really important to Dave’s character, so I will watch the first Saw movie and see if that sheds any new light.

On p.587, there’s the line ‘You think if you see one more soft, bulbous bottom being like / kind of jutting out and impudent or whatever / you're gonna fly off the handle.’ This is word for word a set of messages Dave sent Rose on p.522: ‘if i see one more soft bulbous bottom being like / kind of jutting out and impudent or whatever / im gonna fly off the handle’ and is the second time Dave’s narration and pesterlog have been identical, the first being ‘it is like fucking christmas up in here’ referring to an unopened container of apple juice on p.26 and p.320. I don’t recall seeing this for any other characters. It makes Dave feel very unfiltered, like the difference between his thoughts and words is less than for the other characters. But it also feels like the narrator likes him, and is entertained enough by his words to replicate them exactly, like he’s god’s favorite.

Finally, I had a revelation that Rose should be the one using hash map. It’s the perfect modus for someone who wants to expand their vocabulary and show off all the weird words they already know. I bet Rose could get so creative with item names. Instead of a PLUSH CUDDLE CTHULHU (1) she could knit a FLOCCULENT OTHERWORLDLY AMUSEMENT (also 1 but like, a fancier 1) and she could spend all her time trying to find words that even the sylladex doesn’t know.

[charm-u-laterarchive]

A hoard of Raven Queen and Dexter Charming Headcanons <3

Raven Queen:

☆ Bi (Masc Pref) + Ace + Transfem (She/Her)

When her mom found out she was trans she was genuinely so glad she wouldn't have to hand her destiny down to a man

She's known since she was really little + her parents are really supportive (Even if the Evil Queen is kinda supportive for the wrong reasons, she's got the spirit)

☆ Started a band with Melody and Cedar

She's the lead guitarist + singer

I imagine them to have kind of like. TV Girl mixed with La Femme type music

It kind of started out of spite because of Sparrow- But they all really enjoyed it so they stuck together :]

Sometimes they get a gig at Briar's parties

☆ Dex fell for her first but Raven fell for them HARDER she loves her gf so much

☆ After Legacy Day she stays inside a lot more often

She HATES all the people looking at her and feels that staying inside is the only way to deal with it

Sometimes her friends can drag her out for a gathering but it usually needs to be a small one (Briar sometimes throws smaller parties on Apple's request so she can get some social time comfortably)

☆ She DESPERATELY needs therapy but whenever she tries they just try to get her to sign the book so she ends up just walking out + giving up

☆ She's around 5'11" and is one of the few that doesnt really like heels, she prefers more comfy shoes

☆ She's got kind of a whimsigoth aesthetic going, and she generally tries to wear minimal chain accessories (when she has more than a few it makes her think too hard about mirror prison and what she saw on Legacy Day, its a very vivid memory for her)

☆ 99% of the time she keeps her mirrors covered unless she's actively getting ready and needs it

This one is kind of canon?? She hates mirrors because she doesn't want to be vain like her mom

But I picture it to be mostly because she looks so much like her mom, she often gets kind of scared by it

She also probably fears that somehow her mom is going to break out through her mirrors or something along those lines

Dexter Charming:

☆ Bi (generally prefers girls) + Transfem (she/they and very rarely he)

Came out to friends (+ Siblings) late Legacy Year

She talked about it lotsss with Darling and still does

Daring had no clue what she was talking about but he got it eventually

☆ Tried contacts ONCE and she hated it (they almost got stuck because she couldn't touch her eye)

☆ She still wears the "Vote 4 Maddie" pin

Its exclusively because Raven gave it to her

☆ Can frequently be caught leaving Raven's room with a bunch of purple lipstick kiss marks on her face

"Babe PLEASE get something kiss-proof I beg you"

"Neverrrrr >:3"

☆ Since Raven prefers to stay in, she likes to bring Raven little treats from restaurants she likes

They spend lots of time having little movie nights and study dates in Raven's dorm (which Apple doesn't mind)

☆ Her fav free time activity is building computers for people + she's been paid to upgrade some school computers before (which she's very proud of)

I just KNOW she's got a great setup in her dorm and she put a lot of it together herself

She also built Raven something custom for her music + so they can play games together

☆ Her and Humphrey get hired to do a lot of tech jobs around the school

Helping Blondie with her mirrorcast

Thronecoming/Prom votes

Theater tech (if there is a theater club, I can't remember)

Headmaster Grimm's announcements

And probably more- They're the tech geniuses of the school

☆ Her side of the dorm is like. Really nerdy

Displayed comics, her fancy computer, action figures, movie posters, etc

Its a very big contrast to Hunter's side of the room that's for sure-

[thanotaphobia]

torn (like windblown sand)

i'm having feelings about frubbo and q!tubbo like ohhhh my god. his heart is so heavy the weight he bears so great WAHHH

crossposted to ao3

⋆

He’s dripping on the floor.

His clothes are soaked, he’s drenched to the bone, the kind of chill that doesn’t go away even when you stand in the light of the sun and pray for something– anything, even if you have no idea what it is you’re praying for.

His hair is still plastered to his forehead, dread and loss and anger mixing like the world’s worst school dance in his stomach, stamping the soles of shining loafers and high heels and sweaty, uncomfortable emotion turning his stomach over on itself. The floor of Sunny’s train is wet, water gathering in little puddles on the wooden slats and draining slightly away from him, along the dips and cracks of the walls. He didn’t mean to track it in, but he didn’t bother to dry it off either. With his hair covering most of his eyes and the rain still making his cheeks shiny and wet, he at least has plausible deniability for the tears. 

They’ve been a steady constant stream since he arrived at the small funeral setup a half hour earlier. They hadn’t stopped, not even when he’d choked a eulogy out in front of two faceless Federation workers. He’d pushed past the shame of it, because, well– who would they tell? He’s also pretty sure they’d have been crying too, if they had any eyes or tear ducts. Their words had been soft but mournful, their demeanors well-mannered and gentle toward him. Tubbo had appreciated it.

Across from him, Sunny is snoring. She’s still got her tutu on, but her leather jacket is hung over another chair across the room and her sunglasses are folded neatly on the side table by her bed. Tubbo can only see half her face as she sleeps, spread like a starfish over the bed, limbs hanging off the edges and blanket twisted around her like she’s a burrito. She looks peaceful. 

Tubbo puts his head into his hands, grinding his palms into his eyes until he sees stars.

He has a daughter now. And the grief hits even harder then, because he knows he’s lost something like her before, someone like her, someone like Fred. The feelings are indescribably familiar. The tears leaking down his cheeks slot there like they’re just following pre-carved canyons in his face, the warm anger in his stomach eating away pits into the muscle lining it with ease. He knows these feelings, and it scares him.

There is a white-washed wall in his brain, and Tubbo’s a little frightened of what he would find if he went searching for the missing paint. What story would be revealed? Does he want to feel this way again? He lifts his face from his hands in order to look at Sunny again and a wave of emotion washes over him, sending his thoughts spiraling.

Anger. Despair. Frustration. That is the heaviest hitter– why does no one take him seriously? Fred did. Even those workers today did. It’s strange how out of everyone, the Federation seems to be the most sympathetic. They understood his pain, or at least, they went along with it. They didn’t make fun of him or treat it like a game; they grieved with him, patted him on the shoulder and gave him flowers and words of condolences.

He pulls the daffodil out of his Inventory, twirling the stem around in his finger. He watches the petals dance and sway, and he shivers with sudden cold. The flower goes back, and he’s left staring at his empty hands. 

“I can show them,” Tubbo murmurs to himself, keeping his voice low so as not to wake his daughter. She’s a heavy sleeper– he still doesn’t want to risk it and have her see him like this. “I can make them pay.”

It’s a tempting thought, revenge. An apple hanging on a low-lying branch, glistening with morning dew. The crunch would be so satisfying between his teeth.

But there’s nowhere to direct that frustration and revenge towards. He doesn’t know who killed Fred, all he knows is that it happened and it was brutal. He aches to rip into someone himself and get payback, but how can he do that if the payback is only to empty air?

An investigation is in order. He’ll have to do it himself, since no one else will want to help. They probably won’t even care if he mentions it, so he won’t– he’ll keep this one to himself, and start putting out feelers for what happened. A few suspects come to mind first, people he doesn’t exactly get along with on this island anyway, and he grimaces. He snaps back into reality when Sunny moves, shifting in her bed and rolling over with a loud snore. Tubbo lifts a hand and wipes away the tears that have been steadily streaming down his face, now drying up in the heat of his determination. Sunny’s going to wake up soon. The sun is rising, breaking over the horizon and shining through the windows, painting the damp floor with streaks of honey and tangerine.

Carefully, he brings out the daffodil again. It sits in his hand with petals soft and preserved by whatever Inventory magic keeps it alive, and he twirls it again in his fingers. Tubbo reaches up and tucks it behind his ear, neatly between his goggles and hair, still within reach of his Inventory so it stays fresh and alive. He’ll have to change quickly before Sunny wakes up, get rid of his wet clothes, maybe mop up the floor of her train car so she doesn’t complain or question him when she gets up– fondly, he thinks of her pouting face, and smiles. Just a bit.

“Keep an eye on her, Fred,” he says, moving to stand up from the chair, his limbs heavy and sluggish. He’s exhausted. His nails are cracked and his eyes have bags, but he’s got revenge to enact and a daughter to look out for. No more time to grieve. He should’ve left all that behind at Fred’s funeral anyway– it’s bad for him to drag it around with him, especially into Sunny’s space. So he heads for the door, glancing up at the ceiling briefly before he steps out to change into dry clothes. “Keep an eye on her while I’m gone.”

[samsayswhatever]

I always have a few classic, go-to fic starters. I'm thinking about these for Lokius now:

Trapped in a snow storm

Truth or dare (bonus if camping for some reason)

Fake dating for Christmas

High school AU (alt: Magic school au)

Groundhogs day, but they are BOTH stuck in the loop

Roommates to lovers

One character is a vampire all of a sudden

Murder mystery cop drama

One character is Royal/famous (the other is not enthused)

Arranged marriage setup (dystopian and/or royal)

Only one bed (can be used at any time)

Two person love triangle (falling for their online persona while the other falls for them in person)

Fairy tale re-telling (Cinderella, Beauty and the beast etc.)

Married in Vegas and fall in love trying to peice together your drunken last 24 hours

Some version of the classic straight romance novel (big city person returns home for holiday, and falls for hot apple farmer while saving the harvest festival, and finds out he's secretly a millionaire)

Fix it fics: a) the final obstacle that keeps them apart can be taken on by another, freeing up love interest, b) the final obstacle can be completed, and then the love interest can do something to find them when it's over

[lucaswarmhotchocolate]

I love aquariums and someday maybe when I’m in my late 30s to mid 40s I would love to have a saltwater aquarium I think it would be lovely to experience creating something like that. But I also want some freshwater tanks before then. And some brackish tanks… and also some vivarium setups for toads and some for isopods alone and also I want giant land snails and also I want some apple snails and ooh mystery snails and also maybe a beta tank and some hermit crabs would be cool too and now that I’m thinking about it Pom Pom crabs would be fun not to mention all the fun shrimp and schools of fish and-

[waterskies]

Hello! I’m new to your account and 1) I absolutely love your tank setups, literal planted tank goals. I was wondering what you’re going to stock your 10 gal with as I’m in the process of redoing mine and am looking at options! Rn I’m probably going to end up with a betta in mine and then hopefully start a 20 long for some other nanos in the future, but I feel like it’s hard to find good options for 10 gallons as most people seem to encourage just putting any fish possible in there, so it’s been a bit tricky for me to find what fish will actually do well lol

Hello and welcome!! Thank you so much for the compliment Anon~❤️! It makes me happy to hear that 😊

10 gals can be a bit tricky to stock it's true. Especially since most fish have to be in groups of 6 or more so you have to decide if you want to stock the bottom or the water column.

I was originally going to stock my tank with around 10 or so chili rasboras and a couple amano shrimp. But I found some other fish I have always wanted and went with 7 Daisy's blue rice fish instead. I'm a sucker for blue lol

Some other options for a 10 gal could be 8 or so Celestial Pearl Danios/Galaxy Rasbora, exclamation point rasbora, dwarf emerald rasbora, or green neon tetra. Maybe a couple of sparkling gourami if it's densely planted. A single Honey Gourami would be nice, too!

If you have a lid, you can try out furcata rainbow fish, spotted blue-eye rainbow fish or any pseudomugil species, clown killifish, or marble hatchetfish, and of course, a single betta could work as well.

For algae eaters, you can try cherry shrimp or a couple of Amano shrimp. Be careful about putting them in with bettas or gourami, though, as sometimes they might be predated on.

I know some people don't like them but snails are friends! They're a good indicator if you're overfeeding or not, and they graze on algae. I personally like Ramshorn snails. They come in different colours and can get to the size of a quarter. Be careful about Apple snails, though, in my experience, they eat plants the very moment there isn't some other readily available food in the aquarium.

There's also dwarf cichlids you can try out, but I have yet to dip my toes into that side of the hobby so I don't know too much about them other than the minimum being a 10 gal for certain species.

For a 20 gal you can try a smaller species of Corydoras, like Pandas, Salt and Pepper, Dwarf, Pygmy, Nanus to name a few.

If you want something odd, then maybe a Dwarf anchor catfish, or a school of 6 or so, kuhli loaches.

Also, a must for a planted 20gal and up would be otocinclus. There's a few different types, like the zebra, but they can be a bit pricy and hard to find.

If you wanted to go unheated, then a little school of 8 or so white cloud mountain minnows could work. They also sell an albino variety, usually called the golden white cloud.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. So I hope that gives you some better ideas stocking wise or leads you to find the perfect fish for your 10 or your future 20long!

[undercoverbastard]

Double Cherries (and 'Extra' Hoodies)

“No, no - wait - don’t tell me,” Stiles suddenly said, leaning forward and grinning at the boy directly on his right, eyes gleaming with joy and mischief as he spoke. “You want… a salmon burger, swiss, with fruit, and a vanilla shake. Eh?”

Derek scowled, shoving his menu at Stiles as he slumped back. “No,” he said plainly. Stiles pouted.

“Too bad! That’s what I’m penning you in for, Eyebrows,” Stiles said, scribbling on his notepad as he stood and began to walk away. Derek huffed, opening his mouth to give Stiles his actual order, but the only word he got out was ‘I’ before Stiles waved him off without even looking back at Derek or down at the notepad, stride unbroken, as he recited:

“Double cheeseburger, half swiss, half cheddar, no pickles, curly fries, side honey mustard, strawberry milkshake, extra thick, double cherries.”

+.+.+ OR: alive hale family, alive claudia, and high school friends stiles/derek - all wrapped into one, based on a joke from a TV show i watched when i was 7, and then got wildly out of control!

Archive of Our Own Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45190867

“Welcome in! You know where to go,” Stiles grinned and threw a nod to the back room area with several tables shoved together. The Hale family simply smiled in response, some waved as they walked by, and filed into the larger of the two side spaces off the main floor.

He was sure his mom had specifically set up that area for the Hale family. He’d only ever seen them sit there and on several - very few - occasions, large groups assembled for some birthday, reunion, or other such events that could only be accommodated by using the larger space. If they were super busy for whatever reason, sometimes his mom would break up the tables to accommodate additional, smaller groups. But the main setup, with the three tables all shoved together in the center of the room, stuffed with chairs running down each side of the long, conjoined table, and several smaller 2-4 seaters off in each corner? Yea, that was for the Hales. No one could convince Stiles otherwise.

They came in at least twice a month, the whole group, and had dinner. It was almost a daily thing to see at least one of them - picking up an on-the-go meal, grabbing extra pastries from the display case, or stopping for a fix of his mom’s homemade apple cider. But all of them together? That happened like clockwork every other week.

“Ready to order or do you guys need a few extra minutes to pretend to look over the menu and still order the same thing anyways?” Stiles grinned as he sauntered up to the table. He pulled out one of the only open seats left at the very end and flipped it around, sitting down and bracing his elbow on the back of the chair as he leaned his chin against his open palm. Half the table rolled their eyes, the other gave small huffs of laughter. They were all used to Stiles’s particular brand of humor.

Starting with the person to his left - Elaine - Stiles jotted down each person's order. Despite his joke, the Hales did like to spice up their orders even with their frequent attendance. Most of them had a few dishes they regularly liked to cycle through, some were always trying new things (Laura was the reason for the Weekly Specials, Stiles was sure of it, after she complained one too many times about how boring all the restaurants in town were for his mother's liking), and some were oddly picky (Jenna, the youngest Hale of the bunch, sometimes liked pickles but never when she liked tomatoes - and she always wanted ketchup with her meal but if she got curly fries then she’d also ask for ranch or blue cheese, Stiles couldn’t tell what determined the preference but it was always a toss up).

Out of all the Hales, though, one of them was without a doubt predictable without fail.

“No, no - wait - don’t tell me,” Stiles suddenly said, leaning forward and grinning at the boy directly on his right, eyes gleaming with joy and mischief as he spoke. “You want… a salmon burger, swiss, with fruit, and a vanilla shake. Eh?”

Derek scowled, shoving his menu at Stiles as he slumped back. “No,” he said plainly. Stiles pouted.

“Too bad! That’s what I’m penning you in for, Eyebrows,” Stiles said, scribbling on his notepad as he stood and began to walk away. Derek huffed, opening his mouth to give Stiles his actual order, but the only word he got out was ‘I’ before Stiles waved him off without even looking back at Derek or down at the notepad, stride unbroken, as he recited:

“Double cheeseburger, half swiss, half cheddar, no pickles, curly fries, side honey mustard, strawberry milkshake, extra thick, double cherries.”

Derek scrunched his eyebrows, glaring at the younger boy as he walked away, but the small uptick at the corner of his mouth wasn’t lost on his family. Laura laughed behind her hand, Cora smirked, Mark gave a long-suffering sigh, the younger kids already lost interest, and all the adults gave a roll of their eyes (Peter mumbled something about “stupid teenagers” but was quickly shut up when his wife Lila elbowed him sharply, earning a giggle from their son Austin).

“Three.”

Talia raised an eyebrow, turning to see Claudia now standing just behind her chair and to the side, arms crossed and an amused look on her face as her eyes focused on Derek. She must have slipped in during everyone placing their orders, though how much of the interaction she saw Talia was unsure.

Humming to herself, Talia watched as Stiles finally made it to the kitchen, only part of his upper body visible through the open doorway as he leaned against the window to pin up his order and call out something to the cooks, a wide grin painted on his lips. He laughed with his whole body, leaning heavily against the window as he talked with whoever was in the kitchen, tapping at the ticket he just put up with a playful grin.

“Really? I saw six,” Talia smoothly responded, leaning further back into her chair. She cast a mischievous glance up toward Claudia, who gave her a smirk in response.

“Six?” Nick asked, looking between his wife and Claudia. “Three? What? Six and three what?”

“They’re betting on how long it’ll take those two to get a clue,” Lila offered, rolling her eyes at the other man. Her husband snorted beside her, earning him yet another jab to the ribs.

“Still! Three and six what? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?!” Nick cried. No one answered him, causing him to pout and wildly look between the two women (one of which was his wife) in his life who always seemed to be up to something or another.

It was silent for a beat, before Peter - who was still rubbing at his ribs, obviously overplaying the jab from his wife - piped up, “I vote four.”

“Four WHAT?!”

+.+.+

It didn’t go unnoticed that when Stiles brought their food out, Derek’s burger had more tomatoes than anyone else’s just how he liked, even though extra tomatoes were never mentioned.

It also didn’t escape their notice that Stiles stole the first fry from Derek's plate and only got a roll of the eyes, while Cora got a smack to the hand and a glare that could start WWIII when she only attempted to take a fry.

+.+.+

“That’s not what I ordered,” Dereked huffed, though Stiles would say it sounded more like a whine. The darker-haired boy pouted and shoved the glass back across the counter, leaning back on his barstool as if the drink personally offended him.

“It’s not,” Stiles easily agreed, “it’s better.” He pushed the glass back toward Derek with a single finger. Derek’s glare became poutier and Stiles's grin became more of a smirk.

Claudia watched from the other end of the counter, counting out the till. She’d have to recount - she lost track two minutes ago when Stiles first began teasing Derek while they waited for his milkshake to be finished.

“Stiles.”

“Derek.”

“Stiles.”

“Derek. ”

“Please,” Derek said softly, a genuine frown now making its way onto his face. His shoulders slumped slightly, eyes darting to the side as he seemed to slowly lose his ability to keep up with Stiles’s usual banter. Claudia cocked her head, immediately noticing the change. She had the urge to ask what was wrong, a protectiveness she often forgot she had for the Hale children rearing its head inside her. But her own son seemed to beat her to it.

“Woah, hey, no of course. I’m sorry,” Stiles quickly corrected, pulling the glass back and moving to grab a second glass from the counter just behind him. He slid the second glass, filled to the brim with a thick, viscous pink liquid, in front of Derek slowly, his posture opening up slowly as he leaned against the opposite side of the counter and looked at Derek with a single raised eyebrow.

Neither said anything else for a minute, and Claudia was sure the interaction was over, but Stiles still had his head tilted ever so slightly, his body open and pointed towards Derek, an inquisitive expression aimed at the other. It was odd - seeing her son be so quiet. But he didn’t break, he remained steadfastly quiet, the only hint of conversation from him being the questioning look he directed at his friend.

Derek finally looked up and made eye contact after taking several slow, long sips of his shake (strawberry - as usual).

“I’m benched from the next game,” he said softly, almost so quietly Claudia didn’t hear. Stiles simply tilted his head more, chin dipping down as if to encourage Derek to keep going, but Stiles himself never spoke a word. “I’m two points away from failing math. Coach thought it would… encourage me to do better. But I just don’t get it, and basketball helps when I can’t focus and…”

Derek fell silent again, frowning as he fiddled with his straw, unable to meet Stiles’s eye.

Claudia watched, jaw dropped, as Stiles turned and walked away without a word. She felt her blood boil, ready to whack her own flesh and blood ten ways to Sunday with the nearest object and bundle Derek up in her arms and apologize for her stupid offspring, but just as quickly as the red rage filled her vision, Stiles was back.

Stiles plopped the previous milkshake on the counter across from Derek, but closer to himself, and placed a plate between them. It had two forks, what looked like a brownie that was cut to be the size of three regular brownies put together, and a large mound of whipped cream.

Taking one of the forks, Stiles cut a piece of brownie off and moved it toward his mouth before pausing. He locked eyes with Derek.

“I don’t work on Mondays, we should hang out. Go over homework together. I’m pretty good at math, might need some help with history though,” he said casually, popping the bite into his mouth, “I can barely remember one old white dude from the next.” Claudia raised an eyebrow. Her son had a 97% in history - she knew because his teacher called to discuss a recent essay regarding male circumcision and Claudia promptly ended the call once the teacher confirmed his grade in the class (he could write about the mating habits of mosquitos in history class for all she cared with those grades).

Derek gave a roll of his eyes and a half-smile. “I like history,” is all he said, before taking a bite of the brownie himself. Derek also knew Stiles's claim for needing help was far-fetched; he did, however, know Stiles didn't like history.

“I know.”

Claudia watched, a bit awed and with a dopey smile only a mother could pull off, as the two boys shared the brownie and sipped their milkshakes. Stiles began rambling about Scott’s newest girlfriend and also complaining about a weird sound the Jeep is making. Derek nodded along, mostly silent, communicating in some weird fashion with his eyebrows and various smirks.

Claudia gave up on the till and took the next two tables that came in, letting her son enjoy his moment in the bubble he’d created with Derek. She’d get onto him about socializing while on the clock and make him do the trash run later. For now, Derek seemed like the more important task.

+.+.+

Claudia paused between orders to watch as Derek walked out after throwing several bills on the counter (of which, she noted, could pay for his tab nearly three times over - even if Stiles charged him for the monstrosity of a brownie he brought out and therefore shouldn’t be charging Derek for anyways). And she was immediately thankful for her pause, as she got to witness Stiles pausing as he went to clear the dishes, only to stop when he saw Derek’s extra cherry from his shake carefully balanced on the top of his straw.

Stiles popped the red fruit into his mouth, stem sticking out, and smiled softly to himself as he went about clearing the counter and clearing out Derek’s order.

+.+.+

“Why you little-” Talia let out a low growl of frustration as she smacked her hand against the half-opened entryway door, watching as the two boys ran out and down the street before she could even get a good look at their faces. She had just come in with Laura and Derek to get a couple of Claudia’s pies for dinner that night. Grades had just come out the day before and she wanted to celebrate her children all having passing grades by getting their favorite desserts. 

While waiting at the counter, Talia watched as two teenage boys smacked the large tray Stiles was carrying from the back out of his hands, causing food to fly all over the place and make a mess over the poor boy. Shouts and jeers were heard as they darted out, Talia hot on their tail to try and get names and faces but to no avail.

Turning around, Talia watched as Stiles knelt on the ground, head bowed, trying to clean up the spilled food. He was drenched in various drinks and covered in a mess of food. Laura and Derek were both crouched down trying to help clean up as well.

Before Talia could ask if Stiles knew who those boys were, she paused. Stiles’s hands were shaking, progressively getting worse, and he seemed half frozen to the spot aside from the tremors running up from his hands. Derek immediately dropped the stack of dishes he had been collecting and shuffled to sit right in front of Stiles on his knees, taking both of the boy’s hands in his own.

“Stiles,” Derek said softly, “breath. Come on, with me. In… One, two, three… out… good, again…”

Talia watched as her son gently coaxed Stiles into a familiar pattern, staving off what looked to be a panic attack. She watched silently as they went through the motions several times until Stiles’s hands shook less, only slight jumps of movement instead of literal tremors.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. I have a spare shirt in my bag from practice.”

Derek easily pulled Stiles up from the ground and grabbed his discarded backpack at the same time. He wound an arm around the smaller boy’s body and steered him to the back, not even bothering to look at Laura or his mom as he did so. When she met her daughter’s eyes, Talia just got a shrug and Laura motioned for her to help with the scattered dishes. It wasn’t long until another server was coming out from the back with rags and a bucket, insisting they could get the rest.

By the time the pies came out, Derek and Stiles still hadn’t come back out. The waitress who cleaned up the mess gave them one of the pies for free and apologized profusely before Laura waved them off. They did however confirm that Claudia was out for the day but that they’d see about having her pull video footage from when the incident occurred, jotting down the time and making a note for when Claudia came back in the next day.

Laura had already headed out to the car, telling her mom she’d get it started and warmed up. Talia was just about to leave and wait Derek out in the car after five more minutes had passed, hand on the door, when the two boys came back.

Stiles was in clean clothes, face red and eyes puffy, and a bag clutched in his hand along with his keys. Derek had a grip on the back of his neck, not saying anything, but helping to keep the other grounded with the touch as they walked.

Before reaching the door, Stiles stopped, gave Derek a weak smile, and leaned in for a hug. They hugged one another tight and quick, then let go. Stiles turned immediately, head ducked low as he moved towards the kitchens. Talia vaguely heard something mumbled about ‘clock out’ and ‘Jeep’, so she assumed Stiles was clocking out and then heading out to his car that was parked out back. 

Derek watched after the other until he couldn’t see him through the kitchen entryway anymore. Then, he simply turned back towards his mom and walked out the door Talia held open for him. Neither of them said anything, but she did give her son a gentle squeeze on his shoulder and a soft smile. Derek simply nodded in response.

+.+.+

Talia wasn’t willing to comment on it, but she was sure she wasn’t the only one to notice Derek’s own change of clothes. The maroon hoodie he walked in wearing was missing, in its place was a plain t-shirt Talia was sure he wore earlier that week.

Conveniently, Talia also noticed that alongside a pair of BHHS branded basketball shorts, Stiles walked away in a maroon hoodie that looked to be a size too big, hanging from his frame like a blanket rather than a jacket. She stayed quiet about it. Just like she stayed quiet about the extra pie Derek had carried out to the car in one hand (peach cobbler - his favorite).

+.+.+

“What about Thursday? Nick’s making lasagna, Peter, Lila, and their kids will be out camping until the weekend, Cora and Eric will be doing a sleepaway for Adventure Scouts, and Laura is staying at a friend’s. It’ll just be Derek at the house and you know how he is,” Talia urged.

Claudia grinned widely, leaning against the counter. They hadn’t had a chance to have dinner together in ages, even with the whole family, but with just the four of them? Claudia was willing to bet it had been years (“Three months, Claude,” Talia corrected with a huff). Noah had Thursday and Friday off this week, a rare ‘proper’ weekend, and Claudia could escape the diner for the night.

“Stiles doesn’t work that night - we could bring him along or have Derek hang at our house for the night,” Claudia innocently offered. Talia scowled.

“That’s cheating!” she huffed. “But Stiles is welcome to come, of course.”

“Actually, maybe it’s not cheating,” Claudia suddenly said, eyes focused to the side of where the two of them sat, where the counter stood near the front of the diner. Talia scrunched her eyebrows before turning to focus where her friend was already looking. They were sat at an empty booth, not too far away but just far enough to the side that neither of the boys seemed to notice either of their mothers’ presences. Thank god, Talia thought.

“Oh come on! You always get the same thing,” Stiles whined, pouting at Derek. “At least try a different shake! I promise the peanut butter banana is awesome, Der, swear it.”

Rolling his eyes, Derek smirked at his friend and leaned further against the counter as if in a challenge. “I order the same thing because I always go to the same place,” he said airily, “take me somewhere different and I’ll change it up.”

Stiles paused, eyes narrowing slightly. He cocked his head to the side a bit, leaning onto his hands across from Derek and letting his eyes scan over the other boy slowly as if analyzing the person in front of him to ensure it was indeed Derek Hale.

“Somewhere different?” Stiles confirmed. Derek gave a soft hum, his lips tilting up at the sides slightly. “Somewhere different… for dinner?” Derek rolled his eyes but the smile finally cracked across his lips and he gave a slow nod.

Stiles, in turn, pursed his lips, obviously biting back on a grin of his own. “You tryin’ to get me to ask you on a date, Hale?” he finally asked, unable to bite back on the wide grin that finally took over his face.

“Depends,” Derek drawled, “you actually gonna ask?”

“You know, you could ask me yourself,” Stiles challenged. Derek gave a small bark of laughter.

“I could,” he agreed, “but you asking is more fun.”

“Yea?” Stiles laughed, then rolled his eyes. He leaned fully onto the counter, bracing himself on his elbows. Derek moved in to mirror his position, putting them just a few inches in front of one another. “Alright. Will you go on a date with me, Derek Hale?”

Derek cracked a grin. “It would be my pleasure, Stiles Stilinski.”

Talia and Claudia watched as their sons stood, staring at one another with too wide of grins, acting like stupidly lovestruck teenagers without a care in the world. They watched as they made plans about where to go, when to go, and argued over who would drive. 

“So I guess it’s just us on Thursday, then,” Claudia mused, turning back to give her friend a half-smirk.

“Guess so,” Talia chuckled, then groaned almost immediately after. Claudia raised an eyebrow in question. “Peter won the bet,” she amended glumly.

“Really? It’s already been four months?” Claudia moaned, slumping in her chair. “That bastard’s going to be so smug…”

+.+.+

Years later, Derek would ask Stiles if he ever figured out why Derek insisted Stiles ask him out on their first date instead of the other way around. When Stiles had no answer, Derek would kneel down and tell him he wanted to be the one to ask the next big question. 

Stiles would then roll his eyes as he retold the story at their wedding, causing everyone to aww and coo. And when Peter (once again) told everyone about how he predicted the union of the two from the start, everyone would laugh (except for Claudia and Talia).

[canonicallyobserving911]

WIP Wednesday

Fanonwriter2023 on AO3

Where CANON and FANON collide!

Season 7 FANON Speculation: Buddie Multi-Chapter Fanfic - Hiatus Reading: “I’m still in love with you but... I needed to learn how to love myself too!”

Here's some Buckley-Diaz Family Domestic Fluff!

I’m still working on Chapter 12 and my goal is to post it soon (hopefully by the end of the week). Buck and Eddie made their love confessions in Chapter 11 and now that they're in a relationship; they're supporting each other even more than they were before and it's even better because now they get to kiss and make out.

Chapter 12 - Will be posted soon.

"I'm still in love with you but... I needed to learn how to love myself too!”

Currently 11 chapters completed: 296.3K Words Rated: Mature

One chapter will be posted at a time.

___________

Here's a snippet from Chapter 12 of one of Buck and Eddie's early morning conversations.

___________

The time on the clock reads 5:58AM so he silences his alarm before it sounds but when he starts to get out of bed, his phone rings.  He looks at the caller ID, sees it’s Buck and he immediately answers.

“Hey babe, what are you doing up so early?”

“I’m outside… and I wanted to tell you I’m getting ready to use my key to come in so you won’t think I’m a burglar.”

Eddie beams a smile.  “Ok, I’m on my way to the living room.”

They end the call then Eddie stands up, exits his bedroom and heads toward the front door.

Once he enters the living room, Buck’s already closing the door and he notices he’s carrying a ‘To Go’ bag from the diner both he and Chris like to eat breakfast at whenever they’re on the side of the city where Buck’s loft is located.  He also sees Buck’s carrying a soda tray with what appears to be two cups of orange juice and one cup of apple juice.  The apple juice is for Chris because he likes it better than either orange or cranberry juice and that makes him smile even more because Buck knows them.

He takes the soda tray from him, leans in and places a soft kiss onto his lips, then asks, “Babe… what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to wish you a Happy Exam Day.”

Eddie’s so happy he could burst.  His heart is full and he knows Buck’s just as tired as he is because he didn’t leave last night until after midnight since he was quizzing him on the practice questions for his exam.  “Thank you, Buck, but you didn’t have to.”

“It’s no problem.  I want you to take it easy this morning so you can focus on your test.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They take the food into the kitchen and Buck says, “Go ahead and have your shower and get dressed.  I’ll wake up Chris.”

Eddie can’t resist kissing his boyfriend again, so he wraps his arms around Buck’s waist and Buck wraps his arms around Eddie’s.  Then Eddie leans in and kisses him again because he can.  He loves these quiet moments they share and he can’t wait for them to be an everyday occurrence.  When he pulls back, he talks against Buck’s lips and replies, “Thank you for bringing breakfast.”

“You’re welcome and you don’t have to do anything but prepare for your test because I’m going to drive Chris to school then I’m driving you to the academy.”

He’s so happy he hugs Buck tight and whispers, “I love you” into his ear.

In a voice filled with emotion and happiness, Buck replies, “I love you too... you’re my everything.”  They stay there in the moment while looking into each other’s eyes and after a few seconds, he continues.  “Now go on… go take a shower and after I get breakfast setup, I’ll wake up Chris.”

Eddie nods and he kisses Buck on the lips one more time before he turns around and exits the kitchen. He enters the bathroom and after he steps into the shower, he’s smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.  He always hoped things would be like this and now that they are, he’s ecstatically happy.  He’s in love and it’s one of the best feelings he’s ever experienced.

Is Eddie going to pass his exam? 👀 Buck and Chris believes he will.

___________

This is an EPIC LOVE STORY!

Fic Summary: Months after Buck and Eddie were hit by the same lightning strike; they’re still struggling with the aftermath of it.  But before they make their love confessions, they’ll spend time getting to know themselves as individuals first. Eddie learns to enjoy the simple things in life as he participates in activities on his own and with new friends while Buck learns the rest of the 31-year-old deep dark family secret about his conception and birth. Their journey to forever is still a work in progress but once they finally admit they’re in love with each other, everything that follows their love confessions will be cataclysmic.

__________

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1 - Eddie makes a new friend while Buck receives devastating news regarding the sperm donation he made for Connor and Kameron.

Chapter 2 - Buck does a lot of research to learn more about the abnormalities found in his red blood cells and Eddie starts a new therapy journey that’s all about him and not the traumas he’s experienced.

Chapter 3 - After more than a month, Buck and Eddie finally spend time together outside of work but it doesn’t end well and they part with a lot of uncertainty regarding their places in each other’s lives.

Chapter 4 - Eddie has a few realizations about his life which causes him to consider moving back to El Paso, TX while Buck continues to be reminded of his past which causes him to take an impromptu road trip across America.

Chapter 5 - Both Buck and Eddie have difficult conversations with their parents and Buck finally learns the truth behind the reason why his mother despised him while Eddie finally tells his mother about the way she tries to control him.

Chapter 6 - More than two weeks after Buck pushed Eddie away after suggesting they needed a break; Eddie decides to try again. Eddie’s there for Buck when he’s at his worst just like Buck was there for him when he was at his worst and he won’t let Buck give up.

Chapter 7 - After Buck’s mental breakdown, Eddie has his back the same way Buck had his when he had his own breakdown more than a year ago.  They share several vulnerable and emotionally intimate moments with one another and they begin to realize their small, sweet and caring gestures matter just as much if not more than any grand gesture ever could because these are the foundations of a long-lasting love relationship.

Chapter 8 - Buck, Eddie and Chris all have their own therapists and during their sessions, they reflect on their pasts while they’re in the present so they can prepare for their future together as a family.

Chapter 9 - Buck and Eddie are there for each other when Buck has to testify as a witness during the trial.  But by the end of it, they’ll both realize their individual and shared traumas are going to keep resurfacing until they talk about them, deal with the fact that they’re in love with one another and face the fact that they can’t live without each other.

Chapter 10 - As Buck and Eddie finally begin to confront their past traumas, they realize how much they need each other to fill in the gaps of their memories.  Additionally, the universe screams at them for what appears to be the one hundredth time so Buck can realize he doesn’t have to ‘find it’ because he already ‘made it’ and Eddie’s reminded tomorrow isn’t promised and he doesn’t have to die alone if he doesn’t want to.

Chapter 11 - A “virga” or dry thunderstorm is in the forecast but once the rain starts, the thunderstorm happening outside won’t be able to match the storm brewing inside between Buck and Eddie.  It’s the universe’s final scream and when the tumultuous winds begin to blow, they’ll have one last chance to hold onto everything they’ve built over the last six years or they’ll lose it all forever.

Chapter 12 - Will be posted soon.

__________

Read chapters 1-11 are available on AO3.

Continue reading on AO3

[nyashykyunnie]

BEH

ARTIST!JIN-WOO???

JINWOO WHERE HIS FINGERS ARE COVERED IN GRAPHITE AND PAINT

JINWOO WHERE HE HAS A FULL SETUP OF EXPENSIVE PC SETUP/APPLE SETUP AND USES A HUION KAMVAS

JINWOO WHERE HE ALWAYS HAS A SKETCH BOOK WITH HIM AROUND SCHOOL

JINWOO WHO WILL ABSOLUTELY MURDER U IF U DARE TO BORROW HIS ART MATERIALS

[timpac-capstone]

Week 10

I finally did another digital drawing, this time using Adobe Fresco on an iPad Air 2. This piece was actually way more relaxing to draw than the last time I tried drawing digitally on Krita using my roommate's touchscreen laptop because nothing was glitching out. Everything worked perfectly this time and the Apple pencil felt very intuitive in my hand. I still struggled to get my line work to look nice and I'm not sure if the process in which I colored and shaded my drawing was the way most people do it but after finishing this piece I walked away wanting to do more digital art which is a victory in itself.

When I walked out of Manga in New York I finally understood the importance of how the presentation of an art piece can add to the overall experience of the audience member. This was a quick sketch I did in Adobe Fresco of how I was planning to display my animation. I'm thinking of getting one of those old TV carts that I would often see in elementary school where it had a big CRT TV that was hooked up to a VCR. The VCR is just for display because I'm not sure how to put my animation onto a VHS tape and even if I did it doesn't really add anything but I was planning on displaying my animation on the CRT TV. The reason the setup is like this is because this is the same setup that the two brain cells have when they are watching Dillon's embarrassing memories. I will also have two bags that will be labeled Embarasing Memories and Good Memories, after the audience member is done watching my animation they will write one happy memory and one embarrassing memory on an index card/cassette tape and throw them into their respective bag. I'm not 100% sold on this idea but it is a good start.

My professor recommended that I watch more animated short films that weren't just from previous alumni to broaden my horizons in terms of storytelling in a short animation and the way animation is used as well as its quality. I saw 10 animated short films but I'll only talk about the ones that stood out to me starting with This Actually Happens A Lot by Tom Law. I remember my professor asked me to explain why I love animation so much and I showed her the transformation sequences from Ben 10 (2005) and I just said "I mean just look at that". But she didn't see the same thing I did and said I needed to look deeper for the reason and I feel this short gave me that answer. Animation makes the unnatural feel natural without needing to explain why it is the way it is. In this short, we see that the male character's social anxiety is causing him to stick from wall to wall and be suspended in thin air. Obviously, this doesn't happen in real life but I didn't question it, I accepted immediately that this is how this world works and because of that I'm more in tune with the author's message instead of fighting the way he presented it, creating a much more enjoyable watch. If this was live-action I would be more interested in how they did the effect rather than what the point of this character being suspended in mid-air is supposed to represent in the first place.

Resilience by Yunie Choi gave me a new perspective on the horrors of war and life after death. They used animation to do a timelapse of a decaying corpse over the course of several hundred years and it is quite beautiful to see how life moves on without you. The use of colors and interesting animal designs really add to the beauty of this animation.

This guy, Manu Mercurial, does a lot of YouTube tutorials for animation but I haven't seen his animated projects in full before. I thought it would be topical for me since we are both interested in the subject of memories. He very much took a very different approach from what I was thinking of doing but I still think it was a good watch to see how people visualize revisiting their old memories

I like Afternoon Class by Osro for the same reason I like This Actually Happens A Lot, I don't question why this kid's head turns into several heavy objects but I have an immediate connection to it because I understand the feeling of trying to stay awake in class. Also, the use of sound effects is excellent in this short.

I put Forget Me Not by The Lonely Star Studio on here because it shows that even with terrible voice acting and mic quality I can still appreciate the animation of this short which has also been a huge stressor.

Bounty by Arrowmi is on here because it has the opposite problem of Forget Me Not it has amazing voice acting but the art style and animation are pretty rough. It's not bad but it's not super pretty to look at either. However, it was still able to tell an intense story of an ex-bounty hunter and suck me into the world despite its noticeable drawbacks.

Going back through my old script ideas, I had this one part where at the climax of the story the main character would wake up in a car sitting next to his dad. He's in shock because his dad is supposed to be dead and yet here he is just driving nonchalantly, the main character knows this is a memory but he decides to ask his dad a bunch of questions to see if his dad would still be proud of him if he were to meet him as an adult. I feel that this entire scene I made was inspired by this Spiderman story I found 2 years ago on Instagram in which Peter gets 5 minutes to talk to Uncle Ben after years of being Spiderman, this story really connected with me when I first found it because what I want the most in life is to just ask my dad "am I doing good". There are a lot of things that I struggle with; not being masculine enough, I'm almost 23 and still haven't had a girlfriend, and I constantly wonder if I picked the right career choice. I don't know if my dad struggled with the same things but I assume that he didn't and I often feel that if he were to meet me as an adult he would be disappointed. I know that most likely he would say that he is proud of me despite all my shortcomings because that is what parents are supposed to do but the fact that I will never get that answer kills me. I decided to read all 3 parts of this story to get a better idea as to what led up to this Uncle Ben interaction and it was pretty good, if you watched Spider-Man 2 it hits the same story beats. Lately, I've been thinking of scrapping the two-brain cell idea and instead animating the car scene I described earlier on its own.

REFLECTION:

I'm really happy that I finally found a groove into digital art and I'm hoping this will finally jumpstart some animation this week. I'm also glad that I watched all those animated short films, they all had their unique quirks and drawbacks that you don't normally get to see in professionally animated TV shows. I also want to explore the idea of being able to talk to a dead relative for a brief period of time before you never see them again.

[blazehedgehog]

Sir BlazeHedgehog, where is your nickname from?

Oh wow, somebody actually asked for once instead of me having to volunteer it.

This is probably at least the third time I've said this just on this blog alone, but since tumblr search is worthless, we'll take it from the top one more time, but I'll hide it behind a "read more" tag for those who would rather skip it.

And because I'm going to be hiding it behind a tag, I'm going to go all in and tell a story.

The short answer is I made it up.

I am from a time before the internet was everywhere, on everything. In the 5th or 6th grade, our computer lab teacher introduced us to the world wide web using the suite of Apple Macintoshes they had available.

And when I say "Macintosh" I mean the original. Black and white screens, Hypercard, the whole deal from 1984. Keeping in mind it was currently 1995.

About 25-30 of these little guys split in to two rows. In the middle of the classroom sat a lone Macintosh Performa. Good kids got to use the Performa.

The Performa was the only computer that was capable to render what we would begin to know as the modern internet. It had Netscape Navigator installed, which supported the somewhat-new technology of webpages with embedded images.

For the rest of us, we were introduced to the text-based internet. You would bring up a terminal application and have to type out commands to interface with the school's webserver in order to check things like email (using PINE). You browsed the internet using Lynx. There was no mouse, no clicking. You scrolled using the arrow keys and could highlight links with tab.

They taught us other terminal commands, like how to open a direct text chat with another student in the lab, some basic formatting and typing stuff, etc. It was slow, difficult to use, and the internet was a lot smaller back then. We had somewhat strict rules on what we could and could not do on these machines, but since they couldn't do much, it wasn't hard to enforce.

In high school, half of the lab was a mixture of older 5200 Performas and newer 6600 "Pizza Box" Performas, with the other half being more left over monochrome Macintoshes. They also had "the one really nice computer" but this one was a modern (by 1997 standards) Power Mac G3. New tech came newer rules: no installing games, no adult content (even soft stuff, like girls in bikinis), and no chat rooms.

We were teenagers, though. You tell us not to do something, and that immediately makes you want to do it. I remember catching some of the particularly geeky among us logging in and playing online MUDs (the precursor to MMOs), and others trying to get around the Foolproof Software locks to install games or look at porn.

(This is a newer photo of that same computer lab, and I'm unsurprised that, outside of kids being on more modern hardware, absolutely nothing about the setup of that room has changed.)

I wasn't really in my spiral of depression yet, so I used the computers like a good little boy and followed the rules.

Until the last few days of the semester before summer break. That's when everybody -- students, teachers -- collectively stop caring about keeping up proper appearances. I remember having big free periods and spending time in the computer lab. I was usually the only one in there. So, immediately, I began looking up chat rooms.

A few friends and I had gotten into deep trouble a few months earlier, because one wild night during a sleepover we called into a "party line", which was a service where you were hooked into what is now known as a "discord group chat." Except you didn't know who you were getting connected with. They were total strangers. That was part of the thrill. It was new and exciting. We happened to be lucky enough to get a group of girls who were near enough to our age (maybe a little older), and we spent hours talking with them via speakerphone.

The thing was, there was a precedent that doing that cost money. You were calling a 1-800 number, and there were service fees associated with that. Per-minute. So we racked up a bill of something like $70-$100+ that night. That was a big problem.

But internet chat was free. The allure was impossible to ignore. And with it being the last few days of school, who could stop me? At worst I'd be kicked out of the computer lab, but they weren't going to, like, expel me. Being in trouble was a fake idea.

I forget where I ended up the first day, it was some kind of general Yahoo chat or something, but I remember I was too shy to be myself. Being 13 or 14 at the time, I decided to roleplay as Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon. One of the only times I ever did anything like that. I was full-on "I send a rose to all the ladies @}---;----" and everything, it was awful.

On the final day, I started looking up Sonic fansites and ended up somewhere called "Ruby's Sonic Page." This was the homepage of Dawn Best, under the handle Ruby the Echidna. It was there she talked about a game I'd never heard of before -- Sonic Adventure -- and provided a link to the announcement trailer in glorious 160p MPEG-1 video. I was blown away. They were making new Sonic games again?

Provided was a link to discuss the game with other Sonic fans, and it lead to Missy's Sonic Chat, a Beseen Chat Room on a website called Xoom (one of the many Geocities clones). Beseen Chats weren't live chatrooms like we'd think of modern-day Discord, or even AIM or IRC. Beseen was much more comparable to Twitter, or Tumblr, in that it was a website where you could post messages and could refresh the feed to see what other people had posted. It was a bit of a hack, but it worked well enough.

The whole thing was broken down in to different frames (if you're too young to know what those are: imagine multiple separate embedded webpages, sectioned off to specific portions of the screen). So you'd have a frame on the left that was a userlist, where people had set names and even large image avatars for themselves. At the bottom you'd have a text entry field with two buttons at the end: Send and Refresh. And then taking up most of the screen real estate was the feed itself. Something sort of like this, I guess:

And a lot of people in this Beseen chat had made up their own, original characters. This was my first introduction to Sonic OCs. And Missy's chat was a veritable who's who extremely talented fanartists. Ruby, Barachan, T2, J. Axer, Rinacat, etc.

I wanted to fit in, so I felt like I needed to come up with "a character" of my own.

Literally the first name to jump to mind was "Blaze the Hedgehog." I didn't like it. It was too obvious. Surely there had to be other Blaze the Hedgehogs out there, right? And I wasn't even particularly attached to "flame" powers.

So I sat there for a few minutes, trying to think of something better. My mind went blank.

Admitting defeat, "Blaze the Hedgehog" it was.

The chat was rather dead, given it was still technically a school day, and once I went home that afternoon, that was the end of my access to the internet. The best we had at home was some sort of Hyundai thing -- amber monochrome monitor, no graphics rendering, no hard disk, basically just a glorified word processor.

That changed once my mom got her tax return a little while later. She invested in a 233mhz Packard Bell desktop computer with Windows 98 and a subscription to America Online.

When prompted to make my own AOL username, I decided to go with "Blazehgehg." BlazeHedgehog. The character I'd made up at school.There it was. For the first time, for real, it was set in stone. And from 1998 to 2023, I've never changed it. Other "Blaze the Hedgehog"s have come and gone, but I've been the constant.

Later that night, I found my way back to Missy's Sonic Chat, and I grabbed one of Axer's Sonic images, sloppily recoloring it in MSPaint. I printed it out for posterity and kept it in a folder with artwork I'd actually drawn.

Blue and green were my favorite colors. Sonic was blue, so Blaze was green. Instead of shoes, he had boots. He wore a leather vest with a black t-shirt on underneath that covered most of his body. And atop his head, a sprout of hair, colored like a flame.

Blaze's only real role as a "character" was in the first and only fanfiction I ever wrote for him; the story was a blend of Final Fantasy VII and an anime I was in love with at the time named "Green Legend Ran." It's better it was lost to time. Besides, I don't think it was ever finished.

Blaze would go through several revisions over the years. More immediately, The Matrix hit the next year, and Blaze was given a trenchcoat. Also, since I could like, actually draw, I decided to stop painting over other people's artwork and draw Blaze for myself.

Eventually, Blaze Hedgehog the character fell out of favor. I grew up. I never really used him for much more than a forum avatar anyway, and even then, I felt like people were judging me for having a Sonic OC. Especially a green hedgehog. There were a dime-a-dozen green hedgehog Sonic OCs floating around.

Once Sega introduced Blaze the Cat in 2005, that sort of became the final nail in the coffin. But by then, I'd been using "BlazeHedgehog" as an online username for seven years. I'd grown attached to it. I didn't want to change it. So... I didn't.

As I've gotten older and put some distance between myself and that time, I find myself a bit nostalgic for the character of Blaze the Hedgehog. I redesigned him a bit a few years ago to look more like a traditional Sega Sonic character, swapping in a bomber jacket and getting rid of the shirt.

And, of course, there was Sonic Forces. Options were limited there, but a brown leather jacket and the weird black bodysuit got closest. I was most surprised by the hairstyle options. While we don't get the classic yellow-to-red, we do get a green-to-red, which is good enough. And I really like these ring-strap boots.

That's about all there is to say, really. These days it's just a username for me, and I keep it so old friends can find me more easily. I'm pretty terrible at keeping up with some people, and I get the feeling I probably come off cold to others when that's never been my intention. But for those who want to keep tabs on me, they know where to find me.

[mydaroga]

Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans 2023

I've always loved connecting with people who share my passions. For me, cons aren't about meeting celebrities or room parties, though those are both fine. For me, it's about meeting people whose eyes don't glaze over after thirty seconds of your special interest. So when I began my deep dive into Beatlemania, I wanted to find people who really wanted to chat. (Some of you have witnessed these efforts here, to varying degrees of success.) So I googled "Beatles conventions" and, on a whim, bought a ticket to the Fest for Beatles Fans in Chicago, partly because I had someone to stay with (over an hour away, but still) and didn't need to shell out for a room.

If my goal was to engineer a feeling like, say, my best one on one convos here, or the Meta the Beatles discord, or old school livejournal, or the K/S cons, it was only marginally successful. Still, I think it was a positive experience and I am considering attempting to afford the next one in February at the utterly stunning remodeled TWA hotel.

The Fest, which used to be called BeatleFest until Apple Corps intervened in 1997, has been ongoing since 1974 when founder Mark Lapidos asked John Lennon if he was cool with the idea of a Beatles convention. You can see various guests over the years here, so clearly it's a known quantity in Beatledom. Many people there this weekend have been attending since the beginning, and it's an annual (or bi-annual) tradition.

It differs from other fan cons I've been to in that the focus is largely on music itself. This is natural, but what I mean is, there is constantly at least one musical act playing Beatles music in some form. On the main stage and breakout rooms you also have guests: Pattie Boyd, Gregg Bissonette (Ringo's current drummer), Billy J Kramer, Terry Sylvester (the Hollies), Joey Molland (Badfinger), Jay Bergen (John's lawyer), Allan Kozinn (The McCartney Legacy), Bruce Spizer (various books about the recordings), Kenneth Womack (upcoming Mal Evans book!), Susan Ryan (long time Fest fixture and historian), Skylar Moody (Beatles TikTok), Jude Kessler (The John Lennon series), Sara Schmidt (Meet the Beatles for Real), Steve Matteo (Act Naturally: the Beatles on Film). There are dealers with vintage and current merch and memorabilia, a "museum" room with historic merch, old clippings, an "ashram" where you can attend various meditation and yoga sessions, a karaoke room, costume and talent contests, even a Beatles Rock Band setup I failed to attend despite my yearning to one day play it.

Some of the panels were pretty sparsely attended, and there was a strong feeling that a lot of people go to listen to the bands and stay up all night. But what that meant for those of us who were there to talk and make connections was, I got to talk and make a ton of connections. I met Sara Schmidt and her mother and they took me under their wing and introduced me to anyone who was anyone. I had a lovely chat with Ken Womack. Wally Podrazik insisted on taking a photo of my Nerk Twins shirt and demanded I email him. I spoke to Allan Kozinn about how a John boy comes to write the most comprehensive Paul biography ever. I met a lady named Tina who is going to hook me up with info about early slash and RPF fic (because I've heard several of you youngin's declare it's a relatively new phenomenon and I know it isn't!). I danced to a great cover band while looking like Twiggy. I had a lot of comments about my Stamp Out the Beatles shirt. I spoke to Steve Matteo about his book about the Beatles on film, and shared my own film work in which he took an avid interest.

All in all, it never got as in depth as you can with good fandom friends in a quiet setting. I've also heard that attendance and quality have gone down in recent years, and changes have been implemented due to stupid copyright shit (like, no being able to show any of the licensed films or cartoons? Which is a huge bummer.). But I do feel that I made connections and furthermore, felt embraced and included and warmly welcomed. No one questioned the fact I got here via "Get Back," no one challenged me on being new, no one made any attempt to gatekeep or Beatle bro at me. Only ONE person even asked who my favorite Beatle was. They all seemed genuinely delighted to have a new weirdo to share their passion with.

I haven't decided if I'm attending again, but I do already have plans in the works to suggest a few panels more in line with the type of con activity I like to see. Because even if it's not exactly the interactions I've been seeking, there's no substitute for face to face discussion and squee. And now, my photos!

Jay Bergen, Gregg Bissonette, Terry Sylvester, Joey Molland, Billy J Kramer, Pattie Boyd, and moderator Terri Hemmert.

So many shirts! My little outfits, missing my prized Stamp Out the Beatles sweatshirt:

Weirdass vintage Beatles merch:

And finally, what I spent too much money on because everyone I talked to had written a book, GDI. Plus, 1974 era buttons because I like old stuff and they were $10:

[lazar-codes]

Coding Language Tag Game!

Rules: Talk about your most favourite and least favourite coding language, and tag more codeblrs to do the same!

Tagged by: @kitkatcodes (Thanks for the tag!)

I tag: @alica-tech and whoever wants to do this tag

My favourite language is probably Java (gasp). It was the second programming language I learned at school (after Python), and the language we used in classes since then. Apparently the guy who created the language went to my university during his bachelor degree, so we think that's why all of our profs are so eager to have us learn it. I know not everyone likes it, but I do. I really like how rigid it is, since it forces me to actually know what's going on. I love how I have to declare what data types my variables are; there's no guessing involved now. My one problem with Java though is the syntax for certain stuff. You mean to tell me I have to know the difference between length, length(), and size()? I gotta sit down and actually try to learn when to use what.

I don't think I have a least favourite language...? I did a bit of C/C++, but only a few lines of code. Getting C++ all set up was a pain. But speaking of languages that are a pain to set up; R. Oh god, it took me days to get R to run on my laptop for my thesis project. Mostly because the libraries I was using wasn't compatible with certain versions of R (versions of R that were compatible with an M1 Apple laptop), and so spending literal days trying to get everything to work with R was a nightmare. The language itself is fine; I really like how I can highlight the specific block of code I want to run instead of the whole program. But the setup...if that counts, then R is my least favourite language.