#but the one where the good people ran off or got scammed into

[brain-empty]

i think what i dont remember of my childhood is a lot worse than i assumed

[smytherines]

Fuck it, here's an Agent Mega dissertation

Alright since I have such elaborate headcanon for my beloved precious Owen Carvour, I guess I should do it for Agent Curt Mega too. Sigh.

So, going off of the last big one, if Owen is born in 1928, then I'm gonna say Curt was born in 1930. I'm forever won to the Texan agent mega headcanon, but I think it's safe to say that Mrs. Mega is not from Texas, probably more like New York or I've seen people say New Jersey.

We know nothing about Agent Mega's dad, but I imagine he was kind of a loser and low level con artist and moved his pregnant wife down to Texas to do scams around the bustling oil industry, and then soon after Curt was born a scam collapsed and he ran off. It's either that or an Aladdin 3 situation where he was secretly a spy the whole time and had to go into hiding.

So we've got mama Mega, raising a VERY hyperactive (read: ADHD) little boy on her own, in a place where she doesn't have any support, and he just becomes her entire world. But she has to work a lot, so Curt becomes used to taking care of himself, and most importantly- keeping himself busy so he doesn't lose it.

In this headcanon Curt would only be 15 when WWII ends- not old enough to fight, but definitely old enough to have personally known a lot of kids from his hometown who come home in caskets. I just truly think of WWII as a formative experience for both these guys. For Curt it just feeds into that inferiority complex.

Now anybody who has ADHD knows that you already spend a lot of your life feeling inadequate, feeling self-conscious about not being able to be the person other people want you to be (*especially* if you're queer). You get defensive, especially when criticized. You also get restless.

I headcanon Curt as growing up in Abilene, Texas, mostly because I have a friend who grew up there and I've visited and the vibe is right.

I don't know if anybody has ever seen The Last Picture Show, but its a film set in small town Texas in 1951-1952 (so a little late for our timeline but still) and it's (more or less) about two high school seniors essentially trying to escape this suffocatingly small, dying town before they become doomed to spend their lives trapped there.

That's definitely what I think about Agent Mega too- this gay, ADHD teenage boy climbing the walls of this little town, never being able to fully be himself. But he's got a lot of energy (and more than a little anger) to burn off, so he does sports. It's Texas, so football for sure. Maybe wrestling too. Perhaps wrestling is even where he has his gay come to jesus moment.

And when he isn't doing sports, he's home, alone (mama Mega is working so hard), out back drinking a beer (or two, or three) and teaching himself how to shoot. I think he becomes hyperfixated on becoming an expert marksman, because with all of this shit he cannot control, all the stuff he is supposed to be but isn't, this is one area where it feels like he has the power here.

What starts off as "kid drinking beer to feel cool and rebellious" starts to morph into a lifetime dependence on alcohol. Substance use is a big issue for a lot of ADHDers for the same reason I think it would be for Curt- it calms him down. It eases that constant restlessness in his bones. It softens the edges of other people's criticisms of him. It makes him care a bit less what others think about him.

In a vicious cycle, he drinks to avoid feeling those big feelings (especially as a man, especially as a gay man, especially as a gay man in Texas), but the drinking leads to more criticism, which leads to more drinking to numb the emotional response to that criticism.

But his hyperfixation on learning to shoot pays off. Let's say he becomes a junior state champion trapshooter (did I look up trapshooting competitions from the 1940s? yes I did). He's good, especially when he hits the sweet spot of drinking just enough to calm his ass down but not so much that he's useless. Maybe this is how he comes to the attention of the A.S.S.

And he fully believes that these skills he cultivated, the ability to hit hard and run fast and shoot accurately, his ability to escape when it doesn't feel remotely possible, is why many years later he just kinda rolls his eyes at Owen for insisting that they do things carefully and methodically. Careful didn't get him out of small town Texas. Careful didn't get him the exciting non-stop life he has now, a life where he *almost* gets to be himself a lot of the time.

When Owen "dies," and its Curt's fault, he naturally turns to drinking to numb that pain. But its a lot of pain, so it takes a lot of alcohol to kill it.

I'm sure I could go on, but as always I have rambled a lot here so I'm just gonna leave it.

[b5ttyb1tch]

How I think Hazbin hotel Characters died (Most of These are Theory's Don't take them as Cannon. Also Most of this Info is From the Unreliable Wiki so Take this with a Grain of Salt)

• Alastor- Alastor died in 1933 In his (20 - 30) From a dog related death. He also has an X on his forehead that we see in the Pilot and in the Season. A popular fan Theory Is that When Alastor Was Burying A body In the woods he was Shot in the head (For being Mistaken for a Deer) And Mauled by Dogs to Finish him Off. But I have Another thought Maybe his cabalistic and Sadistic Nature was Discovered by the Towns people Of Louisiana (Where He lived) And was Promptly and Forcibly Shot in the Head for it. And dogs maybe Ate his Remains Because The Town refused to bury him Just leaving him in the woods.

• Angel Dust- Now it's Cannon that Angel Dust died in 1947 In his (30) From a Drug Overdosed. (But I am gonna Add another Theory Because I can) We know that AngelDust Grew up In New York. In a Crime Family so Maybe He was Caught stealing Drugs From another Rival Gang and Beaten to Death. If you notice he Has One black eye So maybe that Resembles a Black eye he Died with? Also he Has Pink sploches Over his Body That may Resemble Blood Spots/Wounds.

• Niffty- Niffty Died in 1950 (In her 20 I think) Notice on her Apron that She has 3 Red sploches I think these Resemble Gun shots. Niffty had a husband That she Was OBSESSED With. One day she Found Out her Husband was Cheating on Her and she Killed the other Women. And got shot down By the Police when she ran.

• Cherry Bomb- Cherry Bomb died in 1980 (Most Likely 19 - 20) Cherry has an X On her Chest. So giving her personality She probably Got shot down By the Police for Endangering Others (Threatening to Bomb things/Bombing things Ext)

• Sir Precious- Sir Pentious Died in 1888 (Idk how Old he was) I think Sir Pentious Tried to be a Famous Inventor In England back in the Day. Over come with the Greed of wanting to Be Famous He pushed himself to Hard and Fucked up. Probably Get Blown Up by Smt.

• Husk Husk died In 1970 (60 - 70) We know he Grew up In las Vegas. I think Husk Used to Cheat and Scam People with Card tricks Since he WAS A magician. One day Maybe He got caught And Some people Got pissed and Drowned him (That's what they Used to do To Cats/Kittens in His Time). I also think that Maybe He Fell off Smt high (Since he is a Cat/Bird Hybrid the Two animals That basically Can't take Fall damage. It would be a Dark Pun)

• Molly- Molly the Twin Brother of AngelDust. We don't know Much about her But. Molly is Named after the Drug (Ecstasy) Which makes The User Feel Extreme Emotional Pleasure. My thoughts are that Molly was A Cheerful Happy person And Tried to Fall away From the Sinful life her Family was in. One day maybe she had a Break up That left her Heart broken.(She does have Skull hearts on her Boobs) and Taking after her Brothers she Looked Up to Took that Drug. Probably Taking too Much and Died. She Was good enough on earth to Get into heaven tho.

• Arackiness- We Also Don't know Much about Arackiness. But my Guesses are that He either 1 Also died from a Drug overdose 2 Died from a Battle with a Rival Gang or 3 Died from Old age.

• Baxter- Baxter Died in 1910 From Drowning. Baxter is also an Angler Fish A Deep sea Fish. My guess is that He died in a Ship While Traveling over seas Probably Going down with the Ship. The wiki also states he HATES Being touched So I think He was in an Abusive Relationship. He Tried to Run away and Died In the Process.

• Crymini- Crymini Died in 1990 (When she was 19) Crymini is a Hyena and Has little Sploches all over her Body Some look Like paw Prints and Claw Marks. Maybe She was an Animal Abuser and Angerd a Dog Resulting her In being Mauled. And Later Bled to Death. Or She Got into a Car crash For reckless Driving (Viv described her as a Rebellious Teen so it would fit) She may be a Hyena Because she was a Mean Petty Bitch.

• Valentino- (DISCLAMER) I do NOT support Vals Actions Towards Angel. I just wanna Give him a Reason Explaining why he would Do The terrible Things he Does. I am not Trying to Dismiss it Just give him a Backstory.(I am glad That Bitch is Dead) Val Died in 1970 (30 - 40 (Guessing) Probably From some Kind of STD. I Think Val was a Prostitute. Also Serving under an Abusive Boss He Slowly Started getting weaker from the STD And Avenchally it got So bad that he couldn't work Anymore. so His Boss Left him on a Street corner. Leaving him to die There.

• Vox- Vox died in The 1950 (Probably In his 20 - 30) My Theory Is that He was a Pritty Popular Show host back in the Day. But one day when he was On set q Stage Light fell On his Head while he was On set. Hence why his head is a TV.

• Velvette- We don't know when Velvette died But I am Guessing Somewhere in the 2000 (Probably Died in her 20). She probably Was obsessed with her Looks and Phone when she was Alive. Hence why she looks like a Doll. Maybe she was texting while Driving and Crashed Killing her.

[deaf-solitude]

can i request platonic frenchie&reader where they run scams or heists together? reader can be g/n!

(A/N: Of course! :D So sorry for the delay, I’ve been dealing with a lot these past months and trying to get out of writer's block. I may have gotten… a little off topic and carried away but I meannnn… I had a vision and I ran with it. I hope it didn't come off as romantic due to some dance scenes. Hope you enjoy! <3 (also season 2 RAHHHHHH!!! I’m staying up to date with the episodes as soon as they come out, so feel free to submit requests for season 2 stuff as well!) also this starts in third person, but is written in 2nd person afterwards!)

Pairing: Platonic Frenchie x Gender Neutral! Reader

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: None (aside from rich people ugh). Very fluffy :]

Summary: You and Frenchie snuck into a fancy party to rob some rich people, as one does. The night was going so very smoothly, and you both racked up quite the haul for the night. A bit of trouble arose as you were trying to leave, but there's nothing you can't... dance your way out of?

“Hey, get back here!” A voice shouted from somewhere in the crowded ballroom, but it was only met with giggles and hushed exclamations as two figures rushed away from the fancy Englishman. A few other posh citizens were shoved to the side as they ran, causing them to let out offended gasps and surprised shouts, but that didn’t deter the pair from making their getaway.

“Go, go, go!” One of the two encouraged, pushing the man in front of them around a corner to get away from any pursuers they may have picked up. The two yelped as they turned the corner, coming face to face with a taller, burlier man. He… did not look pleased. The thief behind their male counterpart suddenly launched forward, grabbing his hand and dragging him down another hallway. He stumbled slightly from the abrupt movement, but quickly regained his footing and kept pace with them.

They could hear the larger man giving chase behind them, spurring them to run faster. Through many narrow hallways and past many closed doors (which they didn’t dare test to see if any of them were locked or not), the two finally saw a break as they turned a corner: an ajar door. They charged through the doorway and nearly crashed into the wall opposing it, but scrambled to quietly shut the door behind them anyway. The space was small, almost too small for the both of them, and they were forced to painfully squish together.

They covered each other’s mouths with their hands as they heard the hurried footsteps of their pursuer, lying in wait as they approached and then passed their hiding place. They could hear each other's racing heartbeats in their ears from the close proximity, waiting at least a minute more before even considering moving. Slowly, they exchanged wide-eyed glances before breaking down into quiet laughter.

“Up top!” You exclaimed through laboured breaths, struggling to free your arm before holding one of your hands up toward Frenchie. He grinned and enthusiastically gave you a high five, doing a little fist pump right after. You giggled quietly at his action, covering your mouth with your hand. 

“You got the goods?” Frenchie questioned eagerly, to which you procured a decent sized pouch from behind your back, its contents jingling around as it moved. 

“I sure do,” you responded with a mischievous grin, shaking the pouch slightly before tucking it back behind your back, straightening up a bit–or, as much as you could in the small space. “Now let’s get the fuck outta here, yeah?” You proposed, gesturing the best you could to the small closet the two of you were still standing in.

Frenchie nodded, “right, right.” He leaned forwards to slowly open the closet door, carefully peeking his head out to scan the hallway. Empty. He withdrew his head and gave you a thumbs up, indicating the coast was clear, before shoving his hands in the small, intricate satchel tied around his waist, trying to look for something. He fished out two masquerade-esque masks with a flourish a few moments later, the masks similar to the ones some of the other guests were wearing, but a little more crude due to the materials Frenchie had on hand when making them. “Our disguises,” he announced, handing the one over to you that matched your outfit’s theme and colours.

“Oooo, very nice,” you complimented, taking the mask offered to you gently. It covered a little more of your face than a normal mask would, and yours had some beautiful feathers fanning out from one side, no doubt stolen from that rich man’s ship that Blackbeard’s crew had raided earlier. “You sure these masks will be enough to stop people from recognizing us? Or rather, the blokes that were chasing us earlier?” You questioned as you fastened the mask to your face, adjusting the string holding it in place so it wouldn’t slip.

“Oh yeah, a hundred percent. We’ll be out of here in no time.” Frenchie reassured, waving a dismissing hand at you as he fumbled to put his own mask on. You nodded at Frenchie’s words, choosing to believe him rather than fret over the fact that the masks would definitely not conceal your identities well enough, but you supposed you would cross that bridge when you got to it.

Within a few more moments, you were both ready to go, checking that the hallway was clear once more before exiting the cramped closet. You made quick work of navigating the halls the two of you had just been running down, making your way back to the main area. There was only one problem that stood between you and your escape: you had to make your way back through the crowded ballroom, where you had both stolen several valuables from several different people. You found yourself standing in front of that very room before long, pausing in one of the extravagant arches that led into it. It was still as packed as ever, and the band set up in the corner of the room were still playing their baroque music.

“Ugh, this is going to be terrible,” Frenchie groaned, already shivering in discomfort from the thought of having to get through this room in a non suspicious manner, which most likely called for some interaction with these upper class snobs. You also found yourself shuffling your feet anxiously, your mind already jumping to find other solutions. 

“Uh, maybe there’s a way around…?” You had begun to move away from the busy room when suddenly you were taken by the arm and pulled in another direction. Your head snapped to the side to see a posh Englishwoman had hooked her arm with yours, a tight smile on her face. “Oh, darling, I love the embroidery on your outfit! Wherever did you get it?” She gawked, eyeing you –an unsuspected thief– up and down.

You were quick to put up a bashful facade, giving the woman a coy smile in return, but you couldn’t shake the nervous twinge in your body language. “Ah, this old thing?” You waved a hand at her, straightening up a bit, “I’m afraid it’s handmade by a friend of mine, a gift to me. They don’t take clients, unfortunately.” Of course, you were lying through your teeth: this ‘friend’ of yours was actually that wealthy man that had been robbed earlier that day, who had an odd amount of fancy outfits aboard his ship. He was dead now, courtesy of Izzy. You supposed the outfit counted as a gift, along with the feathers adorning your mask.

“Oh, please, you must put in a good word for me! Their work is simply exquisite!” The woman pleaded, holding both of your arms now. You chuckled nervously, trying to wrench yourself from the woman’s uncomfortably tight hold.

“Of course, of course! I’ll be, uh, sure to do that!” You responded hastily, your gaze flicking to the side to meet Frenchie’s, but instead found that he was missing from where you were just standing next to him. Your eyes widened in panic, beginning to search the rest of the room for your companion. Luckily, it didn’t take long for you to catch a glimpse of him again, the poor man also being dragged away and crowded around by some posh couple. 

Shit, you cursed inwardly, excusing yourself from the Englishwoman as you began to make your way over to Frenchie again. You nearly groaned as yet another person intercepted your path, talking your ear off about some party gossip you couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to at the moment, only responding in hums and nods as you kept your eye on Frenchie. Eventually, he turned and met your gaze with a distraught expression, a frown tugging at his lips.

At that moment, a new song started up, and all of the partygoers suddenly perked up and started to cheer, seemingly getting into… pairs? Oh. OH. Your heart dropped into your stomach, realizing that people were starting to dance. Unfortunately for you, it seemed as though the crowd was pulling in any dance partner they could find, which included onlookers. You looked back to Frenchie with a panicked look–you were never confident in your ability to dance. He gave you an empathetic look, shrugging before being pulled away by a tipsy woman who was far too giggly for his liking.

“Out of all the fucking times,” You grumbled to yourself, your fists clenching at your sides in annoyance and slight nervousness. A tap on your shoulder had you whirling around, your posture stiff as you stared at the masked woman who had wanted your attention.

“Oh hun, you seem awfully lonely. It’d be a shame if you missed out on all the fun,” she purred, holding out a hand. You hesitated, trying to ease the tension in your voice and body by clearing your throat as you scratched the back of your neck.

“Oh, I don’t know… I’m not the best dancer,” you explained, but your hand was grabbed by the woman anyway. You were startled at first, every muscle in your body screaming to pull away from the unfamiliar woman, but fuck it, causing a scene was the last thing you needed right now.

“That’s quite alright, just follow my lead,” the woman responded quietly, unnaturally kind for someone of her stature. You nodded without a word, letting the woman take the lead in a more relaxed step pattern. It was easier to get into the flow than you thought, and after a bit of stumbling, you were following the woman’s movements effortlessly. She smiled up at you, pulling you a bit closer. “See? You’re a natural.”

You barked a laugh and dare you say, although the woman’s proximity was a bit worrisome, you found yourself having a bit of fun. You couldn’t remember the last time you actually enjoyed dancing without making yourself look like a fool. “I wouldn’t say a natural,” you responded casually, your gaze wandering to inspect the rest of the ballroom, looking for a way out despite the fun of it. That’s when you spotted your counterpart a few feet away, trying his damndest to keep up with an overly eager damsel. You suppressed a laugh, lest you make your own dance partner suspicious, and took the lead to slowly make your way over to him.

“Fancy seeing you here,” You smirked as you passed Frenchie on the dance floor, bumping your hip into his as you spun your dance partner away from yourself for a moment. Frenchie, taken off guard for a second, chuckled at the action and was grinning at your unusual confidence, but was pulled away by his own dance partner before he could get a word in. The interaction left a giddy smile on your face, even as your dance partner came spinning back into your arms.

After another minute or so, the song picked up the pace and suddenly everyone was switching dance partners. Despite her friendly attitude, you still couldn’t help slipping off the gold rings around the woman’s fingers as the two of you parted, discreetly pocketing them with a smug smile. You half-bowed to her as you scurried off, hoping she wouldn’t notice the small accessories missing anytime soon.

You tried picking out Frenchie in the crowd as everyone mingled again, but were unable to before a man approached you with unmistakable, arrogant confidence. “Why, hello there,” he greeted, his voice nasally and annoying as he grabbed your arm and pulled you much too close to him, “may I have this dance with you?”

You exhaled sharply through your nose, trying your best to keep your smile from slipping as you eyed the exit, still having half the room to traverse. You turn your attention back to the man in front of you, eying him up and down with a feigned look of coyness. “I suppose,” you trailed off, fighting hard to bite back any snarky remarks or pointed looks. As he took your hand and started to lead you in dance, however, you couldn’t stop yourself from stepping on his shiny shoes a few times… accidentally, of course.

You found yourself smiling, not because of the dancing, but from the pure enjoyment of toying with the man in front of you as he tried to remain polite, despite his lips twitching in annoyance. Another step on his foot nearly had him pushing you away from him, and you tried hard not to laugh. It came out as a stifled inhale, easily mistaken for a gasp. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I don’t know what’s gotten into me tonight,” you pouted up at the man, rolling your head to the side to rest it on your shoulder.

The man sighed heavily, but still managed to give you a strained smile as he pulled you close again. “Ah, it seems dancing just isn’t your forte,” he rudely commented, his hand trailing up to your face and towards your mask, “maybe we should just cut to the chase, hm? See that pretty face of yours?” 

Your facade broke instantly, reflexes almost lightning-quick as you seized the man’s wrist in your hand, your breathing suddenly uneven with anger and surprise. You glared up at him as your lip pulled back into a scowl, but before you had the chance to spit any insults at him, everyone was changing partners again.

You swiped the jeweled bangle from his wrist in all the commotion before eagerly shoving the man away, who stumbled from the force. He was taken aback to see you flipping him off as you backed away from him, giving him a disgusted look. He didn’t have any time to take action against your sudden impertinence as another woman swooped in and begged for him to dance with her, but you still refused to turn your back on him as you continued walking backwards.

That is, until you inevitably backed into someone. 

You whipped around, agitated and ready to snap at whoever had gotten in your way, but your expression and posture immediately softened when you saw who it was. “Hey! Thought I lost you for good for a second there!” Frenchie exclaimed, smiling brightly at you. It was contagious, really, and you found yourself smiling along with him.

“Yeah, it’s easy to get caught up with the crowd in here,” you chuckled, tension leaving your body with every second spent being in Frenchie’s presence. You don’t know what you would’ve done if you had to spend one more second mingling with these upper class gits.

“Tell me about it! I never knew these snobs could be so energetic,” he admitted with a sigh, and now you could see the exhaustion that had begun to slow his movements down. You hummed in response, your eyes flicking to the side as you caught an Englishwoman approaching the two of you in your peripheral vision. You were quick to grab Frenchie’s hands in response, pulling him in the opposite direction and easily transitioning into a slower dance in order to prevent the two of you from getting dragged apart again. He let out a small yelp of surprise from the action, but didn’t pull away or protest as you guided him away from any prying hands. 

You were both silent for a moment while you focused on getting into the rhythm, but before long, you had looked up and made eye contact with him, causing the two of you to burst out into stifled laughter; laughter from the absolute insanity of your situation. “You’re not a bad dancer, if I do say so myself,” Frenchie grinned, promptly stepping on your foot and immediately gasping out an apology as he did. You winced a bit, but laughed it off when you caught sight of his guilty expression, his lip pouted as it usually was.

“Thank you! It doesn’t seem you’ve gotten the hang of it though, eh?” You joked, continuing to lead him in the half-ballroom style the majority of the partygoers had adopted. It was so easy with Frenchie, despite his slightly messy footwork: easier than it had been with the first woman you danced with.

“Oh, fuck off, will you?” Frenchie retorted, smacking your arm lightly. A warm laugh bubbled up from your chest again, and you were unable to fight the bright smile that stretched across your face. You debated spinning Frenchie away from you for his little comment, but when you went to see if there was room behind him for the maneuver, you paused very suddenly and caused Frenchie to stumble.

“Wh-? What’d you do that for?” He whined, following your gaze as he looked over his shoulder. You were both suddenly frozen in place, realizing you had made it to the other side of the room with your antics. The two of you stared in disbelief for a moment, trying to figure out how you had even ended up here–if you even wanted to leave–before a loud shout resounded behind you: “There they are! Get them!” 

Dread filled both of you, slowly turning around to see the two men that were chasing you earlier, and then slowly turning to look at each other. The moment you made eye contact, you bolted forwards and out of the ballroom with the two men in tow again.

Through the marbled front foyer and out the grand double doors, you two left the beach-side building sprinting, laughing and shouting as the men tried to give chase behind you. You both stumbled onto the beach, Frenchie momentarily losing his footing in the soft sand before you pulled him back up to his feet and continued running. The cool ocean breeze was like heaven on your skin, cooling you down from the stuffy interior of that stupid ballroom.

When you reached the rocky shoreline, Frenchie almost leapt into the rowboat hidden behind a larger formation of rocks, despite the men having stopped chasing as you ran onto the beach. You were both still giggling at the whole interaction, not even noticing that the bottom of your outfit was getting wet as you clumsily pushed the rowboat out and hopped in yourself.

You both lay in the small dinghy for a moment, exhausted but entertained, as you attempted to catch your breath. “Fuckin’ mental,” you mumbled, leaning your head back and over the side of the rowboat. Frenchie hummed quietly in response, and when you sat up to look at him, he looked like he was on the verge of passing out; his eyes were firmly shut and his limbs splayed out across some of the benches, but his lips were still slanted upwards in a small, soft smile.

You shook your head with a light chuckle, taking off your mask and fully sitting up, adjusting your position so you could start paddling back to the Revenge, which was anchored a little ways off the coast. It was late now: the sun had begun to dip below the horizon line and painted everything in a brilliant orange light. Backdropped against the fading sun, the Revenge looked even more magnificent than usual.

Frenchie called your name quietly, and your eyes moved back to him to see that he had straightened up a bit and his mask had been removed as well. “Pass the bag here, yeah?” He mumbled, his movements sluggish as he extended a hand out with a grabbing motion. You snickered and stopped rowing for a moment, reaching your hand behind your back to untie the bag from your belt. In a few moments, the small bag was in Frenchie’s hands, and he was eagerly digging through it like a kid on Christmas.

He went through the pouch of assorted jewelry, pulling out a few different accessories to examine before dumping them back in. There was a surplus of pearl necklaces, of which he promptly ignored. Finally, he caught a glimpse of a bejeweled necklace and pulled it from the bag, studying it carefully in his hands. The gems that adorned the necklace were bright and beautifully cut, reflecting the orange light of the sunset in every which way.

It wasn’t long before he lifted the necklace up to his neck and made some smug expression, turning his nose up in an exaggerated manner. “Why, I can’t believe you’d disrespect me so!” Frenchie croaked, his voice a bit hoarse as he strained to talk in an octave above his usual tone. “Do you not know who I am? I am Zippery Von Sweets the sixth! I-”

You had already been fighting laughter for the entirety of his impression, but as soon as he had uttered that ridiculous name, you cut the rest of his impression off and started cackling. Watching you doubling over, Frenchie joined in soon thereafter and threw his head back as you both laughed, the action rocking the boat slightly.

To say tonight was a success would be an understatement.

End. <3

[theredtours]

Pls spill the tea this is my new niche rabbit hole of knowledge

Anonymous: GIVE ME THE DETAILS BESTIE

Okay, so here's how it all went down, below the cut, because it's a lot:

A couple weeks ago, someone (assuming hiloy, as they're like the main character for the rest of this stuff) had played both All of the Girls and Need over a discord call. A sneaky second person then recorded said discord call and leaked bits of the songs to Twitter.

Cue the insanity. The leaks sent some people into a blind fury trying to find the rest of the song, while also simultaneously upsetting those who had been vaulting it. One such vaulter was, as previously mentioned, hiloy. They then took to a site for leaks and started trying to get a sale going.

Initially, they were trying to get an individual person to buy, but when the price was too astronomical, and after several days of back and forth, hiloy finally settled on allowing a group buy to happen. Now, I've never been part of a group buy before, so naturally, when I was sent a link to the discord server where it was all happening, I was intrigued. Here was my first glimpse at how the trading/selling world works. To stay in the server, everyone had to donate at least $5. The set goal was $2600, and that was going to purchase both "All of the Girls" and "Drama Queen."

Easy peasy, I thought. Man, I was wrong. The server blew up almost immediately, with people threatening the seller, demanding they leak other songs or get reported. Within a matter of hours, people had donated over $1k, and with that, hiloy leaked a small snippet of "Forever Winter," as a treat. Then, the server got nuked.

Thankfully, they had a backup. As soon as the back up was, well, back up, everyone was re-invited and the madness continued. In the middle of it all, "Forever Winter" leaked. While it wasn't true that it was hiloy who had leaked it, the person who did so did it under that name, so HUNDREDS of people flocked to the server to donate. The rest of us just ran with it, saying things like, "Yeah, they leaked it to prove that they have the goods." Was it dishonest? Yeah. But did it work?

Well, we hit the goal within I think like, 10-ish hours? So I'd say so. Everyone was cheering and partying it up in the group chat and then... right afterward, the server was nuked again. And so was the backup. And the backup backup. I then took to the leak site, and tried to get re-entry. I even messaged hiloy on twitter. Everyone just told me to wait for the leak. So overall, I was not impressed and felt pretty scammed. In all honesty though, I felt worse for the big donators. Someone had dropped almost $300 and then lost all access.

Fast forward to today, after a few days' silence (which I am told is pretty normal; transactions apparently usually get converted from funds to crypto), they just... Showed up on the leaks site. But the problem was, "All of the Girls" was not HQ, like it was promised. The backlash was almost immediate, with people calling out hiloy left and right for misinforming the server and trying to scam everyone out of their money. Hiloy then had the nerve to turn around and tell some of the donators that they should be grateful to have even received what they did.

And then all hell broke loose, again. See, the part I didn't tell you was that, provided all went well with this first group buy, hiloy was going to be selling off "Need" and "This is What You Came For (Demo)" to another group buy next. I guess this really unnerved someone else who had them, because basically right afterward, we got the second leak out of nowhere. My best guess was that they leaked "Need" and "TIWYCF" to keep hiloy from being able to make any more profit off those who just want the songs.

I'm sure I missed some of the drama, but that's honestly like the shortest summary I could give of it. It was absolute chaos. Wouldn't have missed it for the world, though.

[peanutbutterwrites]

My Good Looking Boy - Part Four

warnings for series: angst, struggles with self worth and self esteem, issues with appearance, childhood trauma, and mentions of death and murder.

summary: taking place after the southern raiders, zuko and katara finally learn to understand each other a bit more and long held on to feelings come to the surface. the gaang go and watch the ember island play and chaos ensues with katara's feelings.

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

author's note: and here comes part four! this is where the story really starts to take a turn, so thank you to all your patience, here is zutara and where she finally starts to (maybe?) understand her feelings. part five might take me a bit longer, i lowkey ran out of motivation so I haven't started it yet, but hopefully not too long. as always, please let me know what you think and enjoy!

also thank you so much for all the notes and reblogs on this story, I really appreciate all of it! <3

word count: 2.1k

Katara made her way downstairs fully dressed and hair tied neatly into a half top-knot. Her red two piece consisted of a tight, cropped tank top with flowy and breathable pants she had managed to snag from the old clothes left here. It was clearly designed for the frame of a teenage boy, so Katara chose to ignore what or rather who they were made for in favor of just enjoying the freedom they allowed.

She knew it would be her job today to gather what was necessary to feed the group, along with multiple other things, so she wanted to get that particular job done as soon as possible. Over the last few days, the comments made about her in the play affected her less and less. Yes, she did talk a lot about hope, isn’t it important to have hope during such a difficult time? And yes of course she did the housework, who else would? Pushing aside what had been on her mind, the conversation with Aang, she grabbed the basket next to the entrance and dug through the makeshift wallet to see if she could afford to go into town today and continue to save. Zuko and Toph were only able to save so much money, and Katara absolutely refused to let the kids continue with scamming people; it had turned out rather horribly for them in the past. With her nose to the wallet, her visibility was severely impaired and she slammed into a rock hard surface. 

“Ow!” She yelped as she fell backwards, but she felt a hand grab her wrist and yank her back upright. 

“Oh, sorry.” Zuko murmured, still holding her wrist.

“S’ok.” She whispered right back, frozen in place. He noticed that he was still holding on to her and flushed as he slipped his hand behind himself. In doing so, he examined her full outfit and his flush turned into his full face overheating. He recognized those pants quite easily after all. 

“So, uh, where are you off to?” he choked out.

“Oh, well, the market. I think we have enough money to get some actual food.” 

“That’s good.” It was painfully awkward. They stood there, each shuffling in place debating on their next words. 

“You know-”

“I could-” They both began at the same time. 

“Uh, sorry, you go first.” Katara mumbled, looking anywhere but the boy in front of her while a light dusting of pink covered her cheeks.

“I was just thinking, I’m done training Aang for today. I could come with you.” Opening her mouth, rejection her go-to response, she closed it, opting to think for a moment instead. 

“You know what, why not.” She half-smiled up to him and he let his own hesitant smile crawl its way up. Walking side-by side they made their way down the dirt path towards the day market that was no doubt in full swing by now.  “About the other night,” she began, “I never got to thank you. I’m sorry you had to see that but, uh, thank you.” 

“You don’t have to thank me, Katara. I told you before, I’ll always be there for you. No matter how big or small the issue is.”  She smiled softly at him.

“And I’m sorry for assuming your childhood was, well, privileged.”

“I mean you’re partially right. I never had to worry about food or clothing, nothing money could buy anyway.” 

“So then what was it? What put the idea in your head that you’re worthless Zuko.” Silence fell over them and the only sound noticeable was the crunch of the dirt and gravel beneath them as they continued to the village. “Oh, I’m sorry. I overstepped, didn't I?”

“No, you didn’t. It’s just hard to talk about. I don’t like to talk about it either.” Katara nodded in understanding and gently grasped his right hand in her left. Zuko dropped his eyes to look into hers, shocked she was finally accepting him and willing to listen. It was the first time he didn’t feel pity or condensation in someone’s gaze when this topic came around.

“Well, I’m here for you too, you know.” Silence. After a few minutes walking, he began.

“I spoke out of turn.” She turned to him and squeezed his hand as they kept walking to give him support. Tilting her head to the side, she made it clear she was listening. “A statesman, one with many years of service and honor, wanted to use a young squadron as a decoy. He wanted to sentence them all to death just so we would get the advantage in a battle with a surprise attack. I argued against it. I was only thirteen at the time, but it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do, to speak for those boys who were unable to speak for themselves. But in speaking out of turn, I disrespected him, threatened him. He challenged me to an Agni Kai to learn respect.” 

“An Agni Kai? You’ve mentioned that before.” 

“Yes, it’s a battle between two firebenders. It’s meant to be life or death.” Katara tensed as anger began to rise in her.

“But you were so young.” 

“It didn’t matter to him. I insulted his place of authority, so foolishly I agreed. I knew I could beat an old statesman so it didn't bother me.” He gripped Katara's hand harder as he continued. “But it wasn't him I had to fight in the Agni Kai. When I turned it was my father.” Katara’s breath hitched in horror. “He claimed by arguing in his war meeting I disrespected him more than the statesman.” He softly shook his head as he continued, “I refused to fight him, he thought that I was weak, a coward. So he gave me this.” He looked at her in the eyes and her own widened in horror. Her teeth ground as Katara felt rage like she’s never felt before. White, hot, outrage. The fact that Zuko had been burned was something she could make her peace with, everyone had their scars, visible or otherwise. But for a parent to do that to their child? She wanted to scream out in anger, to march into the palace at this moment and kill that man. But she knew Zuko didn’t need that right now, she knew he would only end up comforting her instead. 

“I, I’m so sorry, Zuko. I never imagined.”

“I know, it's okay.” They began walking again in silence, but Katara’s hand never left his.

“I’m sorry I didn’t heal it, I don’t have the spirit water anymore otherwise I wouldn’t hesitate.” He hummed softly and rubbed his thumb over the top of hand. 

“It's fine Katara, it wouldn’t fix anything. Just make me a little more easy on the eyes.” Katara stopped in the dirt road and Zuko only paused when he felt her hand leave his. “What’s wrong?” He frowned, turning to look back at her.

“You, don’t think you’re attractive?” He flushed in embarrassment and crossed his arms defensively over his chest.

“Well I mean, isn’t it obvious?” He left out a humorless laugh. 

“I think you’re beautiful, Zuko.” It was just a whisper, but to him it felt like so much more. She was looking him dead in the eye, no hint of embarrassment or lie. He felt himself stop breathing. Not bearable, decent, hot, but beautiful. She thought he was beautiful. And for some reason this word shook him. His gut flipped nervously and he had to swallow down his tears that threatened to unleash at any moment. 

“Well, thank you. Katara.” He said, his eyes still piercing into hers that kept their intensity. She simply nodded and gathered his hand back into hers as they continued their walk into town. 

They were able to haul a decent amount of food back, as surprisingly Zuko was pretty good at haggling with the older merchants who ran the stalls of the day market. Even after such a heavy topic, Katara found herself watching him with pride. His ability to live and forgive, to be kind after suffering such horrific actions against him made her eyes twinkle with emotion. He carried the heavy basket all the way back and offered to help her with the cooking as well. 

“I think you are officially the most helpful member of the group, Zuko. Thank you!” Katara spoke cheerfully as they boundered into the entrance of the summer home. Zuko smiled after her and gave a small chuckle. 

“I think that’s my favorite title I’ve earned yet.” He put the woven basket down in the kitchen, he began unloading their haul into their proper places as Katara let out a breathy laugh and went to gather the new laundry. Thankfully, the rather large fountain on the property made it easy to wash all the clothes. The next thing she knew she was bending water into the dirty clothing and Zuko was bringing out the tea set the house had been equipped with. He placed the pot out on the edge of the fountain and began brewing her tea as Sokka and Suki came down from their bedroom. 

“Good morning! I guess you guys went to the market huh? Couldn’t find you anywhere.” Suki mentioned and Katara nodded in agreement. 

“Yeah, and Aang’s lesson with Toph should be over soon so I thought some tea would be nice.”

“I’m sure your hot leaf water will be greatly appreciated, Zuko.” Sokka teased and Katara frowned.

“You do realize he has helped more today than you’ve in the past two weeks, Sokka.” Sokka froze and Suki let out a loud and exuberant laugh.

“Since when are you defending him?!” He said with a high-pitched voice crack and Katara had to fight with herself to stop from laughing outright.

“I’m not defending him, it's just the truth Sokka! And even if I was, it doesn’t matter.” Sokka’s mouth dropped in shock. 

“I think she’s right, you guys really need to help out more. She’s always doing all the housework.” Suki mentioned as she took a small cup of piping hot tea from Zuko. Sokka let out multiple gargled and disgruntled sounds with a small “you don’t help either Suki!” while she yanked him down to sit and hushed him. 

“Oh hey sugar queen, sparky.” Toph joked as she and Aang returned from their earthbending practice. 

“Oh tea! Thanks Zuko!” Aang cheered, after a long morning of practice he must be exhausted and grateful for the break.

“Here, Aang.” Katara reached over to grab some bread she had been able to get at the market. “Relax and keep your strength up, we still have our lesson.” she smiled down at him and his apprehensive smile brightened quickly. Katara knew she couldn’t let personal issues get in the way of her teaching Aang, the world being at stake was of far greater importance than her confusing feelings. Zuko took a seat next to her and handed her a cup of tea, to which she smiled warmly at him and thanked him for.

“No seriously Katara, did something happen? Cause I swear, even after your guys’ trip you weren’t this buddy-buddy.” Sokka finished with Suki elbowing him in the side and him huffing out an exasperated “what?” to her. Zuko tensed up, his grip on his tea strained and contemplated grabbing Katara right then and there to stop her from saying anything. But she made her decision before he could.

“Oh be quiet, Sokka. We aren’t ‘buddy-buddy’, and nothing happened. Gosh, would you give it a rest?” She huffed and crossed her arms in an irritated fashion. Zuko visibly relaxed and took a long sip of his tea, shooting Katara a grateful smile. She knew he would tell the others in his own time and resolved to let it happen naturally versus forcing him to have that conversation right now. 

“Karara!” Aaang, called out after gulping down most of his tea. She perked up at his voice, “Let’s start training now.” He smiled and she nodded in response, promising she’ll be back in time to cook dinner.

[gentrychild]

Weak Hero AU role swap where Gray was bullied and fell off the roof. Stephen became obsessed with defeating bullies, transferred to Eujang and befriended the gang, etc. Gray woke from his coma with a lot of medical debt and joined Donald Na to pay it off. Thanks!

I tried to hard to keep that to five headcanons... So hard...

1 - It's so much worse because Stephen was the one to bring what's-his-name into the group. He feels so guilty about it and that leads him to not liking giving people second chances or even chances at all. He Is Done Trying To Be The Good One. It gets better thanks to the Eunjang's crew influence but instead of being feral like Gray, that boy is bitter.

2 - Meanwhile, Gray wakes up from a coma (so if you thought he was a toothpick before...) and he is in a ton of medical debt. Finding a honest high-paying job as a high schooler would be a waste of time so he goes straight to blackmail. He visits the three morons who threw him from a roof and calmly inform them that yes, he is a bit mad about the roof incident but he is willing to forgive and forget if they give him a shit ton of money or he is going to break every bone in their bodies. The three bullies laugh in his face. The next day, one of them is found broken, like he was hit several times by a car. The bullies stop laughing.

3 - Now, the bullies' problem is that their parents are currently broke (politician caught in an embezzlement, CEO who got scammed by his mistress who ran off with his wife and his neglected daughter and the last one got involved with a cult) so they are terrified. They can't call the police because they could discover that they threw a whole fellow student from a roof. One of them uses what's left in his bank account to hire some thugs (not the cool mobster ones) to kill Gray and the other goes to the Union and begs Donald Na on his knees to protect him from a two-legged-toothpick who just woke up from a six months coma. (I will let you imagine Donald's face when he heard that one.)

4 - Donald investigates a little on Gray and finds out that he isn't a physical threat (listen, his intel is sixth-months-old, it's not his fault) but smart so he sent Jake to find him and to convince him to back down so Kingsley has more than two hours to make research about him. Jake calls him one hour later, absolutely panicked because that Gray Yeon has trapped a bunch of mobsters in a warehouse, locked them in, there is some strange probably toxic smoke coming out of him, the thugs are screaming and Gray has just lit a match. What is he supposed to do? And now, I won't say Donald grew a little infatuated that day but that was probably the start of something. He tells Jake to call the cops because he doesn't want that one to be arrested for murder just yet and obviously, Gray runs (well, walks fast) as soon as he hears the sirens.

5 - Now, Gray isn't stupid and has realized that during his coma, those morons have managed to lose all of their money. He is just soothing his nerves and redistributing some karma around. But he needs money ASAP because he is in a position where he can't even drop high school to work because he isn't even healthy enough to do so. So when someone he, at first, suspects to be a hipster, comes and visits him to offer him a job that involves working in an organization full of bullies, yes, he tells him to fuck off... but he doesn't really has a choice.

Kingsley: "What do you bring to the Union?"

Gray: "Some desperately needed braincells and if you can't even guess that much, the situation is even more dire than I thought."

6 - Gray has three rules in order to work with the Union: "Don't be stupid.", "Don't be needlessly cruel." and "Do. Not. Be. Stupid." And I want you to know that, at first, Gray and Donald make a great team. There is a lot more blackmail of greedy and corrupted people, the money is coming and Kingsley is even starting to like Gray. But because of Ben, Eunjang is still a problem.

7 - Now, Kingsley and Ben are aware that Stephen is Gray's former childhood friend that he hasn't contacted for unknown reasons (Gray doesn't want Stephen to see him working with criminals and blaming himself for it) but one thing is certain: they do not want Gray to feel even one bit of sympathy for Eunjang so no one in the entire organization is allowed to mention Stephen if Gray is in the same city or they will personally explain themselves to Donald Na. Now, Gray is aware that Donald is aware that Donald is hiding something so instead of math mind game telepathy, you get just mind game telepathy and Kingsley being slightly creeped out by them.

8 - Of course, thanks to the power of Fate (and the local eldritch owl), Stephen and Gray meet. They talk. They rejoice. They start seeing each other again. But things are complicated. First, Stephen understands pretty quickly that Gray is working for the Union and he is blaming himself for it and wants him to get out. Second, Gray has changed a lot. He is more bloodthirsty, for lack of a better world. He likes to fight. He likes to destroy arrogant people. And it shouldn't be a problem, because Stephen also changed a lot, but unlike Gray, he wants to return to what he previously was.

9 - Now, Donald knows about Stephen and Gray being friends again pretty quickly and he isn't happy about it. There is some jealousy here because at this point, Donald and Gray have become friends and Donald never had an intellectual equal before. There is also the fact that he would be pissed to lose such an efficient lieutenant for something as dumb as a friendship that didn't even bring Gray anything. Add to that the fact that Ben keeps defeating Donald's people and the fact Donald wants Eunjang not to be a problem anymore, with extreme prejudice, while Gray is arguing against it.

10 - Things go absolutely explosive where we reach the part where we reached the part where a stupid adult destroys the Union by signing something without actually reading the paper. Just like canon, Donald desperately tries to fix this mess, to just find the one solution. Unlike canon, when Donald doesn't find it, he shows up wherever Gray lives and orders him to find a solution. When Gray can't, Donald doesn't know if it's because he can't or because he doesn't want to and strongly suspects the latter. Gray is fired and told that if he allies himself with Eunjang, Donald will kill him.

11 - Canon follows its course. Eugene is attacked. Eunjang and the Union go to war. Unlike canon, Stephen asks for Gray's help. And Gray agrees. He doesn't show to the fight but the police does! They arrest the two creepy delivery men who kidnapped Ben, they break the fight between Eunjang and the Union, and everyone gets taken to the precinct, though no one gets arrested. Also, Gray had somehow planned what was going to happen to Eugene, grabbed the poor terrified boy, and put him in a safe place before the mok-ha duo could ever reach him (because, when you kidnap someone, you do it right).

12 - Donald Na comes back to his office after one very long night, not in the best of mood, and with a really fresh and vaguely smug looking Gray sitting behind his desk.

13 - Now, do you remember Gray's "Do not be stupid" rule? Well, the Union has been breaking it for a while. The Union didn't take care of Phillip, who might be a jackass but also a treasure trove when it comes to networking and preferred to favor the Mok-Ha duo??? The obsession with sending his lieutenants get their faces broken on Ben Park's fist? What happened to Eugene? Well, Gray considered that the Union had been in breach of their contract for a while. Which is why he engineered its end. The reason why he saved Eugene? First, because he didn't want him dead in general but second, because he saw what was going to happen and used it as an opportunity to acquire more than half of the shares of the Union.

14 - So Donald has a choice now. He can either start from scratches. Or he can work with Gray.

[stephensmithuk]

The Man with the Watches

Originally written in 1898 as part of a series of short stories called Round the Fire. Doyle needed money to complete a house he was building in Surrey. Insert your own jokes about actors, bad movies and extensions here.

Rugby is a town in Warwickshire, 83 miles north of London. Yes, it is where the sport of rugby is named after - more specifically Rugby School, a famous private school.

Smoking areas in British trains were gradually abolished from the 1980s, the final ones going in 2005 (GNER and Caledonian Sleeper). I have a 2000 GB-wide timetable showing where smoking was still permitted. In some cases, the trigger for the ban was the move to air-conditioned stock that would result in the smoke circulating in the rest of the train.

A Gladstone bag was a rigid-framed small suitcase that could be opened into two equal halves, named as such due to its used by William Gladstone, four-time British Prime Minister, who would start his final ministry later in 1892.

The guard's van on passenger trains was generally a specific section of a carriage that also had a caged area for carrying luggage, parcels and caged small animals.

Willesden Junction is located in Harlesden, NW London. It no longer has any platforms on the West Coast Main Line, with Avanti and London Northwestern Railway trains going straight past it. Its passenger service today is made up of London Overground Lioness line services from Euston to Watford Junction, Overground Mildmay line services from Stratford to Richmond or Clapham Junction and the Underground's Bakerloo Line from Harrow and Wealdstone to Elephant & Castle. The first and third share the same tracks, while the second operates, on lines shared with freight trains, on separate "High Level" platforms. There is a depot for Overground trains nearby.

Non-gangwayed stock i.e. carriages with no connection between them even for emergency use, continued to be built into the British Railways, with quite a few of the "first generation" of diesel and electric multiple units being built this way. Most got gangways in later refurbishments, but the Class 205 DEMU, bar one example (205205) altered in a refurbishment trial, would carry on without them until final withdrawal in 2004. Most of the survivors then promptly ended up in the hands of heritage railways.

The Bible Society of London was founded in 1804 with the aim of providing affordable Bibles in people's own languages, after the 1800 case of a woman called Mary Jones, who saved up for six years then walked 26 miles to buy a Bible in Welsh. It is still active today.

The London to Rugby line had been widened to four tracks in the 1870s. From west to east, the tracks go: Down (Northbound) Fast - Up (Southbound) Fast - Down Slow - Up Slow. Ergo, you cannot move between two Down trains without a big leap. (https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/lec2#LINK_1)

A bunco-steerer is a swindler.

Green goodsmen operated a scam in which people were offered purportedly counterfeit notes printed using stolen plates (so appearing genuine) at a cheap price, being shown actually genuine notes in a bag. During negotiation, the bag was switched for one containing worthless goods, like sawdust or green paper. Having been duped out of real money, the victims were reluctant to report this to police as attempting to purchase fake money was illegal.

Card-sharping is cheating at cards using various means, including cutting bits of cards to mark the ones you would want. Vegas casinos frequently deliberately cut corners off used cards being sold to tourists to prevent them being snuck into their games.

Tammany refers to Tammany Hall, the corrupt political machine that had ran New York City, for much of the 19th century, leveraging support from Irish immigrants by providing them with jobs for example. It had been temporarily ousted from power after the Lexow Commission of 1894-95 into police corruption; to wit, promotions were being sold for large sums of money and officers got that through extracting protection money from brothels etc. However, it would come back in the 1898 elections and retain control with occasional breaks until 1961, when Carmine DeSapio was ousted as its leader. It then lost power and had gone by 1967.

Travelling salespeople would carry samples or models of their products on their trips, sometimes in branded containers. This has largely become a thing of the past, but is still around.

Northumberland Avenue used to have a lot of high-class hotels, but these have mostly gone. Some were taken over for government use for a while, including by the War Office.

"Mary Jane" appears to have been a slang term for a male prostitute; Mary Jane Kelly was the final victim of Jack the Ripper.

[slovo-theshattered-onion]

How to Get a Shot of Heaven: Guide for Boys with Fear of Needles

this is a vaguely (very vaguely. it's the Vibes toward the very end) forcemascing fictional story with just some random ocs i pulled from the ether :D

all i can guarantee is that the prose will be decent and maybe the banter will be cute but otherwise i don't know what i'm doing ✨ enjoy the story, 's under the cut !! 4014 words (written in one sitting so quality mileage may vary)

cws: religious trauma (mostly lightheartedly referenced, but very much omnipresent, gets more prevalent toward the end. worth mentioning, jay (pov character) got it in a cult), mentions of sexism and transphobia, kidnapping if you squint, needles and sirynges, Vaguely Horny Vibes further in but not straight away

Much to Jeremiah's surprise, he's largely unaffected by jet lag.

It's odd; his first ever flight, a transatlantic one at that, and all it took for him to shake off the morning after was throwing cold water in his face. If not for Adam looking halfway ran over as he checks the milk's expiration date and curses, Jay would've thought nothing of it, but apparently it's a blessing and the only good reason for Jeremiah to believe in God. Bit dramatic, but sure, whatever. Not like he'd know better.

Having abandoned the fridge in favour of the cabinets, Adam shuts another one with a groan. "I can't believe I have to feed you dry cereal on your first fucking day here. D'you prefer chocolate or fruity and would you be merciful enough to make me choke to death on whichever one you choose?"

Jeremiah snorts. "Can't believe a billionaire eats worse than I did living out of a car." He pushes off the wall, wandering over to the fridge, and examines its remarkably barren, cold insides, "Do they take your 'capable of basic self-care and housekeeping' card once you're masculine enough, or something?"

"Firstly, not a billionaire yet and won't become one if I have anything to say about it. Secondly, you've got it backwards. I'm incompetent because of my wealth, not in spite of it." Good-natured, Adam peeks from around the fridge door in all his mussed, squinty glory, "Men do tend to be encouraged to do jack shit even when they know how, though. 'S called 'toxic masculinity', doubt you've heard of it."

Humming affirmation, Jeremiah takes out a crate of eggs stationed lonesome on the top shelf and checks the date. "Do you have oil, flour and sugar? We could make pancakes."

Adam furrows his brows, like his appearance needs more creases. "Don't you need milk for those? That shit's been spoiled for over a week."

"Heat banishes the sin out of it or something, we'll be fine." Eggs and milk in hand, Jeremiah shuts the fridge with his foot and sets them down, taking the scan for supplies into his own hands. First thing he finds upon opening a top cabinet right next to the fridge is plates, stale-smelling spices, and, for whatever reason, the aforementioned cereal. This place is in desperate need of a full re-arranging, isn't it?

"... Okay, if we swap 'sin' for 'bacteria' that does make sense. You weren't kidding when you said they taught you pure fucking bollocks, huh?" Having got out the oil- olive, not ideal but workable- while Jeremiah was busy with plates, Adam stares at him with what Jay can only assume is highly crumpled scientific fascination.

Jay nods. "Dinosaurs are a scam invented to make people sin and all humans on the flat Earth came from a guy who coincidentally shares your name, yes." In the next cabinet, there's cups, glasses, a single fancy goblet and, on the top shelf, pans, "But hey, at least I know how to organise a kitchen."

"I know where everything is! Look, flour and sugar, record time." Adam says, muscles flexing as he pointedly slams the two largely unopened paper bags down next to the milk and eggs. Because flour is involved, he immediately sneezes.

"Your cereal probably tastes like paprika at this point. Now get out of the kitchen you're paying me to run and let me salvage your pathetic homemaking, shoo." Poking Adam in the chest with a pan, Jeremiah shoulders past him to get to more cabinets. Next one mostly has a myriad snacks and sugary drinks, though because it's ran by Adam, there's random soup bowls in there, too.

As Jay rummages around for a mixing bowl, Adam hovers. He's so rarely recognisably awkward, shameless as he is, his shuffling is even more distracting than it'd normally be. Mixing bowl found- though it's meant to be a salad bowl or something equivalent, judging by the fancy design- Jeremiah turns to glare over his shoulder.

Adam twiddles his thumbs under his ire. "Are you... Sure it's not too uncomfortable? You know, dysphoria and all, 's probably weird to be acting a housewife for a guy you just met three days ago."

Huh. Jeremiah blinks. Looks down at himself.

Even holding a fancy bowl in front of a stacked kitchen counter, the sight is far less nauseating than usual, his chest flattened and hairy legs covered halfway by cargo shorts. He sucks in his lips, worries at them, sets the bowl down. Breathes. Turns, and smirks as he faces Adam. "I'd be more concerned about the three days part than the housewife part, if I were you." He pinches at the loose fabric of his t-shirt, lifting it away, "More seriously though, that binder thingy helps, it's fine."

Squinting blearily, Adam holds up his wrist to check his watch. "You've been awake... How much longer than me, again?" 

Uh? "About an hour? Well, a bit more than that, but I first checked the time an hour before you started puttering."

Adam nods, tapping something into his watch. "And you've been wearing the binder that entire time?"

Oh, right. "Yeah, showered and put it on. That's five more hours, if I remember correctly?"

Adam looks up. "Four and a half. Can I make coffee?"

"Excuse me? Where'd the half hour go?" Crossing his arms, Jeremiah narrows his eyes. Mostly playfully. Excuse him for enjoying the high of a better fitting body.

"We've been hanging out. Don't cry, you can have your dysphoria hoodie even if you'll boil, but I'm not letting you fuck up your ribs. Now, coffee? Would you mind if I used ice cream instead of milk or would you just prefer it black?" Back at the counters, Adam squats, opening a bottom cabinet.

Jeremiah huffs. "Ice cream's good, but not too much. And sure, try and convince me you were responsible when you got your first binder." Measuring flour with a literal cup, he pours it into the bowl. No sieve, whatever; he'll just mix like he's trying to make a death vortex.

With a heavy thud, Adam sets a fancy, massive coffee maker on a nearby counter and stares blankly ahead. After a beat, he smiles. "I was, actually. I'm paranoid, remember?" His cheekiness almost masks the deep eye bags he's boasting.

Huffing again, Jay goes back to measuring sugar. "Who would've thought the biggest, most relevant inconsistency I'd have to face off with would be that weird degenerates are also sicklers for rules."

"Not all of us!" Adam laughs, brighter, "Though admittedly most do try to stay safe as much as possible." He puts coffee beans in a grinder, shutting the lid, "Loud, prepare yourself."

Even with the warning, Jeremiah flinches while cracking the eggs into a soup bowl to beat. He's found a whisk by the time Adam finishes with the deliciously fragrant but not worth the noise coffee beans, started to work at it even; before Adam can comment, he turns to him with the most judgemental face he can muster. "Why do you have a whisk and not a sieve?"

A bit more life to his face, Adam blushes. "I, uh, used to. Have one, that is."

"You lost it?" Opening the milk, Jay asks, amused, "Oh, this has started clotting. How are you this much of a disaster, good sir?"

Adam groans, setting up the coffee machine with whatever ancient magic required to make it work. "We're going to get stomach bugs and die."

"Better than paprika-flavoured cereal." Light, Jeremiah snorts, "It'll be fine, expired milk actually makes pancakes taste better. Probably that bacteria you mentioned, whatever it may be."

A beep, and Adam leaves the coffee for the refrigerator, probably to get his ice cream. "Fair. Bacteria is what turns milk into sour cream and cottage cheese, so, probably fine." He says, playfully exasperated, "If we die, though, I'm beating your ass in hell." And bonks Jay over the head with the frigid box of vanilla he got, which is frankly unnecessary. Jeremiah sticks his tongue out, and focuses on eviscerating the last clots in the egg and milk mixture.

For the rest of the preparations, they're both quiet, though Adam does start to mutter some tune under his nose. He even dances once he's done distributing the ice cream between mugs, completely uncaring of Jeremiah's not so subtle staring.

... It rides up his t-shirt, which, while never particularly modest given he paired it with only boxers, still did more to cover him before he raised his arms. Jeremiah's not staring, but it's hard not to see that he's- he's got a bulge, which, Jay has noticed earlier- not for any perverse reasons!- but- how's it not a trick of light? Adam's the same as Jay, isn't he??

Does that mean Jeremiah could one day- whipping his eyes back down to the pancake batter, Jay mixes with all the carefully controlled violence he's capable of. This is fine. Everything is fine. Adam promised to help him along with whatever aspect of 'transition' he needs or wants, so. All fine!

Thankfully for Jeremiah's mortification, Adam doesn't initiate conversation when handing him his coffee nor when stealing freshly cooked pancakes before Jay's done frying them all. At the same time, unfortunately, Adam is hovering far too close and taking his turn to stare. Since turning up the heat would do nothing but burn the remaining batter, all Jeremiah can do about it is try to distract himself while he's still busy.

Adam's cup clicks against the fancy, tiled counter top, empty by the sound of things.

"So... You say the binder helps you feel better even when you're doing 'womanly' shit? Quotation marks, nothing's inherently womanly or whatever. D'you... Would you be willing to try something even more masculinising? Since you're gonna be doing mostly domestic work around here." Fiddling with his hands, Adam stares, head cocked and lips pursed.

Oh. Jeremiah takes a deep breath. "It's that hormone you take, yeah?Tesrone- uh, whatever it's called."

"Testosterone!" Brighter in a blink, Adam leans closer, "Yeah, it's that. Makes you more hairy, changes your fat distribution to be more masculine, makes muscle gain easier and drops your voice, among the most immediately noticeable changes. D'you wanna know more?" He's shining, brown-bronze eyes crinkled and grin sharp and fox-like. 

Deep breath, again. More or less needlessly flipping the pancakes, just to check they've cooked on both sides, Jeremiah bites his lip. "Mhm. Is this a faustian bargain type of deal?" He asks, unloading the pancakes onto the plate.

"Oh, absolutely. One hand, you get a will to live and a body that feels more yours, but on the other, male pattern baldness and bad skin. Look at this shit!" Adam leans in, lifting his messy and admittedly slightly greasy raven hair from covering his forehead, "I'm only twenty six, and it's already killing me." Playful, he combs the hair back in place with his fingers, and upleans closer to Jay's face, "Also, you get a T-dick." Mock-whispering, he hides his teeth behind a pointy smile, face as though composed of impish edges.

A T-dick-

Adam laughs, bouncing back with another stolen pancake. He gets a little crumb in his sharply trimmed beard as he takes a bite, and in his washed up, stretched out moon design t-shirt draping a bit oddly over his warm tan, he looks startlingly like any other guy; could Jeremiah get the same?

Swallowing, Adam wipes his chin, taking the crumb off with it. "I'd show you, but I've already got surgery so it wouldn't be a good example. Eh, there's pictures online and shit." He shrugs, "Everything else, you can pretty much just see looking at me. Except, I get hot and hungry more easily? Hm, my endurance got worse, but as I said, muscle grows faster and more defined with less effort, so it's not a terrible trade-off. There's ways to mitigate the hair loss and whatnot-"

"How do I get it?" Jay cuts him off, putting the pan in the sink and taking a pancake for himself. His coffee, predictably, got cold while he was cooking. Still, hiding in a coffee mug is more unassuming than staring at the floor, probably.

"I've got to take my shot for today, still." More subdued yet clearly still smiling, Adam tears off a chunk of pancake, seemingly swallowing without chewing like the terrible creature he is, "Wouldn't be much trouble giving you a dose, too."

Oh, Lord. No, Adam was wrong, the jet lag immunity isn't the only good proof for a loving God. The real proof is that Jeremiah managed to set his sights on pickpocketing the one man who would give him all this in return for coming clean.

Although- "Shot? Like, needles?"

For a split second furrowing his brows, Adam brightens again, swallowing another small chunk of pancake. "Yeah, but if you hate getting stabbed, 's not a big deal. There's gel and pills, too! We'd have to wait a bit before we get them, though, since I don't use those. You're lucky I'm the founder-owner-CEO-whatever of an NGO that deals with transition and stuff, it'd be harder to get our hands on more T without going the legal route. That's not only a while longer, but also, scary as fuck if you escaped some technically-legal abusive environment, which you did, so. Lucky! I'll figure out a way to get you some-"

"I'd like to try now." Jeremiah interrupts, again. Tenses up. Impolite.

Smiling so widely it must hurt, Adam strides over, puts the plucked pancake back on the plate and pokes non-too-gently under Jay's ribs. "I was trying to buy time for my impulsive ass, this is not proper risk-aware medical practice. But, I'm also not going back on my word, so, let me go print out an informational leaflet so we can at least pretend I'm not breaking the law, yeah?"

"You flew me here in a private jet specifically to bypass the customs." Unimpressed, Jeremiah crosses one arm over his toro and takes a bite of his own half-forgotten food. It gets him a rough mussing of his freshly cut hair and, predictably, no response other than laughter as Adam shoves his head and takes off sprinting out the room.

Huffing lightly, amused, Jay finally takes a sip of his barely tepid coffee. It's rich, deliciously bitter, and the vanilla does add a little something; he could convince Adam to make coffee with ice cream all the time, if he's lucky.

Or he could just make it himself, since he'll be working the kitchen. He glances at the imposing, shiny coffee machine.

... Maybe not.

By the time he's finishing the second pancake, Adam pokes into the kitchen, waving some pastel papers through the door. "It's done! Come find me in my room when you've finished, I'll be getting everything out meanwhile." With that, he's gone again, the stairs thudding under his feet.

Needless to say, Jeremiah swallows the rest of his pancake in possibly worse offence to nature than Adam did.

He forces himself to stretch to get the food to fall down at least somewhat, and tries to walk like a normal person. Keyword being 'tries'. Scaling the stairs two at a time, he paces with the biggest steps he can keep looking somewhat acceptable to polite society toward Adam's door; it's open, so Jay slips in easily.

At his vanity, Adam has arranged two medical-looking tiny bottles of clear liquid, a syringe, a bunch of bandaids and- and packed needles, okay, of course. With a deep breath, Jeremiah shuts the door, and goes to get the papers Adam has gestured him toward while rummaging in a med kit.

Most of the things on the pretty pastel infographics, Adam has mentioned, though there's also increased risk of some male-typical diseases such as cholesterol issues.

Just imagining himself with a careful beard, bigger, broader body, maybe even with a sharper jaw if he's lucky, has Jeremiah salivating too much to care much about some disease he has the smallest amount of knowledge on. He flips over to the final page-

Oh, that's what Adam meant by 'T-dick'. That. Does look sort of like a phallus. Good Lord. Jeremiah licks his lips. Yeah, no, he can deal with a needle for this. He glances over to Adam just in time to see him punch bubbles out of the assembled syringe.

That needle is sharp. Does Testosterone hurt? Jeremiah only got given shots once in his life, against his parents' will at that, and that hurt, and his parents hated it and tried to exorcise him and-

"Earth to Jeremiah?" Syringe lowered, Adam waves his free hand with furrowed brows and narrowed lips, "Are you sure you don't want to wait for gel? We can get you more informed and shit, and there won't be any needles involved. It's okay to take care of your brain first."

It's okay. Forcing himself to breathe, Jeremiah sets the pages down and takes a step closer. "You mentioned you need one, too? Could you do it on yourself first, then?" With his shoulders this tight and hands clutching at each other so hard in front of his chest, he must look like a prey animal. He swallows, shifts his arms to be crossed. A bit better.

Shifting his syringe-hand the slightest bit, Adam hums, light. "Sure, whatever. I do it on my left hip, usually." And, true to word, he lifts his t-shirt with his thumb and pushes his boxers down with the rest of his fingers, quick and practiced.

Taking a small turn to make his actions clearer, Adam brings the needle closer- he doesn't even flinch. Just injects, pulls out the needle, sets it down on a little napkin on the vanity and smoothly bandaids over the spot. He pulls his boxers back in place.

Sunny, Adam's smiling when Jeremiah finally looks back up to his face. "Better than coffee, I'm telling you. Coffee's for energy, this-" He pats his hip, "is for the will to use it. Does that make sense? 'M not a poet." Glancing around as though he's searching for something, he takes off to his closet, and pulls out a box from the bottom, "D'you wanna do it yourself or for me to do it? If me, I have an idea that might calm you."

Oh. Hm. Adam clearly knows what he's doing, so it's probably a better idea to have him take care of it. Plus, the idea of stabbing himself with a needle damn near makes Jeremiah's legs give out; is it even a choice when the answer's so obvious? "You, please. You know all of the safety precautions and such, it only- what's that?"

"Oh!" Showing off the sleek, shimmery green on one side and smooth black on the other item, Adam glows, "It's a blindfold. One of my employees got it for me after I've complained about struggling to sleep one too many times, but it turns out I hate being unable to see when my eyes are open, so I've put it in the shame box. I hear these help people calm down, and in your particular case, you won't have to see what I'm doing! So it'll probably be less scary."

Jay bites his lip, walks over to where Adam sits on the ground with the blindfold offered out. "It's shaped weird." Taking the thing, he turns it over, soft material weirdly attached. Are the sockets meant to cover the eyes?

"That's so it can block out the most light. I hated that, but who knows, it might work better for you." Up from the floor, Adam extends a hand asking for the blindfold back, looks up to Jeremiah's face and adjusts the sockets a bit. He raises it up, as though to put on Jay, before pausing, "Oh, would you like to do that yourself, actually? I should've asked before just going for it."

Adam will- have him blindfolded, specifically to inject him with a drug. What was it Jeremiah's parents used to say about strangers and why can't he bring himself to feel anything but warm anyway, as though a cosy fireplace heating his face, chest and abdomen?

... Too warm, mouth watering at the very idea of- Adam, his hands around Jay's head adjusting the straps that will hold the blindfold in place, body no doubt going at least somewhat flush with Jay because of their height difference or- or Jay bowing down-

Mechanically, gingerly, Jay takes the blindfold for himself and fits it over his eyes. Another, highly specific reason to believe in God is, his complexion makes it very hard to notice when he blushes, as deep and vivid as his skin is.

Given the heat in his cheeks, it may just be noticeable anyway- Adam pushes him, no, guides him until his back is to the wall. The vanity and the door are to the left of him, now, the closet to the right; focus on recalling what the room looks like, imagine it from this angle, it's fine.

A gentle touch lifts up his t-shirt a bit over his right hip, takes his hand up to hold it. Jeremiah didn't know heat could pool from his body and between his legs this fast, didn't know he could be so warm. His cargo shorts get pushed down on one side, his boxers follow, and Adam secures it in place with Jay's other hand; is it possible to get light-headed off touch?

"Count your breathing so you keep your stress in check, okay? Four or five for in, hold and out is good to start with." Cheerful as ever from a little bit to the left, Adam says. Jay forces his lungs to drag in air, so much colder than his body. Somehow, counting in his head does nothing to dissipate the heat, the soft simmer remaining even.

He counts as he breathes, overly aware of the whisper-crackle of needle packaging and the sound of a tiny glass bottle being lifted off tile. It clinks back down after another count of five, and the clatter of a nail against the plastic of a syringe rings twice. Two more counts, another short clack, Adam's steps walking over; the rabbit who took over Jeremiah's heart must've been running a race to get there.

Pressing into him, Adam pins Jay's right leg in place with his own. Warm, smelling of vanilla, coffee and something heavy, musky just underneath, he hums, probably meant in comfort. "Counting?"

Jeremiah hums back, nods. A cold swab that just swiped against his hip pulls back, callused fingers framing over where it was.

"Good. Now listen to me count and follow, okay? Right now, in. One, two, three, four, five-" Adam starts, there's a pinprick in Jay's hip, a weird pinch, Adam pulls his hand away, "-two, three, four five, you can let out your breath, now." The same hand, left, ruffles gently through Jeremiah's hair.

Breathing out slowly, like a balloon deflating, Jeremiah eases his muscles. Adam has pulled away; so, he pushes off the blindfold, looking over just in time to see the needles be thrown in the trash. He kind of really wants to slide down the wall, and a hug. Adam's scent lingers in his nostrils.

Scratch this being God, it can only be demonic temptation.

"Fears overcome, damn! Good job, Jay-Jay. Want me to go grab us a victory snack or something?" Packing up the med kit, Adam grins.

Well. Jeremiah was never heading for Heaven; might as well bask in the liquid salvation warming his veins while it lasts. Unsteady, he smiles back and gives a thumbs up. Adam tells him to wait on the bed.

He got so much more than he bargained for when trying to get money for groceries in the only way he could think of. 'Lucky' doesn't cut it; Jeremiah must be wickedly blessed, or maybe cursed.

So long as he gets to keep this, he doesn't care.

(author's note: yes, their names are jeremiah and adam. don't question it and don't read into the symbolism unless you wanna be disappointed (or to surprise me), because i sure didn't, i was just handed these names by The Brain and rolled with it WHEEZE)

[tohisprettyc00l]

No matter what

!!MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING FOR SELF-HARM AND SUICIDE!!!

After you found yourself in the human realm you were taken in by people you dubbed the Owl Family. It consisted of the most wanted witch, the “king of demons’, a human just like you, and a bird tube, and you now I guess. And while you were forever grateful for them, their love for you felt unwarranted. It’s not like you did much around the house. Even Hooty defended the house from coven scouts. Yet you weren’t helping in combat in any meaningful way. The more you think about it, you realize that you really were just a plague on them whenever you did try to fight. You honestly made their missions harder.

No matter how hard you tried you couldn’t stop these thoughts from consuming your mind. The rest of the world was starting to drift away from you. Your eyes darted around the room. They landed on a knife tucked away in a corner. Barely visible if you weren’t looking for it. You scrambled over and grabbed it. You pushed it into your skin. The crimson blood started to escape and move to the surface. Your breathing got heavy as you added more and more cuts to your arm.

Once you stopped you threw the knife to the side and just started at your blood-covered arms. You got up, legs shaking. Once you reached your door you peaked around the corner, and nobody. You made a beeline toward the bathroom. You got to the sink and ran water. When the water reached lukewarm temperature you ran your arms under the running water. The blood washed off and ran into the sink. Once your arms were cleaned off you got some gauze from the mirror’s cabinet. You wrapped it around your wounds and left back to your room.

You went to your room and got a hoodie and hid your knife again. Just then Luz entered your room. “Hey, do you want to go on a trip to the night market with me later? I need to get Eda’s potions” Despite all the thoughts that ran through your head saying that you would just burden her on the trip, one main thought dominated your mind: don’t disappoint Luz. So, despite your better judgment, you agreed. “Okay, I’ll get you in a few hours.” Luz gave you finger guns and left.

You decided to just watch some show in the meantime. It would be a good way to pass the time. And also it would be a good distraction from… everything. So you did, you turned on some of your favorite shows to pass the time. Also while doing about 3 other things. You really were trying to distract yourself from your thoughts. Though it gradually moved to you just doing a bunch of other things that were a far cry from where you started.

After a few hours Luz entered your room, without knocking. You jumped at the door suddenly opening. “Sorry, anyway ready to go to the night market?” “Yeah.” You said as you got to your feet. You and the brown-haired human left to go to the night market. “You know you don’t have to wear a jacket. It’s pretty nice outside.” “And it’s also nighttime. I’m not taking any chances. Also, you're always wearing a t-shirt… hoodie… thing?” Luz chuckled slightly.

Both of you located Tibbles. Luz looked at you. “You brought only enough to buy the elixirs right? So he can’t scam you? Or just straight up rob you.” She mumbled the last part. “Obviously I’m not that stupid.” “Never said you were,” Luz said half playfully half serious.

Both of you walked over to the pig demon's stand. “Hey Tibbles can we get elixir?” You said harshly while you half-hazardly placed the snails. He rolled his eyes and got the elixir. “You know if you buy two more then you’d get a free-” “Not interested.” You interrupted him. He tossed you the elixir. “Wait! I have a question.” You said right as he was turning around, “What would happen if someone who wasn’t cursed drank these?” “I don’t know. You’d probably die or something. Now, if you're not interested in doing any more business then run along.” He made a shooting motion with his hands.

As you were walking away Luz looked at you weirdly. “What?” “Why did you ask that?” “I’m naturally curious.” You gently jabbed her in the rib, “I learned from the best.” You both chuckled. Both of you chatted as you walked back to the house. You guys soon arrived.

“Eda! We got your elixir!” Luz yelled out. Eda came downstairs with apple blood. “Thanks, kiddos.” She and Luz started talking. You grabbed a bottle of elixir and stuck an invisibility glyph on it when they weren’t looking. You put the bag of elixir down and ran upstairs without either Luz or Eda noticing.

You let out a breath and looked at the elixir. Your heart started to hurt. You grabbed a piece of paper and all you managed to write was “Thank you for everything.” You placed it by your door and then sat down with the elixir. You opened up the bottle, while your hands were shaking wildly.

You raised it to your lips. Did you really want to do this? What if it didn’t work? You did not want to reveal your feelings to Eda, Luz, and King. Luz would tell Eda what Tibbles told you. Despite that, you couldn’t bring yourself to lift the bottle. You took a deep breath in and finally were able to drink some of it. But right as the liquid entered your mouth Luz entered your room, without knocking, like always. “Y/n you left without- Y/n…” You dropped the bottle and spilled it all over you. “Luz! I’m… sorry.” Suddenly you felt lightheaded. Wow, that worked faster than expected. Luz yelled “Y/n!” That was the last thing you heard before you passed out.

The next thing you knew you were in the hospital. Your vision was blurry but you could make out Eda, Luz, and King sitting near the end of the bed. “Guys.” You said weakly. The group snapped their heads towards you. “They’re awake!” King yelled. “Shhh.” Eda shushed him, “But it is nice to see you up.” “How long was I out?” “A few hours.” Luz said, “So… Is there anything you want to tell Eda and King?” ��You haven’t?” “It’s your choice if you want to,” Luz said, looking at the ground.

You open your mouth to speak but the words wouldn’t come out. “I was- trying to… kill myself.” You regret the words as they came out. Eda and King’s eyes winded. “I’m so sorry kiddo…” That was all Eda managed to get out. King crawled onto your hospital bed and hugged you gently. Eda placed her hand on your shoulder. “We’ll help you through this, no matter what.”

[rosey100]

Just thought I'd draw some roses 💐

Some Rose inspired by @kazzykatt 's aus

Wanted

Brair

23

🩶💣🐈‍⬛🌒

I closely based on Loona from Helluva Boss and Batgirl/Barbara but with a black market father who sold her and her parakeet for "a check up" and has never been adopted once growing up. By the time she runs away at 17, Bair survives whatever is needed to steal, sells scams, everything for money to even get some fries or a small place to stay till she makeshift a shed from an abandoned train. She adapted skills and knowledge to make it where if it were making distractions or trying not to get caught by anybody, whether they were a dog fighter or police she can a brothel paunch the light bulbs out of them easy and also has some special effects from the check up let just say no one can't make this up but nobody will believe it.

Her personality is mostly cold, and she can be a bit stubborn and harsh, but she is understanding, bold, outgoing, convincent, and sociable. She is a very smart (street smart) and calculated too. Brair mainly cut off, showing her emotions or physical even her weakness in life are off limits and her feelings are merely closed off to everyone who meets her but she might well threatening people if they give off her the wrong way.

Can things get more crazy for her life(the answer is yes) on her regular " business" routes to a factory to give someone "a simple pack", but things got too fresh with that and she had to go in the place to get the money she was going for leaving the client outside while going in with his lab coat. Managin to get caught by fixing her looks and going through the vents to get to the locker. After getting the money, she stumbled into an explosive sound of glass breaking and birds chirping? Not wanting to be nosey she kept walking towards the exit and go home but curiosity had other plans, peeping in the lab she started to see two dudes trashed the whole room beyond prepare and Brair was mostly known the situation too well on why. The site of motion of the two men usually motive that she heard about and her knowledge of the is entire area suspected of starting animal testing for their products it was no surprise why two people wanted for their crimes to come in the factory to make damage and let out some animals that were almost ready to be tested on. As fate had it she was caught by the two men and she didn't have any cover up leaving her expose to a whole, got even more worse when someone caught all of them ran out to call cops but got " knocked out ".Let's just say no one knew what to do except run the fu#k out of there as fast as possible (but now without a few animals or more), and before that, a security guard came in front of her asking why she was doing in the factory hall realized she had no disguise she was about to going to the head office while the bros were almost free til the guard grab her wrist, turned around and saw them mid of escape. When he was about to alert the cops, the guy lost consciousness as Brair's teeth slowly vemon enough to tranquilize him, as all three of them ran out while throw another ball of dynamic on the roof for a distraction.

Apocalipsis

Rosa

18 ?

🦴🧫⚔️🐦‍🔥

She is the first child who came to the chew somehow at 3 y/o alive of terror and chaos. The group was not in the most likely position to even be able to look after themselves, let alone an three year old nearly covered in bl00d that is not her own( Mero almost thought of dangled her off the roof but decided to not go with it calling her Edge for awhile before changing her name 🫣) but kept her knowing the Threats outside the Tortuga so far she was kept in a room for safety measures. Rosa may have been grateful for the hospitality spake that she would leave if she had anywhere to go anyway, and that when everyone else knew things definitely changed.

Life may not be sunshine and rainbows, but she can picture a good glimpse of the life that could be. Some may think she is a defenseless wallflower jokes on them she's a beast and a wild and dangerous one at moments of disaster comes at the door, one time in particular when she was playing with some rocks and a hyena came in the room seamlessly fear wasn't coming into mind was is gruesome, by the time Mero come in to see a red splatter room and a little girl holding out a detach head in front of them bl00d covered mouth.. chewing whatever face it had (no amount was wasted that day).

Ro is pretty smart and observative even at a young age but mostly less humanly emotionally than the chew suspected that she would be growing up, though it could be the isolation and the small notion of the chew (besides Collin)tolerance of just keeping her alive. Maybe she's a small bit they had to deal with or was a bitter reminder of the past either way she knows all too well about faces, meaning that knowledge every single feature is clear to her without even a word and she can prevent any attacks from any animal even without falls through it took a lot of practice and scratches.

Xverse

Aose

20

👩🏽‍🎨⛓️‍💥🪆🪢

She was a new art school sophomore student who was bubbly, full of ambition ( I got inspired by Harley Quinn and characters like her)and who mightily have known she'd been followed by who came in her dorm that night. She had calls last at night, random creepy notes on her desk, dead flower buds at her door, and by then, it had gotten worse as she'd grown a bit more paranoid before the day happened

She has burd and badly missing memories about the night she was kidnapped. She's kind of has half of memories of her fighting off someone to the ground, but something hit her head, and nowadays, it was just a rain cloud painting, a broken bottle, and yellow eyes? Her mind is still in a blur due to that night and nothing else. In one incident, a test was performed in where she was injected with something, and she was in room full with endless supplies of medications. She was more concerned with what the results of the injection than whatever medicinal effects it could cause. It didn't really help when her body (she was unconscious) laying on the floor shaking when she came to half of her facial and physical form was unrecognizable and that,she looked down at her hands now in chains and hread a voice say "it was for her own good". Enraged with everything that happened, she started at whaling and screaming in on the top of her lungs. Asking what happened to deserve this? She started hitting the walls even if her hands were blooded, but they didn't, then someone came in-and-in a fit of rage. Sheet, you didn't know what happened. But for everyone else, all they saw was the dead body. At least her hands were somewhat free, but her mental state cracked, and since then, she always had a smile on her face.

The effects of the medicines mix in her did much more to a physical form, but a somewhat form, she started to become more aggressive and feisty when five stronger people have to force her to the task room, become more faster on her own two feet even if she ran on broken glass or lava, annihilated a whole steel table in minutes using one hand and her hearing is Is almost third percent of naturally hearing in a more normal human way and because of the incident she grew more tolerant any pain since.

Trottamundoss

Rosita

25?

🪷🎀❤️‍🔥🩰

For what I can say about her: she's mixed with Pinkie pie's personality, golden retriever vides, and a dash of calm blanket of 60's flower power in a large bowl and I throw it in a garden bed ( but sprinkling some thorns in the mix so) and the rest is sun baked for a while. Mostly sweet, bubbly, fun-loving, graceful, cheerful, and smiling girl with a heart of gold 💛

What I think she likes is that it's basically enjoying sunny days, music, friendly company, walks in parks, blowing bubbles, playing with the critters, dancing in the field, etc. ( Gosh, bless her, I made a fu#king deer). I also think that since she likes a big pile of wholesome, Rosita is very good at 🥁 air flying (yes believe it) where she can find a high place dropped herself off and she can just float in the air kinda like a dandelion but without the process of dying just float for long time till she finds a place to lands on

Defenseless as she is for a lot of would take their chances for the kill, but don't think she's knows her opponents will do, that why this little ray of sunshine can burn you when she exposes her bristles that gives a temporarily painful experience for anyone who came to harm her or anyone who seems to be in danger. There's something else she can bo where if she's surrounded , she could spin round liking one of those ballet moves and could just throw up thorns from all of her hair and body and we strike people down like a russian ballet dan throw loose throwing stars at the same time dancing, Also turns into a pack of flowers. FYI

Space

Rosaclipse

12

🪐🌠🩷🤓

Something happened... something weird happened the day she was born, a long solar eclipse happened and let just say no one survived except her a small, crying, defenseless slime baby who was just hungry and had no idea what happened(or at least that what was said), No one know what happened, whether it was a monster that came in or at a sessionation assassination or anything if for some reason, they left her alone and alive for what . Basically, with bodies who they might believe were her parents. But no one knows since no one couldn't tell since everything was covering like some weird acid. But did not come from her as a baby.. Luckily, she would be in good hands after a long time looking for a good home and have no knowledge of her past, but figured that good for her.

She has been a working experience for almost anyone who's currently knows her, at most shy, fearful, very docile, but is smart,kindhearted, and free spirit. It was between trust and people in general for her. Basically, just being nervous about strangers and having to talk about her to caretakers was hard before she warmed up to them, but that aside is just a sweet, loving star hiding behind the clouds. Ro is also really smart, like her IQ sore would be higher for even university professors to quit and let her take their jobs saying fu#k it.

Ro could do more than just floating all over the place, and being a smart cookie, she actually runs super fast though not much light speed fast but it's hardly anything can catch her so that good right. Also she gives off electricity her can subtract thousands of debris and other times where if you shake her a bit she glow 100% natural light from her own body just like that nobody knew till they found her upside down on the floor just shining bright 🌟. She has been doing well at teleconesis she a little shy about showing that, but she is good at it

Wild school

Rosalie

21

🐺🎆🕵🏽‍♀️🏍

She's Jade from Victorious, but softer and "secretly" a sweet pea holding a "Don't try me B!cth til I have my coffee " coffee mug with a small breeze of Belle from Beauty and the Beast (but not in the whole stockholm syndrome thing ) so she can be a bookworm as well.

It is no surprise that her background is a mystery. Besides, she was just transferred to the principal's understandings, but there are times when rumors may progress in the mix is almost a theory, and Ro could never care less than a ferrell cat in the middle of fu*king traffic😑. Besides, it's not like she's there for "something else" or something magical, just some good ol' learning is all

Rosalie isn't really social, it can be on for mostly any type of gathering or parties, that she would be forced to go to but as long as you don't underestimate her or judge her for anything( She checked a whole gallop mix of Spite and cocktail mix while filling knives for darts all in the center at the same time for being call a whimp of a female and no one can't say sh!t to her without being out did 🎯 no joke ) you think on the top of your head. Her own willpower can be quite terrifying, especially when her really knows what the situation she could be in, whether it's deadly round house kick a door down closed by some bratty girls or kicking some jeck's ego down on a flirting attempt while Tempting her for a few drinks plus she can read body language real good and surprisingly excellent fighting skills.

[clunelover]

In the past couple weeks I've gone from "I guess I have some autistic traits but there's so much overlap with ADHD and PTSD etc, it doesn't really matter" to "I'm convinced I have autism, and that my mom and sister (the one who was also born of mom) do too, and it explains so much!!!"

A few pieces just clicked into place all of a sudden. Seeing more ways in which I am similar to my autistic son. And reading some comment on r/raisedbynarcissists saying "undiagnosed autism and ADHD can turn into personality disorders later" and being like "that can't be true and makes no sense" - but then I ran it by BFF and she said "it's a good theory - a major factor in developing a personality disorder is having your needs unmet as a child, and that's something that commonly happens to undiagnosed/misunderstood neurodiverse kids."

I started thinking about how my personality-disordered mom (and all her siblings) were FOR SURE neglected as kids (always good to be ambivalent towards children and then have seven of them! Go Catholicism). My mom's stories about herself as a kid always cast her as a weird outcast loner (some of which was exacerbated by her mom's rules - like, her mom couldn't be washing laundry for 9 people changing clothes every day, so my mom and her siblings had school clothes and play clothes, and it was expected that, barring some major stain, they'd wear one set of school clothes for a whole week - but other kids will notice and tease you if you seem to always wear the same clothes!!). She had one particular story, about these imaginary creatures that she invented, and felt like she could see them and commune with them. They were called Beesies, and she would have to crouch down to be able to talk to them, and her parents were unkind about seeing her crouching and talking nonsense to things that weren't there. So, I think that speaks powerfully to both the neglect/loneliness, and perhaps the vivid fantasy life of an autistic person.

When I was in my 20s, my mom got diagnosed with ADD, and at the time I was very dismissive. I thought she had just scammed her way into a diagnosis so she could get adderall and use/abuse it for its appetite suppressant effects. But now I'm like, "no, she was thrilled about that side effect, but I think she did actually have ADD...and quite possibly autism, and actually I think I have both of those too."

Then last piece of this (sister piece) came into focus on 4th of July. I told my sister BYOB cause I'm off booze hopefully for good. She sent an oddly formal reply - something like "I know it's generally considered poor form and overly personal to ask someone why they're not drinking, but can I ask you anyway?" I thought, "okay, what in the rigidly-defined-communication-rules hell?!" I just said "hey you're my sister, you can ask stuff like that!" and then explained why. (Oh and there's a whole other post I could write about all three of us probably using alcohol to cope/mask symptoms...BUT ANYWAY). So then, during 4th of July, my stepdad/her dad tells this story about her as a kid, at one of her birthday parties, where he had set up pin the tail on the donkey for the kids to play, and my sister apparently just DID NOT get it - "why would I wear a blindfold to try to find out where to put the tail? I already know where to put the tail." And then people were trying to explain it to her - "see, it's funny, cause when you can't see, you put the tail somewhere else"...etc. And apparently she said, "why would it be funny to be wrong?" I either hadn't been at this party or didn't remember it, so hearing that was a real eureka moment - OH MY GOD, we're all fucking autistic!!

Oh also, she was a very serious baby who appeared to be puzzled or frowning often, and didn't really laugh, and we all just thought this was funny at the time...omg, more signs!

So anyway, this is totally recasting my thought about my sister's lack of emotional expansiveness, and how I am always getting my feelings hurt by it! We are possibly both autistic people, each with marked, but different and sometimes even conflicting, communication difficulties. No wonder there are so many misunderstandings and unsatisfied expectations, etc.

IDK I have so many more thoughts and memories I'm recontextualizing, I could go on, but in any case I'm very eager for my therapist to return from vacation in a couple weeks so we can discuss!!

[yakultii]

Well, just a normal question. I don't want to bother haha

What would be the most awkward moment you've had when traveling (in your country or abroad?

hahaha this is such a good question !! … god knows there’s probably been so many but at the same time I’m such an awkward person in general to the point that I feel no shame about almost anything and it would be awkward for the other person to feel awkward bc it’s too far gone/I tend to make other ppl feel comfortable being their weird awkward selves around me or so I’ve been told !! I’ve communicated w so many diff ppl even when there has been a total language barrier and I’ve found that laughter overcomes just about any barrier even ones u wouldn’t expect :,) …now if we are gonna speak about moments that I cringe at a little looking back it would probably be when I coulda had me a Swiss gf by now but my brain was hella lagging and I was talking ab my ex fml I SAW the shift in her facial expressions and it was over LOLOL actually it wasn’t over cos she planned for us to meet up again like 9 months later in my city cos she was about to go home earlier than expected and I was too mentally ill to get outta bed and said I was sick and I think she thought I didn’t like her again but anyway turns out she was going home early to be admitted in the mental hospital for the next yr so maybe we had too much in common anyways miss her love her she’s so pretty hope she’s doin better …OR maybe my first time in Bali I got completely scammed and stalked except I knew it was happening before it happened but I almost always travel on my own so I was like ehhh oh well rite of passage and let them take my money lmao idiot :,) also not an awkward moment but a kinda funny moment was in jakarta this random old guy was like can I have ur shoes for my daughter and I was like yeah sure (cos I was going home the next day and I had just bought a cheap kmart pair before leaving aus) and so I literally took em off my feet and gave them to him in the middle of nowhere LMAO. OMG actually I just remembered a kinda awkward situation one time at airlie beach I was also on my own.. I had no card on me cos it was on my phone on Apple Pay, my phone had died like permanently because I got sand and water in it on an island and even the charger wouldn’t bring it back to life and it was night and I had to check in to a hotel within like the next 30 mins before they shut their office (it was like a hotel connected to the owners house) which I needed my phone for google maps cos I had no idea where it was and needed to pay them also and also had my plane ticket to go home the next day digitally on my phone, also hadn’t eaten all day and couldn’t buy food it was a disaster and I was running up literal hills to find this hotel and asking random people on the street and almost in tears and out of breathe and I finally got there like 2 mins before closing time and I had to like convince the owners to let me stay there overnight and let me pay in the morning bc my phone was broken and they were kinda cranky about it and by some miracle my phone turned on at like 2% and wouldn’t charge anymore the next morning but I was up and awake super early like 5am bc I was so hungry so I thought I’d go get breakfast and then come back before I checked out and then on my way to breakfast I ran into the owner of the hotel and it looked like I was scamming them omg

omg this also made me think of on that same trip to Airlie beach I was literally walking for a few km back to my accomm one night cos it was on the outskirts of town and it was in the dark already and my phone had died (this was before it fully broke it was just flat or maybe I just had no reception I don’t remember) I suck at directions and can never retrace my steps and I was just vibing and I thought I had to walk through these rich ass houses and ppl were driving out for a night out so the gate had just opened so I walked right in… uhhh turns out it was like a lil gated community type vibe which was a dead end.. so I turn around and the gate is fully automated locked up behind me like the highest fence like 3X my height with all those spikes on top of it..like noone was around to ask to open it and it was pitch black and I was on my own I was like fuck I’m not getting out of here but luckily I’m literally a ninja and somehow managed to climb up over the fence with all the security cameras looking at me I was like omg I’m gonna be on the news it looked so suss hahahahagot stabbed a lil bit but mostly it was overruled by relief and I jogged the rest of the way home literally through the bush land bro it was a scary time AHAHA …but not as scary as when I was stuck 5kms out in open sand dunes in a thunder lightening storm or on the edge of a muddy cliff in a rainforest inside a mini bus as we had to use human balance to get one person out at a time before the bus slipped down lmao ..ok none of these were awkward but I had to think cos I don’t remember nothing ever im sure some much crazier shit has occurred idek what I’ve done in this life actually I’m starting to remember many things I have so many travel stories none rlly awkward tho that’s just not a concept for me :,)

[seldarinestrumpet]

Yeina (My Tav) dump

So Yeina is a bard, proficient in lute, and a charlatan by background.

They lived in a Seldarine drow city in the Underdark where they had a little ring that ran scams, on people who could definitely afford it. Yeina never did anything heroic before getting thrust into the middle of the whole Druid/Goblin/Tiefling conflict, but they also never did anything heinous, either. Not that they were above killing to protect their people.

At some point, one of said people got themselves in over their head and Yeina stuck their neck out for them and they ended up having to go up to the surface while things cooled off, which is the point at which they got tentacle-tapped by the Nautiloid.

Yeina has only had a couple of relationships that could be considered serious. They've had a lot of relationships, many of them non-monogamous, most of them ethically so. But they're guilty of not always being 100% above board in their romantic dealings.

Astarion pulls the knife on them and they have two immediate thoughts. "Shit, fam, this guy's trying to kill me" and "shit, fam, this is the prettiest person I've ever seen." As soon as the situation smooths over, their thoughts immediately turn to "I would really really like to sleep with this dude."

They fight a couple of battles together and a sense of trust begins to develop, but as they converse with people like Zevlor and Kagha and Astarion makes his preferences known, they're also turned off by the streak in him that they see as unnecessarily cruel. It becomes a source of internal conflict for them, "Am I drunk enough on how pretty and darkly funny and good at stabbing this dude is to still be attracted to him even though he has some truly repugnant views of the world?"

Then they wake up in the middle of the night with him leaning over them, fangs bared, and he gives them the puppy eyes about needing thinking blood, and the caregiver instinct that got them in trouble looking out for the dumber members of their crew jumps to the front and they're like, oh, my poor darling, here, go ahead. And that bonds them in a way neither of them really expected it to.

The final nail in the "I can be rational about this" coffin comes when they find out what Cazador did to him and at that point it becomes, "Ok, fuck THAT guy, definitely killing him." It doesn't excuse Astarion's cruelty in their eyes, but it places it in a wider context, and now that they definitely care about him, they're willing to accept that part of him, at least temporarily, for better or worse.

And the more glimpses of who he could be they catch, the more they come to believe in the Astarion he eventually proves he is when he refuses to ascend - a version of himself capable of selflessness, of compassion for others. A version of himself that can own the way he's been suppressing his empathy as a survival mechanism even after he no longer needs to.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #288: HEAVY METAL!

February, 1988

"When Wakes THE SENTRY SINISTER!”

The Avengers are dealing with a lot of old robots lately.

Super-Adaptoid, the Awesome Android, and now the Kree Sentry-459.

Almost like its a theme, of some sort.

Or maybe the Super-Adaptoid is just lonely and is trying to make friends with other robots.

Maybe if he had better role models, he’d be a good guy?

So of what happened previously: during the Masters of Evil attack on Avengers Mansion, Super-Adaptoid got out of capsule captivity and changed places with the Fixer.

In guise of the Fixer, he got captured and sent to jail but broke out because the Fixer’s gear had a failsafe that mind-controlled some poor schmuck named Todd Martin.

The Fixer-Adaptoid tried to retrieve the Awesome Android but took off when the Avengers showed up. The Avengers fought the Android and She-Hulk defeated him by punching him in the armpit.

Next, the Fixer-Adaptoid went to meet with the Fixer’s old pal, Mentallo, and tortured him to lure the Avengers out. The Avengers survived the boobytrapped villain lair and rescued Mentallo but by that point the Fixer-Adaptoid was meeting with Machine Man.

Which brings us to now. Maybe Machine Man will be a good influence on the Adaptoid?

Or maybe the Adaptoid will be a bad influence on Machine Man.

Aaron “Machine Man” Stack doesn’t need a lot of prodding to be an asshole, let’s be honest.

So Fixermentallo-Adaptoid (yes, that red and goatee is because he absorbed Mentallo’s powers too) and Machine Man arrive at a BIG TOURIST ATTRACTION! in the Texas Panhandle.

Where people can SEE THE AMAZING GIANT ROBOT from OUTER SPACE!

There’s some skepticism from some of the tourists.

Not that amazing giant robots from outer space exist. I mean, geez, this is the Marvel universe. Amazing giant robots from outer space are plausible. One of the tourists is prettyyyyy sure that the military has a bunch of aliens in Nevada.

But this? Total scam. Yeah, no way

this thing is a real amazing giant robot from outer space!

Hi, Kree Sentry-459!

You’ve had a long and eventful life to wind up as just a tourist attraction.

There’s actually something charming about that. You’d think that the military or Avengers would haul the sentry off out of the public eye but everyone just left it where it was and some enterprising local made a business out of it being on his property.

Good times.

Well, they were good times.

Because, Machine Man and the Fixermentallo-Adaptoid show up.

They start repairing the Sentry, thanks to the amazing fixing powers of the Fixer and the mental powers of Mentallo.

The stereotypical old Texan man with a gun, beard, and suspenders running this tourist trap tells them to stop fucking with the attraction.

This guy is a treat.

Delightful.

After the two don’t listen to him tellin’ them to amscray, he immediately unloads his gun into the Adaptoid, claiming no jury would convict.

And when the Adaptoid is unscathed this guy is just... baffled. He’s like wait why am I seeing things I’m not drunk, people die when they are killed.

The Adaptoid and Machine Man Aaron just ignore this dude’s comedy stylings entirely.

I feel in a more 90s-ier comic, this dude would be as dead as Farmer With A Shotgun from Dragon Ball but it’s actually funnier that they just give him no attention.

Anyway, they get the gol-durn thing working and the three go traipsing away, on a route the Adaptoid calculated to face the least resistance.

And the dude who ran the amazing giant robot from out of space attraction just loses his mind.

Old Texan Man: “Hey, dadburnit! Get back heah! Ah can’t make no livin’ just ranchin’ this dust pile! Ah got bills tuh pay! What am ah gonna show folks when they come around heah... the spot yuh used’ta be in?! What am ah gonna tell ‘em? The man from Mars plum got up an’ walked hisself away?! Git back heah, yuh ungrateful pile ‘a scrap! Ain’t ah always been good tuh yuh? Ain’t ah always washed an’ scrubbed yuh Saturday night an’ polished yuh up proud fer Sunday visitin’? Answer me, durn yuh! Answer me, yuh big bag ‘a bolts! COME HEAH!”

Supervillains are so insensitive to the plight of the small businessman.

Later, at Hydrobase....

What the fuck.

I...

Okay so I knew a few things about Hydrobase.

But I don’t think I knew that the Avengers moved THE ENTIRE MANSION TO THE ISLAND!

Geez, they’re really going all in on Hydrobase being their new base of operation.

And, hey, this is a way for the new to be tempered with the old. Maybe I’d be more receptive to the Clearly The Last Dungeon In An RPG Avengers Tower if it had the Mansion plopped on top, like how Xanatos Gargoyles did with a castle.

Why the hell does Avengers Tower look like a doom fortress anyway?

Anyway.

Dr Druid comments on what a momentous occasion this is and says that its a shame that nobody is videotaping the moment.

Captain Marvel clearly takes this as a passive aggressive jab.

Captain Marvel: “As leader of the Avengers, doctor, you know I’ve had a great many things on my mind -- the least of which was filming this occasion. Please stop questioning my every move.”

Here here. Hear hear? Whichever.

Dr Druid says he meant no offense. But he would say that, wouldn’t he? -squints suspiciously-

But Black Knight arrives on his Atomic Steed with news! Literal news! A literal news clipping from an actual newspaper!

My god!

So, this is how superheroes get their leads.

I joke but I like the worldbuilding detail of the Avengers having an off-panel support staff of people paid to read every newspaper for stuff that the Avengers might need to deal with.

Wonder if I could get that job. I can read. I can cut paper with scissors.

I also like that when Dane says he has news, the first thing Captain Marvel wants to know is whether its about Captain America. Good to see that she’s still on that plot thread.

Anyway, a small Texas newspaper printed a story with a picture of Machine Man, the Super-Adaptoid, and the Kree Sentry.

It’s the lead on the Super-Adaptoid that the Avengers have been waiting for!

And I remain shocked that news media is the Avengers’ best leads on supervillain activity. I know that the government cut them off but... Uh. I don’t know how I was going to finish this sentence. I guess I don’t really think about how superheroes get their leads. Spider-Man just swings around, I guess. The Avengers watch the news and have people clipping articles. Hmmm... that makes the X-Men the most fantastical in terms of superhero teams because at least they use a psychic helmet to get leads...

Captain Marvel draws a line between the data points and notices that the Super-Adaptoid is recruiting other robots. And its enough of a lead to investigate.

Black Knight says that they should just track down the Adaptoid, find out that way. Captain Marvel expects that the Adaptoid will probably lead a cold trail so it might not be worth chasing their tails until they have a better idea of what he’s up to. Dr Druid suggests that since the Adaptoid went after Mentallo, maybe the robot pattern isn’t a pattern at all.

And Black Knight re-suggests that Captain Marvel should go to Texas to check out the trail since she can get there at literally the speed of light.

While she’s gone, she orders Dr Druid and Black Knight to pull up all the files the Avengers have on super-robots and androids. Get started on that lead.

And then she nyooms away.

As she flies, she ponders how frustrated she is about this Super-Adaptoid situation. How he escaped in a truck while the Avengers were busy with the Awesome Android.

Meanwhile, Machine Man, the Super-Adaptoid, and the Kree Sentry walk along the Grand Canyon.

Machine Man suggests that maybe they should hijack an airplane. Because the Sentry is really slowing them down by being unable to fly.

The Adaptoid doesn’t really answer his concern. Just says that they’ve got an additional stop before New York.

Machine Man reminds himself that he’s doing this for Jocasta and wonders if humans would find it weird that a robot can love.

And then he gets philosophical.

Machine Man: “Adaptoid, are you familiar with how baffling the concept of robotic life is to most of humanity... yet, how pervasive the idea of the machine is in aspects of many cultures? I’ve read extensively -- It’s startling how humans see themselves so often in machine-like terms. In 1662, the philosopher Descartes, published DeHomine, a theory of man and animals as machines. He even made a theoretical model of a mechanical man -- like me. By the beginning of the 20th century, every major model for the explanation of human behavior was mechanical. Darwin even used the machine model for evolution. Newton saw the universe in mechanistic terms -- like an unwinding clockwork. The humans refer to their most advanced societies as the most mechanized. It’s fascinating.”

Super-Adaptoid: “Have your vast readings on the subject led you to any practical conclusions?”

Machine Man: “Practical? I read only to learn -- to discover what it is I am. Knowledge is its own reward.”

Super-Adaptoid: “Then, in truth, your time was ill-spent, for your knowledge has brought you nothing.”

Wow.

He just listened to Aaron’s entire speech and then told him he was an idiot for not focusing on more practical things.

Super-Adaptoid is pretty incurious about the arts, I guess.

Anyway, Captain Monica Marvel returns to Hydrobase and oh wow!

Look at this new Situation Room for the Avengers!

Its huge! Possibly unnecessarily huge!

Rooms in Avengers Mansion tended to shift between appearances. But meeting rooms, communication rooms, computer rooms... they tended be cramped more than cavernous. Having to fit everything under a mansion that wasn’t originally intended to be a superhero base will do that.

I guess Hydrobase gives them more room to work.

Captain Marvel reports that the trail in Texas had run cold, as she feared. And she wouldn’t know the Super-Adaptoid if she ran into him since he can change his appearance.

But at least while she was gone, Dr Druid and Black Knight have been busy pulling up information on all the robots and androids in the Avengers’ files.

Lotta robots.

Aww... poor Jocasta.

Captain Marvel asks if its necessary to bring up information on destroyed robots but Dr Druid says its better safe than sorry.

AND Y’KNOW. MONICA. The Adaptoid reactivated the Kree Sentry. So maybe don’t discount the possibility that he’d fix a robot considered destroyed?

Black Knight tells her that the most likely suspects are Ultron, TESS-One, Machine Man (womp womp), and the Sentinels.

So she calls an Avengers meeting to go over what they know with the Avengers who haven’t been on research duty.

New meeting room!

My god. Everyone has elbow room. But there’s no icons on the chairs. Kind of a mixed bag in terms of an improvement.

Chair icons are top tier as a superhero base design element. So goofy, yet so charming.

Anyway, Captain Marvel splits the Avengers between the various deactivated robots/possible targets of the Adaptoid.

Dr Druid and Black Knight will investigate TESS-One. I’m reading on marvelpedia that Tess-One was a prototype super-soldier hunting robot greenlit by FDR out of fear that an army of super-soldiers might return home from the war and take over the country.

Wow, they really didn’t trust their boys in blue, white, red, and cowl.

But when Professor Erskine was killed after making only one super-soldier (Captain America, duh), FDR decided ‘why the hell am I funding this?’

Anyway, the scientist creating TESS-One decided to take the project home and finish it on his own terms and also program it to kill Captain America. As ya do.

Anyway.

Namor and She-Hulk will look into the Sentinels in Washington DC.

And since the West Coast Avengers (specifically Wonder Man) destroyed Ultron most recently, Captain Marvel has asked them to take care of that.

Marinna is on Operation: Stay at Hydrobase because she’s not an Avenger and Monica isn’t about to be responsible for her safety.

Namor gets mad and says that only he decides whether his wife has to stay out of danger or not!

This time Marrina tells him that its fine, they should listen to the team leader.

And She-Hulk, being She-Hulk, thinks ‘oh sweet, alone time with Namor.’

God dammit, Jen.

While everyone is doing what she told them to be doing, Captain Marvel will investigate the robots marked destroyed.

If anyone sees that Adaptoid, contact Hydrobase.

As everyone leaves to their tasks, Captain Monica has some private doubts.

Captain Marvel: Yeah. Good luck. Sure wish Captain America would come back to us. I don’t know if I’m cutting it with these folks. I seem to be going through the motions of leadership. I’m not sure I believe it any more than I think they do.

Hmm.

I should talk a little about this.

So in the upcoming future, Captain Marvel’s tenure as chairwoman of the Avengers is gonna end so that Captain America can be leader again. This was an editorial mandate from Mark Gruenwald, who did quite like Captain America.

Writer Stern agreed to make this change but drew the line at Gruenwald’s insistence that Monica be shown as incompetent as chairwoman, to justify Cap(tain America) taking over.

This is likely why last issue was the end of Stern’s run.

Yes. Right in the middle of a story. Ralph Macchio and Mark Gruenwald handle the rest of the story. And then Walt Simonson’s run starts.

(Spoilers: Which does indeed end Monica’s leadership and her superhero career for a time. And leads to the Avengers breaking up. Fucks sake, Simonson or Gruenwald.)

So all this recent stuff about Monica feeling like she isn’t suited to lead the Avengers or other characters thinking badly of her... I have to wonder whether it was intended to be part of whatever is going on with Dr Druid. Or editorial pressure to undermine Monica as a character.

Quite a bad look for Gruenwald.

So if this is the beginning of the end, I will say that Monica has done a good job so far as a competent if believably green team leader.

ANYWAY.

Black Knight and Dr Druid, who is here for some reason, arrive at an air force base in the Midwest.

They don’t have the special priority clearance, since the government is still mad about Vision trying to take over the world, so in order to get clearance to land, they faked engine trouble.

Then, in order to get the soldiers to let them see TESS-One, Dr Druid uses his vast MENTAL POWERS to Jedi mind trick the soldiers.

Under the influence of his MENTAL POWERS, the soldiers load TESS-One onto the Quinjet and then the Avengers take off with the deactivated anti-super-soldier robot.

Black Knight is worried that the soldiers will snap out of it and try to shoot them down but Dr Druid reassures him.

Dr Druid: “You see, the military mind is quite used to receiving orders, therefore, they are sometimes more susceptible to commands than the undisciplined mind.”

Black Knight: “You don’t say.”

Black Knight also points out that Captain Marvel wanted them to watch TESS-One where it was, not bring it back to Hydrobase.

Dr Druid: “Hmmph, she lacked foresight in this matter. What were we to do -- stay on the Air Force base until the Super-Adaptoid attacked? She will see that we did right.”

Then they lose control of the Quinjet and Black Knight is forced into an emergency landing.

Black Knight tells Dr Druid to send a message to Captain Marvel that they may be under attack by the Adaptoid but Druid refuses.

Dr Druid: “Uhh -- Perhaps the ship has malfunctioned naturally. We mustn’t turn in a false report. We need evidence.”

Then the Kree Sentry tears open the Quinjet.

HOW DOES BEING WRONG TASTE, DOCTOR?

The Kree Sentry pulls Black Knight out of the Quinjet but he uses his extremely cursed sword to lop off its hand.

Unfortunately, its still holding on tight, forcing him to very awkwardly cut himself free finger by finger since if the sword draws any blood, the curse will overwhelm him.

Its such an awkward position which requires so much focus, that Black Knight can’t keep his cape from leaking into his thought bubble.

I’m sorry colorist Max Scheele. You don’t deserve me mocking coloring errors thirty-six years later. And yet.

Dr Druid tries to levitate away from the Super-Adaptoid but can’t outpace the robot’s jetpack.

So he changes tactics and uses his MENTAL POWERS to summon illusions of Thor and Namor.

Which has no effect on the Super-Adaptoid.

Super-Adaptoid: “Hah! Such parlor tricks, doctor! An all-encompassing intellect such as mine -- cannot possibly be fooled by these phantasms! I see through them -- beyond them -- as no other brain on Earth could!”

That having failed too, Dr Druid concedes that he needs to send a message to Captain Marvel but he can’t do it if he isn’t given room to concentrate.

Over with Black Knight, he’s finished cutting himself free of the Sentry’s hand. Only for Machine Man to show up with snark.

Machine Man: “Well, I’d give you a big hand for that performance -- but it seems as if you’ve gotten one already!”

Womp womp!

Seeing that Machine Man is on the Adaptoid’s side, Black Knight doesn’t waste any time. He immediately swings his sword to decapitate Machine Man.

Unfortunately, Machine Man can just decapitate himself to avoid the blow and then pummels Black Knight with his detachable fist.

Huh. I thought Machine Man had stretchy telescoping limbs... not ones that popped off.

Anyway, Black Knight has a bad time.

He has a bad time and then he gets smooshed by the Kree Sentry.

Meanwhile, Dr Druid gets chocked out by the Super-Adaptoid. Insult to injury, the Adaptoid also copies his MENTAL POWERS, adding them to his repertoire alongside Mentallo’s.

Since the Fixermentallo-Adaptoid already had a beard, is he going to get Druid’s mustache? Or his bald head? I demand that he change shape for every power he absorbs.

Dr Druid manages, with his last bit of consciousness, to send a psychic distress signal toward Hydrobase. According to the narration. Except it really goes to a cave in Northern Florida where Captain Marvel is.

Make up your mind, Druid.

Anyway.

Where Captain Marvel is is in a small cave melting the Doomsday Man.

He was already destroyed but can’t hurt to melt him into a puddle.

Fix that, Fixer-Adaptoid!

But as she turns to light and nyooms away, Dr Druid’s psychic distress call arrives a micro-second too late and hits the slag.

This raises a lot of questions about how psychic powers work!

Like... I pictured it more like brains are senders and receivers. So a psychic signal wouldn’t go to a geographic location, it’d go to a brain.

The psychic signal does follow after Captain Marvel so maybe it is homing in on her brain. But the signal missing her and hitting where she was threw me into a confusion.

When Monica arrives at the Avengers Situation Room, she hears a faint voice but dismisses it as her imagination.

Womp womp.

Back at where Dr Druid is being choked out by the Super-Adaptoid, the Super-Adaptoid finishes choking him out. Although, the robot actually claims he used the combined Druid-Mentallo psychic powers to besiege his mind.

Feels unnecessary if you were already choking him out but I guess he wanted to flex on Druid. Completely understandable.

With Dr Druid and Black Knight out of commission, the Super-Adaptoid tells Machine Man to get rid of them.

Machine Man flies off with them.

Later, Captain Marvel, Namor, and She-Hulk meet in the Situation Room. The government actually cooperated with the two Avengers, telling them all the Sentinels were accounted for and promising to alert them if anything happens to their Sentinel storage area.

Since Dr Druid and Black Knight didn’t report in, Captain Marvel flies off to go check on them.

Nyoom.

Just missing their torn-open Quinjet arriving on Hydrobase.

The Super-Adaptoid, Machine Man, Kree Sentry, and TESS-One used it to get to Hydrobase without setting off the artificial island’s defenses.

Super-Adaptoid: “But the time for stealth is past. We are here to conquer, not skulk! This island is ours! I, the Adaptoid, claim it in the name of HEAVY METAL!”

Aw, that’s cute. He gave his new friend group a name.

Follow @essential-avengers​ if you like heavy metal or any genre of music. Like and reblog if you have neutral to positive feelings about music. Or about this post!

[cloudwhisper23]

I've been wondering, do you have any ocs (other than fnaf ocs)? I've never seen you talk about them, do you have an orignal story that involves them? If so, do you have a favourite oc? I'd love to hear about them :0 (If you don't have any ocs, feel free to ignore this, I just assumed so because of the post you recently reblogged, haha TTwTT)

I do have a bunch of other ocs outside of fnaf! I'm just so deep in fnaf brainrot right now that I've probably only ever mentioned my other ocs like once or twice ever on this blog, but rest assured, they do exist

Currently I have three original stories in the making; each with their own set of wonderful characters. I have a somewhat dystopian story that has two main characters named Hunter and Trixx. Hunter is basically an assassin, and she only does it in order to protect her younger brother. Her reputation keeps them safe and all that. Trixx is really good at reading people. Or rather, he got good at reading people after his family was betrayed, leaving him to assume his entire family is dead. Despite the betrayals he's had in the past, Trixx is very reliable to those he considers trustworthy. The story itself centralizes around Hunter's younger brother getting kidnapped. She and Trixx team up to rescue him.

The second big story I have involves a somewhat realistic scenario. It exists more to help me practice normal interactions, while also helping me practice my restraint (because Lord knows how bad I am at not killing off characters). It focuses on four main characters: Max, Dakota, Coraline, and Sam. Max is the legal guardian of Dakota and Caroline (twin sisters), and he finds Sam out in the rain one day and just brings him home. It's hard to explain in a more general post like this, but I might be able to find my old notes somewhere and just post them on Tumblr at some point. The main storyline is mostly Sam trying to figure out where he fits into the world, without the pressures his parents kept trying to place on him. Sam ran away from home and was homeless until Max and his family took him in.

The third story hasn't had much proper work done to it yet. It's a science-fiction sort of thing, with a mix of fantasy thrown in there. The main character is an alien from another planet just trying to learn more about the planet he landed on. Problem is, one of the species that lives there does not trust the idea of aliens (human parallel, since we never tend to like unexpected new things). He ends up spending time in the forest with nymphs, and this whole situation starts a war. The main ocs from this one are Peregrine and Amaya. Peregrine being the alien explorer who now needs to find a way home, and Amaya being the main guide who helps him survive his experiences on the unfamiliar planet.

I am very much one to pick favorites when it comes to characters, especially when creating a new story. I'd say Trixx, Sam, and Amaya are my favorites from the aforementioned stories above, so I'll try to go more in-depth about them.

Trixx is not actually named Trixx. He determined rather quickly after his older sister Kristen was kidnapped (and is now presumed dead), that knowing something that intimate is dangerous. Trixx is actually named James. He decided on the name Trixx as an alias, so that the main gang controlling the city wouldn't realize he was the same kid whose older sister was a member of a rebellion of sorts. He worked hard on his ability to pick up on tiny gestures and expressions people would make in conversation, learning to read people like open books. Trixx uses this skill in his chosen field, selling information and secrets to anyone interested in the information. He develops a fondness for Hunter when she starts using him consistently as a source for information, and the fact that she never tries to cheat him doesn't hurt either. Trixx is sometimes known to outright lie about information if he believes he's being manipulated or scammed, so people do their best to stay in his good graces. Even then, he knows how to read their body language, and he'll end up scraping information out of the people he's selling information to.

Sam is the younger of two children. His mother is a well-off dentist, and his father is a high-paid lawyer. His older sister Emma is a doctor, and his family expects him to follow in their footsteps. Sam does not know what he wants to do with his life. He's used to all these expectations, so he tries different activities. Sam learns to cook, draw, play the guitar, sing, act, and all sorts of different skills. None of these are things that his parents believe he should continue doing in a career, however. So, a few days after he turns 18, Sam packs up some of his things and runs away. He ends up on the streets, avoiding everyone he possibly can. His parents have reported him missing, and Sam does not want to be trapped into a life he doesn't want, so he hides, eventually making his way out of the city and finding his way somewhere else. After a run-in with a thief, Sam meets Max, who offers him a place to stay after covering for him with the police. Sam tries to leave several times before realizing that he's better off with Max and his sisters. They don't have high expectations from him, and he already helps them so much with his wide range of skills and knowledge. He doesn't realize it right away, but he's meant for a career in family life, which is why nothing seemed to click before.

Amaya is a water nymph. Her whole existence comes with a multitude of expectations. Amaya's species reproduces asexually, meaning she's essentially a little copy of her mother. Her mother trained her to hone her various abilities, and now Amaya is expected to balance human relations along with all of her usual responsibilities in the village. She makes rain fall, calling thunderstorms on occasion, and sometimes she's called in on request to manipulate the weather for certain days of the year. Her priorities as a water nymph mean that she cannot travel very far. Little nymph villages are sprinkled all over the planet, and if she leaves to explore, it means all the expectations are fully placed on her mother. So, until Peregrine arrives, Amaya has not experienced the world at all. Of course, when the humans find out that they're harboring an alien, all their peace agreements go out the window, and suddenly Amaya is on her own, stuck with adventuring, despite knowing nothing about it.