#da basement crew

[clavicuss-vile]

another fun solace fact because ive got da2 brainrot atm, after the arishok fight isabela moves herself in with hawke because he is Not Doing Great and everyone thinks theyre dating for a solid five months despite them both insisting that theyre like siblings to eachother

[roeroe-world]

Recently, I began listening to a lot of Da Bassment Crew’s tracks/demos and grew intrigued. If many of you are unfamiliar with “Da Bassment Crew”— it was a group of young talented artists underneath DeVante Swing’s (1/4 of Jodeci) label, Swing Mob. Before Ginuwine, Timbaland, Missy Elliot and Tweet became who they are as well as Static Major (R.I.P.❤️) — they were apart of the “Da Bassment Crew”.

As I listened to these tracks, I couldn’t help but to bob my head and vibe to them. The three songs up top just happen to be a few of my favorites lol.

Anyways, There was such true talent. You could hear the chemistry, the vocals and the production was on point. They were truly cooking up fire ass music down in that basement, no pun intended. DeVante definitely possessed a good ear for undeniable talent. Also I don’t think he gets enough credit for the timeless music he’s produced and written.

[evenmyhivemindisempty]

Following up on this ask for the Blackguard crew!

Diego Mendez: Oh, Mendez belongs to Destruction. He’s excellent at violence, and in particular he’s got an almost preternatural knack for sensing someone’s vulnerabilities and weak points. He’s been able to channel this into a pretty good career, but I think his innate desire to seize onto people’s weaknesses and shake like a dog with a toy in its mouth has absolutely cost him some relationships.

Lachlan Bishop: You know, despite the fact that Bishop might be the horniest man alive, he’s a little too chill to belong to Desire! Desire’s fond of him, I think – certainly they think his relationship with Lindsey is hilarious – but Bishop belongs to Death through-and-through. Like Ty, he’s a hunter, and he’s also a soldier; death is a natural part of his world, there’s life-giving aspects to it (he’s 100% the sort to try to use every part of the animal), but he’s also accepted that in his line of work he’s gonna be encountering Death a lot. He’s probably gonna kill people, and he’s accepted they might kill him instead.

Kaminski: Kaminski belongs to Desire. He’s not as abjectly hungry and ambitious as a lot of Desire’s things, but his desires has still governed many of his motivations throughout his life. He’s always kind of wanted more/better for himself, and he’s ruthless at pursuing the things he wants.

Valentine Chenoweth: Aw, Val belongs to Dream. Like Pierce, he’s got an excellent imagination, and Val absolutely retreated into his daydreams for solace a lot as a kid. As an adult he has the best time playing with his creativity - whether for D&D or sexy roleplay sessions! The unfortunate downside to his inventiveness is that he sometimes forgets how to be *honest* - he lies on instinct, and he automatically projects the face that he thinks will appeal best to the people around him.

Dave Alvarez: Delirium laid claim to Alvarez when he was 16 and took 3 tabs of acid in his boyfriend’s basement. It was a great fucking trip, and it kind of permanently rewired his brain chemistry. He visits her realm every so often when he takes psychedelics, and it always sticks with him. I think her Delight aspect is also very much alive in him – he’s friendly and optimistic and vivacious, and he’s generally pretty good at weathering his lows.

Dallas Jackson: Jackson belongs to Despair. She doesn’t have as powerful a grip over him as she used to when he was younger and struggling a lot more with his mental health, but there’s always gonna be a part of him that belongs to her first and foremost. His broody cynicism came about from spending a lot of time in her realm, but I think something positive he learned from her was “if it sucks, hit da bricks!”

[harlowtales]

Reader x Jack have a fight that has reader thinking they are making a mistake getting married ⚠️drama/smut/sweet❤️

You and Jack were doing better than ever. Ayesha hadn’t been a problem for a long time. You were busy making preparations for the wedding to happen in a few months. You got busy tending to every detail down to the fonts for the invitations. The guest list was small considering who Jack was. A lot of family and High School friends topped the list. Your family was small, and the celebrity roster was pretty amazing. Drake, Bryson, Tyler Herro, Pete Davidson, Druski, and others had already confirmed they were coming.

Then there was the engagement party. That was a whole other thing….

“Tell me why da fuk you’re inviting your ex?” Jack fumed one morning as you both were brushing your teeth.

“Because you invited like 6 of yours” you said spitting out a froth of toothpaste and smiling at him. “Keep at it and I’ll invite 2 more.”

“Don’t get fucking cheeky with me.” Jack said frowning “You know we’re all just friends.” He said following you into the bedroom.

“So am I fucking my ex?” You challenged looking up at him.

“No…but….” Jack stuttered

“But what?” You waited for him to say something

“So let’s make a rule. No exes at the engagement party or the wedding.” Jack decided

“Yeah ok.” You said rolling your eyes and walking into the girl’s room to put away laundry. Jack loved that you were a hands on mom. It was kind of turning him on a bit watching you with your hair tied with sweatpants on bending and putting clothes in the drawers but he was happily choosing violence at the moment. This was the regular part of his life he craved. You gave him that. Making the girl’s lunches, picking them up from preschool. You were the apple of his eye.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me.” Jack said getting in your face now.

“You know what Jackman?” You stopped now and faced him. “I want you to want to not invite a whole fleet of women I don’t get along with. Not uninviting them so I don’t invite my ex. You’re being childish.”

“Childish?” Jack repeated angrily “Childish!” He said again as if trying to make sense of the accusation.

“Childish.” You affirmed carrying an empty basket to the laundry room.

“Fuck this I’m going to the basement.” He said, which was where he tended to go when he was stressed out.

“Yeah start shit and run away.” You said in no mood

“Ok. You know why I invited them?” He asked you

“Cuz you’re such a loyal little boy who can’t say no to your day ones.” You said mockingly “Did any of your day ones push out those big heads like yours?” You asked him looking out at the girls running around in the yard with the nanny. “It’s so disrespectful on so many levels. It almost made me…” You stopped, not wanting to hurt him.

“Say it.” He said glaring at you with his arms folded

“Nothing.” You said sitting down in the laundry room and looking out the window at the girls. Sometimes you weren’t happy and Jack knew that. The long weeks away from home and girls everywhere all over him all the time. Jack really loved his fans and you didn’t want to look jealous when you were the envy of the world.

“Maybe we’re making a mistake.” You said wringing your hands.

Jack was silent. He wasn’t quite expecting you to say that. He knew things weren’t perfect but he thought what he had with you was rock solid. So much so he thought inviting the old crew wouldn’t be such an issue. He would never knowingly disrespect you, but he didn’t ask you how you felt about seeing all the girls that made things so hard in the beginning.

He slammed the door to the laundry room and left you there. For the first time in a long time you felt totally alone. Even dinner was quiet. You said not a word to him and just talked to the kids. He brooded looking at his plate and periodically making nice with everyone but you could tell it was taking an effort from him. He looked depressed, and for the first time you didn’t really care. You weren’t going to compete with those girls anymore.

Washing up after you put the girls to bed he wandered into the kitchen. You pretended he wasn’t there and kept washing. Suddenly you felt his arms around your waist and he engulfed you in a warm embrace, nestling his face into your neck. You reached back and played with his hair while the tap was still running. You were struck by his emotions and didn’t say anything. The two of you just stood there in silence.

He turned off the running water and hoisted you up on the kitchen counter and started kissing you while feeling up your dress. He pushed aside your underwear and began feeling for some evidence that you wanted him. That you needed him, because he needed you desperately. The idea that you thought about throwing it all away sometimes scared him. You straddled him with your legs and held his head close to your chest, to your heart.

Let’s go upstairs” he whispered passionately

PART 2

The minute you got into the room Jack closed the door and motioned for you to be quiet. If the kids woke up make up sex wasn’t happening. He went into the bathroom and started drawing a bath for both of you. He added bubbles and got it nice and hot the way you like it. When it was just right he peeled his tank top off, then underwear, then sweatpants. Each item tossed to the side. He was in all his glory now looking at you to undress. You slipped out of your sundress and panties and started kissing and caressing his chest as he towered over you. Your tongues locked and you sucked his bottom lip. A sign you wanted him badly. He dimmed the lights and lit some candles around the tub.

“Alexa play Jodeci” Jack said and “Forever my lady” came on. You put your hair up getting ready to step into the tub. Jack dipped under the water and came up with his long curls hanging wet. He kissed on your neck as he pulled you into the perfect place leaning on his chest as steam rose up from the huge soaker tub he had custom made for his 6”3 frame. He wrapped his legs around you and started sponging you down. As he squeezed water from the sponge it cascaded down your breasts. You put your head back in submission to his will. He took some passionfruit scented body wash and massaged your breasts and body with the lovely aroma filling the air with the steam.

You felt him rising into you back. He moved you away a little for you to turn around. You went down under the water and took him into your mouth. He put his head back and moaned as quietly as he could, but it was difficult to hold in his pleasure and his desire for you. He never wanted to fight with you to the point where you ignored him like that again. That hurt him more than you screaming and yelling. He knew you had to be deeply hurt to pretend he didn’t exist because he knew he was your whole world.

When you came up soaking wet and looking sexy, he couldn’t hold anything in anymore. He bent you over the side of the tub and entered you ramming from behind then drawing you close to his chest skin to skin clutching your breasts and continuing to thrust as you both became enveloped in heat. You moaned in sweet agony as he covered your mouth and drove harder. Your screams went into the palms of his hands.

“We are one.” He said in your ear in a low raspy growl, grinding into you deeper.

“Uughhh!!” You managed to say muffled by his hand still ensuring only he heard your cries. He sat back into the tub taking you down with him.

You sat onto his hard cock and rode him backwards going up and down on him fast. Steam continued to fill the room as the two of you created a whirlwind in the water. “I’m cumming Jack…..” You said faintly as he wrapped his muscular arms around you while you released all the tension you were feeling. He felt you squeeze around him and knew you had reached heights of ecstasy.

He sat you up and out of the tub on the edge and entered you with his tongue sucking your clit aggressively. You held his head in agony and breathed “Jack. I….I can’t….please”

He put you onto his shoulders with you straddling his face, continuing to eat you with no mercy as he you slid off his shoulders facing him now. He looked into your soul through your eyes as he often did. You couldn’t read the storm you saw in his eyes. He was so intense holding you in his gaze. He put his forehead to yours and your breathing became one breath.

“Promise me we’ll never be like that again” he said in between breaths.

“I promise” you nodded eagerly on the verge of tears

“I can’t do any of this without you. I WONT do any of this without you.” He insisted “Everything I do is for us.”

You settled back onto him gathering yourself after that swirl of desire in the tub. He helped you relax and enjoy the calm of the water, the calm of him.

[margridarnauds]

☔

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

Back when I was younger, I was even more ambitious than I am now when it comes to big projects. I would come up with these epic, sprawling universes with what would have to have been 40 chapter concepts, at least -- easily 150k fics, and, because I was young and earnest and didn't know what I was in for, I'd commit to them.

And one of them was a fic that was a sort of crossover between Dracula and its Icelandic translation, Makt Myrkanna. Now, Makt is an oddball -- you'll notice that while I said it's a translation...there's a crossover. The reason is that. Well. It seems that whoever was in charge of translating it...took some liberties. A LOT of liberties. A lot of major plotpoints were radically reworked -- Jonathan's time at the castle was RADICALLY different, with a single vampire lady with an epic backstory who talks to him several times instead of the three iconic "Brides" that we know now, a cult of....extremely unfortunate Victorian stereotypes of "less evolved" or "primitive" humanoids who conduct human sacrifice in Dracula's basement, Lucy is not actually killed (because the author of the Icelandic translation, who was working off the Swedish translation...seemingly forgot?), Van Helsing goes to jail, Jonathan's killed. (The cowboy lives.) It's BATSHIT.

And I wanted to write this epic, epic fic around the concept of the Countess, that vampire lady, and Lucy tearing shit up. You know, I wanted to show the Countess stepping in as a sort of makeshift sire/mentor figure and lover for Lucy, who is making the transition from becoming a society girl to a vampire, throwing off her preconceptions about society and morality, seeing them go across Europe (there was actually a brief reference to Polidori's The Vampyre) when they were in Greece, seeing them adapt to the end of the 19th century. Their central conflict would have come from the Countess, who had an abusive husband (in canon! Who might or might not be Dracula himself, the evidence is conflicting) who basically...locked her in her room with her lover until he committed suicide (it's implied she banged him to death, what an icon), not really wanting to admit that she loves Lucy, and Lucy trying to content herself with that. There would also have been a B line running across it of the Crew of Light as they tried to continue hunting them, with a grief-stricken, widowed Mina (because remember: Dracula killed Jonathan in the final encounter) eventually facing down both of them but being unable to finish them off, with the second to last chapter being a note from the Countess (whose name is revealed in the epilogue to be "Dolingen", from "Dracula's Guest") basically telling her that she wasn't a dumb shit like Dracula, she wasn't going to try to invade England, she's sparing her for Lucy's sake, and to leave her alone in turn.

There was a LOT of good stuff with this fic, honestly, there was a lot of potential. Honestly, I think that the initial sex scene between Lucy and the Countess (taking place near a corpse, because, as we know, I Cannot Write A Normal And Non-Unsettling Sex Scene) is still one of the best sex scenes I've written -- I was a 19 year old undergrad, taking classes on Monsters in Fiction, Serial Killers on Page and Screen, Crime in Fiction, Dangerous Journeys in Fiction (which gave me the chance to reread Dracula!) going batshit insane and horny in a way that I was never able to quite replicate as I got older and more self conscious, writing about two hot vampire ladies having sex. I was in heaven. Or Hell. And I did do a lot of research for it, down to checking which operas were performing at the Graz Opernhaus in 1908 just to make sure that, when they were staying there, the selection would be accurate. I read a lot of 19th century vampire lit from the time -- Polidori's The Vampyre, I reread Carmilla, Das Grabmal auf dem Père Lachaise by Karl Hans Strobl (....given the name and that he lived into the 1940s...don't look at some of the other things he wrote), Paul Feval's The Vampire Countess, Eric Stenbock's "The True Story of a Vampire", I really, fully immersed myself in the world of 19th century vampire lore.

And I made good progress on it! 10,000 words! It wasn't like I wrote two pages and was done with it. But the problem was, honestly, as time went on...It felt like it was dragging on too much, like I was dragging the slowburn, which felt artificial for the Countess' character in Makt Myrkanna. She DOES have a tragic backstory, but she is also someone who is clearly here for a good time. Too much angst, too much heaviness between the two of them. It was too...human, you know? In fact, the entire section after the initial meeting/Lucy coming into her own under the Countess' mentorship felt artificial and dragged out, there to fit a certain idea I had coming in rather than anything natural. And the beginning wasn't the part that I had written out. So...I think that there's something redeemable in there, I think it might be able to rise from its vampiric slumber one day, with sections of it modernized to my writing style now, but it's going to be some time, probably. Which is a pity because I do love the two of them together, they are probably one of my favorite F/F relationships that I've written even if I didn't feel like I did the dynamic justice.

[ralseinumberonebiggestsupporter]

QUINN LORE REAL REAL REAL REAL

tw death and violence

ok so quinn used to be a normal computer assistant and she just chilled.... in cyberspace (MIGHT BE THE OFFICIAL NAME, MIGHT NOT BE..... WHO KNOWS......) with the big guys. so. she was kind of rich and popular. and mostly did interviews and ads aside from helping lightners. but when spamboss took over he wanted full control over the local trends and stuff so all influencers had to do what he wanted...... and quinn didn't want to

so um. he really likes cats. he has a few tasques in his mansion. and they're. not that friendly.

he says he knows her little secret and can make her un-famous in a second and she goes oh shit you know i like women? No Quinn You're Spyware.

then he sends the tasques after her and she says "n... nice kitty 😅😅😅" in the most loser-y way possible. as it turns out she's not great with cats and gets bitten in the head

so whatever maybe she lost a few important organs in that accident but she's fine it's okay except it's not and everyone knows she's spyware now. and also gay

she has to hide in the trash dump and there she meets the addisons that were also forced to hide there and they all start planning a revolution. weeee

then with some intense snooping she finds out that spamboss is NOT hardware like he claims and that there's also a cool robot mecha in the basement. her plan is to get inside the huge body with her addison minions and overthrow spamboss and uncover his secrets. but she needs susie's help

technically she's a computer virus so she can't go through the mansion's antivirus scan even with a disguise and the addisons can't bring the body to her cause its fucking huge man. so susie has to disable it and help her get her body. the NNS QUINN fight happens in the mega metropolis they're trying to build in the basement. she fucking smashes everything

after being defeated she gives out two cool items. the KittenRibbon (just one of her ribbons, if spared) or the TatteredWings (pieces of her dress. if KILLED!!!!!!!)

and she's less scary to susie than spamton is to kris but she Proves that you can't um,,, go against your nature 😈 youre born a virus you stay a virus. she gets more and more corrupted during the fight and stops being Quinn and starts being Give Me Your Passwords. so sad i crode we both crew

the act to spare her is Sanitize and basically the gang tries to get the virus out of her body but erm.. she IS the virus

in the end she's back in her old body and the addisons come over like SHIT SHES FUCKINB DYING and she says "theres nothing we can do to stop the virus. im literally the virus lol xd" and she dies tragically in the addisons' arms. Tragedy

she knows spades king cause she went to a few talkshows with the kings and she hates him a bit. hes evol bleeeehhh

in da snowgrave route (not its name. there is no snow to grave) she just happens to have some items laying around... for no reason in particular... i mean she has to make money somehow okay

after taking over the mansion you have to fight a thousand cardboard addisons and then finally she's at the fountain trying to stop you from getting out but one the virus is getting to her and two... FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also she has meta knowledge cause of the virus that's been taking over her body and um umumumum. gaster..??????? she has a shadow crystal it was made out of thin air and she doesn't remember how she got it

and yeag 🥶 women liker

[micro961]

HAEN mc - Il nuovo singolo “Trann Tranquillo”

Il brano del poliedrico artista sugli stores digitali e dal 5 gennaio nelle radio

“Trann Tranquillo” è il nuovo singolo dell’eclettico rapper HAEN mc, sui principali stores digitali e dal 5 gennaio nelle radio in promozione nazionale. Produzione impeccabile dagli arrangiamenti attuali e di tendenza, ma che evidenziano la forte personalità dell’artista, una profonda maturità artistica raggiunta dopo tanti anni di musica tra pubblicazioni e live in giro per lo stivale. “Trann Tranquillo”, ovvero “Tutto Tranne Tranquillo”, descrive le varie motivazioni per la quale non si riesce a stare tranquilli, avvalendo la tesi del detto che dice: “Che fine ha fatto Tranquillo…”.

Sul brano è cucito un testo sarcastico, ma attenzione perché nulla è come sembra. Una mente poco allenata potrà interpretare le strofe appunto in maniera veloce e superficiale, una mente aperta, allenata e profonda, noterà significati importanti dietro ogni rima, solo due esempi per intenderci:

“Nun trov mai nu' parcheggi” (Non trovo mai un parcheggio), c'è chi pensa all'auto, come c'è chi percepisce che ancora non si è trovata la propria dimensione. O anche: “Sta' o' Sol e m mor e fridd!” (C'è il sole ma ho freddo), c'è chi pensa ad una semplice battuta partenopea, come c'è chi capirà che l’artista pensa troppo sbagliando (La mente domina su tutto, e se c'è il sole caldo, ma riesci a concentrarti, sapendo come farlo, avrai freddo), e così via per tutto il testo...

“Per il sound, Dottor Testo, il mio produttore, ha capito subito di cosa avessi bisogno, un beat che fonde tre movimenti: Hip-Hop, Club e Reggaeton. Nel video noterete inoltre riferimenti buddisti, perché lo sono o, meglio, sposo appieno il buddismo, anche se poco praticante.” HAEN mc

Storia dell’artista

Alberto Di Domenico Riquetti, in arte HAEN mc (acronimo di Hardcore, Alberto, E, Napoli) e l’aggiunta di “mc” dai fan in Piazza del Gesù a Napoli, data la spiccata teatralità nei freestyle. Rapper cresciuto tra Volla e Ponticelli (Periferia orientale di Napoli). Nei testi, la voglia di rivalsa delle periferie: “La legge nel quartiere la facciamo noi”. Pubblica nel 2001 il primo disco interamente prodotto da G. Carbone, in Radio Marte Stereo. Trasferito a Roma, fonda il gruppo C$$ (Centro Sud System) con “Gotte Banditos” e Dj “Assassin Scratch”. Tra il 2005 e il 2011, pubblica 2 album di 8 e 10 tracce: “Tutto in Nero” e “Non Ascoltare”, l’unione Roma/Napoli piace e porta il gruppo in svariati live e jam in tutto il centro sud Italia. Nel 2012 ritorna solista sciogliendo il crew. Oltre 20 featuring e collaborazioni in dischi di collettivo hip hop fino al 2015. Tra il 2020 e 2022 pubblica 3 singoli: “Aoh” (feat. Aurel, Zapata J, Strikkiboy su produzione di White Noise del Quadraro Basement), “Dalla Giungla” con “Zapata J e Solofra (stessa produzione) e “Tu…”, stessi feat. e stessa produzione (tracce tutte reperibili su Spotify e YouTube). Nel 2022, in collaborazione con Zapata J e Strikkiboy nasce il progetto “Project 205” e nel novembre 2022 pubblica per la Time2Rap il disco “Exit”.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haenmcnapoli?igsh=MXV5cTFlc3k4cGdrMw==

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/didomenicoriquetti

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@haenmcnapoli

YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZONnDx6gWdrBopf7vibpDqHf2QWFfnWr

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1GdxOYTAySfzs4fVl5wuYp?si=XaZ98rmuToW61quLYWcl7w

[professorevamarieking]

Da Rockaway Twinz (Biography) The day the game changed forever was the day that #TheKingPins aka that "Da Rockaway Twinz" graced two turntables and a mixer, at the tender age of five-years-old.  Transplanted from Marcy Projects in "Bed-Stuy" Brooklyn, New York City USA, these two legendary DJ's are affectionately known on the streets of SouthSide Jamaica, Queens as DJ Big Cubby and DJ Twin Boogie.  With over forty (40) years of deejaying on their résumés Cubby and Twin have definitely paid their dues by playing at basement house parties, park jams, and community functions.  From 1996-1999 they had the Queens Hip Hop party scene “on lock” when they performed weekly at the world famous "Mercedes Nightclub” (formerly Club Encore) in Downtown Jamaica, Queens, New York City.  At Mercedes Da Twinz worked with some of the hottest Hip Hop artists in the world, including Mr. Cheeks, 50 Cent, DJ Jam Master Jay, The Lost Boyz, Queen Pen, DMX, Ja-Rule, Ruff Ryders Family and Big Pun. Da Rockaway Twinz "represent" for the infamous SouthSide AllStars, which is an alliance of the best DJ's from South Jamaica, Queens.  The SouthSide AllStars are comprised of #DJQueenShasia, MS, DJ Kid Quick, DJ Lyvio G, Grand Masta Vic, DJ Goldfingas, Tapemaster, Big JT aka Cutmasta JT, DJ Flamboyant, DJ Feeka 2000, DJ Amazin' Dewitt, DJ Preme, DJ Roughhandz (RIP), DJ Wise, DJ Sheem, DJ JoJ, The Alyance Mixsquad, DJ Kendo, DJ Divine of the Legendary Infinity Machine DJ Crew, DJ Glenn 'Sweety G' Toby, DJ Ratski & DJ Monkey D, DJ$GMoney, The Original DJ Cipher Sounds and DJ Casino. “Da Twinz” are known for “turning out” parties and clubs all over Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. Never afraid to speak their minds on the current state of the art of digital, DJing,  DJ Twin Boogie constantly reminds all DJ’s to “stay real.”  Twin boldly states, “There are real DJ’s and fake studio - DJ’s, real DJ’s don’t use studios to make a mixtape, they use two turntables and a mixer.” Da Rockaway Twinz are on social media, follow them:  Twitter: @DaRockawayTwinz http://www.Twitter.com/DaRockawayTwinz You Tube: DaRockawayTwinz http://www.YouTube.com/DaRockawayTwinz  (at Southside, Queens - NY) https://www.instagram.com/p/CptdH8ZLg3T/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[jcmartinmusic1999]

Those 2 were an item

[master-sass-blast]

Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

Welcome to Spoopy Season, have some smut-adjacent winter fic.

Summary: A winter squall sweeps across New York and knocks out the power at yours and Piotr's home. The two of you make camp next to the fireplace to stay warm until the power comes back on --and find other ways to stay warm, too.

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin/Reader.

Rating: T for Making Out, Partial Nudity, and Implied Sex.

Word Count: 1.1k.

Set after “The Christmas Decorating Fic.”

This is part of a weekly October series that will ramp up in smutiness as each week passes. This one's more smut adjacent than outright filth, hence the 'T' rating.

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @super-darkcloudstudent, @leo-writer, @dandyqueen

The lights flicker once, then twice.

You look up from your laptop. You stare at the nearest lamp, then over at your husband. “I’d say ghosts, but it’s the wrong season for them.”

Piotr chuckles, holding a pastel between his index finger and thumb as he works on a picture of a waterfall. “Probably just storm.”

To punctuate his point, the wind howls outside. The house and nearby trees creak under the force of the wind and snow.

The lights flicker again. The furnace bounces with them, shutting off before the quiet hum kicks back in.

Piotr frowns. “I am going to call mansion, see if they are having problems as well—”

The lights flicker again –then go out, plunging your home into darkness.

“Well,” you say after a moment of sitting in the darkness. “That’s a problem.”

 ***

 It’s not just your home –or the school, for that matter. The squall has knocked out a good section of New York City by hitting several transformers. The electrical crews are doing what they can, but given the conditions, it’s going to be a while before the power comes back on.

You, for one, are not bothered. You’re wrapped in a blanket, curled up in a chair while you stare outside at the pristine blankets of snow. “It’s so crazy how much light the snow reflects, huh?”

“Da,” Piotr agrees as he hauls in a gargantuan armload of firewood. He closes the door behind him, stomps off his boots, then places the firewood in a neat pile on the mat by the door. “It is very beautiful.”

“Yeah,” you agree, voice almost wistful as you gaze out at the snow. “It really is.”

Piotr smiles fondly as he watches you. He shucks out of his winter gear, hangs them up on the coat rack mounted next to the door, then crosses the distance between the two of you and kisses your cheek. “It is not only beautiful thing.”

You shriek and try to squirm away. “Your nose is so cold!”

Piotr laughs and presses his ice-cold nose into the crook of your neck. “You are very warm, myshka.”

“No! You sadist!”

He laughs again, then relents in his torture of you. “Temperatures will be under freezing tonight. Should we set up ‘camp’ down here, next to fireplace, so we stay warm?”

“Hey, I’ve got the world’s biggest Russian heater at a bedmate,” you tease, nestling up against his brawny chest to reinforce your point. “I’m gonna be just fine.”

Piotr chuckles and draws his arm around you. He kisses the top of your head. “Would you grab camping stove and lamps from basement? I can bring down bed and blankets.”

“Ooh, are we going to have a sleepover? Can we tell ghost stories?” you joke.

“If you like,” Piotr says, voice fond beyond measure. “If you like.”

 ***

 The two of you set up shop in the family room, next to the fireplace. Piotr sets the bed down between the fireplace and the couch –though not too close, so as not to risk an incident—then sets about building a fire while you get the lamps and camp stove set up.

“I brought up some extra quilts and stuff, too,” you say as Piotr blows on the lit kindling to help the logs catch. “I thought we could hang them up to help block the heat in here?”

“Good thinking, myshka,” Piotr says as he stuffs some extra dryer lint between the logs.

***

 Once the fire’s going, the two of you set about hanging blankets across the doorways and the stairwell to help trap the warm air (with the help of a few picture hanging nails). After that’s done, Piotr makes the bed while you light a few candles for ambience.

“Is this a ‘buttercream frosting’ kind of night or a ‘frosted holly’ kind of night?” you ask as you peer at the labels printed on the jars.

“Do we not have more ‘Gingerbread Dreams’” Piotr asks as he smooths out the flannel blanket the two of you keep under the comforter during the colder months.

“I burned through the last of that on Friday.”

He ‘tsks’ and places the pillows at the head of the bed. “Holly, then. Buttercream is too sweet.”

“Suit yourself.” You light the maroon colored candle, then set on a shelf where it’ll be clear of the bed. “How’re we looking?”

“Very cozy.” Piotr sits on the bed, then holds a hand out to you. He draws you in against his chest, encircling his burly arms around you. “Privet.”

“Hey, yourself.” You smile up at him as you settle in his lap. “Come here often?”

He runs the pad of his thumb along your jaw. “Not nearly often enough.”

A shiver runs down your spine when his lips meet yours. You wind your arms around his neck, eyelids sliding shut as Piotr holds you closer still. You hum, contentment and pleasure singing through your veins.

Piotr moans softly as his lips move against yours. His hands rub up and down your back, caressing you through your sweater –and then he slowly, gently lays you down against the bed.

Your legs part on instinct, making room for his hips to settle between your thighs. You clutch at his broad, powerful shoulders, breath catching in your throat when he nips at your lower lip. A whine tugs at the back of your throat when his lips lower to your neck; you tip your head back to give him better access.

He tugs down your collar for better access. He slides his tongue along the column of your neck. His hips shift against yours when you moan, moving in soft, steady rocking motions.

You whimper when he rolls his tongue at the spot on the side of your neck, just under your jaw. “Piotr…”

The fire crackles a few feet away, bathing the room in a warm, golden glow.

He slides his hands under your sweater and shirt; they skim up your sides, easily spanning your ribcage before coming to a stop just below the band of your bra. He brushes his thumbs against the bottom of the cups, kissing you passionately as he does.

Fuck it. You quickly shuck out of your sweater and shirt, then divest Piotr of his Henley.

He sits back on his haunches, pulling you to his chest. His tongue licks into your mouth, swirling against your tongue briefly before he pulls back to kiss your neck again.

Your fingers slide into his hair. You clutch at his thick, dark tresses, dragging a low groan out of him. “This might be easier,” you manage, already breathless, “if we weren’t wearing pants.”

He chuckles against your throat. “You make excellent point, myshka.”

The pants come off. As does everything else. The room falls silent, save for the hissing and popping of the fire, the distant howl of the winter winds, and the sounds of your two’s bliss.

The world could end, and you wouldn’t need anything other than him.

[jiskblr]

Blauprinz and his crew

My blood parents I never knew. Berliners, probably, but they left me in an anarchist-affiliated charity orphanage in Potsdam before I was six months old, so all I know for sure is that they named me Artur. I was adopted fairly late as these things go, about five, by the people who I consider my parents: Jurgen and Verena Carolingt. They could have had blood children, but chose to adopt, and frequently. When I was twelve I had five foster-sibs, but they slowed down after that; I only have two more sibs from the next decade, and they were adopted as the eldest four of us moved out. That's not counting Leo, who was their second fosterling; he was a real hellraiser and chafed at the academic's morality they tried to enforce, so he ran away to join a street gang. I got back in touch with him years later; for all that he left, he was as angry as me about - but that's getting ahead of myself.

My parents were academics, professors at Viadrina Universitat in Frankfurt-Oder, but in their more subtle way raised hell just as much as Leo. They grew up during the first partition, Da in East Germany and Ma in West Berlin, and they both hated the idea of hiding what they believed to cater to the powerful. They didn't budge in their convictions that everyone deserved a chance or that their conclusions deserved to be followed to their end. They believed in equality and metahuman rights, even when that was fairly unpopular, and they lived it. I'm a norm as were they, but my sibs are an even split of norms and orks plus one dwarf. They didn't adopt elves, who got snapped up more easily by more prejudiced parents, nor trolls, who posed logistical hurdles they didn't think they could deal with. (They felt bad about leaving out trolls, though, and donated generously to several charities for them. I do too, now, in their memory.) They budged just as little in their research, not even to stay quiet about it. When their research topics - applied sociology and economics of magic, for Da and Ma, respectively - developed from postulates to specific, inconvenient predictions and prescriptions for the practical world which got the corps to lean on their deans to quiet them down or kick them out, even so they stuck to their guns.

That pressure started to build around when I turned 18, and got worse as I went through my degree. When it all went to hell, I was a post-doc in applied modern theology - university-speak for 'shaman-ology' - and Zanne was a thesis candidate in high-energy experimental thaumics - studying when magic goes 'boom'. Gabi had given academia a serious try but it wasn't for her, so she'd become a net security wageslave in Potsdam - though honestly she'd be happier as a SINless decker. Fritz and Deb were undergrads at Viadrina, and Jost, Lotte, and Sascha were still young and at home. I don't understand what exactly was enraging the powers that be about their research; I think Mother had published something demonstrating that the publicly-known processes for producing refined orichalcite should produce a far lower market price, indicating that there was a covert cartel, and Father had models indicating that parts of the Eurowars didn't fit naturally with the known social dynamics pre-bellum, indicating deliberate provocation by some powerful force. True or not, either might have been the provocation. There had been escalating threats, but I wasn't living there, so I didn't hear about that; later, when I researched the background, I learned there’d been a fire started in the garage, broken windows, a chemical warfare agent left hissing in Dad's office after hours. But the first I heard of it was when I was back home, a week in late April, for Easter and Mother's birthday.

When some fucking Johnson carpet-firebombed the entire fucking house.

I don't know if they knew we'd be there. They had to know there were innocent children, there; Jost and Sascha weren't even ten yet. My parents died in the first few seconds, their corpses vaporized. Lotte was hugging Mother, so she was, too, and Fritz was just far enough away to leave dental records. Jost was less lucky; he roasted, but not quickly, and survived three hours before he died in agony. Deb lost a leg and an eye and as far as I know the pain's never stopped. Sascha was in the other room and got out, with severe scarring but none disabling. Zanne as well. Gabi wasn't there; the bosses wouldn't give her time off, and I'm not sure if that was a mercy or a curse. I was next to Father, and as far as the records know, I flash-fried like Lotte. But I'm a shaman of the Dragonslayer, and the fire washed over me. I tried to shield Dad with my body, but my totem isn't a protector; it preserved me, and much better than it would most of its shamans, but that didn't extend to him. I tried to help Jost when I realized he'd lived, but he told me to run and get revenge. I didn't realized Zanne or Sascha made it until much later; Zanne had hit her head and went unconscious quickly, and Sascha's response to pain always was to freeze up. But I kept it together enough to get to the basement, and there was ductwork Zanne had discovered years earlier and shown me, which connected it to three doors down. She'd also shown me the nearest part of the Berlin Underground - we snuck out through that ductwork - which had an ork gang she'd run with sometimes, so I thanked her memory about a hundred times that night. The gang leader by then, Ratbite, turned out to be one of the toughs she'd run with, and recognized me. I wasn't shy about using her memory to get a favor, and traded my shamanic skills - and some medical assistance - to get help going completely dark, wiping me from the databases so I could go truly SINless. He was pretty pissed when he found out she wasn't dead, but by then the favor was spent, and when she went dark as well she did him a couple favors and he mostly forgave me and accepted my excuse that I'd thought I was telling him the truth.

The official story was that the firebombs were thrown by a human-supremacist policlub, Nationale Aktion I believe, who objected to our outspokenly mixed-race family. This was bullshit, but plausible enough bullshit that the department heads and local politicians could easily pretend to believe it and be seen to Do Something in response, without that Something doing anything to harm corporate interests. Sascha I think believes that story, or prefers to act like he does. Deb, Gabi, and Zanne, though, didn't. And Zanne was good at causing explosions, but terrible at keeping her temper in check. She retaliated, with prejudice. Headline-making prejudice, which is how I and my temporary friend Ratbite learned she was alive. She had a big bounty for a couple years, but some anarchists gave her shelter before the corps reacted, and from there she became a runner as well. She didn't know I'd survived, though she did suspect, so I found her first, and joined the crew she ran with at the time. After that one came apart, the two of us have assembled all our future crews together. Well, mostly me, I'm the Face, but she still has better ties in anarchist and goblinoid circles; there's a lot of orks and trolls who won't trust a smoothskin, even one like me with an established rep.

Our vengeance is still a work in progress. The men who carried out the hit were deniable contractors, corp security from a minor place. They went down in an op our second year running, and the company got enough blowback from that job that it folded a year later. Finding out who gave the order is not quite done, but we've narrowed the field. I've got a solid network, and, well, my surviving siblings aren't any happier about it than me. Sascha pushed back when Zanne tried to contact him; I think he wants to put it behind him. Deb's a professor herself now, but she hasn't given up on justice, and Gabi-. She works for the corps, and counter to the ork stereotype is a very cold person in most ways; rationally, I know that gave me reasonable cause to doubt her. But after we finally made contact, we found her heart was cold, but a cold-burning hatred. A grudge aged like wine, but still so raw and deep that it feels unthinkable she could have made any other choice. Even the idea that she might have sided with her bosses over her family feels completely embarrassing to have considered. And Leo, like I said earlier, was almost as mad; he left home, but he still loved them for giving him a home to run from. (I hadn't realized, but he sent them gifts every Christmas, mostly hand-made, from the first year he'd left right through their deaths - he didn't learn about their deaths until he tried to deliver their gifts that year.) He's a complete ork stereotype, though, his anger is intense and searing. He'll let it go for months and then find something that reminds him again and smash up some corp's office, mostly at random. I try to give him more productive outlets when I can, but he refuses to go professional runner so he's probably going to end up landing in an early grave with his gang despite my best efforts. Not that we're really close, but I've lost too much family to let my crazy ex-brother join them.

[howtohero]

#300.1: Saving the World Part 1

Prologue

The Haberdashery

“Hi, my name is Murk. I am a mud monster and a product of mad science, but I am also an accountant and a lover of classical music. For most of my existence I have tried to simply live a regular life in an increasingly strange world.”

The conference room in Hatman’s Haberdashery was filled with all manner of colorfully clad, or just plain colorful, superheroes, super-trainees, monsters, vampires, werewolves, sewer-mutants, Da Vincis and even a smattering of regular civilians who looked tired, angry, but overall fearless. According to Leonardo Da Vinci II, an android duplicate of the original from the far future, there had never been such an eclectic gathering of people in all of history. They had gathered — or been gathered — because the world, and life as they all knew it, hung in the balance. The world’s supervillains, led by a formerly low rate smuggler named Smuggles, had managed to do the unthinkable, they’d taken over the world, and in doing so they’d imprisoned most of the world’s heroes, world leaders, and superhero bloggers, in a secret prison. The oddball assembly was the Resistance, and at the moment each of them had their eyes on Murk. Some looked at him with confusion, he was by far the most eloquent mud monster they’d ever heard. Some looked at him in awe, over the past several weeks, Murk had rescued many of them from danger and had inspired them to join him in his fight. A few looked at him with pride, they knew him from before you see, and as far as they were concerned, that made his heroics their heroics.

(“I know that guy from before,”) Parenthetical Guy whispered to the warthog-mask wearing man sitting to his left. (“And as far as I’m concerned, that makes his heroics my heroics.)

{“I work with that guy, he does my taxes,”} Curly whispered, nudging Hatman who was looking forlornly toward the room’s exit. There were far too many people between him and it, and it was causing him no shortage of distress.

“When the heroes fell,” Murk continued. “It immediately became apparent that I, and many others like me, could no longer afford the luxury of standing to the side. For a long time I, and many of my ‘monstrous’ ilk have been more than happy to allow superheroes to handle the world’s problems for us. Whenever our homes, our lives, our world came under threat we all said to one another, ‘well, that looks like a job for superheroes,’ and we declined to act. When the heroes fell I saw how selfish I had been. And so I would like to be the first to extend my heartfelt thanks, and my sincerest apologies to the brave heroes who have gathered here today. I, along with my partner and friend, Lawyer Guy have gathered as many civilians as we could. Regular monsters and people who have cowered from or turned a blind eye to the acts of the villains who have dared to subjugate us, and we have come here to offer our assistance. If you’ll have us, we would like to help in any way we can.”

His speech concluded, Murk quickly sat down next to Lawyer Guy who smiled warmly at him. A few people sitting near him muttered polite words of affirmation toward the hulking mud man but everyone quickly became silent once more as somebody else strode to the head of the table.

Everybody in the room, everybody in the world, recognized the gold and white costume, the chiseled, stony features, and the piercing blue eyes of Ultiman. He was the superhero par excellence and when he clapped Murk on the shoulder and smiled widely, Murk’s ragtag civilian crew let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Thank you Murk,” Ultiman said. “Thank you everyone. As I’m sure you can see, our numbers are small but our members are dedicated and we are thrilled to be able to count each of you among us. I’m confident that, working together, we can depose Smuggles and his entire Consortium of Crime.”

                                                          ***

Smuggles’s Secret Prison

My name is Zachary Schechter and I’d been locked up for a while by the time anybody had made any noise about breaking out. You may know me as the creator, author, and only functioning brain behind How To Hero. Actually you definitely know me as that. It’s a very popular blog. Just take my word on this ok? I was in a secret prison because I allowed my subordinates to talk me into hiring a known supervillain to, let’s see, live in our basement and interject unwanted comments into my blog. As it would happen, this supervillain, Smuggles, took the job as part of some kind of protracted and complicated plan to take over the world. I should have seen that coming of course. That’s basically the only reason any supervillain does anything. For a few weeks I was alone there. Just sitting in a cell twiddling my thumbs. Trying to make conversation with the drones they had guarding the place. The only thing they’d given me to eat is fish. I imagine Chuck the Fish Whisperer had something to do with that. Frikkin supervillains and their sycophantic dedication to their own themes. But then a ton of superheroes ended up there with me, and I knew things on the outside had taken a decisive turn for the worse. The heroes were all stripped of their costumes and gear, and were given supervillain costumes instead. It’s all spikes, horns, and red contact lenses now. It’s a bit silly, but I think the idea is that if the heroes are dressed like villains and forced to do things like play evil charades and watch movies about heroes turning bad, then some of them might actually turn evil. Actually, I know that’s the idea, but I’ll get to that later. Eventually Cowboy Rockstar, the coolest hero of all time, decided to stage some kind of jailbreak. Which was great. And he wanted me to help him plan it, probably because of my proven expertise in all manner of superhero related topics. I bet it was my treatise on the many superheroic uses of drills that got his attention. There was just one teeny tiny problem though...

“So what do you think?” Cowboy Rockstar whispered.

“I think… I think that I designed this prison,” I whispered dejectedly.

“I beg your pardon?”

It was recreation time once again, and Giorgio the Evil Mime had selected an assortment of clips of superheroes becoming evil from various films and TV shows. It’s really shocking how many times Hollywood has returned to the well of “a superhero clad in red, white, and blue murders a person.” We must’ve watched like thirty different clips already. 

“Look, Mr. Rockstar, I appreciate you coming to me and all. It’s an honor to meet you and plot in hushed voices with you and everything. But I’m like 90% certain that I designed this prison. And I don’t know about you but Iitalics certainly wouldn’t have designed a prison that people could break outitalics of.”

Cowboy Rockstar furrowed his brow, “Ah, you’re saying this prison is… from your blog?”

I held up my hands defensively. “Hey, I know how it sounds but look around you. The costumes, the robots, the charades. It’s literally ripped straight from my post about running your own unsanctioned prison.”

“You wrote a guide to running an off the books blacksite for housing criminals?” Cowboy Rockstar arched an immaculate eyebrow. “That’s not really a very superheroic activity.”

“Huh. When you put it like that it’s really no wonder that the only person who seems to have implemented any of it is a supervillain who seems to have taken over the world.”

“He had help,” I heard somebody grumble from Cowboy Rockstar’s other side.

Helm Lady was one of the only Hatman proteges to both survive to adulthood and continue her career as a superhero, so it was hardly surprising that she’d been able to sneak up on us. 

“Helm Lady, good of you to join us!” Cowboy Rockstar said. “Zach over here was just telling me about how he designed this prison to be unescapable! Isn’t that exciting.”

“Hardly,” Helm Lady said glumly.

“I gotta agree with her on this one,” I said. 

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been given a rare opportunity to outdo yourself in a grandiose and practical way! You’ve been here longer than anybody. It seems like Smuggles has some kind of vendetta against you specifically, and so he’s used your own tactics against you! Now, with our help of course, you can show everybody that you’re smarter than you!” Cowboy Rockstar was gesticulating wildly at this point drawing a sharp and reproachful glare from warden Giorgio. 

“Hm,” I said, I had already written a guide to escapology. Maybe I’d already unwittingly outwitted myself. Besides, Smuggles’s prison wasn’t actually an exact copy of the one I’d designed on the blog. He’d had to make some changes to prevent it from having any real rehabilitative value. Dressing the prisoners like villains instead of heroes for instance. And villain costumes are very different from hero costumes. They’re like eighty percent sharp edges. I looked Cowboy Rockstar up and down. The costume they had him in had spikes up and down his arms. Maybe we could use them to pick the locks on our cell? We’d still have to deal with the robot guards and who knows what else. But maybe that was a place to start.

“Ok,” I said after a moment. “I’m sure we can come up with something, after all, as I say

on my blog, when you’re in a locked room, anything can be a key.” 

Cowboy Rockstar grinned and gestured around the room at the assorted superheroes that were locked in with us, “And we’ve certainly got an eclectic bunch of keys here haven’t we.”

I smiled and looked around the room, maybe this could actually work.

                                                         ***

“If I had an iPod and a busted time machine we could do this in a snappy montage and be out in no time,” I grumbled to Cowboy Rockstar.

It was the next day, and our recreation activity was something called “evil baseball.” There’s no batters, no outfield, and the only umpire was a deranged mime. The only real resemblance it had to regular “non-evil” baseball, was the fact that there were four bases, and players could steal bases. In fact, the game was pretty much just stealing bases. Because stealing is a crime get it? Ugh, the sooner we got out of there and stopped Smuggles the better. Cowboy Rockstar was manning first base for his team, and I’d just stolen first. I suspected it was because Helm Lady, the “pitcher” for Cowboy Rockstar’s team, had allowed me to get to first so we could chat. It might have been because I’m really athletic though. It’s hard to say. 

“I don’t think that’s how anything works,” Cowboy Rockstar said.

“Oh what do you know?”

“A lot, I’ve unknotted several time paradoxes you know. Some experts even say that I ‘invented’ the current iteration of this timeline.”

“Ah, so this is all your fault.”

“Nice try, I didn’t give Smuggles access to an interdimensional warp gate so he could free his fish whispering friend from his prison.”

“Touche.”

“What have you got?”

“I was thinking, we know that Smuggles has everybody’s powers neutralized inside this prison right?”

“Yes.”

“Well not every hero has powers to begin with,” I started. “And there are few people here with relevant talents that Smuggles can’t turn off.”

“Talents such as?”

Giorgio blew his whistle. Apparently I’d spent too long dawdling at first base without even trying to steal second.

“I guess whistling doesn’t go against the mime code of silence,” I grumbled as I started to edge off of first base. 

“Talents such as?” Cowboy Rockstar repeated before I took off.

I nodded towards his team’s second baseman.

“Being a giant rock monster with seven hands,” I said before racing off toward Rockblock.

                                                         ***

The next night I laid awake, staring up at the ceiling of my cell, going over what was slowly starting to look like a plan again and again. If Cowboy Rockstar could use the many razor sharp spikes on his villain costume to pick the locks on his cell, — and he’d assured me that he could, upside down, in his sleep — and then get to the others, Rockblock could probably serve as our muscle until we got out and the other heroes got their powers back. He’d need to fight off dozens of battle drones though. No, that wasn’t much of a plan. Muscle was great, but we’d need some other way to guarantee the drones would stay off of us until we got outside. I consulted the scrap of paper I had hidden in the palm of my hand, directed away from any prying eyes or cameras. The scrap had been discretely slipped into the pocket of my hoodie by Helm Lady. She’d managed to steal a pencil during Evil Mad Libs, and had taken the liberty of jotting down everybody who we knew was imprisoned here. “Our list of keys,” as Cowboy Rockstar had called it. We needed to keep the circle of people who knew that we were planning a breakout small for now. That way there’d be less of a chance of any villains or drones getting wind of it. So Cowboy Rockstar wanted me to identify anybody who might be especially useful in the actual breakout, whereupon we’d obviously free the rest of the prisoners. I consulted the list again, mentally sorting the manifest into those who had powers, and thus were less likely to be especially useful without the use of them, and those who didn’t have powers, and therefore were pretty much operating at 100% effectiveness. There’s another thing I didn’t account for in my own designs, sucks to be you Smuggles. That’s what happens when you build your top secret superhero prison based on the musings of a comedy blog instead of doing your own work you frikkin goon. I circled a couple of names on my illicit scrap of paper and was just about ready to smugly smile myself to sleep when I noticed a faint buzzing. My first thought was wall bees. You wouldn’t believe how often strange buzzing sounds in the How To Hero office ended up being bees in the wall. But this buzzing was more mechanical and well, I guess it must have been there since I was first thrown into this dump. I had managed to sublimate it into the background noise of my time here but now in the dead of the night I was able to really listen to it finally. I tentatively got off of my threadbare cot and walked the length of my small cell. The buzzing was, as I’d feared, strongest by the door. Which could only mean one thing. Door bees! No, I’m kidding, it meant that the old fashioned deadbolt lock was either just for show, or just one part of the cell doors’ security systems. There was some kind of electronic component as well. One that probably wouldn’t be able to be thwarted with some evil-looking spikes. I looked at my scrap once more, I’d have to have a conversation with one of the other prisoners tomorrow. 

                                                         ***

“Professor Flay,” I whispered as I took a seat next to a glasses-wearing black man decked out in a purple jumpsuit with a skull belt buckle. 

“Yes?” the man said, clearly startled, “I’m sorry I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“My name’s Zach, and I’m a fan of your Big Book of Fake Science.”

“Um, are you referring to my Complete Compendium of Improbable Science,” Professor Lucius Flay replied.

“Shoot, is that what it’s called? I knew it was something like that, only my buddy lost the cover and title page in a bet with a supervillain we knew who needed them to power his cover and title page powered doomsday device,” I explained quickly.

Professor Flay flared his nostrils, “And you have the nerve to insinuate that my science is fake. Is there a point to this, I don’t want to miss this performance.”

Our villainous rehabilitation activity for the day was “evil karaoke” only songs with the word “bad” in the title were allowed to be performed. Cowboy Rockstar was currently belting out an honestly breathtaking rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. It was an especially loud and especially drawn out version of the song, so that Professor Flay and I could converse in relative peace.

“What kind of scientist would you say you are Professor?”

“If you must know, I consider myself to be more or less omnidisciplinary,” Professor Flay said.

“That means you dabble in a little bit of everything right?”

“Everything scientific.”

“And that’s not a superpower thing right? You came by all that knowledge on your own?”

Professor Flay waved a dismissive hand at me, “Of course I did. I studied for years to get to where I am today. Sure I may have had to break a few time travel regulations to do it, but otherwise, I come by my intellect fair and square.”

“Excellent!” I shouted a little too loudly. “This is the best version of ‘Bad Romance’ I’ve ever heard!” I quickly added, to cover myself.

“Yeah it’s so good that they should call it ‘Good Romance!’” Rockblock shouted, no doubt trying to help me out.

Unfortunately though, that was the wrong thing to say. Giorgio the Mime certainly couldn’t allow anything gooditalics to happen in this evil facility, so he quickly put the kibosh on Cowboy Rockstar’s performance, much to the chagrin of everyone else in the room. I thought I even saw a drone flash a frowny face. The drones then started ferrying us out of the room and back to our individual cells.

“How much do you know about electronic locks?” I quickly asked as I pressed my scrap of paper in between Professor Flay’s belt and jumpsuit. 

Realization flashed across Professor Flay’s face. 

“Ah,” he said. “Enough.”

I hoped he was right.

                                                         ***

The next day our recreational activity was evil baking. There were several different stations set up in the auditorium, each with ingredients set up to make different evil foods. I ambled past “exploding pies”, “sentient food that will actively beg for its life as you eat it”, and “kale cookies” before taking a seat next to Cowboy Rockstar at the “general poisons” table. Helm Lady and Rockblock were already there, and I noticed Helm Lady was taking special care not to touch any of the ingredients on the table. Rockblock, being made entirely out of stone and cando spirit, began handling the various herbs and toxins and following the recipe. I guess they’d decided that somebody at our table had to be doing something to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. 

“Where’s Professor Flay?” I asked.

“He just walked in,” Cowboy Rockstar said, nodding toward the door, where a contingent of drones were herding in another batch of prisoners. 

“Over here!” Rockblock bellowed, waving three of his giant hands while the other four mixed and mashed various ingredients.

“Quiet,” Helm Lady snarled. I was beginning to regret bringing Rockblock in on our plans so early. 

Still, Professor Flay managed to get the message and made his way over to our table.

“Hello everybody,” he said as he sat down next to Helm Lady. He wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of what Rockblock was mixing in his bowl. “What are we making?”

“Sulfide sausages,” Rockblock replied.

“Lovely.”

“So?” I asked, raising my eyebrow inquisitively at the professor.

Professor Flay glanced around and, confident that there were no drones within listening distance, leaned in conspiratorially.

“I can build the device you described but-”

“Hey guys, sorry I didn’t come right away. I wanted to do a lap to see if there were any other cooler tables,” a pale skinned man clad in black chainmail and sporting thick rimmed glasses said as he sat down at our table.

“Er… what?” I asked.

“I know Rockblock called me over, but I’m not just going to sit down at the first table that offers me a spot, am I?” the other man replied as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say.

“Uh, I was actually talking to Professor Flay,” Rockblock said.

The bespectacled man laughed, “Oh Rockblock, I’d heard your sense of humor was legendary.”

Rockblock looked confused but Helm Lady put a hand on one of his arms.

“What do you want Glassesman?” 

“Helm Lady! Great to see you. How’s the old man?”

“We don’t talk.”

“Oh, is that right? Poor Hats never could keep a protege.” 

“Glassesman.” I said, interjecting before things escalated. “You weren’t on the list. When did you get here?”

“Oh, just recently. I wasn’t captured with the rest of you in the first wave.”

Cowboy Rockstar ignored the jab and leaned forward. “Are you saying that Smuggles has found whatever resistance there is? Where’s Ultiman?”

“Keep your ten-gallon hat on buckaroo, the resistance is fine such as it is. I was deep undercover in Smuggles’ operation, but I got found out.”

“No surprise there. You probably started handing out promotional sunglasses to all the villains as soon as you got in there,” Helm Lady muttered.

“Hey, supervillains are a market I have yet to break into. This was a rare networking opportunity for me!”

What a tool.

“Enough,” Cowboy Rockstar said, making sure to keep his voice even.

“What’s with all the hushed tones,” Glassesman said, looking us all up and down.

“Ah,” he said when he’d completed his appraisal. “You’re planning a break out.”

“No we’re n-” Helm Lady started but Glassesman held up his hand.

“Oh please, you’ve got a scientist, a jack-of-all-trades, a bruiser, a non-powered combatant and a…” he faltered when he got to me.

“Blogger,” I said curtly.

Glassesman raised an eyebrow but kept going, “So don’t try to keep me out of this, I’m non-powered too, and I can fight better than a Hatb- sorry exitalics-Hatboy any day of the week.”

Cowboy Rockstar looked as though he was going to say something to get rid of Glassesman but he just sighed and gestured to Professor Flay.

“Fine, sure. Professor you were saying?”

“Um, well, yes. I can build the… device, you asked for but I can’t do it from thin air. I need something to work from.”

We all sat in silence for a moment. I guess it was too much to ask for an omni-disciplinaryitalics super-scientist to be able to whip up an EMP device out of whatever he could find in his prison cell. I’d be sure to inform whatever board certifies omni-disciplinary scientists to amend an asterisk to Professor Flay’s credentials when we got out of here.

“Could you build it out of whatever those things are made of?” Glassesman said, jerking a thumb towards one of the drones.

Professor Flay appraised it, “It appears to run on a lithioplasmic core with a carbon-electrum chassis. Assuming there’s a terrakon multispacial chip rattling around in or near its processor… Yes, I wouldn’t even need too much of it. Just a chunk from the chest if I had to guess.”

“Excellent,” Glassesman said before he stood up and flipped over our table. “And you can tell that cap clad crank that I’m twice the hero he ever was!”

Helm Lady smirked and wordlessly lunged at him, wrapping her long fingers around his neck. Professor Flay and I quickly took cover behind the table. Flay because he was a nerd and wasn’t about to get involved in a fist fight between two highly trained combatants. And me to protect Flay naturally. We needed him fit enough to build us the EMP, I couldn’t exactly leave him. Cowboy Rockstar jumped on Glassesman’s back and tried to pull him away while Rockblock scrambled to gather up the ingredients from his poison. A stray pellet of congealed arsenic bounced over to me and I scooped it up into my hoodie. You never know, right? 

In a minute several drones were trundling over to our little group trying to break up the fight. They’d just about managed to pry Cowboy Rockstar, Glassesman and Helm Lady apart when Rockblock let out a deafening roar and joined the fray, sending a handful of drones flying as he growled something incoherent about how hard he’d been working on perfecting his recipe. By this time the other assembled heroes were all looking toward us, but before anybody else could get any ideas about joining the riot, more drones than I’d even realized were in the prison poured into the auditorium and surrounded my friends. Finally managing to pull them apart.

The rest of the heroes, myself and Professor Flay included, were now being rounded up by some of the drones while most of them were being engaged by six of Rockblock’s giant fists. As we walked by though, I noticed his seventh appendage experly flick a chunk of metal in our direction. I stumbled slightly, bending over quickly to grab the robot chunk. And then discretely passed it to Professor Flay before we were split off to return to our own cells.

“I’ll have it done before tonight,” he said to me as he palmed the misshapen blob of metal and wiring. 

I nodded and smiled, by that time tomorrow we’d be out of that forsaken prison and saving the world.

                                                         ***

Night fell, and I paced anxiously around the length of my cell. Assuming Professor Flay was able to work as quickly as he claimed he was able to. And assuming Rockblock had gotten him exactly what he needed. And assuming Cowboy Rockstar and Glassesman and Helm Lady were able to pick the locks on their cells when the time came. And assuming Rockblock could keep any guards off of us. And assuming- Well, there were a lot of assumptions before I’d be tasting fresh air. Our plan was hardly fool proof, and we had at least two or three fools on our team, depending on who you asked. We were making a few too many assumptions for my liking. But it was the best we had, so I guess that was that. There was nothing I could do except wait for something to happen. 

And when something happened, everything happened.

First there was a deafening boom, followed by a shockwave that traveled quickly throughout the cell block. If I hadn’t been deafened by the explosion, I would have noticed that the electronic buzzing I’d heard had gone silent. Professor Flay’s homebrewed EMP had worked. I ran to the door and saw several guard drones collapsed on the ground. Their cybernetic features were blank. 

Seconds later three cell doors swung open and Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, and Glassesman strode out. Glassesman looked especially smug, even though he was the last one out. The other two were such pros, they decided to let it slide. They quickly started working on picking the locks on the other cells. Helm Lady sprung Rockblock first, just in case there were any drones outside the EMP’s radius that might’ve been trundling our way. Professor Flay’s EMP was a one-shot kind of deal so we’d have to fight or evade any other drones we encountered. 

“So far so good eh?” Cowboy Rockstar grinned as he unlocked the door to my cell.

“So far, yeah,” I said anxiously. “We’re pretty much flying blind from here on out th- Woah!”

I took a step back into my cell as Cowboy Rockstar became enveloped in a brilliant white light. I stood agape as he began hovering a few inches off the ground and the light faded into his body. 

“What was that?” I asked.

Cowboy Rockstar landed adroitly on the ground and checked his pulse with two of his fingers.

“It’s… I think the EMP must have shorted out whatever device was neutralizing our powers in here,” Cowboy Rockstar said. His fists began crackling with energy.

I looked up and down the hall of cells. Powerful glows or crumpled cell doors told me that many of the other heroes were starting to regain access to their powers. 

“Well that certainly changes the game,” I said as I began taking stock of all of the new keys we’d just acquired.

                                                         ***

We quickly divided into a few teams: 

Team One: Nightron, Foresight P. Jones, and Intangi-Bill. None of us had been outside since we’d arrived in the prison and so none of us actually knew where the exit was. Team one would use their respective speed, supervision and intangibility in concert to find a way out.

Team Two: Cowboy Rockstar, Rockblock, and Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons. Our heavy hitters. If anybody could break straight through the walls that surrounded us to the outside it was them.

Team Three: Professor Flay, Electrobug, Digitalized, Psionica. They set about trying to cobble together weapons and gear from the broken husks of the drones that we had at our disposal.

Team Four: Captain Patriot, Brad the Radioactive Man, Amphin, Glassesman, Helm Lady and the Human Wall. The best offense is a strong defense, and if any of our other teams were going to have any hope of doing what they needed to do, they’d need somebody keeping Giorgio and whatever drones he could scrounge together off of their backs. 

Team Five: Dr. Hemer, Knife Knurse, and Super Surgeon. A lot of heroes were suffering painful side-effects either from the sudden reemergence of their superpowers or the power-deprivation they’d been suffering since they’d gotten here. Anybody who had any sort of medical knowledge would tend to them until we get help on the outside.

Team Six: Just me. My job was to come up with the team names and I’m not ashamed to admit that I totally phoned it in.

I was sitting back and taking stock of the other teams’ progress when a gust of wind informed me of Nightron’s return. 

“We’re not the only prisoners here,” he said panting, parts of his supervillain costume were singed, he must have encountered other guards elsewhere in the facility.

“You’re sure?” I asked frantically. I’m not sure why it had never occurred to me that there might be other prisoners somewhere in this facility. But I had only ever seen the heroes that were in that corridor at communal recreational events.

“Positive, there are maybe five or six other cell blocks just like this one. They’ve got dozens of other superheroes here. But that’s not all. World leaders, para-folk, some civilians. I think I even saw some sort of zoo,” Nightron said.

“Probably for animal sidekicks and the like,” I mused aloud. “Were you followed back here?”

“No, but they saw who I was. I’m sure they know where I’m supposed to be. It won’t be long before we have company here.”

“You’re right. Professor, how are those weapons coming!” I shouted towards where Team Three was working.

“My EMP seems to have worked a little too well, there’s no resteoring powers to these machines, but Psionica has managed to use her telekinetic abilities to reform some chunks of metal into clubs.”

“That’ll have to do,” I said. “Nightron, grab a few of those clubs, if anybody comes you’ll join Team Four. Hit them hard and hit them fast.”

“But what about the other prisoners?” Nightron protested.

“We need to break ourselves out before we can worry about anybody else,” Glassesman said.

“I hate to admit it but he’s right,” Helm Lady agreed.

“Yeah but-” and then, in a whoosh he was gone, because it was at that moment that a platoon of drones filed into our hallway. Two of them hit the ground, their CPUs bashed in by Nightron, before the rest of us even registered what was happening but once we did, the rest of Team Four, sprung into action. 

“Zach, over here,” Professor Flay called.

I ran over to him, he passed me a makeshift club and we formed a defensive ring around our medics and the wounded along with the rest of Team Three.

“We are through!” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons cried.

We helped Team Five get to the large gap in the wall that Team Two had formed as Rockblock and Cowboy Rockstar went to join the fray in the corridor. 

“We may have problem,” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons muttered to us as we joined her outside.

Problem was an understatement. For one thing, the sky was a murky blend of purples, oranges, and reds, and I know I haven’t been doing a ton of “world-building” in this dramatic account of my escape from a supervillain run supermax, but the sky we were all used to seeing was definitely blue. The ground we were standing on was somehow both dusty and crumbly. Every step we took sent a cloud of dust and ground flakes into the air. And we couldn’t see any other signs of life or civilization anywhere at all. I had always assumed that we would be somewhere inconspicuous but local, so that Smuggles could keep an eye on us, but it appeared as though we were in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting to the middle of anywhere. 

“What… What is this place?” Professor Flay said.

“Beats me,” I said with a shrug. When I designed this prison for How To Hero I recommended finding a large unused building with reinforced walls that was situated in a place that no cops would ever be caught dead anywhere near. There are literally four or five places like that within a twenty block radius of How To Hero headquarters so where the hell were we. Unless… crap.

“Atomspace,” I said. “We’ve been shrunken down and sent to a prison in Atomspace.”

“Well,” Professor Flay said, taking in our otherworldly surroundings. “That creates a wrinkle in our plans doesn’t it.”

“It certainly does,” I agreed.

And that’s when everything went black.

                                                         ***

I awoke, chained to a chair, in what may very well have been the most garishly decorated room I had ever seen. And Parenthetical Guy once painted our office neon green and creamsicle orange so that was saying something. The walls were all a deep blood red and there were various supervillainous accoutrements mounted all over the walls. Scary looking masks, futuristic blasters, esoteric looking staffs. A giant serpent’s head wearing oversized sunglasses was mounted on the wall directly opposite me. Below the serpent head sat an ornate, obsidian desk with a high backed leather chair behind it. The carpet was the color of rotting bones, which made a lot of sense when I realized that it wasn’t really a carpet at all, but rather a mat made entirely of very thin bone fragments. Bone fragments that were incredibly sharp at the ends. 

“Ouch!” I yelped as I lifted my feet slightly off of the ground.

“Well look who’s finally awake,” a snide voice to my left said.

I turned my head and my heart dropped. Joining me in this chilling chamber were the rest of my friends: Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, Professor Flay and Glassesman were chained to chairs like mine while Rockblock’s hulking form was chained to the wall on the far side of the room. The humans in the chairs also had their feet up in various positions. Rockblock was stuck standing on the bone floor, but at least he didn’t seem to mind.

“What happened?” I asked groggily.

“We were all knocked unconscious after we broke through the prison walls,” Professor Flay explained. “Cerebral implants I’d guess.”

“You’re saying we were all chipped?” I said, bewildered. “That’s crazy. Why weren’t we all knocked out as soon as we broke out of our cells?”

“Because I wanted to see the look on your face when you realized you were in Atomspace.”

All of our heads snapped towards the door where a man wearing a dark gray catsuit, a bright orange domino mask, and heavy metal boots strode into the room. “Do you like how I’ve decorated? Greg the Skeleton King referred me to his interior design guy.”

“That explains the bones,” Helm Lady muttered.

“And the hellfire!” Cowboy Rockstar proclaimed. “From right before we were captured, I’d been wondering about that.”

“Smuggles,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Zachary,” he said curtly. “Mr. How To Hero himself, how does it feel to be so utterly defeated by someone you’ve spent years ridiculing on your infantile blog?”

“I’ll let you know when it happens,” I said.

“Always with the clever little jokes,” Smuggles said as he took a seat in the leather chair and steepled his fingers. “You have been utterly defeated though. I’ve been following your little escape attempt from the very beginning. My people are not idiots you know. We’ve been listening to every conversation, watching your every move. The riot in the cafeteria was especially amusing.” He nodded at Rockblock who just grunted in response. “Quite frankly, you got further than I expected you to. But I’m glad you did, because now you have to admit that I’ve completely bested you. You’ve been thoroughly trounced Zachary. Who’s the laughingstock now?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to think of a way out of this for myself and my friends, when Glassesman burst out laughing. Smuggles’s eye flashed with rage and he slammed a hand down on his desk.

“I’m sorry, is something amusing here?”

“No no… Well yeah, sorry, it’s just… You got every supervillain to band together, captured most of the superheroes, and basically took over the entire world just to get back at some low rate blogger?”

“Hey, uncalled for!” I shouted.

“I’m sorry it’s just a bit ridiculous don’t you think?” 

“Honestly, I kind of agree with him,” Helm Lady said sheepishly.

“I legitimately thought this whole thing was about me,” Cowboy Rockstar admitted. “I’m kind of a big deal you know, being a semigod and all that.”

“Don’t you mean demigod?” Professor Flay asked, doing a little wiggle shake to get his chair facing Cowboy Rockstar.

“Oh, I’m that too. But I’m talking about the cult I inadvertently inspired that has deified me,” Cowboy Rockstar explained.

Smuggles banged his fist down on his desk again.

“Enough!” he shouted, before cradling his fist in his other hand. “Now that your merry band has been epically thwarted and humiliated, I must decide on your punishment. I’m not about to risk you lot plotting another breakout.”

My mind started racing for a way out. This was the first time I had come face to face with Smuggles since he’d unleashed Chuck the Fish Whisperer in the How To Hero basement. Until now I hadn’t realized just how much of what was happening revolved around me. I didn’t even realize Smuggles had been familiar with my blog before we hired him. Maybe I could work with that. 

“Do your worst Smuggles. I guarantee you it won’t be anything worse than what actual villains have done to me,” I said, affixing my most smug expression on my features.

“What are you talking about?” Smuggles said, clearly thrown.

“I mean come on. I lived with a real supervillain before. Remember Dr. Brainwave?” 

“Wait, what?” Helm Lady said. “You lived with Dr. Brainwave? We’ve been looking for him for years!” 

“Yeah well I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

“Brainwave was a sentimental hack. Killing him was child’s play.” Smuggles said through mounting anger.

I faltered for a moment. So Smuggles had been the one who had mailed that bomb to our office? He was the reason Dr. Brainwave was dead? Sure the guy was a supervillain, but at the end of the day he had been my… my friend. And he’d sacrificed his life to save mine and my friends’. The fact that I was sitting less than three feet away from his murderer was almost too much to bear. Still, there’d be plenty of time to deal with him later. Assuming my plan worked.

“Still before you killed him he made my life miserable. You’ve read my blog, I’m sure you know all about it. So I honestly doubt that anything you plan to do can compare.”

Smuggles literally shook with rage, “I can… I can killitalics you! You ever think about that?” 

Cowboy Rockstar grinned, “Good luck with that.”

Ok, honestly I’m not sure what thatitalics was about. Is Cowboy Rockstar immortal? Has anybody ever checked that? Regardless, I decided to just roll with it.

“Do your worst.” I said.

“Guys!” Glassesman shouted exasperated. “I love taunting a bad guy as much as the next guy, but maybe we should all ease up a bit!”

“Oh relax,” I said. “Smuggles is a Z-lister trying to kick it with the big kids. He can’t just shoot us or something. If he wants to be a world-dominating evil monster he’s going to have to come up with a suitably ostentatious way to kill us and honestly, he doesn’t have the imagination. Just look at his face, this is clearly eating at him.”

It was as though a lightbulb went off over Smuggles’s head. His face warped from grimace to grin and he strode around to the other side of his desk.

“I’ve already succeeded in taking over the world and routing your beloved superheroes. I hardly need to prove myself to the likes of you. You can expect to be executed in a ‘suitable ostentatious manner’ shortly.”

I was all read to shoot back a witty retort when everything went black again.

                                                         ***

I awoke to the sound of cheering, which made me feel pretty good. I don’t often get cheered for waking up. I’m sure Cowboy Rockstar was feeling pretty regular though, people cheer for everything that guy does. I was in the center of a gladiatorial arena, the stands were packed with guard drones and more than a few supervillains. The presence of so many of them here sent a shiver down my spine. Had Smuggles really been able to recruit and control so many supervillains? Next to me, my friends laid in a rumpled heap, all of them still unconscious with the exception of…

“Now look what you’ve done,” Professor Flay said sternly. 

I turned to look at him and saw the abject fear sketched across his features.

“Relax Prof, everything’s going to be ok.”

“How can you say that! Look at us! We’re in an arena surrounded by bloodthirsty supervillains for god’s sake!”

“It’s not the supervillains you should be worrying about, it’s whatever’s going to come out of that gate,” I said, pointing to a massive (well, massive relative to our shrunken selves) gate directly opposite us.

Professor Flay shuddered, “I imagine the others are still unconscious to prevent them from being able to do anything against whatever that might be.”

I nodded, “It makes sense, Smuggles doesn’t want to risk anything going wrong.”

“But I still want the satisfaction of watching at least some of you soil yourselves in fear,” Smuggles said as his smug visage appeared on a floating jumbotron that was hovering over the arena.

“You’ll never get away with this you knave!” Professor Flay shouted.

“Oh Professor, I already have. I think I’ll make today an international holiday going forward,” Smuggles said as he leaned back from the camera so we could see his entire upper body on the screen. He was sitting on a golden throne and his fingers were hovering above a big red button. I assumed whatever was waiting behind the gate would be released at the press of that button. And why prolong the inevitable.

“Why don’t you come down here so I can wipe that smug expression off of your face, you absolute goober!” I called up to Smuggles.

Smuggles frowned, “Goodbye Zach, you will not be missed.” 

His finger pressed the button. The gate started to ascend. Professor Flay sighed and rolled up his sleeves. I had to admire him, he wasn’t planning on going down without some sort of fight. As the gate rose the cheers of the crowd grew even more fevered. I think I even saw a sign that said “Cowboy Suckstar.” Rude. After what seemed like an eternity the gate was finally fully open and a ferocious roar shook the stadium as a massive beast lumbered into the arena. The ginormous monster truly had it all. Dozens of eyes, face tentacles, spikes, a flaming tail. I had to admit this would certainly be a suitably ostentatious way to die. Of course, I wasn’t about to let Smuggles get his way was I?

“Good god what is that thing?” Professor Flay said as he backed away from the giant monster. 

“It’s our way out,” I said calmly as I climbed on top of Rockblock’s comatose body, put two fingers in my mouth and whistled sharply.

“What are you doing?” Professor Flay shouted at me as the monster began galloping towards us on all fours.

I looked down at Professor Flay and smiled, “See you on the other side Prof.”

And then the monster ate me.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Severe floods hit Sao Paulo, Pinheiros river at highest level in 15 years, Brazil

Heavy rains affecting Sao Paulo (population 12.2 million), Brazil since Sunday, February 9, 2020, caused deadly floods and landslides across the city. The Pinheiros River also overflowed after reaching its highest level since 2005. At least two people have lost their lives, as of Tuesday, February 11.

According to the Civil Defense, at least 516 people across the state were left homeless, with the municipalities of Botucatu, Laranjal Paulista and Taboao da Serra under a state of emergency.

"Since 03:00 LT (06:00 UTC), in some areas, it rained half of what was expected for the month of February," said Sao Paulo Mayor Bruno Covas.

Torrential rains have also caused the rivers Tiete and Pinheiros to burst, with the latter reaching its highest level in 15 years, according to the country's Metropolitan Water and Energy Company.

Furthermore, the State Secretariat for Infrastructure and Environment attested that the last time the river overflowed was in 2005.

The rivers sent floodwaters across nearby highways, trapping drivers and passengers for several hours.

Several schools had to suspend classes due to severe flooding, while public transport also faced disruptions. According to the Sao Paulo Fire Department, more than 4 000 calls were attended by crews from late February 9.

Seven landslides and 132 flood points were reported as well in the Greater Sao Paulo area overnight. By early February 10, the numbers rose to 88 landslides and 546 flood points.

As of February 11, reports confirmed that the severe weather has claimed two lives.

Continue reading.

Some additions by the mod:

“Throughout the whole city we have avenues that are built over rivers, which were channeled with an output, the amount of water that passes in the river, less than the existing one today. With the urbanization of the city, construction of buildings, houses and paving of the streets, the amount of water that arrives is greater than it was in the past. Plumbing is insufficient. This is a structural problem in every conception of the city, which has a huge urbanized area.” “The climate emergency is generating record rains in southeastern Brazil and this is no longer an exceptional phenomenon but an event that will be repeated. Extreme weather phenomena that were only expected after 2030 are already happening this decade. - Nabil Bonduki, architecture and urbanism professor.

“Today, we build large buildings with basements of up to five floors without taking into account the geology where it is located. Growth today ignores all of this and treats the city as if it were a flat and uniform earth pan. The  city plan that predicts what type of construction is allowed in each point of the city places large buildings on the transportation axis, but that axis is on the banks of large rivers, many channeled, as in Radial Leste and Francisco Morato (avenues). It is precisely in the most fragile terrains of the city that it was proposed to build taller and deeper buildings.” - Lucila Lacreta, architect and urbanist.

The large Brazilian municipalities were not designed to "respect the hydrological cycles of nature": the evaporation of water and, later, the precipitation that affects cities. "The normal thing would be for water to seep into the soil, and then flow into streams and rivers, which then flow into the sea. And so the cycle would start over. But when the rain arrives in the urban space, the water falls on the impermeable soil and cannot infiltrate. Our canals and rivers are channeled. These waters, in great quantity and speed, flow into the gutters and galleries, which cannot support them.” Cities like São Paulo have had a disorderly growth, with precarious occupations built on slopes and floodplains of small rivers and streams, which unbalances the normal course of water that flows into large rivers such as Tietê. “And with climate change, the temperature of urban spaces has become higher. The trend is that we will have large amounts of heavy rain in shorter periods of time. And cities have not been prepared for it." - Anderson Kazuo Nakano, architect and urbanist.

“Unfortunately, climate change is already having an impact on our lives. And this is being aggravated by the disordered urban expansion, by the destruction of green areas that are important not only for good temperatures or for leisure, for the local climatic balance, but also to absorb parts of the rain that fall on our soil. When we have more waterproofing of the soil the tendency is that, with more rain, the floods intensify and we start to see more dramatic scenes like those of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo.” - Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of environmental group Climate Observatory.

São Paulo’s City Hall used 48% of the budget allocated to the flood prevention budget in 2019, and the state government has not applied 42% of funds against flooding in the last decade.

"There are places with more rain, others with less. Or when there is a storm, it will be more intense, as happened recently in Belo Horizonte [and this Monday in São Paulo]. Due to climate change, we will start to no longer have control over the situation because it is losing seasonality in the water cycle." - Liza Maria Souza de Andrade, urbanist.

"As we move pump greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the cycle is changed. As we remove vegetation, the cycle in the earth - in the case of soil infiltration - also changes. Urbanized areas will suffer a lot because of the change in seasonality and intensity the rains." - study by the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences, released in 2019, that pointed to an increase of 1.1º C in the average temperature of the Southeast region between 1955 and 2004.

São Paulo, for example, was built on top of a large hill. It is as if the historic center of the capital is at the top of a ravine. If it rains at the top, the water needs to drain to the lowest location. "Except that the city was a place surrounded by rivers and green areas with a soil that absorbed this water. Today, we are in one of the largest continuous waterproof areas in the world, that means we cemented everything and the water is no longer able to penetrate in the soil.” - Luiz Campos Jr, geographer.

Belo Horizonte was also built in a region surrounded by affluents - it was a site that housed 14 water courses. With the exception of Ribeirão Arrudas, all other rivers were adapted to the geometric plan of the new capital. "The city was planned on top of these rivers, which were adapted to the urban fabric as the city evolved. Then, the plumbing came. Floods have existed before the city was built. What happens is the potentialization of this phenomenon because of urban interventions." - Alessandro Borsagli, geographer.

The priority in the urban planning that was executed has never been to preserve the environment to prevent floods like recently's in São Paulo and Minas Gerais. Specifically in large cities, what prevailed was the idea of privileging urban displacement, mainly by car. "Brazilian cities are not prepared for whatever the consequences that climate change will have in relation to water, be it scarcity or excess of it. We have little forested capitals, with inadequate water treatment, absent sewage structures. series of infrastructure issues that will only make citizens' lives worse in this new climate crisis scenario." - Luciana Travassos, environmental scientist.

But if you wish to listen, instead of people scientifically knowledgeable about the thing, to a politician (and a left-wing one at that) who was having a blast in a casino in Argentine while his city was flooded, here’s what Alexandre Kalil, mayor of Belo Horizonte, said: "water comes from the sky, not come from administrative incompetence." 

Oh, and the death toll in São Paulo is currently at 5 (not counting cities nearby, some which had a bigger death toll. Also, about 8,200 inmates, (most of them temporary) have had food delivered interrupted because of the rains. The city of Osasco has declared calamity state.

x, x, x, x

[dontdj]

spontaneous mixing 4 Mutant Radio (Tibilisi)…wellllll this just another drunk late-night voyage through vinyl crates (which i aim to clean up during that house-arrest we are blessed with), bit of a love-letter to that KRENG project Dane Close and me just started and which got us involved in the impending Sameheads record series release. I know some of the mixes could easily be done waaay better - then again i would not do it the same way if i prepared everything well instead of picking vinyls on the fly and in that exciting stress of coming up with the next tune before losing the flow, with the stakes getting ever higher the further you get… shit: i miss that feeling already and the lock-down just started!so let this mix be an homage to pursuing something you feel but are very uncertain of in terms of the professional value of the outcome!! hope you enjoy listening it as much as i did making it!!! ヽ(´▽｀；)/♪ 01 Analclaire - Plapla Pinky02 Beard - Dane Close03 Frigoscandia Cold Stage - Franz Pomassl04 Media Friend / V.S.B. - Rudimentary Pend (Soft Pink Truth rmx)05 Moulin Rouge EP A1 - Dust Inc.06 Chromosoma 23 - Vicknoise07 The Operative - Cabaret Voltaire08 Malo - AN-I09 Smells Like … - Alien Sex Find10 Walls (Fun In The Oven) - Crass11 Cish Cash - Basement Jaxx12 Je T'aime Mélancolie - Mylène Farmer ‎(Felix Da Housecat rmx)13 DiscoBand - Infinity Night14 Sequenza Basso - Francisco15 Balance Crew - Flam!16 Shake The Disease - Depeche Mode

[2paclegacynet]

2Pac, Mouse Man, Gerard Young, Darrin Keith Bastfield For Born Busy & East Side Crew

Pictured, from left 2Pac, middle row fifth from right, as a middle school student. Dana Smith aka Mouse Man, bottom left, and 2Pac with family friends. Born Busy is rap group formed in Baltimore with Tupac Shakur, Gerard Young, Darrin Keith Bastfield and Dana Smith aka Mouse Man. At age 13, Tupac moved to Baltimore from New York City in 1984 with his mother, Afeni, and younger sister, Sekyiwa. The family lived in the first-floor apartment of a brick row house at 3955 Greenmount Avenue in the small, North Baltimore neighborhood of Pen Lucy. Tupac went to Roland Park Middle School for the eighth grade. That year’s photo for Mrs. Gee’s class shows him in the second row, near the center. With close-cropped hair and dressed in a light-colored, short-sleeve shirt, he looks lanky, even scrawny, among his classmates. Still, it’s easy to spot him thanks to his thick black eyebrows and dark eyes. And then there’s the mouth. While the other kids sport tight-lipped smiles or teeth-baring “say cheese” grins, Tupac strikes an altogether different pose. Actually, he doesn’t appear posed at all. His mouth is open wide, and he seems engaged, not docile or mindlessly compliant. It looks like he might be talking to the photographer. Dana Smith sits in the front row, to Tupac’s left. Smith, nicknamed “Mouse Man,” forged a musical bond with Tupac and remembers the first time he spoke to him on the bus home from school. That day, in September 1984, the No. 8 bus was nearly full and Tupac took the only open seat, the seat beside Smith, who was itching to get home and listen to WEBB’s Rap Attack show at four o’clock.

“He kicked a rhyme to me, and I was like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy.’”

Smith, a talented beatboxer, asked the newcomer if he was into hip-hop and knew how to rap. “He kicked a rhyme to me, and I was like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy. It was really good.” He later learned the rhyme wasn’t original—it was actually lifted from a Kurtis Blow song Shakur knew from New York, which hadn’t made it to Baltimore yet. Their friendship blossomed, rooted in a shared love of hip-hop acts like Eric B & Rakim and Run DMC and an appreciation of different types of music. As Smith recounts the story, he walks around The Sound Garden, the now venerable Fells Point record store, and points out some of the nonrap music Shakur enjoyed. Kate Bush? “Yes, indeed,” says Smith. “‘Wuthering Heights’ was the song.” Sting? Yup. Steve Winwood? Yup. “Hey, we were also listening to Brian & O’Brien on B104, playing the hits all day long,” he says, referring to the then-popular top 40 radio program. Smith picks up a CD copy of Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms. It, too, was a favorite, but not for hits like “Money for Nothing.” Smith starts singing lyrics from the title track that resonated: “Through these fields of destruction/Baptisms of fire.” The tune, sung by Brit Mark Knopfler, traces a protagonist who faces death and treasures his comrades’ loyalty—ground Shakur covered in songs he later wrote. When asked about this type of music’s appeal back in the day, Smith claims much of it was practical, a lesson in song craft: “For us, it was all about identifying transitions in songs and how smooth they were.” They would meet up every afternoon to write rhymes, after Smith finished his homework. Sometimes, they’d hang out at a rec center on Old York Road, but Shakur wasn’t into playing basketball or pingpong, because “he sucked at sports, all sports,” says Smith. Most often, the two of them simply composed raps, either sitting inside a plastic bubble on the playground behind Tupac's house—“the acoustics were so good in there,” recalls Smith—or hunkered down in Smith’s basement on nearby 41st Street. Smith’s house was lively, populated by an array of family members including grandparents, his mother, an aunt, and two uncles. Music was always playing. Smith was the youngest of his group of friends, a self-professed “good kid, the freshest kid on the block” who had all the latest fashionable clothes and sneakers, thanks to his uncles, who dealt drugs in the neighborhood. Tupac, on the other hand, came from poverty. His father wasn’t around; his mother had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to bomb New York City landmarks while a member of the Black Panther Party in 1969. A month after being acquitted of the charges, she gave birth to Shakur, on June 16, 1971. Afeni, who passed away in May and was the inspiration behind the song “Dear Mama,” struggled with substance abuse issues (“And even as a crack fiend, mama/You always was a black queen, mama”) and with supporting the family (“You just working with the scraps you was given/And mama made miracles every Thanksgiving”). Tupac wore hand-me-downs, including pants that were so big they had to be stapled. He slept in a small bedroom, while his mother and little sister slept in the dining room Afeni had converted into a bedroom. Smith says the Shakur house was “always dark, dim. They had lights and it was clean, but it was dark with not a lot of stuff in there.” Smith’s family and friends razzed him for befriending the raggedy newcomer. “This guy is cornball—everything about him is corny,” he recalls them saying. “Why are you hanging out with him?” The answer, says Smith, was simple: “We loved to rap.” Darrin Keith Bastfield, CEO of Born Busy Films and BecomeAPatron.com is currently working on developing projects in television and two upcoming theatrical film projects that he’s written and will debut direct such as ‘Shakurspeare’, inspired by Bastfield’s painting ‘Shakurspeare’ that the late Tupac Shakur posed for at age 16 is a romantic comedy/drama that’s centered around the controversial world of art, and ‘Born Busy’, a coming of age true story based on his memoir ‘Back in the Day: my life and times with Tupac Shakur’ published by Randomhouse/Ballantine in 2002 (Hardcopy) and Perseus/Da Capo Press in 2003 (Paperback). Bastfied is also a featured artist in the upcoming ‘Black Artists on Art’ Catalogues Volumes 3 and 4 published by Samella Lewis, renowned Art Historian/Artist/Art Collector. Darrin Keith Bastfield: Although rap was Tupac’s true love, the variety of music he listened to was amazing. This became clear to me one Saturday morning when he, Richard, and I sat around the living room of the apartment in our boxer shorts and undershirts talking about music.

Born Busy (the rap group we formed in Baltimore), with Gerard Young, Tupac Shakur, and Darrin Keith Bastfield  Richard was definitely a cool guy, who had a pleasant disposition and a free-flowing approach to life. His bedroom door was never closed, even when his girlfriend was in there with him. In the mornings I would see them lying on a single mattress on the floor (no box spring underneath), still asleep. I showed him respect, and he was always cool to me. No matter how much time I spent there at the apartment, he never gave me even the slightest hint of a bad vibe. We periodically had chill sessions when he was around (which wasn’t a whole lot). And when I wasn’t there, he and Tupac would bond.

A page from Back in the Day My Life and Times with Tupac Shakur shows photos of the author with Tupac and other friends. In this Saturday morning discussion, Tupac floated along with Richard easily, unmoved by any of his older roommates' detours in various directions that were completely unfamiliar to me. Despite Richard’s dramatically different background and social orientation, Tupac never once lost his footing, and comfortably expounded upon many of the different artists who came up over the course of the conversation which spanned the full spectrum. From LL Cool J to Peter Gabriel, and Sun Ra and Jimi Hendrix to Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters, Tupac had something meaningful to say. I tried to imagine where he had gotten this exposure, how he had become so familiar with all of the divergent artists, but was unsuccessful. The picture of him listening to much of this stuff in his mom’s apartment did not fit, nor could I see it occurring up in New York among his family or friends up there (whom I would later meet). In fact this is still a mystery to me. The best answer I have managed is that he absorbed it all in a few months of his residence at the apartment. There the large collections of the two older roommates (Richard and John’s brother) would have been available to him and played regularly in the apartment. It wasn’t just the variety of music to which Tupac listened that struck me, but the fact that he was genuinely interested in and knowledgeable about the music, and the various artists behind it. Richard played the role of DJ through the discussion, putting on a succession of different records that they would then discuss and critique after hearing only a few bars. I specifically remember Tupac talking about Tracy Chapman. He felt she was a musical genius. After quoting several lyrics from a favorite song of hers, he concluded, “That’s a true poet.”

Cover of 'Back in the Day: My Life and Times with Tupac Shakur' by Darrin Keith Bastfield. Tupac was definitely a sponge of amazing efficacy, particularly with information at all dealing with either of his two loves in life: rap and acting. As an actor, the ease with which Tupac remembered lines was incredible, and his knowledge of craft impressive. When I asked him one afternoon the type of actor he wished to be, his reply was immediate: “A Shakespearean actor.” He said this without emotion, from a windowsill at the fore of the apartment, not breaking his passive yet focused gaze outward. “A what?!” I replied, taken aback. And he repeated himself. “Why?! They don’t make any money.” I was thoroughly confused. The Tupac I knew was destined for far greater things than low budget productions in small playhouses. I envisioned him marching through the entertainment industry to some star-spangled movie or TV career, and untold millions. And I just assumed that his vision for himself was twice as grand as any I could conjure for him. His reply was disappointingly anticlimactic, and downright troubling. Dana Smith aka Mouse Man was Tupac’s friend during his teenage years in Baltimore. Together, they created rap groups East Side Crew & Born Busy. Which is where Tupac’s first recorded audio came from. At the young age of 14 years old, “Born Busy” created their first song “Babies Having Babies. Gerard (High School Friend): "First time I ever saw Tupac, he was in eighth grade. I seen this kid that had this shirt with the old school iron-on letters, MC NEW YORK. And he was rhyming. All these people was around him -- even back then. We was adversaries at first, but we formed a crew. Born Busy and shit, MC New York, DJ Plain Terror, Ace Rocker, and my man D on the beat box. Taking mad peoples out--the invincibles. Then we started writing little rhymes for Jada (Pinkett). Jada was rhyming a little bit too. Don''t Sleep." Songs recorded during 'Born Busy'' era: Babies Having Babies ft Dana Mouse Smith (Acapella) 1987 Produced by Born Busy Check It Out ft Dana Mouse Smith (Acapella) 1987 Produced by Born Busy Terror On The Tables ft Ace Rocker (Acapella) February 1988 Produced by Born Busy That's My Man Throwing Down ft Ace Rocker (Acapella) Februaury 1988 Produced by Born Busy I Saw Your Girl ft Ace Rocker (Acapella) March 1988 Produced by Born Busy Girls Be Tryin To Work A Nigga April 1988 Produced by Born Busy

Mouse Man & 2Pac Songs recorded featuring Mouse Man: N.I.G.G.A., Black Cotton, What goes On & Niggaz in the Pen

Mouse Man, Baba Bojang aka Slick D and MC New York aka 2Pac ''In the mid-1980s, rap wasn’t yet the commercial juggernaut it has become—it was gaining popularity, but hadn’t arrived in the mainstream. The Enoch Pratt Free Library, ahead of the curve, sponsored a youth rap contest in November 1985. Tupac spotted a flier with “Calling All Rappers!” across the top, urging anyone under the age of 18 to “write the best rap about the Pratt Library and be eligible for a cash prize.” All entrants had to submit a written copy in advance (“No Profanity Allowed”), and the finalists performed at the library at Pennsylvania and North avenues.

Mouse Man & MC New York aka 2Pac / 1985 Tupac and Mouse Man created “Library Rap,” which Shakur wrote out in longhand, in black pen, on a piece of lined notebook paper, and Tupac and Mouse Man’s group The East-Side Crew entered the contest. Deborah Taylor, then the Pratt’s young adult services coordinator, organized the contest and remembers Tupac and Mouse Man as “very polite boys. They were nice kids.” She drove them to the contest because they didn’t have transportation. Tupac and Mouse Man’s winning performance opened with Tupac declaring, “Yo’ Enoch Pratt, bust this!” and urging Baltimoreans to get library cards. They told kids to stay in school, learn to read, and “get all the credits that you need.” (Tupac's handwritten verses now reside in the Pratt’s Special Collections archive, alongside works by H.L. Mencken and Edgar Allan Poe.)

Mouse Man & MC New York aka 2Pac Taylor, who still works at the Pratt, recalls all the judges commenting on the same thing: The scrawny kid lit up the room with his rapping. “When Tupac performed,” she says, “you could not take your eyes off him.” Tupac and Mouse Man performed whenever and wherever they could: for the drug dealers working on Old York Road, opening for rap group Mantronix at the Cherry Hill rec center, and even at neighborhood funerals. They also wrote rhymes with titles like “Babies Havin’ Babies” and “Genocide Rap” that reflected the political and social awareness Shakur inherited from his mother.

Mouse Man, 2Pac & Mopreme “Tupac was always conscious of that shit,” says Mouse Man. “He schooled us on those sort of social justice issues, and hip-hop was the perfect outlet. It allowed us to say what was on our mind, and people listened.” sources: baltimoremagazine.com | biography.com Read the full article

[kimchislaphearts]

Goodbye B1 (2019)

Genre: Slice of life, drama

Plot: 

Da Eun has lived in a semi-basement apartment for 8 years. She finally passes her civil service examination and she prepares to move out. 

Cast & Crew:

Kim Ga Eun As Yeon Da Eun

Supporting cast: Jung Joon Won, Jung Yi Seo, Lee Ji Ha, Lee Dae Yeon, Jo Hye Ryun, Lee Yeon

Director & Screenwriter - Kim Min Tae

Music: 

There was one nice OST which fit the drama well, Tear Wind by 9 and the Numbers, but that’s about it. 

Overall:

This drama special was a quiet and slow affair about an individual on the verge of starting their life over once they start work. As Da Eun packs up her basement apartment she reminisces the times she spent there with people who are no longer a part of her life for various reasons, it’s a soft and slightly melancholy watch.

There is a little bit of mystery as an object appears and Da Eun tries to find out who it belongs to, I found it pretty easy to solve.

Based on comments most people are watching this one for Kim Ga Eun, who is most memorable to me as the tiresome Ho Rang from Because This is my First Life. Her performance here is pretty good, but it’s a fairly straightforward role. I liked her interactions with her ex-boyfriend, they had good on screen chemistry. It would have been nice to see more of their relationship. 

Overall, it was watchable but not one I’d rave about. 

Rating: 7/10

Watch it: KBS World Youtube