#i have a lot of pins in the roof of my car and i looked up today and noticed he was missing

[mushtoons]

the world is cruel and unjust....

someone took him...

hes lost cold and alone....💔

[gladiatorcunt]

- # GIVE A FLY SOME HONEY !!

all roads lead to death valley

cw: southern setting & accents, sui ideation/thoughts, protected sex (are you proud of me), dead dove ending and undertones, sort of ambiguous, virgin cowboy!anakin x virgin afab!reader, ROTS coded!anakin, r2’s a horse, the force is in place of the christian God and is referred to as such at times, star wars being a fictional franchise in a star wars au fic, weird mix of a farm and a ranch, spanking, clit slapping, biting, reader’s inner freak has some crazy thoughts, mentions of humiliation and collaring/choking, anakin murders somebody (one scene of violence), what a heat advisory and the south’s sex education does to a mf, implied plus size and neurodivergent!reader, kidnapping????????????, mention of drugs, reader has a lot of internalized shame about where they’re from

wc: 4.2k (unedited)

what if instead of star wars it was called 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 wars

consider commissioning me!

Your unlucky streak rears its ugly head yet again. June was already shaping up to be a hot month, and your junkyard car wouldn’t start. You’re used to driving long stretches of road with nothing but livestock in fields to gawk at, it comes with the territory. But you couldn’t afford gas and decided to push your luck on the way back home, nevermind that the drive would be at least 20 hours. Moving to the city had its drawbacks, the road trip to and back being one of them.

“No, no. Come on, please work. Do you need me to fucking sing to you or something?” You groan, fruitlessly twisting your key in the ignition over and over.

Nope, “Tough shit.” Your engine mocks, death coughs sputtering out one after the other.

“ ‘You havin’ trouble?” A masculine voice shouts from behind you.

You get startled by the sound and gracefully slam your head up into the roof of the car as you turn around. You must look like quite the sight, clutching your now throbbing head and stumbling out of your broken down hand-me-down car on a long open road. Once you’ve blinked enough to adjust to the harsh sunlight, your eyes land on a tall muscular figure riding a horse. The clip clop of the horse’s dirty hooves on the gravel pierce your ears but the gentle sway of the man’s fluffy hair softens the blow.

“Um…. yes, sir. I am actually. My…. my car won’t start and I’m all out of gas.” You burn with embarrassment as you get through your explanation, trying your hardest not to throw up from the sheer social anxiety.

“Well that ain’t no biggy, I think I can help with that.” The man cocks his head and hops down from the horse, a white stallion with a few faded black-gray spots here and there. “Stay here, R2.”

You’re standing there dumbly, ignoring the tiny rocks digging into your shoes and the pounding in your skull as the cowboy wanders up to you. The sun bounces off his dark hat in a way that gives him a sort of halo, and you gape like a fish when he tips it down at you in a silent greeting, reaching out to shake your hand after. The silver spurs on his boots reflect sunlight directly onto your face, so you miss his open palm the first time.

His hand is rough, you can feel numerous old scrapes and cuts when you accept the gesture. But it’s so much bigger than yours, and there’s strange heat coming from his skin that you’re hesitant to pin on the southern summer sun. Too handsome, in a way that just can’t be possible, you quickly swipe a fingertip over his ring finger during the handshake and The Force must be looking out for you because there’s no ring. Not that you’re seeking anything out, but in the town you’re from, you’re lucky if anyone makes it past 18 without having a baby and getting hitched as a result.

Anakin tinkers away at your car for over an hour, finding more problems than just a lack of gas. Eventually he determines that you’ll die in this heat before you can back on the road, so he asks you to accompany him back to his ranch and he’ll send out one of his employees to bring your car around. You try to show him that you’re listening by ‘hm’-ing and nodding every so often, but it’s hard to rip your eyes away from a very attractive man bent over and sweaty while he’s fixing your car. You definitely do not want to cry when his flannel lifts up as he wipes the sweat on his forehead away with his greasy hand, revealing the slight softness over his muscles.

Since your car was no longer an option, Anakin grins as he gestures towards his horse, “R2’s a good horse, won’t give you any trouble. He likes to make a lot of noise and has an… acquired sense of humor, but I reckon we’ll get back just fine.”

He has you practice getting off and on the horse for a good while, the next step is letting you adjust to the feeling of being on one. You’d be embarrassed that Anakin’s having to teach you how to ride but his hands curl around your waist, keeping you steady and whispering in your ear to not be so stiff. Horses can smell fear after all, it’d suck to not only have your car be broken but your bones too. It’s a scene straight out of a cheesy romance novel, the kind that’s a tiny yellowed book sold almost exclusively in run down gas stations with a cover not far off from a porno.

Your cheeks are burning the entire way to the ranch, you relax as much as you can on an animal that’s a few hundred pounds of muscle with a searing hot body pressed right up against you from behind. It doesn't take long to get to your destination though, and before you know it sprawling fields bracket a mid size homey wooden building. There are some smaller pens for the cows to stay in and you follow their movement as an employee unlatches the gate and leads them out towards the left most field.

“They gotta switch pastures every so often.” He informs you, urging his horse into an energetic trot, “And it’s a good rule of thumb to have about an acre per cow.”

You tighten your hold on the reins and try not to focus on your fear of falling off. The pace of R2 isn’t one that you struggle to match but then again this is the first time you’ve ever ridden a horse in a long time. You’ve always been too skittish to do it regularly, and when you moved you got rid of the hobby entirely. You take a deep breath and let the horse’s movements travel through you, coming to enjoy the gentle jostling as you go. Anakin keeps his hands around yours on the reigns, making sure you don’t panic and seize up. R2’s not really beginner friendly unless he likes his rider, he has a tendency to just whinny and take off when the spirit moves him.

“The Force has done me good and given me a nice house on nice land, but it don’t mean nothin’ if i’m all by my lonesome. Ever since my dad passed and my ma’ died a few years after that, the workers and the cows are all I got, plus R2 of course.”

All right, he sinks into the jargon a little too much, but the way the sun accentuates the scar on his cheek makes it a charming quirk. You want to lick his teeth when he smiles, you think, before blaming it on an oncoming heatstroke. You’re no better than a man in this moment, and if you had seen him soaking up all of the attention in a crowded room in a bar you’d have no business being in, you like to think that you could pull him. You play with the slightly waxy feel of the leather reins, allowing the sensation of coarseness in the stitching to overpower any coherent thought.

“Why’d you name your horse R2?” You ask, ducking your head as you feel him guide the animal towards the stables.

“Oh uh, I was real wild over these sci fi movies from back when I was a kid. The hero had this robot called R2-D2, and I guess it just stuck with me.” He answers you with a shrug and a mild blush, curving his fingers around yours.

Your stomach warms at the feeling, but you refrain from returning the gesture, he probably isn’t even thinking that deeply about what he’s doing. He’s not obsessing over every square inch of skin that comes into contact with his own, not like you. You’re already missing the comforting weight of Anakin’s herculean body when he’s pulling the reins to stop R2 and hopping off, clamping his big hands around your waist and helping you down. You wobble for a bit and find your footing before you can pick up on how he momentarily froze in front of you, anticipating an easy opportunity to touch you again. Force, you really are stupid, bless your heart.

You glance up at him and start to say something but then you hear rustling in the bushes, Anakin must hear it too because before you can tug on his sleeve and tell him, he’s pulling his revolver out from its holster and striding off towards the sound. You’re quick to learn that he has a bit of a one track mind, especially when it comes to indulging the serpent twisting in between his ribs like a switchblade.

“I’ll be damned…”

You’re supposed to head inside and awkwardly linger around until your car is in good enough condition to get you back to Coruscant. The only thing is, you’ve now found yourself without your new security blanket, and your curiosity agrees with how much you don’t fucking want to speak to any of the people here without Anakin to hide behind. R2 loudly chuffs at you from his stall in the stables, either saying “That’s just how he is, leave him be!” or "What are you doing? You should obviously go after him!” You choose to believe it’s the latter, so you wander off into the distance, following Anakin’s lead.

You catch up to him quicker than you thought you would, and you have half a mind to scold him like a child if you weren’t catching your breath. All you can see is his wide shoulders because he’s hunched over something, your heartbeat quickens when you spot his gun being pointed at something. You circle around him to find a man squirming on the ground like a toddler, twitching every so often. Anakin seems almost enthralled by the desperate display, so he doesn’t notice you until you gingerly place a hand on his shoulder, soft and looking to soothe. Later you won’t remember the blood on the man’s temple or the matching stain on the muzzle of Anakin’s gun, because you didn’t witness that part.

He snaps out of it, turning his head to nuzzle his nose against your knuckles, “ ‘s alright, sweetheart, just a meth head too out of his mind to watch where he’s goin’. Had a knife with him, probably lookin’ to rob somebody blind.”

Your eyes flicker between him and the man, fully aware of how common stuff like drug addicts trespassing is and the old fashioned black and red ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot On Sight’ sign. You’ve grown up around guns, you’re more used to hearing them in a hunting or taking shots at beer bottles kind of way, but it’s not like Anakin’s the only one to have that kind of self enforced rule when it comes to his property. Still… killing a human man is different than making use out of a successful deer hunt, right?

“Maybe we should call the cops, he can’t hurt nobody like that…” You try to reason, casting a pitiful glance towards the cowering man.

There’s a scratch on Anakin’s face that’s still bleeding from the knife the guy had used before Anakin took it, it just barely missed his right eye, he could’ve lost it. You’ll ask to help him with it when you get back to the ranch, but you know that there’s no seeing to it right now. You don’t want to risk an infection just so you could brush your thumb across the wound, you’re not even sure why you want to, it’s like the urge just materialized in your head out of thin fog. Anakin gently shrugs your hand off and uses his free one to pull you against his chest, and it’s like you’re back on his horse, that same fear entwined with exhilaration like barbed wire. Your hearts are beating at the same pace, some folks say that’s how you know it’s love, that’s how you know it’s fate.

“You don’t got the stuff in ya to be a killer, that’s just fine, darlin’. ‘Cause I sure do.” His words dissolve into a previously unknown to you cold sneer.

Anakin clamps a burly, sweaty hand over your eyes as he empties the entire magnum into the tresspasser’s skull. The bright sun bounces off the brim of his hat, casting a shadow over his stormy eyes. He may not have let you witness the massacre, but you will never forget the sickening yelps the poor bastard gave to Anakin like prayer. And then he got put down in a more inhumane fashion than if he were a rabid dog. To your gracious host, there’s probably not a whole lick of difference. Between a wanderin’ sap and a deranged mutt, that is.

But there’s a far off expression on his face, maybe he was once at risk of having two bullets in his temple at the hands of someone unforgiving.

“Welp.” Anakin exclaims, making a point of slapping his thigh as he holsters his pistol. “Better head on home now, I reckon. Come on, honey, don’t want to lose you to the coyotes.”

It’s said like “kai-yohtes.” You balk at his teasing and obediently trail after him, a vulnerable duckling staying in line. The storm is hitting hard by the time you’re out of the woods, and you briefly wonder if the Angels up in heaven are gonna start bowling soon. A saying that got passed around in your family, when you and the ones before you would stare up in wonder and shiver in fear at the thundering purple skies as kids. You remember being surprised that one of the Angels’ bowling balls never fell down to earth, maybe it’d be somethin’ like a meteorite.

As is the case with many things, it’s easy to lose sight of the fresh corpse in the dry grass. Once you turn around and thread your finger through Anakin’s, dirtying them, it’s almost like that man never existed. There must be something wrong with you, sure the situation is so unimaginable that it would be hard to cope with, but shouldn’t you be feeling more guilt than you do? You feel bad, of course, but ‘easy come and easy go’ has always been the way of things in these parts. God giveth and God taketh away.

You’re back where you should be, a narrow dirt path going under a wooden fence to the ranch. Grand trees line the road forming a moss green canopy. A few workers are goofing off and playing a very amateur game of football, blissfully ignorant to the fact that Anakin can obviously see them from his place next to you.

It would be a peaceful place to die, a bright and clear afternoon-evening in the way that the world can only be when you’re about to leave it. That’s how you’d want it to feel, like you’re rowing a boat across the lake you used to go fishing at to see people you’d never thought you’d see again waiting for you. Fall leaves, blinding pale sun, a serene and calming quiet. You’d be the happiest you’ve ever been, skipping even though you never could as a kid. There’d be no sadness, only relief and a memento of everything that’ll only make sense when it’s someone’s turn to see you again. No buzzing from mosquitoes or chirping from crickets, only little lightnin’ bugs. Maybe you only get that kinda ending if you’re good, in the godly sense, if you come from something worth remembering.

Anakin raises an eyebrow and gently jostles you, and just like that your train of thought is derailed. He chalks it up to shock, and nods his head towards a clearing behind the building. A change of plans. You follow, as you are wont to do.

“That rat bastard had it comin’ to ‘im, hun.” He tries to reassure and squeezes your hand, imploring you to see reason. “The Force decided it was his time, sweet thing.”

You shake your head, not disagreeing, just in utter disbelief. “I just… most everyone in my life I've known that’s died did it when I wasn't there. I’ve never had to actually be there when they… you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” And that’s all he says, regardless of the truth.

It’s what you need, somehow he just understands exactly what that is. You’re starting to think that you certainly don’t have a damn clue. You look up at him again, really drinking in every facet of his entire being that you can latch onto and obsess over. You’re remembering why you were so anxious to get out of this sinkhole, it’s a miracle you ever got out of it in the first place. His hair’s all messy, dark curls strewn about like a windswept bale of hay. A storm is brewing in his eyes, like he could Earth to rotate in the opposite direction if he wanted it to. He works his jaw around in a weird way to get rid of the soreness after grinding his teeth.

It’s tantalizing, being the hand holding a man on the edge back from wreaking his God given havoc.

You dot a quick peck on his cheek, scrunching your nose up at the barest hint of prickly stubble.

His eyes widen, and the sun itself shines brighter. The cutest light dusting of pink spreads across his face, so he one ups you by pressing your lips together. It’s exactly how a first kiss should feel, a simple gesture that leaves you breathless and with more butterflies than a flower garden swarming in your tummy. There’s no fireworks, but you can hear wind chimes and birds singing as your lips glide together, the meeting of your tongues is so natural that you won’t be able to remember when his slipped through the seam of your mouth. You want to keen as he maps out your teeth, his spit has to have some kind of aphrodisiac in it.

Anakin works your jeans open and off your legs completely, his pupils expand when he sees your thick thighs in all their glory but he keeps himself from slapping them and acting like they’re the only part of your body. There’s an ever growing to do list in both of your heads, your combined inexperience brings a flurry of perverted ideas and porn scenarios to recreate with it, and you’re sad that you’ll very likely leave with none of them being fulfilled.

He yanks the collar of your tank below your chest, immediately leaving over to bite your cute breasts with all the grace of a rattlesnake. He doesn’t try to make any marks, he just wants to bite wildly and with reckless abandon, like he’s using your tits to self soothe. You’d do the same if he let you at his pecs to be fair, his chest is practically as big as yours if not bigger.

“This means somethin’ to me, hear that? ‘m always gonna remember my first.” He spits, clutching onto your bruised tit like he’s a split second away from sinking his hand into your viscera and dumpster diving for your heart.

He pauses pawing at your tits to reach in his back pocket and pull out a condom. It’s crumpled and the packaging is worn by rubbing against the denim of Anakin’s jeans, you can tell that he’s excited to finally put it to use. You’re glad that there’s some safety measures being taken, but your heart swoops in disappointment at the dose of reality. It’s the kind of thing that calls for the most diabolical, unhinged, strings of goopy fluid hanging from his balls as they slap against your rippling ass, raw sex. You don’t let yourself pout, Anakin’s making good use of the only working brain cell between the two of you. You scoot back on his lap to give him room to pop to button on his pants and whip his dick out. It makes a heavy ‘thwop!’ as it slaps against Anakin’s abs.

Your mouth waters at the sight, so thick with the just right amount of curve, it would scratch your throat perfectly. His hands shake harder as he rips the condom’s packaging open with his teeth and rolls it on his twitching length. You take a deep breath, finding comfort in the tense muscles on Anakin’s shoulders through his warm flannel. He curls a hand around the base of his cock and grasps it tightly, positioning it right under your empty hole. You’re lucky he didn’t have to tell you what to do, because working yourself down every inch would’ve been much more painful if you already needed to be taught a lesson. It’s weirdly sweet, the chaste pecks he presses along your nose and jawline as you adjust to what feels like a tree log forcing your tender folds to stretch around it. Your slutty body tries to twist itself in a pretzel with the way you’re swiveling your hips, trying to get more of Anakin’s dick inside of you when you’ve miraculously already swallowed him to the hilt.

“I want this pretty pussy weepin’ for me, I’m awfully sorry honey but i’m not stopping till it’s gushin’ all over me.” He speaks in between wet kisses up and down the column of your throat.

“Mmm- It’s okay, I want it like that, Ani. Promise- oh my god, so big.”

You make him feel like a man trying to outrun a forest fire only to get swept up in a tornado. Like there’s a fever in his brain that’s gotten into his blood, black tar dripping into his liver. Drives a man to drink so he can have a sliver of that feeling, that scalding need not even God could give you. There’s no finesse or coordination to anything, his lips frantically scurry along random spots on your upper body. His upward thrusts are heavy hitting and wrangle your breath out in stuttered gasps, he moves as if he were riding a horse, following only the imagined scent of old blood. Anakin’s cock is so big your walls could rip if he wasn’t always keeping a sharp eye on how much he’s bullying you. He doesn’t try anything crazy like fucking your cervix, it might shock you so much that you remeber exactly how long it’s been since he’s had your car “taken to the shop”.

His spurs dig into the dirt as he slaps your ass, the material of his gloves adding an extra bit of ‘umph!’ to the resulting sting. Anakin’s jeans are so warm against your ass that it takes a few more spanks before you really get the urge to bend over his lap and tell him to just have at it until you sob. You’re on an ecstatic high, living in the present with a near stranger’s dick balls deep inside of you. His eyes gleam gold when you make eye contact, and you find it so easy to fall down the rabbit hole, letting this man burn away all your responsibilities until he’s the last one left standing in a sea of ashes.

You don’t mind that he stops talking eventually, switching to gruff grunts and harsh yells. ‘Don’t be so stiff, let the movement roll through you.’ Anakin digs his fingers into the meat of your jiggling ass and delivers a final smack to both cheeks. You sigh in relief, but then you snap out of your cockdrunk haze to yelp at the cruel hit to your swollen clit.

“Need ya to keep squeakin’ sweets.” He orders. “Don’t want the townsfolk to think I fucked your brain out your ears.”

It’d be polite to make conversation with the people you meet when Anakin parades you around with his hat on your head later, something of a pre engagement tour. If the Force is good, you’ll be willing, because rope burn isn’t something you want to become your new normal.

“Chin up, buttercup,” He says almost bashfully despite how hard he’s pounding your puffy cunt, “We can get some ice cream at the fair after if ya like, make it a cute little second date.”

You whimper and harshly pull his hair, earning you a throaty moan and another slap to your clit, saying yes to him like you’ve already done a million times. You thought that the pure social anxiety of being around so many of Anakin’s employees would be nerve wracking, it’s nothing compared to having to speak to them AND keep their boss’s cum from oozing down your leg. Anakin’s discarded belt catches your eye when a sharp thrust sends your head falling back, and you picture the scuffed up belt buckle as the O shaped ring of a more traditional collar. The black stains from working on your car only add to the appeal, it scares you exactly how much you’d let the man fucking you with a cheap gas station condom get away with. You’ve already heard him kill a man, finding yourself in a relationship is pretty much the natural next step.

When he cums deep inside with a hoarse growl, there’s the sound of a bear trap slamming shut on an unsuspecting bunny rabbit. Your simultaneous orgasm is the tiny squeal it makes before it dies.

“I forgot to ask, hun, what stuffed animal do ya want me to win for ya?”

- faetreides 2024. do not repost, translate, or put my works into ai

[callmissrogers]

She Thinks I'm Handsome. Steve Rogers x Reader Short Story

Summary: Y/n is terribly tipsy. Having only had one margarita, Nat texted Steve to come take her home. Y/n's tipsiness makes her admit something to Steve. Something she didn't mean to say out loud.

Warnings: mentions alcohol, reader being tipsy, and lots of fluff. Wrote on my phone with little editing.

Word count: 1,034

Inspired by: pin and a scene in the movie New In Town with Rene Zellweger, but I couldn't find it on YouTube.

Y/n couldn't stop giggling at the dinner table. Everything was just hilarious.

"Y/n you only had one margarita.... Are you sure you're ok?" Nat asked, sitting back in her chair, eyes wide with concern.

"I'm mine. I mean time. I MEAN I'm fine." Y/n replied, giggling at her own inability to speak coherently.

"Yeah. Sure you are. I told you this was a terrible idea." Nat whispered to Wanda.

"She told me she wanted to come! Besides, how is it my fault that she's a lightweight?" Wanda argued as if Y/n wasn't sitting right there.

"I am not a lightweight! I'm good." Y/n protested like a child not getting the sweets it wanted.

"Of course you are. You definitely aren't talking like someone who's done 20 wisky shots." Nat answered sarcastically.

"What are we gonna do? My car only has two seats. Unless we tape you to the roof." Wanda asked in a whisper. "I've got an idea." Natasha said conspiratorially, taking her phone out. "Who are you texting?" Wanda asked, an eyebrow rasing. "You know who," Nat said in a sing-song way. "You can not text him!" "Why not? They need a push." "She's about to fall over. " "Good. Let him play knight in shiny armor." "You know this wasn't I meant when I said we should set them up." "Well, it's what we're doing. He already responded and said he's on his way. Way too much of a gentlemen to abandon a maid in distress." "You are having way too much fun with this." Wanda sighed, leaning on her hand.

A few minutes later, y/n was trying to explain something to the girls, grabbing random bits and pieces of information and giving it to them as of it should all make sense.

The door to the cozy little restaurant opened and he walked inside. Spotting them easily and coming over to collect Y/n. Her back was to him so she had no idea of his presence.

Nat and Wanda remained completely silent as he approached giving him knowing and teasing looks. Nat mouthed "get her out" to which he couldn't help but smile.

It wasn't till he placed a gentle hand on y/n's shoulder that she noticed him at all.

"Steve!" She gasped much too loudly and drawing the attention of some of the other guests. "I didn't think you'd be here!" She said wobbling to her feet and throwing her arms around his neck. She'd never done that before. They've never exchanged any sort of hug before. So he shot the other two a look of complet and utter shock as his face turned three shades of pink.

"How much did y'all let her drink?" He demanded. "Steve. She had one margarita." Wanda deadpanned. Steve looked at Y/N and back to them, his brows raised in amazement. "Just one?" He asked. "One. And it wasn't even that big." Nat replied, lips forming into a smirk. "Wanda only has two seats in her car, and I road with her. So I figured you'd be happy to get Y/n home safely." She continued.

Steve put an arm around Y/n's shoulder in an attempt to steady her, grabbing her coat off the back of the chair, he said "c'mon. Let's get you home." "But I don't wanna!" She complained. "Y/n, you should go with Steve. We're gonna head out too." Wanda assured her. "Fine." She whispered/mumbled letting him guide her out.

Once they were outside the resturant she looked around wildly. "Where's your car?" "It's down the block. I couldn't find a spot here." "Oh. Where's my coat?" "That's right here." He answered holding it up to help her get into it. "Watch your hands. Mr Handys Hands." She slurred. "I'm. I'm not doing anything." Steve said blushing again.

She took a few steps forward and then stumbled into the street some. "Wait, wait, wait. My car isn't over there, " He spoke, quickly pulling her back.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." She assured him, walking along again, taking wobbly but somewhat straight steps.

Steve rubbed the back of his neck nervously and followed after her.

"Ok," He said after they had walked just a little bit further. "My car is right there"

Then she dashed up to a car that somewhat resembled his and started rapidly pulling on the handle causing the car alarm to go off.

"That. That wasn't my car." Steve said sounding embarrassed.

He used his key for, unlocked his car, before softly grabbing her by the arm and getting her seated inside. Taking a deep breath before coming round to get himself. He was gonna get Natasha for this. She had been teasing him about his growing affection for Y/n for months. She was trying to push his hand.

The drive home wasn't as crazy as the walk to the car had been. Y/n sat starring out the window commenting on the pretty city lights, how she liked the outfits of some of the pedestrians they passed, and got very excited when they stopped next to a car which had a Scottish Terrier in it.

He couldn't help smiling he was actually enjoying the drive with her.

When they finally pulled up to her house, he got out and came around to help her out. Not trusting that she'd be able to get out of the car and onto the curb without tripping.

Arm around her shoulder, he helped her to the door. Where she struggled to get the key into the lock. "Here," He said trying to take the key from her. "I got it. I got it." She said trying again to get the key go in. "Let me help." He said gentily taking it from her.

She finally looked up at up him and whispered "Gosh. You're handsome," pausing, her lips forming an O shape. "I just said that out loud, didn't I?"

Steve smiled broadly, "Yes. Yes, you did."

So he helped her inside and made sure she was settled with a glass of water and aspirin for the morning and then went home himself.

Whispering to himself, "She thinks I'm handsome."

(I know I haven't posted the next part in That's My Girl. Got a bit of writers block as to how to finish the chapter. I'll try to have it done by Wednesday. )

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

@intertexts OKAY. FINALLY GETTING MY SHIT TOGETHER AND WRITING THIS ALL DOWN SO ITS NOT JUST ROTATING IN MY BRAIN ANYMORE

NEW HAVEN WARDS MARK WINTERS ESSAY (except its more like. stream of consciousness me being insane over him)

>> its been too long, simurgh is too close. she fucking ROCKS half the city with an earthquake before she shows up. ashe runs inside as the roof collapses. his mom is trapped- she had grabbed her phone and some other small essentials and was on her way out when she got pinned by the rubble. ive typed this part out already in another post but as shes yelling at ashe trying to get him to leave, she realizes he wont go by himself so she texts mark . its kind of a shot in the dark- part of her hopes he hasnt evacuated yet so he can come get ashe and get him to safety, but she immediately feels this sense of dread for thinking like that because then that also means he's in as much danger as they are. and she can hear the singing now- some tiny part of her brain logically knows its too late and theyll be trapped by the quarantine protocols anyway, but. they can still get out of that alive. they just need to get there. anyway the important thing here is that the last thing ever hears from his wife is a text that says "ashe athome cant lea e come get hjm"

adding jonesys stupid fucking image in here bc it's so funny to me and is fr how I felt typing this whole thing up for like 4 hours

>> okay going to try my hardest to keep this chronological but i KNOW i will get distracted from that halfway through. starting from the simurgh attack. assuming simurgh attacks look pretty similar to each other, ive been imagining this a lot like the one we actually got to see with the travelers. the notice to evacuate went out in the early afternoon. (im going to say on a wednesday because thats the day i used in my fic and this is OUR AU i get to make the emotionally devastating rules. not that that matters to anyone but me. its a little treat.) so. mark was at work, ashe was at school, i like 2 think ashes mom works in somehting to do with old things or books or whatever so she was probably at work too. her IMMEDIATE thought is to go get ashe from school, because of course it is! (worldbuilding side note i think there are probably evac protocols in place for schools where. first priority is to keep the kids Togehter and get them out first so theyre SUPPOSED to evacuate straight from there and then meet up with their parents when everything is safe. but in a real emergency what parent is going to trust that and just leave their kids safety up to someone else?) she gets to the school and it is absolute chaos with all of the other parents trying to do the same thing. she gets ashe, goes to call mark to tell him where they are and- oh, yeah. she forgot her phone at home this morning. i just. like. the mundanity in that. its a normal morning, she maybe woke up late and had to rush out the door, got to work realized she didnt have her phone, had the thought like "damn thats frustrating. oh well, not like ill need it, ill just get it when im home later" we've all had days like that!!!!!!!!! but it becomes fucking heartbreaking in this situation because it means she now has No Way of contacting her husband to let him know that she has ashe and to tell him not to go to the school (because hes probably thinking the same thing) and to get out and where to meet them when theyre out. she KNOWS its a bad idea, she knows it would be catastrophic if they took too long... but all the other cars are going in the opposite direction, the road back is completely empty, surely they can be fast enough? she knows exactly where she left it, itll take two seconds and hey maybe the roads will be empty enough at that point they can get out even faster. so they fucking RUSH back home. she tells ashe to stay in the car wiht the doors locked while she runs inside.. he is scared and confused and doesnt want to be alone so after. maybe 30 seconds of her being gone he gets out of the car and goes inside.

>> switching to mark pov finally. evac notice goes out, he fucking books it to his car. but because its important to me that hes a little bit of a coward. this is where he hesitates. he knows he should find his family. meet up with them, make sure theyre all okay and they all make it out together. he's also logical. he knows this is a bad idea and his wife's job is closer to the school, shes probably already got ashe and theyre on their way out too. he can just leave. but he hasnt heard anything from her. thats not like her, she would call or something if they were okay, wouldnt she? so he kind of. panics over what he should do. he starts driving, telling himself he'll make up his mind on the road. hes about halfway to the end of the quarantine zone when he gets the text. has a moment of "fuck why are they there?" before immediately deciding to go get them. finds the aftermath of ashe's trigger. ashe is in breaker state, unresponsive except for... why is he laughing. hes sitting on the floor, knees up to his chest hands over his head jsut kind of. staring into the middle distance eyes unfocused quietly loopy laughing like hes totally unaware of the. scene.

>> mark is like. frozen there for a minute obviously horrified and he thinks ashe is having some kind of mental break at the shock and horror (he doesnt. understand that ashe killed her yet) until he goes and tries to get him to stand up and . oh the floor is unstable and bouncy like a trampoline and as soon as he touches ashe's shoulder hes knocked back by a pain in his hand that suspiciously feels like a joybuzzer turned up to 11. okay! fuck! his kid is a fucking parahuman and his wife is dead and the singing in his head just keeps getting louder and he knows what that means and he knows they have to get the hell out of there but hows he gonna do that when he cant get within 5 feet of ashe-

>> i think he just has to like. sit there and talk to ashe. which is a uniquely horrible punishment because it kills so much time in a situation where they need to get out, now, and the whole time theyre in the same room with whats left of a bloody corpse (but he cant think about that right now) and he has to be calm and keep his voice low because every sudden movement makes ashe's powers flare up again in response to a perceived threat- its MESSY, its SLOW its TERRIBLE but he needs ashe to calm down enough that he can actually talk to him and get him out. he eventually does (it feels like hours later, it was probably only like.. 10 minutes) and the weird distortions stop and mark just. runs forward and picks him up and takes him out to the car before ashe can. see what else is in the room.

>> he doesnt even bother putting ashe in another seat in the car he just holds him in his lap as he drives (oh god there are wings in the sky) just. as fast as he fucking can to whatever checkpoint or hospital or safe zone there is for any survivors. theres. not many. enough that the two of them can get lost in the crowd if they try hard enough but . not enough to fill an auditorium. he's maybe got a bunch of really small scrapes or bruises from the process of trying to get ashe to calm down but he doesnt know whether ashe is actually hurt or not so he goes to find some sort of medical attention and the whole time hes thinking "maybe this is a bad idea. i shouldnt tell them ashe has powers what if they take him away" and he gets the same sort of rundown about quarantine and payment that krouse got and mark is just standing there fucking shaking, hes still carrying ashe, he hasnt put him down since they left the house (ashe is still out of it- not because of his powers but because of. everything) and i think thats the breaking point where mark makes up his mind like. fuck this. we cant stay here, we cant go through all of the bullshit protocols, we cant wait that long (he can still hear simurgh in his head- what if shes pushing him to make this choice? is that exactly what she wants? who cares im getting my son somewhere safe)

>> i think mark is really good at. compartmentalizing and pushing down any emotion thats not anger and turning to logic in panic situations rather than emotion. so he hasnt like. fully processed any of this yet. he was more focused on "solve the problem, get out, get safe" to actually think about the fact that. oh my wife is dead. ashe doesnt have a mom anymore. ashe has powers now. how is he gonna deal with a powered kid? he never really cared about capes what does he even do now? i dont think any of this hits him until theyre out of the quarantine zone hiding out somewhere safe (as safe as they can be after. all of that) and his head is quiet and ashe is asleep and he looks down at his phone and sees the text and it all comes crashing down like. oh my god that was real. shes gone. he doesnt even have anything of hers and he never will because their house is basically gone and they can never go back and- FUCK HIM UP!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK HIM UP i want him to have a fucking breakdown . villain origin story moment he realizes nothing is ever going to be okay or normal ever again because theyve been marked by simurgh and hes already broken a huge fucking law how much worse can it get? what else does he have to lose. everything in his life revolves around keeping them safe and keeping ashe out of danger. simurgh be damned if hes going to become an agent of chaos it might as well be on his own terms to protect whats left of his family.

>> i think they move around a lot after that, never staying in one place for too long, never doing anything that make people look at them too closely. mark does a bunch of odd jobs, but its hard to get a job when youre legally dead and have no experience with making a fake identity so. theres a lot of stealing. never anything that would garner cape attention, at least at first, and if people started to get too suspicious theyd just pack up and move again.

>> and then mark does something that DOES draw cape attention. idk what it would be, but it captures the attention of. a guy who knows a guy who works for overlord. hey man you seem like you could use a job. off the books. so he joins up as like a... foot soldier mercenary whatever for overlord. this job is risky- hes essentially a full time criminal now (but what does that matter, he already broke the law), he has to spend extended periods of time away from home, he has to kill people sometimes now... but the money is worth it. he's okay with being a number, a blank face in the crowd, because it means he wont get the immediate fallout if something goes wrong. that gets put on whoever his boss is. ashe is maybe 13/14 by this point, he can take care of himself at home. mark gives himself a limit, hes never going to be away from home for more than 3 days (which he eventually extends into 5 days, which then turns into a week-). he is. really fucking good at his job. hes smart, he can be ruthless when he needs to be, he's efficient. no identity means no friends which means no slacking off on the job. this is all he has, he needs this, so hes good at it.

>> he starts to move up the ranks, take bigger (but never riskier) jobs, and it catches overlord's attention. overlord offers him a promotion. offer being in air quotes here. he lays everything out plain and simple- youre good, youre going to join my personal elite team, i know who you are and why youre running. i can offer you an out, get you and your son (oh god oh fuck overlord knows about his kid) a new life, a new identity, nobody will have any reason to suspect you. and also in order to join you have to take this (cauldron vial!!! + canon parallel to the like. forced experimentation on harttawa)

>> mark doesnt want pwoers. he doesnt want to be a cape. but overlord knows about ashe, knows about their history, and if he turns down this offer theyre both fucked. so logic takes over emotion again and he accepts it, leans into the position, stays as fucking ruthless as ever. but its Different now. hes a cape, he has a secret identity, a name, people are Looking at him now, even if all they see is a costume.

>> silly sidebar for ME here but this period of time is where he meets tide :] forever thinking about ur nhw tidalwave post. fight to maim, not kill.

>> a couple years pass like this and its Fine. ashe is 17 now, mark knows hes fucked up (theyre both fucked up) but hes too deep into this job now to give it up. its kept them safe and in place for this long, he can fool himself into believing they can stay like this . ashe does not have the same train of thought. hes lonely, hes miserable, hes bored, he just wants to have a life! they fight a lot about this. they fight a lot about this and sometimes mark leaves in the middle of it because he gets called on a job so nothing ever gets resolved. they have a particularly rough fight and mark gets pulled away in the middle of it to answer a phonecall, and when he comes back ashe is still pissed but hes just so tired and defeated that hes like "listen. we'll deal with this later, i have to go for a few days, there are groceries in the fridge, do whatever you want, just stay here, be safe, dont be stupid" and then he leaves! and ashe is still pissed and his dad is a hypocrite (why does he get to go out and use his powers and put himself in dangerous situations when ashe gets in trouble for floating the tv remote to the kitchen table while hes eating breakfast, and never gets to leave the house or go to school or have friends or-) . and this is where he makes the decision to sneak out the first time!!

>> he starts sneaking out more often, usually only when he knows mark is gonna be gone for extended periods of time, he gets good at disabling the tinker devices, he has friends!! everything is good!!!! mark finds out when he gets home from a job early and ashe is gone. and he fucking freaks out, hes ready to tear up city streets, hes ready to go on a fucking rampage... but then he hears the window open as he climbs back into his room . its a big like. "oh shit" moment on ashes part, he doesnt think hes ever seen his dad this angry before, he threatens to put bars on the goddamn windows, etc (mark has a reason to be as angry as he does- if anything ever happens to ashe everything hes ever done will have been for nothing. but its still. harsh.)

>> i think once everything cools down from this they do have an actual talk about it that isnt a fight; ashe tells him he has friends now and he just wants to be normal, be a kid, he cant spend anymore time in his room its killing him knowing hes wasting his life like this etc. i think mark maybe reluctantly agrees to letting him go out with his friends (he doesnt know who they are yet, ive GOTTA believe he knows tide hes had to have fought or at least seen the wards before, theres no way he would say yes to this if he knew thats who ashe was talking about) but gives him strict like. dont use your powers ever, curfews and check in texts and a code system and its a little Too Much but ashe is just. giddy at all of it because !! curfews are a thing Normal kids get!! he gets to go hang out with his friends without the looming threat of sneaking out to do it !!!

>> ashe starts using his powers anyway because his friends are capes and !!! he is also technically a cape!! he can help!!!! i think he starts out by beggingggg to go on patrol with them sometimes (i wont even do anything, i just want to see what its like, you guys know i have powers too i can handle myself, dont be like my dad etc etc) i think the wards are pretty reluctant to do that bc they know what its really like but. man. its ashe. he deserves Something. it becomes more frequent and serious and the prt handler tells them they should recruit him.

>> mark is sooooooo fucking against ashe joining the wards. because of course he is he has to be. ESPECIALLY considering. hey. hes a villain, working for one of the most notorious villains in the city, being put in a situation where he has to choose between fighting his son or losing overlords protection is a HUGE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO. (he would choose to say fuck overlord with no hesitation, no way he would even consider the other option, but he also knows what kind of consequences a choice like that would have)

>> hey. actually. that gives me an idea. what if thats exactly the scenario that leads up to the whole trickster thing. overlord wants to be proactive, launch an attack on the wards, they just got a dangerous new member lets go see what kind of powers theyve got. mark obviosuly refuses. overlord does not take being told no very kindly. hey what if this is how mark gets the lizard stuff. instead of getting it as a side effect mutation of his powers, he pisses off overlord, the guy who has a morbid fascination with animal human hybrids and genetic experimentation. ive solved everything!!!!!! (<< guy who is fucking insane. please imagine me with mad science hair and crazy eyes as i am saying this. dr. cross who?)

>> mark effectively goes missing while overlord has him captive, ashe is freaked out because his dad has never left without telling him first, but maybe it was an emergency or whatever... until his hard limit on jobs passes. its been over a week and no contact whatsoever. hes gone. ashe gets fucked up about this

>> mark is unconscious for the entire trickster thing. he was unmasked for the experimentation so when the heroes come to clean up the aftermath they dont recognize him as one of the villains (tide does. tide doesnt tell anyone) and take him to. a hospital rather than prison. he is fuuuucked up when he wakes up. gotta adjust to a WHOLE lot of freaky lizard things. hes kind of out of it, understandably, so nobody... tells him. its only a few days later, when mark is more lucid and can stand on his own two feet without losing balance, and when he can see properly again, tide visits him (tide has been visiting him the whole time, not that he'd remember it much, because who else will. who else will!) tide tells him ashe is missing. he breaks the news as gently as he possibly can because its gonna be a shitshow either way (he knows how mark is gonna react no matter what. waiting doesnt help either because then hes just pissed that he was lied to for days ("you coudlnt even stand, how was i supposed to tell you then?" "i dont know, i wouldve done something. he could be anywhere by now")

>> mark goes sooooo rogue. he goes so very rogue. hes literally got nothing to lose anymore. the wards try to work with him, try to help him, because theyre looking for ashe too, but he thinks theyre too slow, too good, too afraid to do things that actually need to be done. he goes too far and gets put in the birdcage.

>> i think he probably loses it a little bit in the birdcage. hardcore despair depression that turns into just this awful terrible rage. hes mad at himself for not being able to stop it, hes mad at ashe because this is what he WARNED him about for YEARS and if he only would have listened, hes mad at the world, hes mad at SIMURGH . all nhw mark winters knows is be so full of grief and rage at all times

>> breaks out of the birdcage (still insane abt this btw) and goes back on his. sort of rampage. the wards stop him (tide is. retired at this point. that happened while mark was in jail) and they try to talk some sense into him, maybe they get him to slow down just a little bit, enough to tell him what theyve learned (not much). mark and everyone else eventually learn about muse. mark winters worlds most miserable man is watching every single one of his nightmares play out in front of him and he realizes this is what simurgh marked them for. hes watching his son, unmasked, level a fucking town in some gaudy outfit he knows ashe would never wear and hes calling himself muse and thats not what his laugh sounds like and

>> okay im a little more fuzzy past this point. i said this mostly joking before but i DO think there should be a moment where. mark is up against muse and hes trying to talk to ashe like he did that first night to get him out of breaker state and ashe gets one lucid moment where he just starts crying and babbling about losing marks jacket and hes so sorry but that only lasts about 2 minutes before trickster gets control of him again. this is the catalyst for them realizing that yeah, ashe IS still in there and it might be possible to break him out .

>> god. all of that was plot and i didnt even talk about Little Things which are my favorite. heres a collection of Little Things:

>> i want him to keep his weird terrible lizard biology <3 maybe its not as smooth a transition as in canon, maybe hes just got the scales and the eye and not. the tail or infrared sense or whatever. but he Could. as a Treat for Me.

>> i actually... ironically think mark is a better dad in this au than he is in canon. like. dont get me wrong hes still awful and he sucks but. hes working with the knowledge here that no matter what he does he and ashe are still doomed and hes always waiting for the other shoe to drop and hes more scared and theres nothing he can do about it so. he makes more of an effort to Actually Care about his son. before overlord he never wouldve missed a birthday for anyhting. theyre all each other has.

>> that little bit of dialogue i typed up for mark earlier. stay here, be safe, dont be stupid. be safe, dont be stupid. he says that a lot, always in that order. enough that when ashe is with the wards sometimes he'll also say it. dakota "im going to pick up the pizza" ashe from the couch "be safe dont be stupid" (IMMEDIATE recoil as he thinks about it for more than a second because he has an oh god i sound like my dad moment. but everyone else finds it endearing)

>> THE COAT!!!!!!!! THECOAT. i think about the coat a lot. its just. a random one that ashe grabbed from the closet the first time he snuck out. but it was a good size, exactly as baggy as he likes, hey! he found old money in the pocket! so he just like. claims it as his own and neither of them ever say anything about it but its suuuuch. comfort clothing for ashe and he doesnt like thinking about why. it just is. he wears it EVERYWHERE all the time, its the one piece of clothing the rest of the wards never steal beacuse they know its important to him.

>> there is exactly one (1) surviving picture of ashes mom outside of their old house and its a crumpled polaroid mark had in his wallet from when ashe was a baby.

>> he will never admit this to himself or anyone else but. as much as mark is scared for ashe and scared for both of their safety and what it means for them to be simurgh victims... he is also scared OF ashe, even just subconsciously . he has nightmares about finding ashe that day, laughing. about what mightve happened if he wasnt able to break ashe out of that state. about what mightve happened if he had never gotten that text and continued on with the evac protocols. i need that blonde man to be fucking miserable

>> literally always thinking about your tidalwave post. never not thinking about your tidalwave post. i dont even have much to add here other than i really like nhw tidalwave a lot. the aftermath of the leviathan fight makes me crazy even if thats mostly one-sided on tides part.

>> his tinker specialty is power enhancement. he makes devices that make his and other peoples powers stronger or extend their range. the drawback is that the devices need to be Connected to the person using them in some way (thinking about the ports he has on his back in canon. his gauntlets clamp down on his forearms. overlord had him make each of the capes under his power something that enhances them too so theyve all got little. gadgets embedded in them somehow) (begs the question can he also make things that dampen powers? is this falling too far into Trump category?)

>> he got ashe his headphones as a birthday present when he was like... 15 . their fights had been getting more frequent as he had to be away from home more and ashe was fully in his angsty teen "i hate my dad" phase, but mark had been working w overlord for like a year at that point and money wasnt as much of an issue anymore so he got ashe like. the most high quality noise cancelling headphones he could possibly find.

okay i think thats all. its nearly 1am lmao!!!!!

[neildrawn]

Hello! I saw that youre a practicing BG artist so i wanted to ask- do you have any tips to start background art?

ur art is cool :>

Thank you so much for the compliment! I don’t kniw if I would call myself a ‘background artist’, especially since that last piece was my first real try at anything like that, but I’ll do my best to walk you through my process on the off chance it will help!

I always start with thumbnails, personally. I knew the story for which I was creating backgrounds, and decided to make nine sketch thumbnails of ideas for what I could do! If you have a more specific idea, your thumbnails could be exploring different perspectives or compositions!

^ here are the nine ideas I had! The three in the top row are the only ones I had thought of before trying to draw them out. By forcing myself to design six more, I came up with a bunch of other backgrounds I liked way more than my original three, and one total stinker, haha!

I used reference very heavily since I’m not very comfortable with designing backgrounds yet. I found that looking into movie scenes as well as scenes from animation and comics that take place in the location you want to draw was useful, as it helped me to figure out the angles I wanted to use. I took a lot of reference from the backgrounds in Gravity Falls, because that show is a huge inspiration on my style.

For my car piece, I jumped straight from thumbnail sketch to lineart, which was not the smartest, as I’m missing a lot of detail in areas like the roof of the car. If I were to do it again, I would have used more references and done a second, cleaner base sketch before lining. I took a look at your page, (I hope that’s okay!) and the level of detail in your pinned piece is really impressive, I’d love to be able to have something like that in my work!

Next, I did flat colors, which I don’t really have a lot of advice for, but your color pallates are super appealing, so I’m not worried about trying to tell you how I do mine lol. When I did shading, I copied what I saw in my references, which was mostly cell shading with a bit of soft shading for shapes. I then went in and messed with line widths, but again, it looks like you’ve already got that down.

I think that’s it! I’m not really a very good teacher yet, so don’t be afraid to ask if you have more questions! I wish you luck in creating more background art!! ^^

[tiltedsyllogism]

Ground Crew for the WIP Meme?

(in re this fic ask meme)

This one is literally the first FAM fic I ever started writing (which would have been probably late October of '22) and it's a S1-era Karen-PoV fic about her very intense attachment to Tracy (romantic/sexual? unclear!!) and how Tracy's trajectory through NASA both puts their relationship under strain and focalizes a lot of the discontents that Karen is feeling in her own life but cannot yet come close to naming.

I've got almost 7k words on this one, and I do have something of an arc sketched out -- it's not yet fully satisfying, but I'm 99% sure this one will get finished eventually!

Excerpt below the cut. Karen and Ed have just gotten home after a celebratory dinner at the Slaytons' in honor of Tracy getting her silver pin.

-----

“I mean,” Karen said slowly, “what did you think about. You know.” She waved one hand uselessly in the dark. “This whole thing. The women astronauts.”

Ed folded his arms. Karen could hear him smiling in the dark. “You mean Tracy.”

“I mean all of them,” Karen said sharply. 

“Well, Tracy’s one hell of a pilot,” he said. “Not quite on the level with Molly or Ellen, but she’s a steady flyer, and she’s worked hard.”

Karen stared out at the lawn. The grass needed cutting, badly. Ed should have done something about it days ago. Karen should have noticed and asked him. Not that he wasn’t perfectly capable of noticing himself.

She folded her arms.

“You’ve worked pretty hard too,” she said. “Getting them ready. It’s cost you plenty of your own training time.”

“Eh, don’t worry about me,” Ed said, shaking his head. “I could do those sims in my sleep at this point.”

“I certainly hope so,” Karen replied. “I don’t think it was very responsible of Deke, asking you to take on all that risk.”

“Deke knew I could handle it. Getting shorted on sim time, I mean,” he added. “Though you know what.” Ed leaned back and tipped his head up – as if he was trying to look at the stars through the roof of the car. “For all the bitching and moaning I did about it along the way… it actually feels pretty good to see them make it through. See them succeed. Y’know? Knowing I was a part of that.”

It was too much, suddenly. Karen had spent the whole evening pretending to be happy: for Tracy, for Deke, for poor Gordo. And suddenly, she was done.

“Well I’m glad you can look on the bright side, at least,” she snapped, opening the car door.

[bearpillowmonster]

I found these pins of Donald and Goofy online as Cars and they might be my favorites as far as design. Goofy having the old timer car look with a long snout and patched up tire. The baggage makes for a nice hat. I saw a lot with Donald as a minivan but I ADORE the idea of him as a little RC type car that just hums and zooms, maybe not even talk lmao.

I have no idea how to do Sora though, I saw a lot of designs online that just...gave him hair or painted it on but I want to do something creative like Goofy with the baggage so I gave him roof racks...that's a start, ok? I really wanted to keep the idea of his crown being the emblem at his front (like it's a Roles Royce FFXV type car) and Gummi license plate. I might frickin die if they allowed the ending of Cars to come to fruition and THAT was the way that the KH story came to life with car parodies of Woody and Buzz and Mike and Sully and Flik...

[roccinan]

I know it's only been a day but I'm dying of curiosity, have you watched the spinoff yet? What are your thoughts?

Hi anon! As you can see, I posted an initial ramble in an earlier answer LOL I talked about my feelings for the new characters there so I won't bore you and repeat it.

In a nutshell: new banda was "meh." Cameron was hot and I hope she gets more breakout roles, but the character was written like a Tokyo/Nairobi knockoff without any of their depth or magnetism. And I personally didn't like how her backstory was treated (it wasn't taken seriously for the right reasons imo). Keila was surprisingly likable but I keep making a lemon face when I remember her being horny for Bruce's sweat. Same for Bruce. He would have been enjoyable if not for the pubic hair fetish that he keeps bringing up asdfasdf

I was most interested in Roi, and he didn't disappoint, but I was baffled over why the spinoff ignored the most important question: how did he meet Andres and why did Andres take him in?? Genuinely needed a flashback there.

Main questions that the show needs to, but didn't answer:

How did Damian/Keila/Roi/Cameron/Bruce meet Andres?

Why did Damian/Andres choose Cameron and Bruce to help?

Why weren't any of these people in the mint and bank heists? You can argue that Bruce/Keila/Cameron weren't close to Andres, but nothing indicated Damian and Roi would abandon him. Alicia "exposed" their identities, but they don't know she did that so it's HUH

Why did Andres replace them all with Jakov, Martin, and Santiago? I mean, I would too LOL but in universe, there needs to be some explanation

Why is he calling himself Berlin?

We also still have no idea why Andres and Sergio have different surnames since this show addressed nothing about them having the same or different parents. No idea when or why Andres became a thief, how he came to love heisting, etc. Overall, the spinoff chose to flash romances between the new characters instead of giving us more information about Andres, which was a stupid move imo.

That said, there were things I did like about the spinoff:

Aside from that hilarious tracksuit, Pedro pulled the various turtlenecks off more or less. He was gorgeous more often than not, but for what? smh

The ending was tight, exaggerated, and fun

I actually was hyped when Alicia and Raquel showed up

Lots of jokes/moments landed and made me laugh out loud

Camille topping Andres every chance she got was Quality content

The heist itself didn't have me on pins and needles, but it was entertaining and I never got bored of it

I liked that aside from Roi, Andres wasn't close to any of the young people on the team- that makes more sense with his character and also helps me forget the 27yo comment asdfadf

The shoutout to Sergio :') Hermanito lives rent free in Andres' mind

General elements that I wasn't a fan of, aside from the forced romances:

Not a berlicia shipper, but come on- why would you put Alicia and Andres in the same time space and NOT have them interact!?

The car race confused me, and not just because Cameron's phone breakdown made me cringe. I honestly don't understand why the racers needed a girl to stand on the roof. What purpose? How does that help or hinder the race- what- at first, I thought the girls were going to whack each other with sticks or try to break the other person's car and this was a high stakes death battle. But no, they just did this to be cool.

Speaking of the race, I think too many "cool" moments became boring because they were tailormade for the cool new stars; there should have been more moments like Berlin at the "opera"-- Ex. we should have gotten Damian and Andres at that race instead of Cameron and Roi- that would have been so much funnier, and thus more memorable

Andres' speeches were repetitive and made no sense, even for him. BUT it was hilarious how in the show's effort to ignore Martin, everything Andres says and does makes it look like he's waiting for his one true love in the form of Palermo, a man; even that no homo moment with Roi was so on-the-nose it has to be foreshadowing Martin XD

The ending with Camille was too open for my taste, especially pointless because we KNOW they don't end up together

BUT I do want a season 2, just so we can see Martin entering Andres' life and a glimpse of Sergio + any scrap of an actual backstory for Andres. They already did the romcom route, so maybe they'll experiment with yet another genre in s2, who knows lol.

[casadefreewill]

for the ask game!

girl is that a body pillow and the kitty reporter :3

Girl Is That A Body Pillow is a short comic I started sketching pretty soon after season 4, the script went:

Alya *comes into Marinette's room*: Girl! Wha- *sees Marinette hugging a black mass on her bed* Walks up and sees a full body sized Chat doll (like her mini ones) Alya: girl what? Marinette: *sniff* it's my substitute emotional support cat [for when I can't call Chat] --small bonus panel-- Alya: If you went out on a roof right now and so much as looked sad that boy would *ucknig teleport to your side

I remember getting really frustrated because I could not find a good reference for Marinette's trap door.

This is what I had so far:

The Kitty Reporter is an au where Alya takes her bag with her and so Marinette goes and hides with everybody else thus no Ladybug. I don't have a lot of notes on this one but it probably could merge with my Lady Luck AU, I think the plan was for Alya and Chat to have a superhero reporter relationship but its Adrien and Alya so they have fun with it and become good friends.

here's a blurb

As soon as he could peak between the fingers, Adrien snapped all his limbs to his chest and dropped. Landing on all fours just as the stone fist smashed back together, he bolted as fast as he could back down the street, dodging the few reaching fists of the stone monsters that had been following behind. 

Scrambling around the corner he saw the girl from before, pinned up against the wall by the side of the car. Stumbling as he moved back to two legs and sprinted over he grabbed the front end of the car and began pushing. 

“Don’t worry Miss, I’ll get you out in just a moment!”

The girl groaned as the car shifted, “Thanks”

Adrien tried to flash her a nice photo ready smile as the car moved the last few inches and she dropped to the ground. 

“Ow, thanks” the girl rubbed her sides as she took his offered hand and he pulled her up. 

“It’s in the job description, though maybe you should stay a little further from the action next time?”

“But then how am I going to report on it Mr. Superhero?”

“Chat Noir, and you’re just a regular Lois Lane aren’t you?” He leaned in, crossing his arms. 

“Eeeeexactly” she tapped him lightly on the head with her phone.

[feralfens]

do you have any tips on avoiding getting arrested for trespassing? (& also how bad were the charges to deal with?) (Context: i want to explore So Bad but i'm deathly afraid of confrontation)

lmao okay SO

tip one: explore a building once. this is important because the more times you go to a place the more likely you are someones gonna see you and call the cops. the likely hood will vary, but best practice is go somewhere once, take pictures, and then leave

tip two: always be aware of location. if the building is next to main road or a hghway where lots of cars go by, youre more likely to get caught, so itd be best to walk up rather than driver and park, or even to go. also in rural areas keep in mind that its gonna take cops a good bit to get there, so if someone, especially a concerned white person, comes up and asks what youre doing? leave immediately and with haste.

tip three: always imploy observation of the area. are there closed doors, how clean are the windows, how tall is the grass. these are all things that can indicate habitation by people. also while breakig windows and graffiti are fun, only do so if its already been done and wont harm anything. also keep in mind structural integretity. if the roof looks like itll fall in, keep your ears open and stick close to exists and doorways.

the charges!

honestly, the charges werent that bad since it was just trespass and trespassing is a class b misdmeaner, but the cop did try to pin me for burglary (which is a felony and would get me put in jail and retrict my right to vote). if i was not a short little white person with boobs, i probably wpuld have been charged worse. i got caught, i didnt leave l, the cops showed up 45 minutes later, i get put in hand cuffs and into a squad car. the officer tries to tell me im being detained for burglary, i argue and say no burglary has occured, ive taken nothing, he says well you still changed the doorknob locks (another story for another time), i say the original door knobs are still on the property, we end the convo and i spend a night in a concrete and cold as shit holding cell and get bailed out for 2000 dollars. i hire a lawyer, he has the court date post pones till august and gets me a plea deal where im on probation for a year and have to pay the court like 1000+ dollars and do 50 hours community service over those twelve months. fast forward to now, ive narrowed down the original amount down to like 400+ and ive got like one more session of community service and i can be done early because i got lucky and make good tips and the minimum amount of community service required where im at is 16 a month. but its just giving free labor to the community recycle center so. meh. OH also onces a month i meet with a probation officer, we chat for a lil bit, she asks me if ive done and substances, i say no because thats the truth and also because while on probation youre wisconsin sobar, she asks if ive had any contact with police, i tell her no, and then we set next months appointment and i go on my merry little way. easy breezyy. the conscequences are manageable if you get lucky and have a job that pays you enough and your living expenses are low enough

[bekoobove]

Fazbear Fears #4: Lights Out

...Desperate to disprove a small town urban legend, Tim ends up face to face with it...

The town sign declared itself Breaker’s Ridge, Utah, with a population of 4,000, but to Tim it was Nowheresville.

He drove down the quiet Main Street and groaned. He really hadn’t wanted to come here, but apparently his old friend had wanted to show him something. Why that thing was out here, he didn’t know, but he owed Kenny one.

Finally, Tim reached the address he’d been told to visit. He pulled his car over and stepped out.

Kenny, who had been pacing excitedly on the sidewalk, stopped and beckoned him over. Tim really didn’t need further guidance, though, as what Kenny wanted to show him was pretty obvious.

Behind him was a building that stood out among the drug stores and greasy diners. It looked brand new, its brick walls painted bright red. Large windows revealed flashing lights of every color from inside the building, and the sound of children laughing mingled with poppy, upbeat music.

On the roof, an enormous sign proclaimed: FREDDY’S PIZZA PARLOR.

Tim walked over and Kenny immediately wrapped him up in a hug.

“Personal space, Kenny.”

“Sorry.” Kenny responded, backing up. “I’m just really glad you’re here. It’s been a while.”

He gestured at the sign. “So...what do you think?”

“Is this place your’s?”

“Yep.” Kenny pointed at his shirt. Over his breast pocket there was a pin that identified him as Kenny McIntyre, Manager.

“Isn’t this exciting?” he said as they walked in. “I’ve always wanted to start my own business, and be my own boss.”

Tim looked around the restaurant. “Well, not your own boss, exactly.”

Kenny frowned. “What do you mean?”

Tim chuckled. “Come on, I can see what’s going on here.” He nodded at the main room which was filled with arcade machines, rowdy kids, and a stage with fancy, plasticky looking animatronics. “This is a Freddy Fazbear franchise, obviously. It even has that animatronic bear’s name!”

Kenny grimaced as they sat down at a table. “Um, no…the truth is that the Pizza Parlor is sort of a bootleg.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Wait, really? Aren’t you afraid of Fazbear Entertainment suing you?”

“They probably won't hear about it- it’s so far out in the sticks. Besides, they’re so busy trying to rebuild the brand and construct that Pizza-Mall or whatever it’s called east of here.”

“Eh, good point. They wouldn’t care what happens in this ghost town.”

“Well, no need to be mean.” Kenny said. “Sure, it’s small, but it’s still a really great community.”

Tim smirked. “Settle for this if you want, Ken. Me, I’ve got bigger and better places to be.”

A young boy ran up to Kenny. “Mr Kenny! Mr Kenny!”

Kenny smiled at the kid. “Hey, Roger, glad to see you back again. What’re you so excited about?”

Roger smiled back. “The Power Ghost snuck into my house last night! He stole our TV remote’s batteries. I saw him walking away into the field! I can’t wait to tell all the kids at school!”

Kenny gave a hesitant grin. “Uh, OK. I’m glad you’re excited, I guess?”

Roger ran off into the arcade area, already excitedly telling the tale again to another group of kids.

Tim stared at Kenny. “What was he going on about?”

Kenny shrugged. “Oh, that? Just a local urban legend.”

“An urban legend that steals batteries?”

“Well, yeah. The Power Ghost is apparently the spirit of a chubby little kid. He never hurts anyone, or even causes property damage. All he does is steal a physical power source once a night- usually a battery. I know it sounds crazy, but a lot of townspeople believe it.”

Tim cringed. He had figured these yokels wouldn’t be the cleverest folks, but he hadn’t imagined a story this ridiculous would be this widespread.

“What about you?” Tim inquired.

Kenny hesitated. “I wouldn’t...but I’ve seen it.”

“You have!?”

“Yeah. I’m not fully convinced, but enough people have seen it that I probably wasn’t just imagining things.”

“You really don’t think it’s some kind of fake?”

“I never said that, but it’d have to be a really good one. Roger isn’t the only one who claims to have seen it walk around.”

“What does it look like? Are the descriptions consistent?”

“Trying to solve the case, Detective Tim?” Kenny laughed.

“I’m not a detective. I’ve spent the last two years working in biochemistry, and if that’s taught me anything, it’s that there’s always a logical solution- or at least a more logical solution then ghosts.”

Kenny thought for a moment. “Well, like I said, really chubby. He’s also got skinny arms and legs, big feet, a propeller beanie- oh, and a weird ball on a stick.”

“A weird ball on a stick?”

“No one’s quite been able to figure out what it is.”

Tim rubbed his temples. What kind of weird ghost story was this?

Then, something caught his eye.

“Does it look anything like that?” Tim asked.

He pointed to the corner of the Parlor. There, doing a little dance, was a rotund child animatronic with a propeller beanie. Beside him sat a barrel that had several balloons tied to it with a piece of paper taped on that read ‘Take One’.

The kid robot waved a sign that exclaimed ‘Balloons!’. And in his right hand, he held a fake balloon- a long white stick with a striped ball shape on top.

Kenny looked at the robot, and mused on the idea. “I mean it sort of looks like the ghost…but that’s just Balloon Boy, or BB. He has really limited movement.” He pointed at a cord that connected the animatronic to a power outlet. “I doubt he could run all over town, breaking into people’s houses.”

Tim sighed with an air of superiority. “Kenny, I’m not saying this Balloon Boy of yours is doing this. Clearly someone has been using it as the ghost. Maybe they set it up that when someone sees it, they can pull it out of sight with a rope or something. People probably just think they see it actually moving its limbs, and another person starts believing the stupid story.”

“I guess…” Kenny muttered. He tensed up. “But does that mean someone's broken into my restaurant every night, stolen BB, and put him back? All for an elaborate prank?”

Tim shrugged. “People do complicated things for dumb reasons.”

Kenny tapped his fingers nervously on the table. “Should I call the cops? I don’t like the idea that someone’s managed to break in so often without me noticing, even if they don’t steal money.”

“I get the feeling that in a place like this, the news that the ‘Mystery of the Power Ghost' might be solved would spread fast. The prankster would hear about any police stakeout and wouldn’t show up. We need to catch this weirdo if we want to stop them for good.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“I’ll do a stakeout of my own.”

Kenny giggled, then stopped. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Yep. You said you didn’t have any spare rooms in your house, anyway.”

“I mean, there’s a motel.”

“Either way I’m staying overnight in a cockroach infested room in a ghost town, and I choose the one I don’t have to pay for.”

“Hey. At Freddy’s Pizza Parlor, we follow health and safety codes!”

“Sorry.”

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

At 8 PM, the Parlor closed. The arcade machines went dark, and the animatronics waved goodbye, shutting down as soon as the kids were out of sight.

Soon after, Kenny walked out of the building, his day’s work done. He looked back at Tim, still inside.

“Sure you want to stay? You’ll be locked in from the outside.”

“I’m not a child, Kenny. I can handle this.”

Kenny shrugged. “Alright, see you tomorrow.” He closed the door and locked it.

Tim watched him get in his car and drive off.

He sipped from a cup of soda, and began staring intently at BB, as if looking away for a moment would give the thief ample time to snatch the robot.

The rays of sunset that had snuck in through the glass door began to fade, and within the hour there was no light left in the restaurant.

Undeterred, Tim flicked the switch on the flashlight Kenny had given him, and kept his gaze fixed on BB.

Still, Tim kept catching himself drifting off. He’d quickly shine the light in his eyes, and get back to watching, but that didn’t last long.

Tim woke with a start after one particularly long lapse, and checked Balloon Boy in a panic.

It wasn’t there.

Tim said some words that really weren’t welcome in Freddy’s Pizza Parlor as he rose up and jogged around quickly, still wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“Hey, you jerk! If you’re here, you better come out, and return BB. I'm gonna put a stop to your stupid prank!”

He entered the hall that led to the backrooms and screeched to a stop. There, standing just around the corner, was BB.

He wasn’t quite able to stop fast enough, though, and crashed into the creepy kid. It fell over, and Tim heard something crack.

“Crud.” He focused his light on the animatronic to see the prop balloon it was holding had shattered. The stick was fine, but the bright red balloon itself was in pieces.

“Where did Kenny get these things? They seem cheap.” Tim muttered.

He cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled, “Whoever you are, you’re paying for that!” Flashlight in hand, he snuck around the shadowy backrooms, searching for the prankster.

After ten minutes, he gave up, and returned to the hall.

“I don’t know where you’re hiding, but I’ll find you, and this whole town will know the truth.” he grumbled.

To his shock, BB was gone again.

“Oh, so is this the game we’re playing?” Tim shouted. “Can’t mess with everyone but you can mess with me? As if you’d ever even begin to fool me into thinking the ‘Power Ghost’s’ real.”

He set his head on a swivel. “Where is that stupid balloon robot now…”

Something behind him caught his eye. He turned to see BB, standing there, eyes right on him.

“Aghhh!” Tim screamed, stumbling backwards and falling onto the dusty checkered floor.

“How- how did someone do that? I didn’t hear a thing…” Tim whispered, trying desperately to catch his breath.

Tim looked back up at the robot. Something about it just seemed wrong. It seemed bigger, and not just from his low perspective. Its colors were slightly off, with the blue stripes on its red shirt looking more purplish in hue. And its eyes- they hadn’t just been posed to look up at him. While the movements were too subtle for him to see, he could tell the eyes were following him, focused on his chest.

Tim forced himself off the ground. Through his continued panic, he decided to use the flashlight to get a closer look at BB.

With another burst of shock, Tim realized the light wasn’t in his hand.

“Must've dropped it when I tripped…” The light was still on, though, and Tim easily traced it back to its current location.

Balloon Boy’s hand.

Its sign, Tim could now see, was resting against the wall, put aside to make room for the glowing light that was Tim’s one line of defense.

Balloon Boy’s eyes shifted, now focuses on the flashlight. It looked back at Tim for a moment, and laughed.

From its smooth, ball-like hand, a bony finger emerged, and flicked the switch.

And the lights went out.

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

Tim desperately felt his way out of the hall, following the wall back into the main dining room of the Parlor. All the while he racked his mind for explanations, for some kind of solution that could account for everything he’d just seen.

Maybe the prankster had found a way to control it remotely. Maybe this was some kid in a costume. Maybe the robots were supposed to walk around at night and Kenny had forgotten to mention it. Yes, he was reaching, but anything else made more sense than BB really being alive and haunted.

From every direction, that laugh echoed. Balloon Boy had made the sound during the day, every time someone grabbed a balloon. Then it was irritating. Now it was mocking and maddening.

Finally, Tim made his way to the front door. He tried to break through, banging against it with everything he had.

It was no use. It was reinforced, and refused to even crack. There was a little bit of moonlight pouring through it, letting Tim see just a few feet into the otherwise pitch black building.

“Ok…” Tim said to himself. “I’m probably- probably fine. It’s just trying to scare me.” He chuckled nervously. “And Kenny said it never hurts anyone anyway. It just steals batteries and junk like that. I’m good..I think.”

Then Tim facepalmed. “Wait, it? What am I saying, it’s a fake!”

The resonating laughter stopped for a moment, then continued, though different. It was deeper and more guttural than the ones before it.

Then, from in front of him, Tim heard footsteps. They were solid and heavy- definitely not that of the small plastic Balloon Boy.

“Ha! That you, prankster?” Tim grinned confidently, trying to act like he hadn’t been terrified moments ago. “Good job with the ‘Power Ghost’, but I think we should be done here, right?”

A shape moved into the moonlight.

It was Balloon Boy.

But it had changed.

It had gained an extra foot of height, and gotten a bit fatter. Its clothes were now red-and-purple striped. It had an enormous mouth that opened wide, full of teeth the size of toothpicks. There were five of those cadaverous fingers on each hand, each ending in a sharp point. And its eyes, once sky blue, had turned red and bloodshot.

The light may have been relatively dim, but Tim still got a good look at the monstrous machine. And it was that moment he finally realized: it was real.

He couldn’t even scream. He could no longer hide behind his doubts. A real monster marched towards him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The nightmarish animatronic raised its emaciated claw high over its head. In a moment, it thrusted back down- and sunk it right in Tim’s chest.

Unimaginable pain shot through Tim’s body. He felt the crack of rib and the puncture of lungs. The hand continued to move, rooting around in its bleeding stomach, like a child searching a cookie jar for the last chocolate chip one.

Finally, Tim felt its horrible mitt grab something triumphantly, and pull.

There was a spurt of red liquid and a disgusting squishing sound.

In the thing’s hand, there was something crimson and pulsating. The creature laughed in delight.

That was the last thing Tim heard before his light went out.

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

The kids cheered as Kenny pulled up in his car. It was 9:00, and that meant Freddy’s Pizza Parlor was opening for business!

As he stepped onto the sidewalk, he thought about what he’d heard about while getting breakfast at the local diner: no Power Ghost sightings or missing batteries last night. It appeared Tim had been right. Kenny wasn’t completely happy about this, since it did mean someone had really broken in on a regular basis (he should probably upgrade the security, maybe hire a night guard). It was also a bit of a bummer that the ghost wasn’t real. In most cases such a discovery would be a relief, but the ‘Power Ghost’ wouldn’t have hurt a fly.

Still, maybe it was for the best. Kenny figured Tim was more than ready to get out of there, so he rushed through the small crowd of families, and unlocked the door.

Within seconds, kids swarmed the place. Some employees followed quickly behind, frantically trying to get to their workstations.

Kenny smiled. Felt nice to make kids happy. He just wished Finn would come here sometimes. But he was afraid of the animatronics, something Kenny didn’t blame his son for. They were definitely a little creepy…

A scream rang out from the back of the Parlor.

Kenny sighed. Had a kid thrown up in the ballpit already?

It was quickly followed by dozens more screams, some from adults.

Confused, and beginning to worry, Kenny followed the sounds.

Kenny gently pushed through the crowd gathered in the corner, and saw what everyone was looking in horror at.

It was Balloon Boy. He was dancing around as normal, cheerfully laughing at all the kids. However, every movement he made sent drops of blood splattering onto the checkered floor and the children’s faces. It wasn’t hard to see the source.

Balloon Boy’s white stick was no longer topped with the large fake red balloon. Instead there sat an imperfect, but seemingly satisfactory replacement- a disembodied, oozing human heart.

Kenny, like many were starting to do, vomited. It was disgusting and horrifying- how could Tim have allowed this?

Then Kenny gasped, realizing whose heart it probably was.

In a terrified daze, Kenny stumbled over, and unplugged the robot.

Behind Balloon Boy’s eyes, the lights went out.

The laughter didn’t stop.

[beginnerstapes]

Hamilton 1999 Tour Journal

The tour journal, cleaned up by ChatGPT!

Day One: We leave at midnight since our first show of the tour is in Baltimore. I am driving, and we are about three miles from the Ohio border (one hour from home). All of a sudden, I look in the rearview mirror, and the back window is all steamed up. I look down at the engine temperature gauge, and we are overheating. So begins our fun tour. This day turns into the longest day of our lives. James' dad drives down to save us, but Brian and I have already started walking to get help. We are almost hit by a car that is driving on the shoulder of the road, and then a skinhead holding a Bible comes and picks us up, driving us into Ohio. So we get the van towed, and we sleep in it instead of going home. We sleep for about half an hour in the BP repair shop parking lot, and Brian sleeps under a tree, and on top of a crushed dead bird, as we will later find out. The shop tells us that the water pump is ruined, and they can get us a new one. We should expect to be on the road by noon. Shit runs late, and we have to cancel in Baltimore. So at 5:30, we finally leave because these fucking hicks are so goddamn slow, plus they didn't fix it properly as we will find out on...

Day 2: After driving through Ohio, West Virginia, and most of Pennsylvania, we call Jordan, whose home we are supposed to stay at, and tell him we will be there soon. About thirty minutes later, we stall out on the freeway. Turns out that the sons of bitches at the BP didn't put the belts on properly, so now it's 3 am, and we're in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. We drive the piece of shit van to this truck stop where there is a mechanic on duty, but he says in the most stereotypical redneck accent I have ever heard, "I don't fix no cars, only big trucks." So we're stuck in shithole, PA. We sleep for about an hour in the parking lot of another repair shop. Brian sleeps on rocks, Marty on the roof of the van. When the repair shop owner arrives, he says he can't fix it, so we have to go somewhere else. So we drive around and find a repair shop to fix it. They replace a few belts, and we drive away. About a mile or two down the road, we break another belt. So we go back, and they say that it's not an important belt, so not to worry. So we head to Baltimore. We get to Jordan's house and meet the Stillwell and Wayouts guys. Everyone is really nice. Jordan takes us to Reptilian Records, and we spend lots of money. We then say bye-bye to Jordan and head to our show in Washington, D.C., which has been hyped up a little, so we figure it will be a good show. We get a hotel room in Chevy Chase and relax. We head to the show, and once we arrive, we discover that the promoter "forgot" about the show, so the club doesn't want us to play, and there is no PA. So we say fuck this, we're playing. Exercises in Breathing play first; they are a duo, trombone and guitar. Their song "Stewie's Car" will soon become a driving favorite. Then we play and just scream into the air. There are like six people watching, but it's fun. Then the Wayouts perform an acoustic set, which they have never done before. It's amazing. Stillwell caps the night off. Those kids can rock. I am dead from driving and having no sleep and taking No-Doz. Everyone is exhausted and sick of driving. Brian meets this street guy, and they go to this little blind pig-type bar called the King Pin. Brian is now drunker than I have ever seen him in my life. We go back to the hotel, and Brian meets this desk clerk named Funnel. He is great. He wants to take us to strip clubs, but we decide to sleep instead.

Day 3: We decide to take in the sights in D.C. We go to the Capitol building, the Vietnam War Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, the White House... Brian and I are loving it, but Marty and James want to go. So we take off for Long Island around three. Right as we get into the rough part of D.C., the van overheats. So we go to this little place called "Auto Repair," and these two Korean guys fix us up good. It's raining, and we've all gone insane. New Jersey will soon become the worst-smelling state I've ever been in. We take off for New York. I am amazed by how real it is. It always seems so fake, like it only exists on TV. We stop in the sketchiest part of Brooklyn so Marty can call his girlfriend, and Brian and I go buy beer literally through a hole in the wall. We get to Josh's house at 1 am.

Day 4: Josh's house is great, but unfortunately, the shows we are supposed to play in Long Island and Connecticut fall through. But we go to NYC and have a blast. I get Krispy Kreme donuts and a new belt; James buys GNR stuff, and Marty looks at Austin Powers dolls. We go to the Ed Sullivan Theatre, meet Rupert G at the Hello Deli, see MTV Studios in Times Square, and the NBC Experience store. It's great. I love New York. At night we head back to the island and go to a friend of Mario and Josh's who directed a movie that they starred in along with Neil from Irony of Lightfoot. The movie is really funny, and we have fun hanging out with the Islanders. I have this crazy allergic reaction during the night, so I spend a lot of it on the deck outside.

Day 5: We hang out at the laundromat for a bit so I can wash my blanket. Marty buys this cool cop uniform from a nearby thrift store. We go into the city to play this great radio show on WNYU that Steve from Saetia hooks us up with. The show comes out well, but tensions are now high within the band. We hang out around the NYU campus and see a real live New York cockroach. After the show, we head to Feasterville, Pennsylvania.

Day 6: We eat at Roy Rogers at around 1 am and then drive through Jersey to get to Philadelphia. We arrive at around 3 am or so and start to look for a hotel. We wind up at what we believe to be a brothel in Feasterville, and we sneak in with our video camera and try to tape the sounds of people having sex. We then try to find Bob's house, and when we do, it is still too early to go up and knock. So we find this obese guy sitting in his kitchen eating Ding Dongs while naked. We decide to flash him with our flashlight and tape it. Then we just park in front of Bob's house and go to sleep after running from the fat guy and getting lost. Brian and I decide it would be funny to set off the car alarma few times. Marty is pissed. Bob's dad comes out on his way to work and invites us to come in and sleep. So we do, and when we wake up, we go to the mall to eat and watch "Big Daddy." Brian and I buy hats, and Marty looks at Austin Powers dolls again. That night we get pizza and decide to go to downtown Philly to see the fireworks, so we meet up with some of Bob's friends. James and Marty go with Bob and a couple of the guys, while Brian and I go with these two girls. The girl Crystal who is driving has no clue where she is going, so we end up getting lost in New Jersey. We finally get back and find the crew, but we get harassed by the cops and then go back to Bob's. Brian is upset because they don't have 40s in Feasterville, and we learn that a sub is a hoagie, and we feel salty after that.

Day 7: We finally play a real show, except for the fact that for some reason there is no money taken at the door, so we don't get paid. This is the hottest show ever. All the bands are good, too many to name, and I forget almost all of them. A really good emo band plays, though, that I like a lot. We sell a bunch of stuff, so we have gas money home. On the way out, I run over the neighbor’s flowers. He is upset. We drive 13 hours to get home.

Day 8: We get home and go to sleep in our own beds. When we wake up, the phone calls begin to get ready for the show in Windsor. We head out for that at like 6. It's a pretty good show. People from Detroit come over to see us, and we are really happy about that. The basement in which the show is held sucks; we play kinda bad, but the other bands are good, not really my thing though. Acacia spends the night at my house.

Day 9: We go to Grand Haven and play with Acacia, Dead Season, With Arms Still Empty, and some other band from Florida. The show sucks ass; we are all pissed at each other. We play three songs, and we are done. Funny how Grand Haven is always so good to us, and our last show there is to 8 kids. Whatever. We once again sleep in our own beds.

Day 10: We play at the IO in Detroit. A bunch of kids come out, and we meet up with our good friends Last Days of August. They play great; Compass Point Progress and 46short also rock it. LDA spends the night at Laura's house.

Day 11: Our van is in the shop now, and we have to take our old minivan to Chicago. It is decided that Brian has to come back home in a few days anyhow, so he and James will go back and get the van. I fight with Laura just before we leave for Chi-town. At the last minute, Kevin decides he is going to come along, and he brings his Explorer, so Marty and Brandon, who is now our roadie, ride with him. We get to the Fireside, and the show is supposed to be huge. Race Traitor is playing, so we figure about a hundred kids. Of course, 15 show up. All the bands play well, and after the show, we go to this apartment rented by a friend of Brian. We're having fun with the Last Days guys.

Day 12: We go to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to play in a tattoo parlor. Not much to say. Lame-ass show, 10 kids. Bonnie Situation comes down from the LIV to rock with us. We go to IHOP, and then we get hotel rooms. Brian and James go home to get the van, so Marty, Brandon, Kevin, and I ride in the Explorer.

Day 13: The Last Days van is now also fucked, so they take it to get repaired, and Josh from LDA, Kevin, Brandon, Marty, and I go to the mall. It is decided that their van can make it to the next show, so we leave for that. We get to the house where the show is, and we are all standing around in the yard laughing and whatnot when the kid who lives there, Josh, comes up to me and says, "Charley, James is on the phone. He says the van broke down." So we go out there in the Explorer to pick up James and Brian and bring back equipment for the show. We get the van towed to the house. We play, and we are just pissed. The PA doesn't work, so it's just crazy. Kevin sings in my place for "Weekends" cause my voice is now totally shot. We eat and are well taken care of thanks to Josh and his family. Brian, Sal, and I stay up talking to three girls from the local scene all night.

Day 14: Brian, the girls, and I all go to Burger King for breakfast. We've been up all night. Last Days wants to cancel the Milwaukee show tonight, but we convince them to go. Bad idea. We get there, and the space is too small to play in. The kids have on ICP shirts and don't get us at all. Insidious plays, and they are great. Those guys fucking rule. So we go into Milwaukee and eat. There is a big debate over this, and it is obvious that people are starting to hate each other. We decide to drive back to Indiana tonight, since our next show is there. Last Days' van has trouble, and they think it's the axle, so they decide to scrap it.

Day 15: So now we're in a dilemma. We only have the Explorer after LDA decides to ditch their van in Wisconsin, and there are 11 people plus equipment that have to get back to Indiana. Somehow we manage to pack 6 people plus half the equipment into the Explorer. It is decided that the rest of the people will wait in Wisconsin, and Brian will drive straight back to get them. We unload the shit in Napanee, Indiana at 7 am, and Brian, who has had no sleep in days, drives back to get the rest of the guys. The guy who runs the hall where the show was at was really nice and let us come inside. We sleep all day since the town is like an Amish town and there is nothing to do there. Around 5 or 6 pm, Brian shows up, but the Last Days van is right behind him. Turns out it was just the muffler, and they had it fixed. We play what will be our last show ever; Last Days rock my fucking world, and it's the last time I will ever see them play since they broke up too. Zao sucks, Mara'akate is good though. I smash my guitar, and Kevin and Brandon sing along on "Weekends." Marty and I are not speaking. We are having no fun. We head back to Josh's to spend our last night together.

Day 16: We get the van fixed and go home. The tour is over, so is the band. We all know it.

[ravagedarkness]

Spider-Man: Home Rebuilt, Chapter 6: Too Easy

I went into a freefall for a few seconds before I flipped in the air and landed on a light post. I took a moment to survey the scene. A lot of gunmen were holding off the police so far as officers used their squad cars for cover. Surprisingly, the armored trucks were untouched. I sighed. This wasn’t looking good. I immediately used a strand of webbing to zip line to another lamp post. This time, I was a lot closer to the action.

As I was doing that, I saw Frictor dashing forward, slipping between two squad cars and towards the gunmen. A part of me wondered what his powers were exactly. Maybe MJ was right – maybe he was a mini Luke Cage of sorts. But with three gunmen having rifles trained on him, I didn’t want to take a chance to figure out how bulletproof he really was.

I brought my arms out shot out two strands of webbing. They sailed through the air before they hit of the gunmen in the chest. I then broke the strands and grabbed the ends of them before I pulled, sending the two gunmen hurtling towards me. As they did so, I shot out two more strands of webbing. I hit the two gunmen in midair. I kept my fingers on the trigger, cocooning them as they sailed towards me. By the time I caught them, they were covered from head to toe in webbing. I then dropped them down to the ground.

“Consider this a part of your metamorphosis,” I quipped. “Just not into a butterfly.” I jumped forward off of the lamp post and flipped through the air before I landed on the roof of one of the armored trucks. As I landed, I was just in time to see Frictor lift one of the gunmen up and slam him down to the ground with double leg takedown. Once that was done, he scrambled until he mounted the gunman and ripped the rifle of his hands. During this, three other gunmen tried to converge on Frictor. It was during this time that a hand shot out of the ground, grabbed two of the gunmen by their ankles, and pulled them down into the ground suddenly.

Deciding to deal with the last one, I jumped forward, turned into the air, and sent my feet into the assailant’s chest, sending him flying back-first into one of the SUV’s. I flipped backward and landed on my feet. I couldn’t help but cringe – that man was going to feeling that pain for days to come. Still, I shot two bursts of webbing at him, pinning him to the vehicle. After this, Craig moved to my side and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Stand still for me,” he said. He then turned his head towards another group gunmen running towards us. It was at this moment that I realized what Frictor’s power was. Suddenly, every one of them lost their footing, falling on their faces. After that, he beckoned towards them. “Um, can you do your web thing to…?”

“Yeah,” I said. I brought my arms out before I webbed them down. After that, I turned my head towards him. “You control friction.”

“Name that obvious?” he deadpanned.

“I just kind of wondered – MJ thought you were like Luke Cage.”

“I wish.”

I then felt the tingle up my spine. I quickly turned around as three more gunmen had their rifles trained on us. Fortunately for us, that was when Shadowcat suddenly rose up from the ground in front of them. Changing tactics, they surrounded her and aimed their rifles at her. She looked around at them before she shook her head.

“You really don’t want to do that,” Shadowcat warned. But they didn’t heed her warning. Instead, they opened fire… only for the bullets to pass through her like air. They ended up shooting each other. As they fell to the floor, clutching their wounds, Shadowcat wrinkled her nose as she grimaced. “Idiots, you’re all idiots.” She huffed out a breath before she walked towards us. “You guys okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. I looked around at the gunmen that were taken down. During this, the police moved in, ignoring us to take the assailants into custody. I looked at Frictor, who was looking towards the ground. “You good?”

“…Yeah, I am,” he said in a noncommittal tone. He then shook his head. “…This just doesn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean?” Shadowcat asked in concern. Frictor lifted up his head and looked back and forth between the two of us.

“It’s just… Look, I know it was three of us taking these guys on, but this still feels too easy.”

“Maybe they aren’t as skilled as they look?” Shadowcat offered.

“Yeah, I’ve came across people like that before,” I added. I shrugged. “Some people talk the talk but don’t really walk the walk that well. But, either way, this situation is over and – ”

I didn’t complete my sentence. My senses went off – this time, it was intense. Under my mask, my eyes widened. I started to look around frantically, wondering what was happening or going to happen. Unfortunately, I was going to receive my answer.

As I was about to tell Frictor and Shadowcat that something was wrong, I felt something hit me in my right shoulder. I stumbled backward as I groaned. My vision then blurred in and out of focus. I reached over to touch my shoulder, only to touch something feathery instead. I felt along the object until I felt something hard. With a groan, I yanked the object out of my shoulder. I brought the object in front of my face to see what it really was – a large dart.

“What the…?”

I felt woozy. I dropped down to one knee. The world was turning a bit. It was at this point that Shadowcat moved to my side and kneeled down.

“Hey are you okay?” she asked.

I heard the sound of vehicles approaching. I looked around slowly. I then shook my head. More black SUVs.

“This was a set up!” Frictor yelled. “Spider-Man, can you fight still?”

“I think I…” I tried to stand up, only to fall backward.

“No, you can’t,” Shadowcat declared definitively. She grabbed my left arm and pulled me up to a sitting position. “Just stay pat.” She looked towards Frictor. “Ready to phase out of here?”

“We can’t leave the cops to handle them,” Frictor pointed out. “Look, we’re going to have to – ”

That was all I heard. I started to fade out of consciousness. The last thing I did see, however, was a red beam colliding against one of the SUVs, sending it crashing into another one. And that was when I was finally out.

When I came to, I was no longer out on the streets or in my suit. I was lying down on a couch. I groaned and looked down at myself, seeing that I was wearing a pair of black gym shorts and a black t-shirt with the Miami Dolphins logo on it – both of them were large on me. I slowly sat up and touched my right shoulder. I felt something soft. I pulled the shirt by the collar, seeing a bit of gauze. I sighed before I looked around the place. The living was rather spacious. I was sure I could fit my whole apartment here one and a half times over.

I looked forward at the coffee table in front of me, seeing that my phone was there, right next to my web shooters.

“Ah, you’re finally awake.” I looked over to see Kitty walk over with a plate and a mug. She set the plate and mug in front of me. She then sat next to me on the sofa. I looked down at the plate, seeing the graham crackers. “Graham crackers and green tea – I figured you could use something light to eat.”

“Thank you,” I said. I looked at her. “Where’s Craig?”

“He’s here. He’s just talking with Scott.”

I paused and tilted my head. “Scott?”

“I believe you have the tendency to call me Mr. Summers.”

My eyes went wide as I turned my head around. Mr. Summers walked in, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. Trailing behind him was Craig, who was dressed grey sweatpants and a black tank top.

“Wait,” I said. I looked around at all three of them as Craig sat on the recliner and Mr. Summers took the couch. “You guys know each other?”

“Yes,” Kitty confirmed.

“So he knows that you guys are…?”

“Yes,” Mr. Summers replied.

I sighed dejectedly. “…And he knows that I’m Spider-Man?”

“It was kind of hard to hide,” Craig explained. “He came to our rescue and helped us escape the Daily Bugle new chopper. And then we brought you back here – our humble abode – to check up on you. And, we had to remove your suit to make sure you’re okay and that you could breathe properly. And that’s when Scott said you’re his student.”

“Though, to be fair, I was already about 80 percent sure you were Spider-Man prior to today,” Scott stated.

I raised my eyebrows. “How come?”

“I take my job as a teacher very seriously. And as a teacher, the wellbeing of my students is my responsibility. I’ve been noticing your little injuries, and noticing that, when footage of him is shown on TV, said injuries were consistent of someone who went through what Spider-Man has gone through. Of course, I had neither a way nor a desire to confirm that, since we all understand the need for a secret identity.”

“…” I leaned forward. “You have powers, too?”

“I do.” He leaned to his left and reached into his pocket. He then pulled out a quarter and showed it to me. After that, he repositioned the coin so it was flat on his thumb as be balled up his fist a bit. He flipped the coin up into the air. Just at the coin reached its max height, Scott lifted up his red lensed glasses and unleashed a thin yet intense beam, blasting the coin. In an instant, his glasses were down, and he caught what was left of the coin with his right hand. He repositioned the remains in his fingers and held it up – all that was left was the outer ring.

“…Holy crap.” I chuckled. “That’s… that’s awesome!”

Scott smiled slightly. “Thank you.”

“So do you have like a codename like they do?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“Cyclops,” he replied. He paused for a moment. “It made a lot more sense when I still had my battle visor.”

“So what are you guys?” I looked around at the three of them. “Are you… are guys Avengers? Or are you part of a superhero group or…?”

“Okay, I understand that you’re curious about us, and I’m willing to answer questions along with those two,” Kitty interjected. “Plus I was going to wait until you felt better to remind you. But since you’re in a chatty mood, I need you to explain what happened earlier.”

“What happened?” Scott inquired.

“A couple of nights ago, St. James Theatre got hit, as I told you,” Craig began. “And Peter and his friends were there. I asked them if they can keep a secret, they said yes before Kitty and I went into action. So far, it seems like they’re trustworthy. Fast forward to today. Kitty pulls Peter and his friend Ned into a building to keep them safe. Peter convinces Kitty to take Ned to the nearest subway station. That’s when Peter reveals he’s Spider-Man to me then to Kitty when she returned.”

“And he also told us that his friends don’t know about him swinging around in red and blue tights,” Kitty concluded. She looked at me. “I just need you to explain that for me, because, quite frankly, I think it’s a bit unfair that your friends know the secret identities of Craig and I while they don’t know that you’re Spider-Man.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it as I bowed my head and shook it in defeat.

“Kitty, maybe we shouldn’t push him on this,” Craig said.

“No, she’s right,” I said. “You guys deserve to know.” I lifted up my head and sighed. “I… just don’t know if you guys will believe me.”

“Try us,” Kitty urged.

“…Okay.” I swallowed as I nodded. “Before I do, I need to ask you guys a question. It’s a weird question, but a serious one.” I took in a breath. “Do you guys believe in magic?”

“Yes,” Scott replied.

“I mean magic-magic.”

“We do,” Craig reiterated.

“I’m talking sorcery, wizardry and – ”

“Yes to all of that, Peter,” Kitty interjected, giving a smile that was equal parts amusement and incredulity. “We’ve seen a lot of things in our lives.”

“Okay. Sorry, I just had to make sure, because I don’t know a lot of people who believe in magic, let alone seen it.” I huffed out. “Okay… it’s like this…”

I explained to them everything. I don’t know why I did. I barely even knew them. Maybe it was because I knew they could handle themselves within my orbit. Maybe it was because they understood the hero life. Or, maybe it was because it was a rare opportunity for me to actually talk about it. But, I couldn’t ignore the feeling of alleviation in my chest. It took some time for me to realize it, but this day was an important first step for me.

Once I was done, I looked at the three of them. Scott held a neutral expression. Craig was looking down at the ground, trying to process everything, and Kitty was mostly speechless.

“Wow,” she said.

Mostly.

“That’s why they don’t know,” I said. “And I don’t want them to know. I’ve been trying to keep them at arm’s length. But… I miss them too much. And… I don’t know. I… I’m a mess.”

“Yeah you are,” Kitty said in agreement. “Eat your crackers and drink your tea. And don’t worry about crumbs. We’ll clean up later.”

I nodded as I picked up a graham cracker and took a bite.

“You know, Scott,” Craig said as he lifted up his head. “I thought you were crazy when you said Mysterio was suspect. But I have to say, you were right.”

“I usually am,” Scott replied. He then looked at me. “Peter…”

Before he could continue, my phone vibrated. I looked at the screen to see MJ’s name. “Oh, crap,” I said. “It’s…” I looked over at Kitty. “What should I tell them?”

“Put her on speaker phone,” Kitty said. “Trust me.”

“…Okay.” I reached down for the phone, answered the call, and placed the phone on speaker. “Hey MJ.”

[akumastrife]

What A Wonderful Life {SPN // Fic Advent Day 8}

Retirement was a good look for them, Dean often thought, and couldn’t figure out how they’d gotten so lucky.

{Part 2}

Dean spent a lot of the time in the kitchen. It was both a necessity (Claire was still learning with little interest beyond functionality, while Cas took too many instructions at face value and missed nuance and variability in a recipe) and a joy.

Cooking was a creativity not yet fully afforded to him, and he was exploring it as far as it could go. It was different and constructive, and a way of caring for his family that did not require words or vulnerability.

It was evenings like this—the sun setting early and frost thick around the windows—that made him think of his mom, and if she was doing the same at his age. Standing at a sink washing vegetables, radio on soft rock, sigils carved in every line of trim and salt packed in the house foundation.

He glanced over at Claire on her laptop at the bar, and stopped thinking about Mary.

She’d had this first, and had it ripped away.

Dean had fought tooth and nail for it now, and would keep it as long as he could without jinxing it.

“We should go to the mall tomorrow,” Claire said.

Dean grunted, flicking vegetable scraps at her. “You have a car. Take yourself to the mall.”

“But we need to finish getting gifts for dad.”

“Oh okay, you mean you want me to pay for them.”

“And bond, obviously,” Claire scoffed.

Dean arched an eyebrow.

“And like, they’re nice things. Things Dad should have. And I don’t have that kinda cash.”

Dean hummed, even though he was already considering it. It couldn’t hurt. Get a couple more things for Cas, stop at that fancy kitchen store that just opened on the second floor, hit up the food court. It didn’t sound like a bad day. And he was a sucker.

John would’ve never considered it, would’ve berated him for being frivolous and spoiled.

He was trying very hard not to be like John.

“Can I get my belly button pierced?”

“What? No!”

“But Marci just got hers and its, like, really cute. And I could get—”

“It’s impractical, gonna get infection, and frankly, trashy.”

“Wow, okay, didn’t know you had one. When did you become some sort of expert.”

“In girls who had those piercings, hell yeah.”

“Pops, ew!”

“Exactly,” he said, gesturing at her with a carrot. “Keep that idea in your head—”

“Gross, oh my god, you’re the worst.”

“—and wait until you’re eighteen, if you’re still so set on it.”

Claire groaned loud and long, swaying on the stool and nearly sending herself toppling out of it.

“All done!” shouted a triumphant Cas, and a moment later he appeared in the doorway beaming. Flushed cheeks, clear eyes, hair damp and a nightmare from his hat.

And after all those years, still enough to make Dean’s heart skip and clench. Had to smile back, as stupid as it felt.

“Thought you were gonna take a spill off the roof,” he said, instead of anything sappy or gross.

Cas just shook his head, shaking off his coat. “I would never. That’s the point of wings.”

Dean laughed softly and tilted his head out without thought, shifting and reaching to accommodate Cas’ lean into kiss his cheek as he passed him as intrinsic as shifting in an automatic.

It was muscle memory; it was felt in his gut; it was a push-and-pull that had always been between them that Dean was only just recently learning not to be scared of.

“I see you’re in… full swing,” Cas said carefully.

Dean didn’t look away from his stove top covered in steaming pots, and knew what the rest of the kitchen looked like under the flour-dusted rolling pins and multitude of pyrex dishes covering most surfaces.

“I’m right on schedule,” Dean shot back, a little barbed. “Deloris can take her store-bought pumpkin pie and shove it up her ass.”

Cas sighed, audibly fond, as he leaned in for another glancing kiss. Assured him, “Your pies are the best for miles, everyone knows that. You have ribbons to prove it.”

“But Deloris still brings her garbage,” Dean seethed, whisking faster.

“Deloris can go suck a dick,” Claire sang. “Nick was telling me the other day she was planning on making a sugar plum one this year. For the potluck.”

The frequency on the radio buzzed and skipped, before resuming; Dean’s whisking stopped all at once.

He turned to her. “I’m making the pies. I signed up to make the pies.” Waved his whisk around fast and sharp as he spoke, splattering browned-butter and sugar onto the counter. “No one else should be worried about bringing pies. She’s trying to one up me. Oh, that bottle-blonde bimbo has another things coming.”

Hands dropped to his shoulders, squeezing and turning him to look at Case. “Dean,” Cas interrupted gravely. “The woman is sixty-seven.”

“And trying to push me out.”

“Dean.”

“She’s a menace and a fraud.”

Cas’ eyes crinkled in mirth. “I’m not saying I don’t agree with you. But also maybe take it easy. Everyone knows yours are the best. It’s flattering, that she feels threatened by you.”

“Noted,” Dean said. He got back to whisking. “And she’s not threatened by me. Not yet, she ain’t, I’ll show her what a threat really is.”

“Yes, dear,” Cas relented.

The endearment was not new, and yet still it always sent a little drip of warmth down Dean’s chest into his stomach. “How’s the lights looking,” he asked instead, clearing his throat.

“All working. Trimmed everything, put the icicles up, and even wrapped the porch. And I, uh, removed your handiwork.”

“That was the best dick I’ve ever made from lights. And trust me, it is not easy.”

“I still think two years ago was best,” Claire said.

“Be that as it may, I got three voicemails from the Home Owner’s Association.”

“Oh yeah? Darryl can suck a dick, too, then. He doesn’t recognize talent.”

“You can make a snowman and give it a penis, if you’d like.”

“I think I would like. Supposed to snow tomorrow.”

“In the back yard,” Cas amended.

“You’re no fun, babe,” but Dean flashed a grin and tugged Cas in for a proper kiss anyway.

[feleshero]

Oh. That was an absolute shame. The paint was barely done drying on the car and now it had a goober-sized dent right on the hood. She exhales, finding a stillness in those precious twilight moments after a good workout, and leans her head down a touch. Looking down at her phone & giving Johnny an easier time at fixing her hair.

❝ I have a friend, Thomas, out in the south of Sweden. Still owes me more than a few. ❞ She'd saved his marriage, it was a very touching affair. A lot of debt swearing, and singing, and drinking. God, the drinking. She didn't mind calling in a few...

Leg off the ground once she felt his fingers leave her hair, she carefully swept a sleeping - He is sleeping, right? She didn't see his rib cage burst, so she can only assume this wasn't a mortal konflict, or what have you - goober off the roof of Johnny's ride.

❝ You just kicked that man's chakras out of alignment with dark magic, and you chase that with a little pin-up about me? ❞ Not sure if she's a little upset at the priorities, impressed with the energy, or a secret third thing that made her nudge him with her shoulder and smile her Cheshire smile at the bright message on her screen.

It read: "A custom sports car retool? Faster, Pussycat, I like the challenge! Send me the details! I'll make it work!" Omitting a few untranslatable swears and overzelaous emoji usage, of course.

❝ Repairs on me. Since you had to come to my rescue, Mister Cage... Might have to catch a flight to Malmö, though. ❞

     This was all his agent's design,   after going on and on about his public image and not wanting to ruin it with a crime of some kind,   have a bodyguard,   someone to do the work for you and still look good for the cameras.   It's ridiculous,   he made a strong point about not relying on stunt doubles and now to have someone do all the fighting on his behalf,   it's almost like asking him to drop all his championships awards out of the window and be satisfied with becoming another plastic figure like the Major sum of Hollywood stars.   Begrudgingly,   he had agreed on the one term of being the one to choose his current companion,   and who better was there than Felicia ?   She was fun to have around,   and she would gain herself access to grand and fancy of all the events such as private parties   &.   movie premiers.

  They had taken leave of one party to unintentionally begin one of their own.   It all started in the same manner,   some amateur claiming he could best the star in a fight and trying his luck at a swing at him,   these things always ends with a brawl and the second party groaning on the sidewalk.   What he didn't anticipate was the way with which Felicia had sprung into action,   an instant smile on the actor's face as she took on the head of that group and had him facing the floor before he could comprehend what was coming.   Oh,   she was more troublesome than he was,   maybe this bodyguard thing wasn't so bad after all.   What he liked most however,   was that it was more of a team work than anything.

  He's quick to answer her call,   turning upon his heel and dashing forward to kick the last man standing before he could get back up to get her,   a trail of brilliant emerald green left behind him to dissipate like a mere shadow.   A loud clank sounded as the other's face hit the rear end of the car,   [   shit,   it was brand new   ],   and Johnny had effectively dealt with the threat and reached the woman in one swift movement.        ❛❛   Here,   let me.   ❜❜        reaching for his suit's pocket,   he pulled out the satin handkerchief,   using it as a makeshift ribbon to tie her hair.        ❛❛   Well,   aren't you adorable !   ❜❜

[giftofwonder]

Psychosis - Dabi/Hawks/Bakugou x f!Reader

A/N: This story will contain adult themes/language and graphic depictions sex, drug use, suicide, mental illness. Minors- Please do not interact.

A gentle rain fell from the sky, droplets pinging softly against the metal roof. Dreary skies accompanied the drizzle, casting everything in a shade of gray.

As you stepped out of the car, the crisp autumn wind rushed against you, and you pulled your blazer tighter around your body, beginning your brisk walk into the building.

The large doors opened with a heavy groan, exposing you to stuffy air that smelled both sickly and stale. Ahead was a large wooden desk, plexiglass shields between you and the receptionist.

“Good morning, how can I help you?” The girl smiled, her cheeks rosy.

“Good morning, I have a meeting with Director Todoroki. I’m here to begin my residency.” You smiled back.

“Oh! Yes, he let me know you’d be coming. Please, come right this way!” She said, swiping her badge to open the door beside the desk.

The short walk to the directors office was quiet, save for the sound of heels clacking against tile, echoing throughout the narrow corridor.

After a brief knock, you were permitted entry and took a seat. Before you was a large and intricately carved wooden desk, with bookshelves and filing cabinets lining the wall. On the far side of the desk sat a broad and intimidating man.

“Welcome. It’s nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things.” He said, extending his hand.

“Thank you, I’m excited to get started! I really appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me.” You smiled, shaking his hand. You were almost startled by how warm his skin was, hot to the touch.

“Of course. I trust you read the email that was sent out covering the basics. Do you have any questions?” He asked, blue eyes staring intently at your face.

“No, none so far. If any come up, I’ll be sure to get them cleared up before I leave today.” You said, clasping your hands in your lap as he nodded in approval.

“Right. Here is everything you will need. This is your badge, it is your access to everywhere within the facility. You will also have a PIN number you can use to override the main doors, and a skeleton key in case of a power outage. All of these must be kept on your person at all times, and keep them out of sight. If a patient gets access, or you notice any of them are missing, you sound the alarm immediately.” He said firmly, sliding the objects over to you.

“Here is your name plate. While not required, it is highly recommended. This will help the other staff and patients to identify you for now. Usually we instruct to wear it for your first 90 days just to make sure there isn’t any confusion.” He explained, laying it on the table before you as well.

You took all of the items, putting them in their respective places, before facing forward once more. He looked you over once again, the air becoming tense.

“I have one of our interns on the way over to give you a tour and show you your daily stations. Before they arrive, I would like to stress the most important rule of this facility: Always be on guard. We have had a high turnover with staffing in the past recent years. It will be hard, you will be overwhelmed, some patients will make you uncomfortable, and there is always a risk of violence. While we take every precaution we can to ensure your safety, this asylum houses the criminally insane. The people inside of here will use you and destroy you if you are not careful. I trust that you are more than qualified and fully capable to work here, but heed my warning, do not trust anyone.” The look in his eyes was desperate as he spoke, and it made your stomach churn with anxiety.

A knock on the door broke the silence that had followed, both of your attention pulled to the young man that entered after.

His wavy green hair and wide smile provided immediate comfort, clearing the heavy atmosphere that had previously hung in the air.

“Good morning, miss. My name is Izuku Midoriya and I’ll be showing you around!” His excited voice chirped. You pushed yourself to stand, turning back to your new boss.

“Thank you for everything, Director. I look forward to learning from everyone here, and will always be on guard.” You smiled.

“Good, see that you do, and just Enji is fine.” He dismissed you with a wave of his hand, attention shifting to the document before him.

You followed Midoriya out of the office and through a set of doors into the main hall. It led to a common area and you could see the courtyard through the large windows.

Patients sat scattered around the room, eating, playing games and quietly talking amongst themselves.

“This is what we refer to as Level One. The patients here are pretty low risk. It’s usually calm down here, though there is definitely the occasional scuffle!” He laughed.

“My friend Shouto is the intern that usually works this floor. He’s a funny guy, mainly keeps to himself, but I’m sure you’ll get along well! He’s pretty easy going.” Midoriya smiled.

“I’ll keep my eyes open for him.” You said enthusiastically, following as Midoriya pointed out doctors and patients as you passed them.

He told you the main psychiatrist of the floor was Dr. Gum. A large and very joyful man, and if you ever needed him you could usually find him in the cafeteria.

With that, he led you to the elevator and into Level 2 of the building. This area posed a moderate amount of risk. Patients often didn’t act out unprompted but you were cautioned that they were much more reactive. You had no trouble finding the doctor on the floor, him being incredibly loud.

“That’s Dr. Mic, he oversees level 2. As you can probably guess, this floor is pretty lively. This is my main floor, and if you ever need me, don’t be afraid to grab me. For the most part I don’t have too many issues here so I’m always happy to help where I can!” He smiled.

As he showed you the floor and introduced you to some of the patients, you couldn’t help but feel the eyes around the room on you everywhere you went. You knew with each increased level, the patients cases would become more severe, and with that they’d become more disturbed by your sudden appearance.

Next was Level 3. Midoriya warned you in the elevator to be careful. As soon as the doors opened, you could feel the shift. There were no patients out wandering as there had been on the previous floors. While the others had basic rooms, the patients in Level 3 were much closer to locked cells.

“This floor runs a bit differently. Because of their highly reactive states and the nature of their crimes, patients on this floor aren’t allowed out without supervision. They also can’t all be out at once.” He told you.

“Is it because they’re more prone to fighting?” You asked.

“That’s part of it, but they just usually start conspiring against staff. It’s a bit of a newer rule we had to implement. We had a handful of workers that had to be hospitalized after an incident on night shift that got out of hand. But it usually isn’t that bad! A lot of them are medicated anyways, so they’re generally pretty tame. You can’t take your eyes off of them though.” He explained, and you nodded thoughtfully.

As you rounded the corner, you saw an angry blonde reclining against the desk, face set in a deep scowl.

“That’s Bakugou, the intern for this floor. He might seem a little hot-headed at first, but he isn’t so bad once you get to know him. He’s probably just as reactive as the patients, though, so tread lightly.” He laughed awkwardly, and you could sense his discomfort as he spoke.

Continuing on, he led you to a very tiny common area. He explained the roster hanging beside the door and how they used it to keep track of which patients could enter at the same times.

You noticed one patient talking with a doctor.

“That’s Dr. Aizawa, the psychiatrist for this floor. He’s an amazing doctor. I would highly recommend working with him if you’re able. I’m sure it gets a bit more rowdy up here sometimes, but I think it’d be worth it. He has a lot to offer as a teacher.” Midoriya said, a flash of warmth crossing his features as he spoke.

“I’ve actually heard of him. He was a graduate of my university and they spoke very highly of him. I’d really like the chance to sit down with him at some point and would love the opportunity to be able to work with him.” You beamed.

“Im sure you’ll be able to! He’s sort of standoffish and can seem a bit cold at first, but he’s really nice. Im sure with a little convincing he’d take you under his wing!” He smiled back, resting his hand on your shoulder.

He then lead you back down to the first floor, on the hunt for Dr. Gum. You were told he currently held your roster of patients and you’d be shadowing him for your first day until they determined which level you would be stationed on.

Dr. Gum was in his office, take-out containers scattered across his desk like a buffet. He greeted you warmly, large hands encircling yours easily.

He offered to share his lunch with you, telling you to eat up for what he was sure would be a long first day. The two of you talked about the job and expectations, as well as some of the other staff.

He was an exceptionally kind man, in everything he did there was a feeling of joy. You could tell he loved his job and his patients, even if they weren’t the best of people.

“Level One patients are what we call High-Hopes. These are the ones with the most potential to leave the facility at some point. We work very hard to help them overcome their illnesses and difficulties as we’d love for them to be able to rejoin society at some point! Most of them are troubled by their past, but aren’t terribly dangerous. I think they’re just people who have made mistakes. My goal here is to give them the skills needed to cope with the outside world and to be able to not only succeed, but to thrive.” He told you.

As you followed him, talking with different patients on the floor, the intern Shouto made his way over.

“Hello, I am Shouto Todoroki. It’s very nice to meet you.” He said, offering a formal bow.

“It’s nice to meet you, too! Are you by any chance related to the director?” You asked, and his face twitched.

“Unfortunately, yes. I am his youngest son.” He said, tone void but you could see the unhappiness that settled over his features.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-“

“No, it’s fine. You’re the new psychiatrist that’s just began their residency, correct?” He said, cutting you off with a swift change of topic.

“Yeah, that’s me! I look forward to working with you, Todoroki.” You smiled.

“Just Shouto is fine.” He said before abruptly turning and walking away.

“He’s a bit formal and blunt sometimes, but that kid has a heart of gold, I promise!” Dr. Gum’s laugh followed, hearty and full, filling the room.

_______

The end of your first day was quickly approaching, and you were going over patient files and the logging system they used at the Yuuie Asylum, when Dr. Gum’s phone rang.

“Yes?…Oh! Yes she’s here with me now actually…Of course, I’ll bring her up.” He spoke before hanging up and shooting you a brilliant smile.

“It seems you’re wanted upstairs. Best not to keep him waiting.” He stood, lending a hand to help you up. He guided you toward the elevator, and you noticed him press the button for Level 3. You couldn’t tell if it was anxiety or excitement that churned your stomach, but you were ready nonetheless.

When you arrived at the third floor, you were led to a back hallway, following it down to a door which Dr. Gum held open for you. On the other side, was the small common area you had seen in your first tour with Midoriya.

“Figured I’d take you the back way, it’s always good to know the routes around here, just in case.” He smiled.

As you stepped into the common room, you saw three men. The first was who you knew to be Dr. Aizawa. He had a slender build, and looked utterly exhausted. His hair was tied back and his coat hung loosely around him. His bloodshot eyes zeroed in on you immediately, but he made no move to speak.

The other two men were sat at the table, one looked to be a counselor. He had golden hair and the same bright aura that Dr. Gum carried with him.

The man who was clearly a patient sat with his back hunched, face void of any emotion. His blank eyes watched the blonde man, unblinking. You noticed the deep scarring on his face, torso and limbs, feeling a pang of sympathy for the man. You couldn’t imagine what he had been through.

You cautiously entered the room, slow steps on the ceramic floor alerting everyone to your presence. All eyes turned to you, and it was in that moment that you recognized the burned man.

“It’s you.” Were the only words he uttered, his tone in total disbelief, and the other doctors looked over at him in shock.

“Hey, long time no see! I wasn’t expecting to see a familiar face today.” You greeted him warmly, ignoring the tension and questions you could feel lingering in the air.

You walked over to the man, placing your hand on his shoulder gently and giving a light squeeze.

“It’s good to see you again, I always wondered what had happened after you left. I hoped that you’d be alright.” You continued.

“Don’t know if I’d really consider myself alright. Best I can say is I’m alive.” He accepted your touch, scoffing back at your words.

“I’m glad.” You said, sincerity shining in your words.

“How is it that you two know each other?” Dr. Aizawa asked skeptically, stepping forward and you could see the suspicion swirling in his dark eyes.

“He was one of my patients when I worked in the behavioral unit of Yuuie Hospital. I had worked with him on and off for about six months.” You explained.

“I see. I think I’ve seen enough for now. Mirio, we will continue on as we have been. Dabi, you will continue your sessions with Mr. Togata and myself as usual.” Dr. Aizawa said, met quickly with Dabi’s refusal.

“No. Im not talking to anyone ‘cept her.” He spat coldly.

“Is there some reason you are unable to speak to us?” Aizawa questioned.

“I know her.” Dabi glared, ignoring the question.

“She can definitely be included in the rotation if that-“

“Fuck off.” Dabi yelled, hands slamming against the table.

“Mirio, take the patient back to his room, please.” Dr. Aizawa said, shooting a cold look in Dabi’s direction.

Mirio cuffed Dabi, before firmly pulling him to his feet and out of the room. Dabi didn’t put up a fight, simply stomping along beside him.

“I suppose it’s his lucky day.” Aizawa said, looking to you.

“Huh? What do you mean?” You asked, your brow furrowing.

“This was what we call the ‘Last Hope Evaluation’, it’s our process to determine where someone falls in terms of progress. Dabi has been a difficult patient, refusing to speak to any of us during the few months he has been here. Had you not came when you did, he would have failed.” He explained.

“What happens when they fail?” You asked.

“We shift focus. Initially, when patients are brought in, we determine their level. A Level One has the potential to one day be released. Some may stay a Level One, and others will progress to Level Two. Level Two is for patients that are sort of in an in-between. They are potentially dangerous, but not typically reactive. They are monitored, and receive the same evaluations. If their condition improves they can be lowered to a Level One, or they may also stay the same or increase to a Level Three. Level Three’s are dangerous, they cannot be without supervision. It is very rare for someone to leave the third floor. However, the “Last Hope” is for us to identify how to progress with treatment. You will find that some are more open than others. Those who are, we actively work with in an attempt to better them with the expectation that they may decrease in level. Those that fail are usually either unable or unwilling to improve, and so we simply provide a content stay. We give them general therapy and medication as needed, feed and cloth them. If they at some point begin to show signs of improvement or wanting to improve, we start the cycle again, but until then, we simply allow them to exist here.” Dr. Aizawa explained.

“Ah, I see. Do you think I’ll be working closely with him, then?” You asked, unable to hold back the excitement in your voice. It wasn’t necessarily a pleasant situation, but you would be happy to be able to continue on with someone who had haunted the recesses of your mind for so long. You wanted to understand him, understand what he went through, and figure out a way to help him.

Most of what you remembered about him surrounded his anger. Many of the small details had been lost to time, your memory failing you, but you could still see the way his eyes looked so heartbreakingly hollow as he spoke about himself and his life.

“Perhaps. I’m going to call a meeting shortly with the director and discuss this matter with him. Go home for today, I’ll have more information tomorrow.

_________

You walked alone down the hall, Dr. Gum staying back to talk to Dr. Aizawa. You entered the elevator, your mind lost in a hazy daydream.

As you descended down to the second floor, the door chimed and opened. At seeing Midoriya running between rooms, you had stepped out, wanting to go and talk to him. It was only then you noticed the man a few feet away.

He was alone, wearing a navy jumpsuit, his blonde hair styled messily and a broom in his hands. He glanced up at you, flashing a smile as he stopped sweeping.

“Are you the new doc they’ve been talking about?” He asked, taking a few steps toward you and leaning his broom against the wall.

“I am, first day.” You said with a laugh and he nodded.

“Names Hawks,” he pointed to the badge embroidered on his front pocket, “I’m the custodian. I know it probably isn’t much coming from me, but if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.” He said, a lazy grin on his face.

“Oh no, I appreciate it! I’m sure you have a lot of insight to how things go around here! I’ll take all of the help I can get.” You reassured, and you saw the spark of confidence in his gaze grow.

“Good, I’m glad! But uh-that looks my cue to get back to work.” He cringed, the loud sound of a patient vomiting across the room cutting the conversation short.

Midoriya had disappeared off into one of the patients rooms, so you instead made your way down to the main floor, did a double check that you had everything on you, and headed home for the evening.