#i love some feedback

[madpatti]

So I finally finished this fan art❤️ I can't remember the last time I put so much detail into one drawing.

[starcurtain]

One thing I wish I'd see more of among Ratio fans is some thought about how he views himself as a teacher.

Like yes, of course he refuses to compromise on the quality and rigor of the education he imparts, and he would find it unforgivably unethical to lower his standards in order to pass more students who had not genuinely learned the material. This is core to his character.

However, as someone who is a teacher IRL, I know the absolutely miserable feeling setting that kind of standard can cause. There's the obvious disheartening sense of disappointment ("Are students these days really not capable of doing the work correctly? Is our future in danger, if this is the highest level of understanding our current generation of students can achieve?"), but even worse than that is the self-doubt.

"Is this somehow my fault? Am I not teaching this material in the right ways for the students to learn? Is there something I could have done differently to get through to these students? Would a better teacher have a higher passing rate?"

We know that Ratio does (or at least did) struggle with feeling inferior to the Genius Society, so I think it is also likely, as much as he absolutely will not budge on his academic standards, that he has doubts about his teaching ability as well.

This is the man who wants to educate the entire world to cure the disease of ignorance, and yet only 3% of his actual students are able to get there. How can someone who gets so few of his direct students to a state of enlightenment hope to enlighten the whole universe? If so few students are successfully learning the material of a given class, doesn't that mean the teacher is doing something wrong?Would a better teacher--would a genius, maybe--not be able to impart their knowledge more efficiently and educate even the most challenging of students?

As someone constantly struggling with that balance between keeping academic standards high while also meeting the needs of today's students, I think the passing rates of his courses must affect Dr. Ratio much more deeply than I've seen fans discuss. I think he would question himself harshly over his class success rates, and I think he must be constantly trying to push himself to become the best teacher he possibly can be.

tl;dr: I hope one day the HSR fandom will stop sleeping on the fact that Ratio is an actual practicing professor who probably has astronomical levels of teacher angst. 😂

[freaky-flawless]

It's black history month and I wanted to draw some black monsters, particularly ones that don't get enough love!

ID in alt!

[lemorgo]

[lustrecannon]

fuck it. formal time

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Taking a snooze.

[trans-androgyne]

> Guy who claims to be a voice for intersex people.

> Still uses AMAB and AFAB.

I very much do not claim to be a voice for intersex people, that is not my place as a perisex person. I do try to be an intersex ally, and that is why I use amab and afab the way I do.

Whether any of us like it or not, most people do get assigned male or female at birth based on their natural body parts and/or coercive surgeries. And that birth assignment often influences the way others who know it treat us. But the way I use them is meant to make it abundantly clear that being amab or afab is an event, not a trait, and does not inherently imply anything about your body or experiences.

If intersex folks would like to critique the way I use them or provide me with another way to discuss folks' nonconsensual birth sex assignment and the impacts it can have, I would be happy to hear it, but the intersex folks I know use agab terms the same way that I do.

[muzzleroars]

two unauthorized bugs in the lust layer!!!! get them now!!!!!!

[quarriart]

The Darkroom. Part 5. End. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

[the-lonelyshepherd]

jackieshauna drives me insane btw

[artbyblastweave]

Thinkin’ about The Siberian

I was sitting on a draft that said something to the effect of “Worm AU where Manton pulls an NBC Hannibal and moonlights as The Siberian on top of being a globally respected parahuman studies researcher. Is this anything.”

Then I thought about this a little more and realized that this might not be far off from what actually happened. There’s a throughline in Manton’s interests, in his trajectory through life, where he’s trying to figure out what you can use powers to get away with doing to people- about identifying constraints and overcoming them. 

He’s the guy who somehow credibly catalogued, and got his name associated with, the fact that powers generally can’t be used to pop people like balloons, and he did so reasonably early in the timeline, in the nineties at the latest. That’s.... an interesting direction to take your research! When people are just coming to terms with the fact that parahumans are real he’s out there taking careful note of whether they can manifest their powers inside people to instantly kill them. How did he test that? What capes did he collaborate with to test that? What did those conversations look like? Did the IRB at a minimum issue any revise-and-resubmits?

And then, of course, he gets picked up by Cauldron (also known as the infinite untraceable victim depot) to work on improving the vials- gaining a sufficiently in-depth understanding of what they are, how they’re made, and what they can do to people that when Cauldron told Legend that Manton had gone rogue and was the one creating C53s, he found this plausible. You’ve got the guy who’d later become the backbone of the Slaughterhouse 9 basically systemically cataloging every conceivable way a power could violate someone’s physiology- first from without, and then, at Cauldron, from within.

Then, when he pulls the trigger and gives himself powers, the resultant ability is essentially a distilled refutation of the Manton Effect- a minion that can obliterate anything, eat anything, delete any material from existence, viscerally dismember people in a unity of conventional and esoteric, power-enabled violence. And he’s insulated from the consequences of his actions on two levels- in terms of Siberian’s invulnerability, but also in the discrepancy between his form and that of his minion. He mixed the vial that gave him that power himself.

Essentially- I don’t think Siberian is something that just happened after a psychological break following a messy divorce. I think Manton basically pre-committed to becoming something like The Siberian, spent most of his career working towards some form of transcendence through superpowers, and the messy divorce was downstream of the cracks starting to show as he got closer and closer to what he’d been chasing.

Now to segue into a complication that’s more directly supported in the text- it’s Worm, it’s always complicated- Master powers spring from loneliness. My theory is that while Manton wanted apotheosis, and while he’d probably been gearing up for a rampage for a while, he genuinely didn’t want to do it alone; he wanted a sidekick. Hence why he bothered pursuing a family in the first place, hence why he fed his daughter a vial, hence why his own projection ended up looking like his daughter after he accidently made her explode or whatever with the bad vial- a monkey’s paw restoration, giving him back a facsimile of the person he wanted to take along for the ride, and making his capacity for violence inseparable from her presence.

This is why he joined up with the Nine rather than remaining a solo act; it’s why he engages in a bad imitation of the Parent/Child relationship with Bonesaw; and it’s why he seeks out Bitch as a candidate. His interest in her candidacy parses to me as genuine- Even moreso than Bonesaw, even moreso than Jack, Bitch has arrived at a no-frills fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want outlook that’s very appealing to Manton. He wants to have a murderer-daughter relationship!

But Rachel got where she is the hard way, by having a life that sucked a lot, by getting near-constantly kicked around! She has a clear reason to be so angry! Even if all my postulations about Manton having a long game are complete bullshit, there are several stages at which Manton had to actively opt in to the same lifestyle and reputation that Bitch was forced to adopt as a basic survival tactic. He didn’t have to start eating people! He’s a tourist! His “freedom” is inseparable from his distance, his disguise. Rachel’s “freedom” is just the freedom of having nothing left to lose.

All of this to say- In an interlude in which Bitch has an extended internal monologue about how people with families have the opportunities to be assholes and monsters to a captive audience, it is absolutely not a coincidence that she’s scouted by a would-be parental figure who proceeds to be an asshole and a monster in front of a captive audience, before trying to buy her affection with a puppy. In rejecting Manton, Rachel dodged an esoterically-packaged but ultimately very familiar bullet.

[sonic-adventure-3]

an incredibly rough comic. i think star fragments would taste like a scintillating phantasmagoria of light, a severe electric shock, a newfound gambling addiction, and a hint of the nastiest artificial grape flavour you’ve ever tasted. sonic is imbued with the power of slot machines now

[marty--party]

admittedly, i am a little obsessed

+bonus lil fellas who love each other so much

[the-kipsabian]

wrestling fic writers!!

i have decided to be the change i wanna see, so lets do a nice little thing for each other, as a community full of incredible and talented writers. yes this is writer specific only, but thats cause thats where the main problem of people not interacting with creative works lies in this fandom as far as i can tell and have seen people talking about it especially in the last couple of months

if you read this, please add links to your written works. it can be just a single fic youre really proud of, your writing blog, your writing tag, your ao3 account, anything where your works can be found

and if you leave your link here, PLEASE check out someone else that has left their works, and interact with them. leave them a comment, even just a kudos, REBLOG their fic, etc. interacting is the keyword i want to emphasize here, along with building a sort of a masterpost of where to find people writing in this fandom

and if you are not a writer, youre still highly encouraged to interact with this post and share it and show love to the writers in this fandom, obviously!! i think that should go without saying, but adding it in anyways

a bit more about my vision and resources and such under the read more, but thats the gist of it. happy linking and please be kind and supportive to each other!! 💜

nobody is too big or too small to add their things on this list. if you write and post anything in this fandom whatsoever, be it fics or drabbles or headcanons, any companies or any kind of ships or reader inserts or any content whatsoever no matter how 'dead dove dont eat' or hell even if its just meta, we welcome all here and nobody can say that one thing is less valid than another. just please tag your content accordingly, especially if theres content warnings, and feel free to mention what you write, who you write, any info you wish to leave that would help people before they click on your links. but even so, that should not and hopefully will not deter people from interacting, no matter what it is. someones trash is another ones treasure, i promise you

and unless the amount gets really overwhelming, im personally going to be checking out everyone that leaves something here. unless it squeaks me out, but even then, i'll spread the word. and i just wish as many people as possible will do the same, and not just use this as a potential board to only get eyes on their stuff. ofc thats also the point, but you should give as much, if not more, than you get. we need to be kind and supportive of one another (besides, from personal experience, if you show love to someone else, they are more likely to do it back than without you taking the first step, so... pay it forward)

as for resources, heres a few links that should be helpful in leaving comments and feedback. of course everyone does their own thing and no comment is too big or too small to leave, but for those who need them. if you have anything you'd like added to this list, dont hesitate to get in touch or drop it in the post yourself!!

101 comment starters

ao3 floating comment box

kudos html

dont know how to comment? easy solutions

a quick hot guide to commenting (by yours truly)

an overall guide to appreciating fanfic writers

and just in general.. leave people comments. leave them asks about their projects. just go over and gush about their work. i know it sounds embarrassing but writers love nothing more than to hear that someone likes what they are doing. if you find a fic that hasnt been updated in forever, comment on it. it might just be the spark the author needs to continue. while kudos and likes are nice, and just as valuable to some, its definitely in the words the people leave for them that matter the most. im not saying this to put pressure on anyone, its just how it is, and i feel like unless people are writers themselves, and even then sometimes, thats just hard to grasp, especially if the writer is a smaller and less popular one who doesnt get a lot of traffic in the first place

i think thats all. just be nice and considered to everyone, reblog peoples works, this post with others add ons and so forth. and if i find anyone talking shit here or at other writers for something they share, you'll be blocked and im probably taking your kneecaps. be fucking nice. we are all struggling here and we need to stick together

happy sharing and commenting 💜💜

[crushribbons]

𝕗𝕒𝕚𝕣 𝕘𝕒𝕞𝕖

summary: Bobby Moch makes for one passive-aggressive roommate. (pt. 1/?)

cw: 5.5k words, modern!au, roommate!bobby, light/medium shorty hunt x reader, light suggestive content (18+ ONLY), drug use, fem reader. this is a work of fiction about the character portrayed in tbitb and not affiliated at all with the actual historical figure (like duh?) requests are open cuties

a/n: i wanna smoke the shit that got those white boys to the olympics xx laney

8-track for the series: 1・2・3・4・5・6・7・8

“Fine. The final offer I will accept is: you get the pizza, I pick the movie, and you roll up.”

“How is that a good deal for me?”

“You get to benefit from my impeccable taste in movies.”

“Oh, please, Bobby–we’re watching Horrible Bosses again, aren’t we?”

Her roommate grinned from ear to ear. “You bet your fuckin’ boot we are.” She groaned in reluctant acceptance and began searching the name of the nearest pizza place that didn’t just microwave drywall and put it in a box. Bobby dictated demands for extra breadsticks and beverages that she ignored.

Once the pizza had been ordered, she slid her phone into her back jeans pocket and told him she’d walk the eight blocks to pick it up “IF,” she pointed a finger at the man clad in his WSU crewneck and narrowed her eyes. “If you roll. It’s the least you can do, golddigger.”

Bobby threw a hand up to his chest in outraged offense. “Golddigger? Darling, I may have married you for the money but to say it out loud…so very gauche.”

“It’s a good thing you’re pre-law. You can talk me into fucking anything,” she grumbled as she pulled on a jacket and pulled the hood up. Thunder had been making threats of a rainstorm all afternoon, and now that the sun had set, fat droplets were beginning to fall against the windows of their ground-floor apartment. She peered out at the darkness and grimly hoped that she could trek there and back without getting too soaked. 

Bobby went into his room while she pulled on shoes and came back waving the plastic baggie of bud he’d scored from one of many suppliers on the pre-law track. It was something of an epidemic among the students, Bobby included, who swore they’d end it all if they had to read one more book about tort reform. “I’ll have them ready by the time you traipse back in here,” he promised, settling down at the small desk they did homework at and pulling a rolling tray and stack of papers toward him.

“Tight this time, Robert.”

“I’m always tight, sweetheart.” 

It was a wonder his roommate’s eyes weren’t permanently stuck rolled back in her skull. Moving in with Bobby in his off-campus apartment had seemed like the perfect option when her junior-year housing had fallen through at the last minute, but she’d neglected to take into account that Bobby would be there. To his credit, he was a fastidiously clean housemate and always did his dishes; he even often cleaned her room for her on the late nights where she was stuck in the library tearing her hair out over yet another batch of assignments. 

But his chatterbox nature, which she had hoped and prayed died down significantly when he was at home, did nothing of the sort. If anything, the captive audience of a girl he’d previously only gotten to squawk at a few times a week egged him on to new heights of talkativeness. She often woke up to him already standing in her doorway and halfway through a conversation: “...but then SHE said that she’d call the police on HIM, so they were both, like, staring each other down, and the whole class is dead silent while this is happening, and–”

“Bobby, what time is it.”

“–and then he–5:45, why?–then HE gets all in her face about how he has a room full of witnesses to this, which, by the way, I was filming the whole thing, and…”

After a few weeks though, the constant drone of his chatter started soothing and comforting her after long days. She could come home, throw her bag down and dive into the nearest pair of sweatpants available, and he would trail behind her the whole time, recounting his entire day starting with the exact minute he woke up and what he had eaten for breakfast. It was reliable, monotonous, and really, kind of nice to just lean against his legs while they watched something dumb on TV and let his voice wash over her.

Another perk of living with Bobby was that he was starting to get pretty good at rolling joints.

She exhaled a long line of smoke and leaned back on the couch, examining the roach pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Not bad, Moch,” she managed to huff out before a coughing fit overcame her. The smoke settled too heavy in her lungs and made her face turn red as she hacked her breathing back to normal. Bobby was watching her sideways as he took a hit off his own joint, pulled it into his chest, and held it there for a moment with lips pressed tightly together.

“You caught me on a bad day last time,” he eked out, trying to hold the smoke in until it sputtered out from between his lips and he followed it, exhaling strongly and blowing smoke all over the pizza that lay in front of them on the coffee table. Six of the eight pieces were missing, and as the weed wrapped itself like taffeta around her brain, she decided that it would be best if they finished off the remaining two as soon as humanly possible. “My fingers were super tired and I rolled you a sub-par product, that’s just the truth.”

“Well, all is forgiven after these. Oh.” She stretched her arm forward to place her dying joint in the handmade ashtray she had painted during their forced roommate-bonding trip to a paint-your-own pottery studio. It bore the image of a stick-figure her, smiling and the sun shining, next to a stick-figure Bobby who was tied to a chair and whose mouth was covered securely with duct tape. He had dragged her out to the studio on the worst day of her period, and documenting her feelings towards him at that particular time had been very important to her. “I forgot to tell you. Speaking of fingers being tired, guess who asked me out on a daaaaate,” she said, singing the last few words in a way that came out creepier than intended.

Bobby frowned and did likewise with his joint. His eyes were pink and glassy at this point, and it seemed to take him a few extra brain cells to try and remember names right now. “Who?”

“Shorty Hunt.” Bobby’s eyebrows flew up and she tried to laugh but it dissolved quickly into another cough, her lungs still struggling to keep up with his disproportionately strong ones. Yelling for four hours a day, minimum, during crew practice gave him the lung capacity of a whale. Hence also his ability to talk ad nauseam. 

“A date? You?”

“I know, who is she?” she said. It was a joke, but an accurate one, and it rankled. Between her schoolwork and the on-campus job she needed to make her half of the rent, she had forgotten to leave time for romance, and very rarely went out with anyone. She vaguely remembered kissing someone on a night that, to her drunken memory, seemed Halloween-ish. She knew that if she were to look at a calendar right now and add up how long it had been since October, she’d probably go the same way Bobby did when he thought about tort reform. 

Bobby pulled his legs up and tucked them criss-cross as he continued to ponder this development. He looked so cute like this, she thought with a dreamy little smile on her face. Being high always softened the edges of everything, including the many irritants of her roommate. He was wearing her favorite ensemble of his, although he had no idea: a navy blue sweatshirt, plaid boxer pajama shorts, and thick, cozy socks that pooled around his ankles. His frame, which she found adorable, was tucked even smaller than usual on the couch next to her. Weed made him want to shrink away, he always said.

It was the time of day when the product that he carefully combed through his hair every morning was starting to lose its hold, and a few stray pieces fell into his eyes as she watched him work through his intoxicated state to form a normal sentence.

“Shorty Hunt…” he mused. His eyes drifted up to the TV, where Jason Bateman and Charlie Day were frantically vacuuming cocaine off the ground. “He’s a good-looking young man. One of our finest.” The rain was still pouring outside, and she slid her feet under his legs to keep them warm.

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“You should do it,” said Bobby, but it didn’t convince her, which surprised her a little. He never had a bad word to say about any of his teammates, although he would sometimes come up with very cruel nicknames targeting their masculinity if he caught them not giving their all in the shell. Her high was making her question a lot of things, one of them being why Bobby’s mouth had settled into such a humorless line. It was cute, seeing him try to be serious.

“Maybe I will,” she replied carefully. “What would be something fun we could do?”

“I’m not your damn day planner.” The words snapped out of Bobby’s mouth and slapped her in the face, leaving her in such shock that she couldn’t form a reply until Bobby colored and added on with a sheepish tone and nervous grin, “I mean, if I plan your dates for you, you’re just going to end up doing a lot more of this.” He swept his arm in front of him, indicating the pizza, movie, and still-smoldering joints. 

She had no idea what was happening. The two of them had discussed men, women, and dating prospects of all sorts over the past two years, and Bobby had never done worse than roll his eyes when she inquired after the shy and silent Don Hume and told her, “Honey, there aren’t enough hammers in the world to break that turtle out of its shell.” She had scolded him for thinking you could smash a turtle out of its own shell and they had laughed and never talked about Hume in that context again. 

Although…Come to think of it, she’d gotten similar brush-offs from the coxswain in the past regarding his friends and teammates. As they settled into comfortable silence on the couch, a stoned stupor heavy in the air, she tried to recall whom else he’d dismissed as romantic options for her. She was unable to snatch one from the depths of her memory before the opportunity presented itself for her to lay her head in Bobby’s lap and she took it, her eyes sliding shut immediately as she inhaled his scent of laundry detergent, cologne, and sweet, skunky smoke. 

Her last thought before the weed closed her eyes gently for her and she drifted off to sleep was that Bobby really was so cute. I gotta stop smoking this strain, the last rational part of her thought to itself, then she was lost to the sensation of his fingers threading into her hair and stroking absent-mindedly.

On Monday, she told Shorty that she would go out to dinner with him, and on Friday, they went to dinner. It was nice; Shorty’s conversation didn’t revolve entirely around rowing, and his winning smile made her blush more than once as he held open doors and pulled out her chair for her. When their dessert plates had been cleared away and the waiter inquired whether they would like some coffee or another glass of wine, their eyes met, and a shared glint that said “And pay these prices for it?” made Shorty suppress a smile and say, “I think we’ll just take the check, please.” 

They walked down the lamp-lit sidewalk that led to her apartment at a snail’s pace, lingering beside each other and chatting happily. When they reached the front door of her building, Shorty turned to face her and said, “Well, thank you for a lovely evening.” His self-assured demeanor slipped as he pressed his lips together and glanced up at her door. The moonlight hitting his dark hair and the two glasses of wine she’d had with dinner were casting him in a very appetizing light.

“Thank you, George. I had a lovely time.” She copied him in glancing at the door, and when she brought her eyes back to his, he was looking at her like she was a delicate thing that he thought might blow away in the blustery wind whipping around them. It made her mouth go dry. Her gaze slid down to his lips while she said, “If you want, I have a bottle of Malbec we could open up.” She had wanted her voice to come out sultry and enticing; strained and whimpery were better descriptors for how it actually sounded. “I know you said that’s your favorite…”

While Shorty stood behind her, patiently waiting for her to fumble her keys in the lock and finally push the door open, she wondered why she had ever put off dating this long. She hoped hard that he would end up staying the night. The image of the lanky Shorty walking into the kitchen for breakfast in one of Bobby’s borrowed sweatshirts, the hemline of which would probably hit him mid-torso, made her giggle, and Shorty followed suit, asking “What is it?”

“I–oh, nothing!” Her key turned at last and she pushed the door open, twisting around to look up at him. She bit her lip when she saw how he was eyeing her up and down. “Don’t forget about Bobby. Try to be quiet if you can; we won’t have a moment of peace if he learns there’s fresh ears to be talked off,” she said, and he grinned.

“I am familiar with Mr. Moch’s work.” Shorty closed his lips and mimed locking them and tossing the key. 

They slipped into the lobby and passed several doors until they reached the door marked “109”. She pulled her keys out once more to unlock it, but before she could, Shorty grabbed her shoulders, turned her around and pressed her back to the door, and kissed her. It wasn’t forceful, but she felt every muscle relax and melt into him as his soft lips melded with hers. She grabbed at the frayed tie he’d worn to dinner and used it to pull his body closer to hers. The key sat, forgotten, in the lock for several minutes while they made out, trying hard to keep their moans and sighs to a minimum since they were still in the middle of the hall, after all.

She broke apart from him and all she could gasp out was, “Come on, my room.” Shorty’s hair was sticking up wildly from the place she’d run her hands through it and he looked like a man possessed as he watched her unlock the door and push her way inside. The lights were off, save for the small lamp her and Bobby always left on if they went to bed before the other. The sight made her exhale quietly in relief. It was well past midnight, and Bobby had probably had his “smoke and two beers”, their favorite shared Friday night delicacy, and fallen asleep long ago.

The tiled kitchen was cool on her bare feet as she kicked off her shoes and jogged over to the wine rack on the counter next to the fridge. The Malbec (the only bottle on the rack that had cost more than $10) and two glasses in hand, she ran to Shorty and tugged him by his belt into her bedroom. He was laughing in delight as she pushed him down on her bed and set the glasses on her nightstand, the only light in the room filtering in from the hallway as she climbed over him and began kissing him and undoing his tie simultaneously. 

When Shorty’s hips bucked, on instinct, into her core, she vowed to never go this long without a date again. She wasn’t sure she saw a life-long future with Shorty, but she did see a short-term future of pretty spectacular sex with the tall, well-built gentleman in her bed right now, and that sounded plenty appealing to her. 

They continued kissing for a while, their tongues in each other’s mouths. She peeked at him and saw that his eyebrows were quirked upwards in an expression of desperate desire. The sight made her panties dampen. The irritating reminder of responsibility that came with casual sex snuck up and tapped her impatiently on the shoulder, and she groaned as she pulled her lips away from his and said, “Lemme make sure I have condoms.” Shorty panted and followed her reach towards her nightstand, but when she stretched across his chest, her tits, about to fall out of the lacy shirt she’d worn on the date, grazed his face and a little moan slipped out of him. He reached up to palm her over her shirt and the action caught her off guard so badly that she yelped and knocked one of the waiting wine glasses off her nightstand. The glass hit the floor and shattered, causing them both to bolt upright as Shorty slurred, “Y’ok?”

“Shit, yes, just a clumsy idiot,” she muttered. Frustrated by the building desire inside her stomach that demanded attention, she swung a leg off the bed, careful to miss the pile of glass shards. “I’ll just clean this up real quick.”

“How ‘bout you just get back here and let me do that later,” Shorty propositioned, a smirk on his kiss-stained mouth that made her tremble. 

Still, the promise of glass stabbing into the bottom of her bare foot after she inevitably forgot it was there was enough to make her reply, “How ‘bout you pour yourself the other glass and wait for me to come back.” She leaned forward and placed one hand over the groin of his pants, a tent already very evident, and smiled against his parted lips. “I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”

“This night has been well worth the twenty laps I’m gonna have to run tomorrow when I miss a.m. practice.”

“Already planning on missing practice?” “Well, I assume you’ll need someone here to help you walk again.” The line made her roll her eyes and scoff, in spite of herself. “Don’t write a check your ass can’t cash, Hunt.”

“I wasn’t planning on using my ass; I was thinking more along the lines of my c–” He was calling after her as she shut the bedroom door behind her with a swat.

She stumbled blearily to the kitchen, lust addling her mind as she giggled to herself and fantasized about George and what he would do to her when she dove back into bed with him. She was so lost in her thoughts about what those powerful arms and taut core could do that she didn’t notice the kitchen not being empty until its only other occupant cleared his throat and said, “I’d ask how it’s going, but clearly, the answer is ‘pretty ok’.” 

“Bobby!” She jumped and grasped the countertop for support. “You scared the shit out of me. I told you to never wait ominously in the dark for me.”

“The lights were on already. Since I am not seated in an armchair and did not flick on a lamp to dramatic effect, I think I’m in the clear.” He had a beer bottle in front of him at the table, and was wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts again. She wondered why she was noticing that.

She rummaged around the cabinet under the sink until she found some dirty rags and a small bucket. Taking them in hand, she rose to her feet and turned back to Bobby. “Thanks for telling me to do this.” Her cheeks flushed a little as he continued staring her down, emotion indiscernible on his face. “Didn’t know how bad I needed a date. How was–”

“You like him?” Bobby asked, cutting her off. Her mouth opened and closed in a fish-like mechanical movement a few times. 

“He’s…he’s hot, Bob. I don’t think we’ll be picking out china anytime soon, but, God, he’s hot,” she finally acquiesced with a gush, and she thought she noticed Bobby sit up a little taller, a little more stiffly. “But I am sorry to have missed smoke and two beers night–”

He cut her off again, and she felt the frustration that had been largely sexual in nature start to turn Moch-avellian. “Well, I’m sure you won’t be having time for smoking with little old me anymore when there are tall rowers to deflower.”

She frowned. The strap of her top fell down one shoulder and she pulled it back up without thought. She was sure her hair and makeup were both too mussed for him to take her seriously at the present moment, but she found herself too exasperated to care. 

“You done, drama king? I’m gonna head back in there.” She nodded towards her bedroom and started walking towards it. Bobby jumped to his feet and followed after her. He wasn’t done. 

She’d seen Bobby be mildly possessive before; being the youngest of three boys had given him survival of the fittest instincts that usually only reared their head when she tried to reach for his snacks from the pantry. Sometimes, though, when the wrong mood struck him, he would use his powers of speech for pure evil, and could spit vitriol about anyone who even looked at him the wrong way. Clearly, tonight had brought on one such mood.

“I’m sure I won’t see either of you tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe even the day after that, so have tons of fun making babies and try to remember to send me a save the date when you mail them out. If you can teach that knucklehead to read quickly enough for him to write his own vows,” he practically spat, and she found herself agog at him.

“Robert Moch, what the hell has gotten into you?” she breathed. “You love Shorty.”

Bobby balked. “You didn’t have to start dating him.”

“You told me to, you complete ass.” 

She should have known that logic was powerless in the face of Bobby Moch. He spluttered for a long while, his arms moving up and down in gestures that she was sure were supposed to mean something. Despite his mere five feet and eight inches, he could manage to take up a lot of space when he wanted to. When they stood face to face the way they were and she didn’t have any shoes on, he was a few inches taller than her. 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know how gross it would be to hear you two slopping and giggling all over each other.” He adopted an exaggerated face of disgust like a toddler that had been offered stewed carrots, then began simpering in a poor imitation of Shorty’s voice: “Oh, baby, you feel so good. I hope I can find my way out of your pussy later.”

“Shut UP!” she hissed, glancing over at her closed bedroom door and hoping Bobby’s rude mockery hadn’t carried far enough for Shorty to hear. “That is so mean. You are being mean, Bobby, why are you being so mean to him?” Bobby had never taken shots at any of his teammates’ intelligence before, other than passing jockish insults disguising genuine affection for the boys. Besides, even if he did, they’d probably let him have it just as hard, once they managed to catch their breath from dragging his ass over the finish line. “What are you–” she scoffed before she could stop herself, “–jealous?”

Bobby’s jaw ground as he clenched his teeth together and backed a few steps away from her. She hadn’t even noticed that they were nearly nose-to-nose. His bright blue eyes were electrified.

“No,” he said, voice dangerously low. It was the shortest sentence he’d ever spoken in his life and it freaked her out when he didn’t continue.

“Well, we’ll go back to his place then so you don’t have to hear all the slopping.” She knew she was being petty. But he had always been terrible at articulating what was actually bothering him; another side effect of his upbringing was the passive aggressive manner of arguing that his mother had ingrained in him.

He swatted a hand at her and she saw a little bit of the fight in his shoulders dissipate. “No, no. Don’t bother. I’m just…just tired. I’m gonna head to bed.” She watched as he passed her, the beer bottle hanging loose in his fingertips and his jaw still set, and entered his room across the hall from hers. He didn’t exactly slam the door, but her stomach was still in confused knots when it shut and she was left standing alone, staring after him and wondering what was actually plaguing him to make him lash out at her and George.

George. “Oh, shit!” she hissed and trotted into her own room, where Shorty was still laying on the bed. The almost-fight with Bobby leaked out of her head with worrying rapidity when she took in his bare chest and legs, stretched out and waiting for her, and the devilish grin he was wearing while he said, “Thought maybe you’d forgotten about me.”

The broken glass was not cleaned up until the next morning.

When she had disposed of the shards and the bucket holding them, she crawled back into her bed next to Shorty, who was still groaning himself awake and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The sex had, as predicted, been amazing, but the nagging thought that she should make her intentions with him clear was eating at her. Shorty was too sweet to blindside.

“Hey,” she began in a whisper, trailing a finger up his neck and chin to tap on his lips. He squeezed his eyes shut but cracked one open to peek at her. 

“Mm…good morning, sweetheart.”

Something inside her bristled. Before she had time to examine why, she decided to just plow forward. “Last night was so wonderful.” Shorty smiled and she felt her resolve weakening when she saw how the corners of his eyes crinkled. Maybe she could see a world where they went out. She tried to imagine sitting on the couch and watching shitty movies with him, or going on a pottery-painting date, or going clothes shopping and waiting for him to decide between two identical light green shirts (“This one is mint and this one is sage. You seriously can’t tell the difference?”). For some reason, her brain refused to conjure the image of Shorty in those settings. But he was still looking up at her expectantly, all doe eyes and mussed-up hair. 

“I was wondering if you would just want…kind of….uh…” She gestured to him and then to her, only three articles of clothing present between the two of them. “Keep this nice and casual.”

Nerves ate her alive as Shorty’s eyebrows raised and he let out a small “huh.” She gritted her teeth and started to apologize but he cut her off gently. “That is a-ok with me, baby. You’re a fuckin’ firecracker and if that’s what you want?” He pulled his hands out from under the duvet and offered his upturned wrists to her. “I am just a man.”

“Fuck, thanks, Shorty,” she smiled, relief washing over her. 

“Wanna keep things casual right now?” he asked with a wink. Heat flooded through her body and she wanted very much to say yes, yes I would, but her eyes fell to the digital alarm clock on her bedside table, and she shot upright.

“Dude, it’s 8:15! You can still make it to practice if you go now!” Shorty swore and sprang out of bed, pulling on clothes in whatever order he could reach them, catching the shoe she threw with expert reflexes and putting it on before his slacks. “I’ll text Joe and tell him to bring you extra clothes!” “Got some in back of my car,” he replied, but his words were muffled by the spare toothbrush that she pulled out of her dresser drawer, ripped free from its cardboard packaging, and shoved into his mouth. He hopped out of the room, only one leg in his pants, and down to the bathroom. She shouted directions for where to find toothpaste and soap and he grunted in affirmation as she heard the faucet turn on.

When she bent down to peer in the fridge and find something quick for him to eat on his way to the docks, she noticed a yellow post-it note stuck to the freezer door with a WSU magnet. 

Dead dove (waffles) do not eat (you may eat).

A sigh of gratitude and laugh of delight huffed out of her at the same time as she opened the freezer and pulled three frozen waffles out of the new box Bobby had purchased. Their spat from last night had been all but forgotten, and shame swirled inside her as she popped two of the waffles into the toaster and thought about how defeated her friend had been when he’d gone to bed. Clearly, he had awoken at the appropriate time and gone to the docks for practice already, but the note he’d left behind for her made an annoying little tear form in one eye. An annoying little tear for an annoying little guy.

Luckily, Shorty barreled into the kitchen before any more tears formed. At that exact moment, the waffles jumped from the toaster and startled her, but he just yanked them out of the grate, held one in his mouth while balancing the other in the hand that was also trying to button the dress shirt he’d worn last night. He pecked her cheek and mumbled through his mouthful of food, “Gimme a call, ya know, whenever!” 

Then he was gone, the slight rattle of the front door as it flew shut behind him the only evidence that she hadn’t just been standing in the kitchen, defrosted frozen waffle in hand, the entire morning. While she sat and ate her meager breakfast (her stomach didn’t seem able to handle much more than the waffle and a glass of water), she held the post-it between her fingers and considered it. Bobby was thoughtful, so thoughtful. Thoughtful and sweet. Cute, kind, sweet.

And jealous of the boys she dated. 

Which, she argued with herself, could be easily attributed to his possessive nature. She was his roommate and built-in best friend, and the prospect of her spending a lot more time with Shorty must have irked him because it would be taking time away from their hangouts. Right? 

The rebuttal to her argument was a completely unbidden remembrance of the time she had fallen asleep on the couch the night before an exam with two textbooks open on her legs and highlighters scattered all around her. She had blearily awoken to the sight of Bobby taking the books off of her and organizing her mess of supplies on the coffee table. She had kept pretending to be asleep as he laid the wool blanket that lived on the back of the couch over her and tucked it securely around her. A small smile had fought its way to her lips but vanished quickly when he leaned forward, smoothed the hair off her forehead, and whispered, “‘Night, sweetheart.”

That same thing inside her that had bristled when Shorty used the nickname stretched out and purred. Morning sunlight was starting to stream into the kitchen as she continued staring at the post-it in her hand, and the light catching it made her realize that there was writing on the back, as well. She turned it over and tried to decipher Bobby’s chicken scratch. 

I’m sorry about last night.

Next to this, he had clearly written a few letters then scratched them out. She couldn’t make out anything other than an “L”, but he had dashed an “X” and an “O” after the scribble. God, it was so very Bobby of him to apologize via post-it. It should have frustrated her more than it did. His casual acquaintances never guessed at his passive-aggression because he was always yelling about one thing or another, but she was one of the few that knew that the yelling usually concealed something deeper. 

Grabbing her phone from where it was charging on her desk, she checked the time to see that there were still a few minutes before 8:30. Practice hadn’t officially started yet. Shorty had shared his location with her last night when they were meeting up for dinner, and she quickly checked it, seeing with a chuckle that he had made it to the docks already. Breaking several traffic laws in the process, no doubt. 

She pulled up her and Bobby’s conversation. It was the only one pinned to the top of her inbox. The last sent message, from Bobby and the final in a series of twelve he had sent with no break, read “Also it’s probably going to rain today so bring an umbrella.” She pressed her lips together, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

thanks for the dead dove!! also i’m sorry too about last night :( dinner tonight with your fav roommate?

The reply came back in a matter of seconds.

You can read my mind, or somethin’ <3

or somethin’

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