#invitation for gross brainstorming

[soundtechrapture]

Hot date locations!

Dingy alleyways

The bathrooms of abandoned buildings

Landfills

The bedroom of your typical neet

The sewers

Underneath your partner’s vile ass

The dumpsters behind a grocery store after dark

[grossgeck]

Uggghgghgg I need more gross draw ideas involving this ffffffffffuCKER- /pos

[paxtito]

birthday girl

pairings: wednesday x reader

word count: 5.2k

warnings: none really, kissing and swearing here and there.

summary: wednesday was born november 13th, 2006, it’s her birthday soon so enid- being overly invested in your relationship- convinces you to plan a birthday surprise. you steal a very expensive book and put together an addams family themed escape room.

a/n: i’ve written quite a few fics since august so i’m just doing a little clear out of my drafts. apologies in advance for any mistakes. i’m no edgar allan poe expert, don’t come for me if the price is wrong.

MASTERLIST

It’s officially November. Wednesday’s birth month. You wasn’t planning on doing anything for it out of respect to her boundaries but Enid’s constant yapping in your ear brought you to the brink of insanity.

“Jesus! Fine, Enid… We’ll plan something, okay? Stop talking my ear off.”

Enid squealed excitedly, clapping her hands together. "Oh my gosh, yes! This is going to be so much fun!"

You rolled your eyes but couldn't help the small smile tugging at your lips. Enid's enthusiasm was infectious, even if her ideas were sometimes a bit... much.

"Alright, let's brainstorm," Enid said, plopping down onto your bed next to you. "What does Wednesday like? Besides death and darkness, I mean."

You chuckled. "Well, she seems to enjoy solving mysteries and puzzles. And she has a thing for creepy crawlies… Dead things…”

Enid wrinkled her nose in distaste but nodded. "Okay, so maybe not a spa day then. How about a murder mystery party? We could invite everyone and have them dress up in costume!"

You shook your head. "Wednesday doesn't really do 'parties' or 'people'. She'd probably just end up killing someone for real."

"Good point," Enid sighed. "Hmm… What about a private escape room experience? Just the two of you, working together to solve some kind of creepy puzzle. That way it's intimate but still fits her interests."

You considered it. That actually didn't sound half bad. "Yeah, I could see her getting into that. Let me look into it."

Enid beamed. "Perfect! Oh, and don't forget her favorite foods - bugs and gross stuff. You could make her a special birthday cake with... I don't know, worms or something?"

You made a face. "I have to draw the line somewhere, Enid. I may love her, but I'm not putting actual worms in a cake… I’m not touching worms.” You grimace, a shiver running down your spine at the thought.

Enid pouted but nodded in understanding. "Fair enough. I guess you could always just make it look like there are worms in it. You know, like those chocolate bugs they sell online? That might be more her speed anyway.”

You shake your head firmly. "No food. Definitely no bugs or anything gross. I'm drawing the line there."

Enid sighs. "Alright, alright. No bugs in the food. But we need to get her something, right? Like a present?"

You nod, considering Enid's suggestion. "Yeah, a present is a good idea. But what do you get for the girl who has everything? Especially when 'everything' is basically just death-related shit."

Enid taps her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm... Maybe something personalized? Like a custom-made necklace with a little vial pendant that holds a drop of your blood or something."

You cringe. "Uh, no. Definitely not going to give her bloody jewelry. That's just weird."

"Okay, okay," Enid says, holding up her hands in surrender. "How about a book then? Like a rare edition of some creepy classic literature?"

You mull it over. Wednesday does love to read. "That's not a bad idea actually. I could look for a first edition copy of one of her favorite Edgar Allan Poe stories or something.“

Enid claps her hands together. "Yes! Oh, and you could inscribe it with a little personal message inside the cover. Something like 'To my darling Wednesday, may your days be as dark as your soul.' "

“Where would I get the money though?”

Enid smiles slyly, leaning in closer. "Well, you could always ask your parents for some birthday money. Or... you could sell some of your old junk online. I bet there are a ton of weirdos out there who would pay top dollar for your crusty gym socks or used toothbrushes."

You make a disgusted face. "Ew, Enid! That's gross. I'm not selling my dirty laundry to some freaks on the internet."

"Suit yourself," Enid shrugs. "But if you change your mind, I know a guy who runs a pretty lucrative online market for this kind of thing. He's always looking for new... supplies."

—

A week later, you and Enid are hunched over your laptop, scouring online bookstores for the perfect rare edition for Wednesday.

"Ooh, look at this one!" Enid exclaims, pointing at the screen. "It's a first edition of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' published in 1843. And it comes with a handwritten note from Poe himself!"

You lean in to take a closer look. The book does look impressive, with its aged leather binding and yellowed pages. But the price tag makes your eyes bulge. "$25,000?! Are you insane?"

Enid pouts. "C'mon, it's a collector's item! And it's not every day you find something this rare. Wednesday would love it!"

You shake your head. "I can't afford that, Enid. I'm just a high school student… I’ll steal it.. Where’s the store located?”

You lean back in your chair, rubbing your temples. Stealing a rare book from a specialized antique store sounds like a terrible idea, but you're desperate to impress Wednesday. Plus, you've always been pretty good at breaking and entering.

"The store is downtown, near the old theater district," Enid says, squinting at the screen. "It's called 'The Raven's Nest' - fitting, right? They specialize in rare horror literature and occult artifacts."

You smirk. "The Raven's Nest... I like it. Okay, here's the plan: we'll case the joint tonight, figure out their security system. Then tomorrow night, I'll break in and grab the book while you keep watch outside."

Enid looks nervous. "Are you sure about this? I mean, what if you get caught? What if there's some kind of magical protection on the book?"

You roll your eyes. "There's no such thing as magic, Enid. And I won't get caught - I'm the fucking master thief of Nevermore Academy.”

—

As you and Enid walk down the darkened streets of downtown, you can't help but feel a thrill of excitement coursing through your veins. The anticipation of pulling off this heist and surprising Wednesday with the perfect gift is almost too much to bear.

"Alright, here's the plan," you whisper to Enid as you approach the old brick building that houses The Raven's Nest. "I'm gonna scope out the back entrance while you check out the front. See if you can spot any security cameras or alarm systems."

Enid nods nervously, clutching her jacket tight around herself. "Got it. But be careful, okay? I don't want you ending up in jail or worse..."

You flash her a cocky grin. "Relax, Enid. I've got this. Nothing can stop me once I set my mind to something."

With that, you split up, each of you slipping into the shadows to survey the store. The back alley is dimly lit, with only a single flickering bulb casting a weak glow. You notice a rusty fire escape leading up to a second-story window - the perfect entry point.

Enid shivers, pulling her collar up against the chill night air. She scans the front of the building, noting the ornate iron gate and the dim lights from inside. There seem to be cameras positioned above the door, but no obvious alarms.

You quietly ascend the fire escape, each step sending a faint creak echoing through the alley. At the window, you peer inside, spotting rows of shelves packed with dusty tomes and strange artifacts. In the center of the room, a glass case catches your eye - and inside it, the priceless first edition of "The Tell-Tale Heart".

You carefully pry open the window, wincing as the old hinges let out a soft groan. With a deep breath, you hoist yourself inside, landing softly on the creaky wooden floorboards. The musty smell of old books and mothballs fills your nostrils as you creep through the shadowy aisles, your heart pounding in your chest.

As you approach the glass case, you can't help but marvel at the beauty of the ancient tome. The leather cover is worn and cracked with age, but the gold lettering still glints in the dim light. You reach out, your fingers trembling slightly as they brush against the cool glass.

Just then, a sudden noise from the front of the store makes you freeze. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, growing louder with each passing second. You glance around frantically, searching for a place to hide, but the open layout of the shop offers little cover.

Panic rising in your throat, you duck behind a nearby shelf, praying that whoever it is won't spot you. The footsteps grow closer, accompanied by the jingle of keys and the click of a lock being undone.

You hold your breath, pressing your back against the wall as the footsteps draw nearer. Your heart hammers in your chest, threatening to give away your position. The shop door creaks open, and a beam of light slices through the darkness, illuminating a section of the floor just inches from where you're hiding.

"Who's there?" a gruff voice calls out. "I know someone's in here!"

You remain perfectly still, barely daring to breathe. The light from the doorway sweeps across the room, and you shrink further into the shadows, praying that your black clothes will camouflage you against the dimness.

The footsteps move closer, the owner of the shop clearly searching for the intruder. You consider making a run for it, but the thought of being caught red-handed with the stolen book makes you hesitate.

The owner's footsteps pause just outside the aisle where you're hiding. Your palms are slick with sweat as you grip the edge of the shelf, preparing to bolt if necessary. The seconds tick by agonizingly slowly, each one feeling like an eternity.

Suddenly, a hand reaches around the corner, grasping at the air mere inches from your face. You flinch instinctively, but manage to hold your ground, not daring to make a sound. The owner steps into view, his thick-rimmed glasses reflecting the dim light as he scans the area.

"I've got you now, you little thief," he growls, his breath hot and rank as it washes over you. "Come on out, hands where I can see them!"

Your mind races, desperately trying to formulate an escape plan. You could try to overpower him, but he's significantly larger than you, and the risk of him calling the police is too high. No, you need to be smart about this.

As the owner takes another step forward, you make your move. Ducking low, you sprint past him, heading straight for the back of the shop.

The owner bellows in anger, his heavy footsteps thundering after you. "Stop, thief! I'm calling the cops!"

You don't dare look back, pouring every ounce of speed into your desperate flight. Your lungs burn as you race through the cramped aisles, dodging past stacks of books and leaping over precariously balanced piles of occult trinkets.

Just as you're certain the owner is about to catch you, you spot the back door. With a burst of adrenaline, you lunge for it, your fingers scrabbling at the handle. The door swings open, revealing the darkened alley beyond.

You tumble out into the night, the cool air hitting your face like a slap. Behind you, the owner's furious shouts echo from the shop, followed by the shrill ring of a phone - no doubt calling the police.

You don't stop running until you're several blocks away, your chest heaving and your legs burning with exertion. Only then do you allow yourself a moment to catch your breath, leaning heavily against a brick wall as you gasp for air.

You turn to Enid who’d been running after you, “you’re an amazing lookout..” You mumble sarcastically.

Enid looks absolutely terrified, her eyes wide and her face pale in the moonlight. She's breathing hard, her chest heaving with each ragged gasp. "I... I tried to warn you," she stutters, her voice trembling. "I saw him coming in and I ran to find you, but... but you were already gone."

You push off the wall, your legs still shaky from the adrenaline rush. "It's okay," you say, trying to sound calmer than you feel. "We got away, that's what matters… I got the book.”

You pull the book from your jacket, holding it up in the moonlight. The leather cover glistens, and you can't help but feel a surge of pride at your successful heist.

Enid's eyes widen as she takes in the ancient tome. "Wow," she breathes, "you actually did it. You stole a first edition Poe book!"

You grin, tucking the book safely back into your jacket. "Of course I did. I told you, I'm the best thief in town."

Enid shakes her head in disbelief. "I can't believe you just broke into a store and stole something. That's so... so..."

"Cool?" you suggest, raising an eyebrow.

Enid laughs nervously. "No, not cool. Crazy! You could have gotten in serious trouble."

You wave a dismissive hand. "But I didn't. And now Wednesday is going to have the most amazing birthday present ever."

Enid bites her lip, looking uncertain. "Are you sure about this? I mean, what if she finds out you stole it? She might be mad."

“She won’t. Trust me.”

—

After weeks of planning and anticipation, the day has finally arrived. You've managed to lure Wednesday out of the house under the pretense of a "special surprise", blindfolding her before she could ask too many questions. Now, as you guide her down the street towards the escape room, your heart is pounding with a mix of excitement and nervousness.

"Where are we going?" Wednesday asks, her voice muffled by the blindfold. "This better not be some kind of lame party or something."

You can't help but chuckle at her grumpy tone. "Relax, Wednesday. It's nothing like that. Just trust me, okay? I promise you're going to love it."

Wednesday huffs but doesn't protest further, allowing you to lead her onwards. As you approach the escape room, you can feel a sense of anticipation building in your gut. You've put so much thought into this surprise, and you're determined to make it perfect.

The door to the escape room looms ahead, and you take a deep breath before pushing it open.

As you guide Wednesday inside, the blindfold is removed, revealing a dimly lit room decorated with eerie candles and macabre artwork. Wednesday blinks, her eyes adjusting to the gloom as she takes in her surroundings.

"What is this place?" she asks, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Some kind of gothic-themed restaurant?"

You grin, shaking your head. "Nope. It's an escape room. And it's all for you, Wednesday. Happy early birthday."

Wednesday's eyes widen, a flicker of surprise crossing her usually stoic features. "An escape room? Seriously? You know I hate those tourist trap things."

You place a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I know, but this one is different. It's tailored specifically to your interests. Mysteries, puzzles, all that creepy stuff you love. Plus, it's just the two of us. No annoying strangers to deal with."

Wednesday narrows her eyes, studying you intently. "Okay, I'll bite. What's the catch? There's no way you'd actually think I'd enjoy some dumb escape room."

You can't help but smile at her skepticism. It's one of the things you love about Wednesday - her sharp mind and unwillingness to be fooled by empty gestures.

"No catch," you assure her, holding up your hands in a gesture of sincerity. "I know how much you love a good mystery, and I thought this would be a fun way to celebrate your birthday. Plus, I may have mentioned to the owners that you're a bit of an expert in this kind of thing. They're really excited to have you try it out."

Wednesday's expression softens slightly, a hint of curiosity sparking in her dark eyes. "They know about me? How?"

You shrug, trying to play it cool. "I may have dropped a few hints about your... unique skill set. But they were sworn to secrecy. This whole thing is just between us."

As you and Wednesday enter the dimly lit escape room, you can't help but feel a rush of excitement. The space is decorated with an eerie attention to detail, filled with cryptic symbols, antique furniture, and a general atmosphere of macabre intrigue.

Wednesday's eyes dart around the room, taking in every detail with a keen curiosity. "Looks like they did their research," she murmurs, running a finger along the spine of an ancient-looking book resting on a nearby table.

You nod, grinning with pride. "I told you, I made sure it was the perfect fit for you. And trust me, the best part is yet to come."

Wednesday raises an eyebrow, but before she can respond, a low, ominous voice echoes through the room. "Welcome, dear guests," it intones, "to the Addams Family Escape Room Experience."

Wednesday's head snaps up, her eyes widening with surprise. "Wait, what?"

The voice continues, "In this immersive adventure, you'll navigate the twisted world of the Addams family, solving puzzles and unraveling secrets.”

The voice pauses dramatically before continuing, "Your objective is simple: escape the room before the clock strikes midnight, or risk being trapped forever in the Addams family's morbid mansion."

A sinister laugh echoes through the speakers, sending a shiver down your spine. Wednesday, meanwhile, seems entirely unfazed, her expression one of intense focus as she begins to examine the room more closely.

"Impressive," she admits grudgingly, running her fingers along the intricate carvings on a nearby bookshelf. "They've really captured the my family’s aesthetic."

Wednesday's eyes narrow as she takes in the details of the room, her mind already working to piece together the clues. The walls are adorned with eerie paintings and strange artifacts, each one seemingly hiding a hidden meaning or secret.

"Okay, let's start with the basics," Wednesday mutters, more to herself than to you. She begins to methodically search the room, her movements precise and purposeful.

As she works, you can't help but marvel at her incredible focus and deduction skills. It's like watching a predator stalk its prey, every action calculated and deliberate.

Wednesday pulls a dusty old book from the shelf, its pages yellowed and brittle. As she flips through the pages, her eyes widen. "Found something," she says, showing you a page filled with cryptic symbols and riddles.

You lean in closer, trying to decipher the message, but it's like reading a foreign language. "What does it say?" you ask, feeling a bit lost in the face of Wednesday's brilliance.

Wednesday's lips curve into a small, enigmatic smile as she traces her finger over the cryptic symbols. "It's a riddle," she explains, her voice low and conspiratorial. "A challenge, of sorts."

She reads the words aloud, her tone almost reverent:

"Seek the key that lies within

The heart of darkness, where the shadows begin."

Wednesday closes the book, her gaze sweeping the room once more. "Darkness, shadows... I wonder if that's literal or metaphorical."

She strides over to a large, ornate mirror hanging on the far wall. As she approaches, you notice a faint glow emanating from the frame, pulsing in time with some unseen heartbeat.

Wednesday reaches out, her fingers hovering just above the surface. "Interesting," she murmurs, her breath fogging the glass. "This could be it. The 'heart' of the room."

She turns to you, her eyes glinting with a newfound intensity. "I'm going to need you to do something for me," she says, her voice steady and commanding.

"I need you to stand behind me," Wednesday instructs, her voice low and authoritative. "And when I give the signal, I want you to push me against the mirror as hard as you can."

You blink, taken aback by her request. "What? Are you sure that's safe? I don't want to break it or hurt you."

Wednesday's eyes narrow, a hint of impatience flashing across her face. "Trust me, Y/N. I've done my research. This mirror is reinforced, designed to withstand pressure. It's part of the puzzle."

Still uncertain, you nevertheless comply, moving to stand behind her. Wednesday positions herself in front of the mirror, her stance wide and her muscles tensed. She nods once, a silent signal for you to proceed.

Taking a deep breath, you place your hands on her shoulders, feeling the firmness of her muscles beneath your palms. With a grunt of effort, you push, propelling Wednesday forward into the mirror.

As Wednesday collides with the mirror, there's a blinding flash of light and a crackling sound, like electricity surging through the glass. For a moment, you're blinded, your vision swallowed by the brightness. But as the glow fades, you blink rapidly, trying to clear your eyes.

When your vision returns, Wednesday is gone. Vanished. In her place, the mirror reflects an image of a dark, shadowy hallway stretching into the distance.

For a heart-stopping moment, you're frozen in shock, your mind struggling to process what just happened. Then, as panic starts to set in, you hear a voice echoing down the hallway, distant but unmistakably Wednesday's.

"Y/N! I'm in here!"

You lean closer to the mirror, your breath fogging the glass as you peer into the shadowy depths. "Wednesday?" you call out, your voice sounding small and uncertain. "Where are you?"

There's a pause, and then Wednesday's voice returns, sounding strained and urgent. "I'm stuck, Y/N. I need you to follow me. Quickly!"

"Hurry, Y/N!" Wednesday calls out, her voice echoing strangely in the shadowy hallway beyond the mirror. "I think I found the key, but I can't get it out."

Your heart pounds as you lean closer to the mirror, your reflection staring back at you from the darkened glass. The image of the hallway wavers and shifts, as if the shadows themselves are alive and moving.

Taking a deep breath, you reach out and press your palm flat against the mirror's surface. The glass is cold and smooth beneath your fingers, but as you apply pressure, you feel it beginning to give way, like a door yielding to a firm push.

With a grunt of effort, you step forward, feeling the resistance of the mirror against your body. For a moment, it's as if you're being pressed between two planes of existence - the real world behind you, and the shadowy realm ahead. Then, with a final heave, you stumble through, tumbling into the darkness beyond.

You land on your hands and knees, the floor beneath you cold and damp. As you push yourself upright, you see Wednesday standing a few feet away.

She's standing in a shadowy corridor, her face illuminated by the faint, eerie glow emanating from the walls. Wednesday's eyes widen as she sees you emerge from the mirror, relief and urgency flashing across her features.

"Thank god you're here," she breathes, her voice trembling slightly. "I was starting to think I might be trapped in here forever."

You take a moment to orient yourself, taking in the strange, otherworldly environment surrounding you. The walls seem to pulse with an inner light, casting shifting shadows across the floor. The air is thick and heavy, carrying an unsettling scent of decay and old secrets.

"What is this place?" you whisper, your voice sounding too loud in the oppressive silence.

Wednesday shakes her head, her eyes never leaving the object clutched in her hand. "I'm not entirely sure," she admits, her tone uncharacteristically uncertain. "But I think it's part of the escape room's final challenge."

She holds out the object for you to see - a small, ornate key, its metal surface etched with strange, twisting symbols.

Wednesday holds the key up to the flickering light, examining its intricate design. "The inscription... it matches the symbols from the riddle in the book. I think this is what we've been searching for."

She glances around, her eyes scanning the shadowy corridor. "But there's no lock here. We need to find where this key belongs."

You nod, following Wednesday's gaze as she begins to move down the hallway, her steps cautious and deliberate. The walls seem to shift and sway as you pass, the air growing colder with each step.

Wednesday stops suddenly, her head tilting to the side as she listens to a distant sound. "Do you hear that?" she whispers, her voice barely audible over the oppressive silence.

You strain your ears, trying to pick up on any noise. At first, there's nothing, but then you catch it - a faint, rhythmic thumping, like a heartbeat echoing through the darkness.

"It's coming from that way," Wednesday says, pointing down a side passage branching off from the main corridor. "We need to follow it."

As you and Wednesday move deeper into the shadowy realm behind the mirror, the atmosphere grows heavier and more oppressive with each step. The thumping sound grows louder, more insistent, echoing through the dark corridors like a macabre heartbeat.

Wednesday's brow furrows in concentration, her eyes scanning the walls for any clue or hidden passage. She moves with a predatory grace, her steps silent and purposeful as she navigates the twisting labyrinth.

Suddenly, she stops, her hand shooting out to grab your arm. "Look," she hisses, her breath hot against your ear.

You follow her gaze to where the wall seems to ripple and shift, like water disturbed by an unseen hand. As you watch, a shape begins to emerge from the shadows - the outline of a door, its surface covered in the same eerie symbols that adorn the key in Wednesday's hand.

Wednesday's grip on your arm tightens, her nails digging into your skin. "This is it," she breathes, her voice trembling with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. "The final challenge."

Wednesday's hand trembles slightly as she raises the key, the metal glinting in the eerie light emanating from the walls. With a deep breath, she fits the key into the lock, the symbols aligning with a satisfying click.

As the lock disengages, the door creaks open, revealing the room they’d started in.

"That was... impressive," she says, turning to face you. "I mean, it was still an escape room, but at least it had some real challenges. Whoever designed this clearly knows their stuff."

You step forward, a mischievous grin playing at the corners of your mouth. "You're welcome," you say, pulling the carefully wrapped package from behind your back. "Happy birthday, Wednesday."

Wednesday's eyes widen as she takes in the small, rectangular shape of the gift. She reaches out tentatively, her fingers brushing against the smooth paper. "What is it?"

"Open it and see," you encourage, handing her the package.

Wednesday tears into the wrapping paper with gusto, revealing the pristine leather cover of the book underneath. Her eyes widen as she reads the title embossed in gold lettering: "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe.

"Is this...?" she breathes, running her fingers reverently over the ancient binding. "A first edition? Y/N… How much did you spend-“ She begins, ready to scold you.

“-I stole it.”

Wednesday's eyes snap up to meet yours, her expression a mix of shock and awe. "You... you stole this for me?" Her voice is barely above a whisper, but there's an undercurrent of something else beneath the surface - something that sends a shiver down your spine.

"That's right," you confirm, stepping closer to her. "I knew how much you loved Poe, and I wanted to give you something truly special for your birthday. Something no one else could ever give you."

Wednesday's gaze drops back to the book, her fingers caressing the leather cover with a reverence that borders on obsessive. "This is... incredible," she murmurs, almost to herself. "I can't believe you'd go to such lengths for me."

You reach out, gently tilting her chin up to meet your eyes once more. "Of course I would," you say softly, your voice low and intimate. "You're worth it, Wednesday. More than worth it."

Wednesday's breath hitches as your fingers brush against her skin, her dark eyes searching yours for any sign of deception or ulterior motive. But all she sees is sincerity, and maybe something deeper - a longing that mirrors her own.

"Why?" she asks, her voice barely audible. "Why would you do this for me?"

You lean in closer, your lips nearly brushing against her ear. "Because I care about you, Wednesday," you murmur, your breath warm against her skin. "More than I've ever cared about anyone else. And I wanted to prove it to you, in a way that no one else could."

Wednesday's heart pounds in her chest, her body responding to your proximity in ways she didn't know were possible. She's always prided herself on her emotional detachment, her ability to remain unaffected by the whims and fancies of others. But with you, she feels herself crumbling, her carefully constructed walls beginning to fall away.

Wednesday's breath catches in her throat as your lips brush against her ear, your whispered confession sending a jolt of electricity through her body. For a moment, she's frozen, her mind reeling as she tries to process the intensity of the moment.

But then, slowly, she raises her hand, her fingers coming to rest gently against your chest. She can feel the steady thrum of your heartbeat beneath her palm, a reminder of the life and warmth that lies beneath your skin.

"Y/N," she whispers, her voice trembling slightly. "I... I don't know what to say."

You pull back just enough to meet her gaze, your eyes dark with desire and something deeper, more profound. "You don't have to say anything," you murmur, your hand coming up to cup her cheek. "Just let me show you."

And then, before she can react, you're leaning in, your lips capturing hers in a kiss that steals the breath from her lungs. Wednesday's eyes flutter closed, her body melting into yours as she surrenders to the sensation of your mouth moving against hers.

Wednesday's mind reels as the kiss deepens, her senses overwhelmed by the taste and feel of your lips against hers. She's kissed you before, of course - quick, furtive pecks stolen in the dark corners of school. But nothing like this. Nothing that makes her feel so alive, so utterly consumed by the other person.

Your hand moves from her cheek to the back of her neck, your fingers tangling in the silky strands of her hair. Wednesday lets out a soft moan, her body arching into yours as her hands come up to grip your shoulders. She's never felt so wanted, so desired, and it's both thrilling and terrifying all at once.

For a long moment, Wednesday is lost in the sensation of your kiss, her mind going blank as she succumbs to the heat of your touch. But then, with a sudden surge of willpower, she pulls away, her chest heaving as she struggles to catch her breath.

Wednesday's eyes snap open, her gaze locked with yours as she tries to regain her composure. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips swollen from the intensity of the kiss, and she can feel a warmth spreading through her body that has nothing to do with the heat of the moment.

—

[baelpenrose]

Project Praetorian 47: Planning Home

The team begins planning out their ideal space to live for their custom barracks now that the check has cleared. They get word of an approaching team, and Echo draws a a boundary. Beta-read and brainstormed by @canyouhearthelight.

Molly

“A space that lets me and Xavier practice music without disturbing Vergil, and maybe put on some kind of show - like room for an audience?”

“Maybe just a broader, sound-sensitive performance room. With mats.” Kimmy added. “I want to be able to use it, too, and you keep teasing me with the promise of a soundtrack for rhythmic gymnastics.” 

Molly blushed. Why did Kimmy talk like that, and why did she want to see Kimmy move so badly? 

“Uh…yeah. Right. Definitely a broader purpose room where you can do your tumbling and flips.”

Kimmy was doing a casual cartwheel, and Molly tried to focus on the diagram she was looking at. “What about you, Mia?”

“Garden. My mom kept one, and I want one.”

Casey bumped Mia’s hand when that was translated. “Yes.” 

“Okay, okay. Imperator says we have to have an exercise room, and an armory. Basically it still has to function as a barracks, so make sure we have room for that stuff.”

“Industrial kitchen though?” Casey jumped in. 

“Yes.” 

Jared was walking by. “Oh, barbecue pit out back. Or even just the space for one. I’ll dig.”

Xavier jumped in and Molly began feeling overwhelmed. “Oh, good, Molly already said it. Uh…den, and a more casual rec room for after missions. And we’re probably going to need some kind of motor pool for both civilian cars and armor.”

“Mass decontam showers. I do not want to have to wait in line with that much alien blood on me.” Mia’s eyes widened when Shiloh signed that, and even more when everyone assented, but Molly banged on the table. 

“YES! Oh, God, yes. We cannot go without that.” She had just remembered how gross the alien blood had felt drying in her hair last time, but…

Then she realized how eagerly she’d just agreed to locker room showers and blushed. It only got worse when she realized that Kimmy and Mia were both looking at her. 

Mia added something rapidly that she hurried to translate. “Mia says that she wants to make sure we still have private showers, that we just have massive ones for decontam, right?” She stammered to add, “I mean, obviously when we’re all covered in alien gore the priority is getting it off, but most of the time, we’re gonna want privacy…” 

Mia nodded, vigorously. 

Shiloh blinked, then signed in a fashion that, despite the generally deliberate nature of ASL, still managed to come off as though they were explaining something to a child, “I suggested it because I hate how gross it feels to have alien blood drying on me. I figure all of us showering that off together after a battle was the lesser evil, but yeah, most of the time, private showers.”

“Okay, but what else?”

Molly thought about it. “Some kind of chapel or like somewhere to pray? Non-denom, like I want it to be as comfortable for Mark or Micah or Casey as it would be for me or Mia…”

Casey blinked, then laughed. “Oh, you’re old school catholic.” 

“Yep. Went to Latin mass and everything.” 

Xavier waved a hand. “Comms center? I mean, I know we don’t like the rest of Imperator, but we’re gonna need to be part of the decisions…”

“Yeah. Conference room for the same reason: it’d be good to invite other people to us. Wouldn’t kill us to have our own mess either.” Mark replied, looking at it. “I know Casey already wants a kitchen, if we can get that we can get a mess.”

“This feels like we’re not arguing for a barracks anymore; but, almost like our own compound.” Echo noted, a bit dryly. 

“Do me a favor and try not to think about the fact that we’re designing our own autonomous, highly militarized group home, and try to focus instead on the possibility that when Imperator is decommissioned we may or may not buy whatever we have designed from the government as a permanent center for our corps to spend time together.” Mark’s response was almost detached. 

That comment brought the conversation almost to a halt. 

“Wait.” Molly said, slowly. “What do you mean?”

Xavier took the que. “It’s been a discussion for a while. Our goal is to make the world better, after the war. Leverage the credibility we get as war heroes, take on the system. But we also kinda…made peace with the fact that we’re not going to really…fit in with normal people, after everything. So a lot of us are making plans to stay close to each other, after it all ends. You know?”

Molly thought about it. She’d figured on performing with her fame, maybe using her powers to do things with music that no one else ever could, but….Hm. With what she could do…

She glanced over. Mia said something, something too quiet. Then Mia repeated herself. “After this is over. You guys want to deal with the cartel and the gringo companies that use them as heavies?” 

Echo chuckled. “I’d be down. But aim higher, sis, because by the time we’re done you’ll be able to do that on your own.” 

Mia laughed at that, and Molly high fived her, but Molly also shivered. She had seen Casey blasting away hundreds of Croaks at a time. It wasn’t a joke. 

Then Jared spoke. “Uh…Not sure what I want. Not sure I’m ready to have a goal, yet.” 

Xavier nodded. “Progress. You’ll get there. What about you, Kimmy? Shooting for the Olympics might be cheating now.”

Kimmy blinked. “Oh, shit, yeah, I guess you’re right, uh…Maybe disability advocacy? Weird, since I’ll never actually be disabled again - probably - but it was so fucking frustrating. There were so many places where I couldn’t go, and no one ever fucking just put a sign up or seemed to think about wheelchair access the entire time I was trying to travel or get anywhere. Fuck, even hospitals a lot of the time were like the most inconveniently laid out places if you couldn’t walk.”

Micah shrugged. “I mean, depending on where I wind up, and how - if it’s even still relevant - hey, Mark. Peace in the Mideast?” 

Mark doubled over, howling. “See, Mia? That. That is how you set a goal I’m 90 percent sure only a Praetorian can reach. Sure, man, if we’re both still alive, let’s give it a swing. Also if any of the governments there still exist.”

Molly sighed at that - she was still focused in on building somewhere nice to live. 

Then she looked up as Echo walked in the room, face grim. The hacker looked between Mark and Xavier and beckoned them both. “We need to talk. Meeting.”

“Officers only?”  Mark’s voice was tight. 

“At first.”

Mark said something Molly was positive she’d have gotten in trouble for saying with her parents; for that matter, something that Mark would probably have gotten in trouble for saying back when he lived at home.

Xavier

“Alright, Echo, what’s this about?”

“Leon and Curtis aren’t being honest. Look at the comm logs from the week the new kids arrived.”

Xavier froze. “What do you mean, they’re not being honest?”

Echo put down her laptop, and pulled up a set of communication logs. “Check this out. The ones from Franklin.”

“There’s more coming soon - from Esquiline Base…” Mark’s face went pale. “There’s a third Imperator base. Another location where they’re making more of us. And it’s worse. They’re expanding.” 

Xavier shook his head. “More than that, we were set up with this last wave - this was a test and they knew how we’d react, and they didn’t tell us. That’s why Curtis stood off and waited to see what we’d do.”  That was gonna be a whole-ass conversation unto itself. Yeah, he and Mark had figured it out and played it off like pros, but they’d had to be willing to put each other on the line for it more than either of them had liked. Just knowing it was a test up front would have made a difference. 

“Obviously a test to see if we’d be able to hack absorbing a bunch of challenges that we’re likely to see long term, right? Language acquisition from multinationals, AND personality clashes, AND someone we’d need to protect with Kimmy. I think we’re passing on all fronts right now, but damn. They really threw all of it at us at once to see if we’d fail and have any excuse to undercut our autonomous command.” Mark’s voice was clipped. “And Leon and Curtis didn’t warn us.”

Echo shrugged. “We do have evidence they’re still being monitored.”

Xavier waved a hand. “And we can take that shit offline on a whim. Come on, if they wanted to collaborate, they can do it at any time. No, those two are out of the loop til they decide they’re not their own faction but subordinate to us. They can say they’re looking after us, but it’s obvious that they think we’re children to be watched over rather than a formation to be worked with. In that sense, I’d actually rather deal with Franklin.” 

From the corner of his eye, he could see Mark nodding his assent - though he could already feel how uncomfortable everyone would be with cutting Leon and Curtis off without more information. 

“Esquiline though - I think Franklin owes us some reparations. We were promised no more secrets, and now there’s a whole base and two more siblings we know nothing about.” Mark’s voice would have come across tranquil if Xavier hadn’t heard him use that exact same tone to drop his death threat to Jared a week ago.  “And we’d still be in the dark if Echo wasn’t making Imperator’s bullshit irrelevant.” 

Echo broke in. “Exactly. So, I found where Esqualine is - and for the record, Aventine is out West. Esqualine is down south. But it’s more than that. I snapped a bit after all this and found a bunch more. There’s more bases - one in Europe, in Geneva, specifically. Two more in Asia, and they’re land grabbing to build more in Africa and South America. And pretty much all the plans are massive - hell, Palatine is looking at expansion. Our own barracks shouldn’t be hard in all this, but they’re making more and more labs. Whatever they’re anticipating, they’re planning on mass producing us to match it.”

Xavier felt light headed at that statement. Not that they hadn’t known it was coming, but…

Oh, God. Seeing the infrastructure plans that Echo had found to actually do it…

“Focus, focus. Okay. What do we know about the people we’re getting?”

“There’s two of them. One is a girl named Amaryllis, and the other is a boy named Dante. Boy has developed some kind of electromagnetic powers. Girl has some kind of hyper reaction times, being trained to operate a lot of vehicles? May well be our dedicated pilot if the Praetorian corps gets its own pilot.” 

“Anything about their personalities?” 

Echo paused. “I…Mark, they’re both from a really rough background from the very cursory notes that aren’t flagged confidential, and they’ve been in five months. I can take some guesses, but any real detail is going to be flagged confidential. I will breach that if Lieutenant Ascher orders because he believes it absolutely necessary to our survival to have that information as soon as possible.” 

Xavier did not believe anyone could have missed the emphasis she put on Mark’s military title, and she let it hang in the air for a moment before she continued. “But I know what it is to have nothing to my name but my secrets. I won’t do it unless it really is necessary.” 

Xavier shook his head and let out an amount of tension he hadn’t realized he was holding when Mark nodded. “Understood. No, we don’t need that. We’ll get them to tell us what’s happened like we have everyone else. Or we won’t. It’s not like Shiloh and Jonathan don’t have secrets they keep separate from everyone but each other.”

Xavier nodded. “Hey, wait. Do we have a schedule for their arrival?’

“Yeah. Three days from now, apparently.”

“Okay. Let’s let everyone know and make sure we roll out a hell of a welcome wagon. Make that a proper tradition too.”

[autobot-ratchet]

MTMTE 50-52

MTMTE 50

all right, back to pain, here we go, my favorite arc in the whole damn thing

“It's the first time we've died together.” what a hilarious punch to the gut this sentence is lmAO

I do like everyone else's reactions to everybody's last words, Starscream's is actually making me a little emotional in how sincere he's being. Fdhjksl and the Scavengers watching like it's a soap opera

love how, much like the deal with the alternate quantum Lost Light that the DJD slaughtered, now this is just a morbidly fascinating bit of insight on these characters, but when I first read this I was panicking lmAO

I like how even though Megatron has sworn not to do any more fighting himself, he's happy to use his experience to guide the others. They're having banter like they're some sort of team or something :')

Rodimus really said “normal people, squishy people, I see no difference, life is life”

jhdkfsak It's not meant to be funny but it is incredibly funny how right after being like “I will never hurt another living creature” Megatron involuntarily punches the shit out of Minimus. Like when I said “womp womp” earlier I was thinking of when Megatron later slaughters the DJD, I forgot he breaks this vow even sooner than that

love all this talk about how the fool's energon might be changing Megatron's personality, knowing that it's literally just unfiltered and kinda gross-tasting and that's it. Placebo is a hell of a drug

aww Lotty is sweet with Megatron

urgh and the lure has been cast...

hook, line, and sinker, we're in it. Man, poor Censere, he never did anything to anyone...

motherFUCKER

god I remember feeling so betrayed by everyone on this page where Getaway reveals that he didn't escape from the brig, he was released by everyone. Perceptor in particular fucking haunted me because I didn't know if all of them knew about the DJD being involved and it took months to finally get to the part where we're told that only Getaway knew about them being involved and everyone else was under the impression that it was the Galactic Council lmAO I couldn't handle the idea of him throwing Brainstorm to the wolves like that

this fuckin speech by Getaway is so funny because this may as well be pulled from one of the many tumblr posts about how no one is allowed to like Megatron or else they're a bad person lmAO I fucking read this exact take on my dashboard so many times and it is still so funny to see it in the canon text after all the bitching about how the comic is not addressing how unfair it is that Megatron didn't get executed immediately for his crimes (even though it did, explicitly and immediately) and the comic obviously must be pro-fascism for trying to give Megatron depth as a character instead of punishing him constantly. Rewind shooting his past self to try to save the rest of the universe and the field of flowers on the Necrobot's planet don't count, those weren't punishment enough, they don't count because they just made him feel bad instead of killing him, he has to die for it to count. You are Getaway, you were all Getaway the whole time and you're stupid and bitter and wrong just like he is. *points at Getaway* that's you, you're the villain

oh that's right, I forgot about this extra bit

DRIFT I fuckin missed you my sweet boy. I do like him subtly turning down Pipes's invite to hang out, he really is just hard wired to self sabotage any chances of starting a friendship, he's lucky that Ratchet's so stubborn

I love Pipes saying if Drift was a short aquatic king, he'd have a massive crush on him. Your loss lmAO couldn't be me, fuckin move over gayboy I'm bout to get it lmAO

gdsfjks poor Ambulon, I'm sorry buddy, the puns are a love language I promise

oougfhjds Chromedome watching over past Rewind, HIS past Rewind... It does feel kind of weird to grieve for him even though he's technically still here. It's different though, it makes sense to grieve for that version of him, they're the same, but it's different

aww everybody pitching in to help clean up Swerve's bar... it's a temporal hot spot, everyone's paths cross here at some point........ or at least they did until SOMEBODY FUCKED IT UP

MTMTE 51

cannot fucking WAAAAIIIIIT for Tarn to get owned

love Magnus saying “Screw Getaway.” Don't apologize for swearing, you're right and you should say it

thousand yard stares at the dust Censere just turned into...

*points at Tarn* haha stupid bitch doesn't know we're gonna fight back and live, you think you've already won, dumbaaaasssssssss

Rodimus I love you and I get that you're stressed but don't ever be mean to Ten for any reason ever again

I admittedly didn't see this take a ton of times but it is burned into my brain regardless from just how angry it made me lmAO but I remember seeing people be angry that everyone decided to stay and protect (what they thought were) the organics, specifically because it was “unrealistic” that all of them would be so selfless. Honestly this take still pisses me off lmfAO the entire. Fucking reason we're here is because these people were quite literally hand-picked to be here precisely because they are the least selfish individuals on the Lost Light and weren't willing to throw their friends, crewmates, and captain under the bus just to get rid of Megatron. They're GOOD PEOPLE, the kindness is the POINT what fucking care bears villain bullshit are you ON

Ten is so good...

fucking godghsdjakfdl this god damn page with Drift and Ratchet showing up in their spiffy new designs gave me the world's most powerful heart attack when I first saw it lmfAO BECAUSE!!! BECAUSE I SPECIFICALLY REMEMBER JAMES FUCKING ROBERTS STATING ON TWITTER THAT THERE WERE NO PLANS FOR THEM TO COME BACK LIKE BARELY A WEEK OR TWO BEFORE THIS ISSUE CAME OUT!!!!!!!! So I was like “aw alright that's fair, we're kind of in the middle of an arc anyway so I get it, no real room to add them in, I'll prepare myself for like another solid year of no Dratchet” AND THEN THEY JUST HFSJDKASLHDFAJSF

aww, admittedly I don't really read the fan letters at the end of some of these comics but even just skimming the ones in this issue, I see a lot of familiar usernames. Not all of y'all were terrible lmAO

MTMTE 52

“If we can team up, anyone can,” he says. Shut the fuck up gayass, you love him lmfAO

gdfjk love Ratchet casually getting his gun eaten and also his entire body almost melted by Helex in the background, just a little low-key brush with death, fun little welcome back for ya

yeah, more feeding into the Roller is Tarn theory, “If YOU could be turned...” I'm gonna be real, I paid attention to Glitch this time around and I still think it makes more sense for Tarn to be Roller lmfAO truly the only connecting threads between Tarn and Glitch is that Glitch had outlier powers that could disable technology and he was present in Orion's old team. He was never shown to be as close to Orion as Roller was and there was never really any explanation for his powers evolving into being able to kill living tech with his voice and also getting his face and hands back and also growing three sizes taller lmfAO I ultimately don't care that much, it truly doesn't matter plot and themes-wise, but if I gotta have a bit of criticism for this comic, I'll tack that one on the board

“Did they waste their lives? Did I waste mine?” literally yes lmfAO jokes aside, this dialogue between Tarn and Megatron rules, love Megatron having to face the living embodiment of himself at his worst

not gonna lie I completely fucking forgot about Overlord lmfAO

gdhsfjk Velocity immediately putting her foot in her mouth while meeting Ratchet... also damn, First Aid talked a lot of shit huh lmAO poor guy's been through the wringer and I guess Ratchet gets the brunt of his bitterness

also fucking LOVE this conversation between Drift and Rodimus, love that Drift immediately jabs at him for not looking for him after he came clean about Overlord. I've seen people criticize this moment, saying that Roddy's apology sucked, and I'll admit, it kinda does lmAO but I think that's kind of the point. It's a very Rodimus apology, and Drift knows that and understands that even though the words being spoken aren't a very adequate apology, the intent behind them is sincere and Drift is a good enough person for that to be enough. He could hold a grudge, he's got the grounds for it, but he just doesn't want to, and fucking good for him, I'm proud of him for that. In fact wasn't there a James Roberts tweet about this where he explicitly said this was meant to reflect more on Drift than Rodimus? I somewhat remember that

pulls up a chair and some popcorn to watch Overlord and Tarn's catfight lmAO

it is genuinely so fucking funny how much Overlord picks on Tarn, I've seen plenty of really funny fan works where the two of them bicker like feuding twitter users but like. No it's completely canon, he treats Tarn like a child trying too hard to be cool and I am fucking LIVING

ah yes, there it is, Tarn ripping Kaon's head off. In addition to all the Tarn-fuckers lamenting that he wasn't their poor misunderstood meow meow, I remember a lot of people saying that Tarn only did this in response to Overlord's teasing, and like. Not really??? I mean I'm sure Overlord didn't help, he was definitely pissing Tarn off, but it's Megatron that pushed him to kill Kaon for the crime of caring about his dog. In Tarn's eyes, he was performing a mercy kill to stop Kaon from becoming “weak” like Megatron, it's really as simple as that. He literally says it on the very next page lmAO

[cyberphuck]

HOW TO DO THE WRITING THING: OUTLINING AND WRITING YOUR FIRST WORDS

Previously: Feeding the Story Monster

[IMG ID: a black Corona typewriter.]

HOW DO I LIKE, START WRITING THOUGH You’ve fed the story monster, figured out what kind of stories you like and even have an inkling of the story you want to tell, and now you’re ready to start banging the keys. Great! Do that. Yes, for some people it’s as easy as just sitting down and starting from Chapter One Word One, without even a slight idea of where the story is going to go, and I assure you those people are not invited to my biannual Creative Crying Party. (We call those people “Pantsers,” as in “Flying By the Seat of Their Pants.”) Pantsing works best for short works of fiction, since by the time you’re done, there’s going to be a lot of editing and revising to do and that gets to be a pain in the ass with novel-length works. I used to Pants exclusively from High School until about 27 or 28 years old, keeping only a very, very loose idea of the story in my head and just letting whatever was going to happen, happen. I wrote a lot and did not finish much. HOW TO DO THE OUTLINE THING Once I realized that just winging it wasn’t going to work for me, I started experimenting with different forms of brainstorming, outlining and story building and came up with a mishmash of methods that I use at different times for different purposes. (I’m not going to go over the Three Act Structure because it’s one of those things that’s been so oversimplified to fit every story that it’s become kind of useless. I will instead link you to HULK PRESENTS MYTH OF 3 ACT STRUCTURE, in which a blogger and screenwriter writing as the Hulk breaks down why the TAS kind of sucks.) TELLING THE STORY TO YOURSELF You’ve probably already done this part: this is just you and you, thinking about how cool it would be if a robot chef entered a chili cookoff and had to compete against the notoriously anti-robot Sheriff Blowhard for the blue ribbon. You may have even done the next part, which is jotting some of this stuff down when you have the chance. I used to send emails to myself, but now I use the notes app on my smartphone because I can come back from a half-asleep bedtime brainstorming session, grab my phone, turn on dictation and just blurt out a few lines so that in the morning I can still see the shape of the story I’d been dreaming of.

[IMG ID: screenshot of the notes app. Text reads: “The use of aperture runes, also called moving runes, spring runes, or trap runes, is forbidden by students and can result in expulsion. Turning argentavis house into a workable novel. Neptune is protag and every chapter ends with him dreaming, seeing himself frequently. It isn’t revealed until later that he’s dreaming other people’s dreams.]

[IMG ID: screenshot of the notes app. Text reads: “Who is the patron saint of Limberry? It is saint katherine, is it not? the woman who--

--drank all the waters of Lake Poescas when the Ydorans tried to drown her in it, yes.

and does she not appear nude in the visions she visited upon high confessor whatever?

Yes, but--

Do you think her nakedness was inappropriate then? That she had appeared to tempt the high confessor into sin?

No, I--]

[IMG ID: a screenshot of the notes app. Text reads: “Brig Thing. Burying Milleuda and burying Wiegraf. Zalbaag sends Wiegraf’s body back west and expects it to be all gross and rotten when it gets there, but he opens the coffin and discovers he’s still completely intact, like a saint. Wiegraf is injured and too weak to dig a hole in the frozen ground. Also crows keep trying to eat her and he can’t shoo them away and dig at the same time. Wiegraf upends his money bag looking for viaticum but he’s broke. Zalbaag says oh let me and reaches for his purse but Wiegraf is like fuck you. Wiegraf ends up putting something precious of his in her mouth, like his cross or a rock or something.]

Once you’ve got the loose shape of a story-- what dirty beatniks call a premise-- you can move on to step two. TELLING THE STORY TO SOMEONE ELSE (QUICKLY) When you search for a movie on wikipedia, there’s a section marked PLOT. In this section is a brief synopsis of the entire film, beginning to end. Look up a movie you know pretty well and read the plot section. It doesn’t have every single detail, but it does have all the important points so that you can understand what happens in the movie, and what it’s about, in five hundred to one thousand words. Try to do this for your own story: tell it to someone else (in a message or email is ideal, since you can copy-paste it into a word doc for safekeeping), front to back. Don’t be coy about spoilers, don’t get bogged down into unnecessary exposition or scene setting, just let it all out as if the two of you are standing at the-- do they even have watercoolers in offices anymore? Hell, do we even have offices? Fuck it, let’s reel it all the way back to 3rd grade and your friend has asked you what happened in the last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When you write out the wiki-plot section of your story, make sure you’re asking yourself the kinds of questions that someone seeing the story for the first time would ask (or pay attention to the questions they are asking!). The robot chef is entering the chili competition. Why? What is Sheriff Blowhard going to do with the prize money if he wins? Why would that be bad for all of robot-kind? You guys have no idea how hard it is to find an example in my notes that isn’t NSFW, so here’s just the beginning of a story that I told to my brother last year: a lawyer who mostly works from home doing simple wills and amicable divorces and stuff like that does a job for a super shady guy who ghosts him when it's time to pay. Lawyer sends this guy like fifteen invoices and then threatens to sue, which is a real threat since he's a fucking laywer.

The next morning someone knocks on his door and it's the shady guy, with a catboy. He says "I don't have any money but here, take this it's worth a lot more." Lawyer says bullshit, get the fuck off my doorstep and come back with my fucking money you deadbeat, and slams the door… Very casual, hardly structured, just a rundown of what happens in the story. If you find that you get stuck in the middle, that’s fine! Make a list of questions that need to be answered in order for you to fill in those gaps. Keep going back until you’re able to tell the story all the way through. SOME THINGS THAT YOUR STORY WILL NEED: A place to start. This does not have to be “at the beginning.” The start of your story should be attention-grabbing; a lot of authors like the first paragraphs to be an action scene, or finding the main character in the middle of a crisis. You can always catch the reader up later. A place to go. Something happens to upset the status quo and start your character on their journey through the story. Lawrence the Lawyer is paid for his work with what is effectively a living sex doll and now he has to figure out what to do with it. The robot chef finds out that if he presents the blue ribbon to the mayor, it can be taken as proof that he’s human enough to own his own business. A problem. If everything goes smoothly and as planned, it doesn’t make for a fun read. Something, maybe many things, have to go wrong along the way. Sheriff Blowhard sends his goons to kick dirt into the robot chef’s chili pot. It might rain, and robot chef’s partner, rustbucket, isn’t waterproof. A solution or a way through. How do your characters solve the problem? Does solving the problem make more problems? How many obstacles will they have to face until they reach their goal, and does that goal change through the story? Do they ultimately succeed, or fail? A wrap-up. It doesn’t have to be THE END, but you are going to have to stop writing eventually. Not every single question needs to be answered, but the biggest ones should be in order to have a satisfying conclusion, whether good or bad. NOTE: this is not EVERYTHING a story needs-- just some things for you to think about when you’re getting ready to write your synopsis. THINGS THAT HELP OTHER PEOPLE Go ahead and experiment with other methods of outlining to see what works best with your creative process. Some of the things that other people do to help them tell their story: Drawing Maps Making Timelines Character Profiles/Relationship Wheels Song Playlists and Image Boards Very, Very Detailed Outlines But be wary of doing all these things just because it gives you the feeling of getting something done. At the end of all of it, you are going to have to start writing. You can’t avoid it forever. COME BACK HERE. MAKING NOTES, OR, A CHEAT SHEET Alright, Act One, Scene One, Paragraph One, Line One… Word One.

[IMG ID: Spongebob “The” meme]

Alright, alright, still a little bit scary to jump into feet-first. So we’re going to tell ourselves the story again, but just a piece of it-- the piece you’re about to write. [In this section, the robot chef is just seeing the headline in Robo News Daily that anyone who wins a human competition will hereby be declared a human by law. He jumps up from the table, spilling his mug of oil coffee, and yells for Rustbucket to come over and see. Together, they re-read the article and agree that this is their big chance to be able to open a restaurant of their own…] You’ve got the work blocked out. Now all you have to do is the little noodly bits, the description, the dialogue, the nice prose. Once you’ve reached the end of what you’ve planned out-- and try not to do more than a chapter or a few pages at a time, so you can keep your planning true to what you’re actually writing-- take a breather, look back on what you wrote, and then plan some more. [Chef and Rustbucket agree that Chef’s Six Alarm Chili is the best in Botville and he’s sure to win the ribbon at the Chili Cookoff if he enters…] BANGING. THE. KEYS. Set a daily time goal for yourself-- say, 30 minutes of writing-- and try to get to it every day. This works best if it’s at the same time every day; your brain will start to associate 3:00 with “time to write” the same way it associates 4:20 with “time to study quietly or volunteer at the old folks’ home.” Notice I said set a time goal, not a word goal. This is because in my humble opinion, setting a word goal is setting yourself up for failure. You’ll end up setting it too high because you think you have to, struggle for hours on end alternately picking at the word doc and scrolling Twitter, and ultimately give up, falling further and further behind on your quota and then giving up altogether. Everyone writes at a different pace; people who write very quickly don’t necessarily produce better or worse work than those who take their time with every word. And let’s face it: folks be busy. So just set yourself a reasonable amount of time in which you are to do nothing but write (and maybe sip a hot bev), and then get your fingers moving. If you write a thousand words one day and two hundred the next, that’s okay. You’re getting it done, little by little, thirty minutes by thirty minutes. If at the end of your writing time you don’t feel like you’re “done,” great! Keep going until you feel like stopping. If you write pretty much nothing one day because you just can’t get into it, that’s fine too-- just make sure that you’re not doing anything but writing during that time, even if you’re just making notes for the next scene, or a blog post about how much you hate writing today. “SPRINTS” A writing “sprint” is when you and at least one other person decide to take writing time together, usually in increments of 10, 15, or 30 minutes at a time with breaks in between. Sprints are a great way to get your writing done since you have the fun and companionship of “racing��� another person, and you can even share what you wrote afterwards for some of that sweet sweet validation. In my experience sprints work best in person, but with the world being on fire right now it’s fine to virtually sprint with someone over Discord or on Twitter. A BRIEF NOTE ON ROUGH DRAFTS Save the editing for when you are done with a section-- a chapter, an act, a half, whatever. See how the story begins to take shape before you start hacking bits off and sticking them back on. And, if you can help it, don’t edit as you go for anything bigger than spelling, grammar, and word choice. (Some people don’t do heavy editing at all. I’m mostly one of those people, but I will have some wordage about it when the time comes.) TAKE IT EASY ON YOURSELF Not everyone can write all day, every day. In fact, almost no one can. There are certain authors who shall not remain nameless-- STEPHEN KING-- who are of the opinion that if you don’t spend all your time writing, then you aren’t a writer. Tell you what, Steve, fuck you. Let me let you in on a secret: everyone is a human being, and human beings need fun, community, social activity, and rest. If you need a break, take one. In fact, let’s call it a “Fuck Steve” break. Take a “Fuck Steve” break anytime writing begins to feel like a chore for you. Fifteen minutes or one entire day, however long you need to look away from the page and gather your thoughts again. Grab a drink, a snack, a blanket, make sure you feel comfortable and content. Because your writing is important, but so are you. TODAY’S TAKEAWAYS: Fuck around a little bit with outlining and see what works for you. I showed you a method that works for me that’s beginner-friendly. Remember to ask yourself questions about your story in order to get the full synopsis. Set a reasonable daily writing time (not a word goal) and try your best to stick to it. You can also do sprints with writer friends! Give yourself a fukken “Fuck Steve” break. Writing should not be painful, it should not be something you dread. Take a breather and come back to it later. NEXT TIME: POV and rich description!

[tvkissercentral]

Hell and Heaven's AC Like Games

Decided to imagine what a Hell and Heaven version of A/nimal C/rossing would look like, from personalities to the animals available. I imagine there's a feature to share a town with elements from both (which Vox and Adam do).

Hell

Personalities

Slob villagers have a careless attitude, messy lifestyles, and are always casual to the player. Their favorite topic is ways to save time and they often admit gross things.

Competitor villagers have a driven attitude, intense lifestyles, and are always challenging the player. Their favorite topic is extreme sports and they often brag.

Peevish villagers have a petty attitude, particular lifestyles, and are always picky to the player. Their favorite topic is ways to make things just so and they are often reluctant towards things.

Crafty villagers have a sly attitude, careful lifestyles, and are always scheming to the player. Their favorite topic is gossip and they often try to convince others to go along with their schemes. 

Buddy villagers have a supportive attitude, flexible lifestyles, and are always accommodating to the player. Their favorite topic is whoever they are speaking to and they tend to encourage the behavior of others, regardless of context.

Impish villagers have a playful attitude, fun filled lifestyles, and are always teasing to the player. Their favorite topic is pranks and they often latch onto whoever talks to them the most.

Spoon-fed villagers have a spoiled attitude, fancy lifestyles, and are always demanding of the player. Their favorite topic is their belongings and they often ask for items or favors. Protector villagers have a rough attitude, trained lifestyles, and are always giving the player tough love. Their favorite topic is their training and they often encourage the player to be prepared.

Animals

Birds: Ravens, crows, ostrich, owl, peacock, hawk

Dogs: Fox, jackal, wolf

Goat

Crocodile

Serpent

Leopard

Heaven

Personalities

Laid back villagers have a “go with the flow” attitude, simple lifestyles, and are always friendly to the player. Their favorite topic is nature and they often tell jokes.

Healthful villagers have a conscientious attitude, vigorous lifestyles, and are always caring to the player. Their favorite topic is working out and they often remind others to drink some water or get a snack. 

Amiable villagers have a welcoming attitude, populated lifestyles, and are always trying to be the player’s friend. Their favorite topic is the hobbies of themselves or others and they often invite others to their house.

Confident villagers have a go-getter attitude, honest lifestyles, and are always self assured around the player. Their favorite topic is their plans and they often bolster others up. 

Gentle villagers have a warmhearted attitude, giving lifestyles, and are always sweet to the player. Their favorite topic is cute things and they are often shy.

Joyful villagers have an enthusiastic attitude, adventurous lifestyles, and are always cheerful to the player. Their favorite topic is parties and they often give compliments. 

Righteous villagers have a principled attitude, virtuous lifestyles, and are always fair in their treatment to the player. Their favorite topic is brainstorming ways to help their community and they often give others advice. Inventive villagers have a creative attitude, inspired lifestyles, and are always enthusiastic to the player. Their favorite topic is their inventions and they often give helpful items to the player.

Animals

Hooved animals: Lamb, sheep, bull, camels, deer, horse, donkey

Birds: Dove, eagle, sparrow

Bear

Fish

Lion

[here2bbtstrash]

Can you write a drabble with bestfriend yoongi finding out you have a spit kink and makes fun of you but turns out he’s into it too and … yea 🤭

anon i gotta give you props for so patiently playing the waiting game. i literally saved this req from the last time you sent it bc i really WANTED to do it but it took a lotta brain power 😂 had to have a whole brainstorming session

also shoutout to seokjin for making this relevant!!

still accepting freaky requests, lmk what ya wanna see!!

pairing: yoongi x reader word count: 1.1k contains: spit kink, erotic watermelon eating 🥴, i promise there's no actual food play tho, friends to lovers ig, tiny bit of praise kink

“Eat.” Yoongi sets the plate of fruit and bowl down in front of you, and panic instantly rockets through your nervous system.

“I-I don’t like watermelon,” you say before immediately realizing that isn’t going to solve your problem. The issue isn’t whether or not you eat it.

“That’s not a thing,” Yoongi says decisively as he squints at you. He can clearly tell you are acting strange. “Everyone likes watermelon.”

“Are you questioning my taste in fruit?”

Your best friend rolls his eyes. “Well, I have about ten pounds of it, courtesy of Jin. Help me eat it or don’t. I don’t give a shit.” The silver bracelets on his wrist jangle as he reaches for a slice. You make a mental note to kill Seokjin the next time you see him.

Frozen in place, you can only watch helplessly as Yoongi takes a bite, pink fruit melting quickly under lips and teeth. His jaw works for a second, and then he brings the bowl up to his chin and spits three seeds out in quick succession.

Fuck.

“This one does have a lot of seeds,” he mutters mostly to himself, frowning into the bowl.

Of fucking course it does.

He suddenly seems to become aware of your eyes on him, because he looks up at you, brows furrowing together with agitation. “What is this, a fucking mukbang? Will you put on the damn show?”

Right. Extraordinary Attorney Woo. He specifically invited you over to get caught up on the latest episodes. Not to stare at him while he eats fruit.

You fumble for the remote, trying not to look as flustered as you feel, and clearly fail, because you can hear Yoongi laughing around another mouthful. “What the fuck is wrong with you today?”

“Leave me alone.”

You manage to divert enough brain cells from thinking about your best friend’s mouth to remember how to pull up Netflix.

The show starts, and you sink back against the couch, extremely grateful for the distraction.

Except it doesn’t work. You are unfortunately laser-focused on Yoongi as he reaches for another slice, and the first bite is accompanied with a gratuitous sucking sound as he attempts to keep the juice in his mouth.

He’s not quite successful, and when a few drops roll down his chin, you’re hit with the nearly overwhelming desire to lick them up.

“You can literally have some if you want it,” he talks with his mouth full, wiping the back of his hand over his neck. You know he’s talking about the watermelon, but there’s already a steady pulse between your legs at the other opportunity that sentence offers you.

He picks up the bowl again to spit into it, having to try a few times to get all the seeds out of his mouth, and you’re not going to make it. Especially not when he reaches for a third slice and makes a low hum of appreciation at the first bite. The noise thrums through you, so intense you swear you’re vibrating.

Yoongi’s eyes catch yours, and when he sees you’re still watching him intently, he’s clearly had enough.

“Alright,” he says mid-chew, picking up the remote to pause the show and then slamming it back down. “If I’m that fucking gross, you can just go home.”

“Not gross,” you correct quickly, before you can decide whether or not it’s a good idea.

Yoongi looks entirely confused, but he must finally be able to read the expression on your face, see the way you go slack-jawed when he pulls the bowl up to his mouth and spits into it a third time.

“So, what, you have a watermelon fetish?”

“Not watermelon,” you say softly.

His gaze jumps from your face to the bowl and back, and he seems to finally put the pieces together.

“Oh my god, are you one of those ‘spit in my mouth, daddy’ girls?”

An embarrassed heat shoots up your neck, and you can only nod.

“That’s fucking freaky,” he laughs, enough that his shoulders shake. “I can’t believe I never knew this.” Your brain thinks to tell him that you don’t appreciate being kink-shamed, and then his next words make you forget how to string a sentence together, or even what words are.

“Open your mouth, then.”

Without hesitation, you do as you're told. It’s impossible to miss the smug expression on Yoongi’s face as he gets to his knees and moves towards you.

“So eager. You want it that bad?”

Your tongue lolls out as you nod, and you inhale sharply when his hand comes to grab your face and hold it in place, silver rings digging into your skin in a way that sends sparks through you.

“Then I want you to take it like a good girl, okay?”

You couldn’t suppress the strangled noise that sentence works out of your open mouth if you tried. Yoongi’s eyes glint– he’s clearly enjoying this power. The strong muscle of his jaw flexes, and then he leans down to spit into your waiting mouth. It’s too damn hot for you to stop the desperate whine that follows.

“Want more?”

When you whimper again, Yoongi seems satisfied with the response. He sits up a little taller on his knees, and you can see his tongue moving behind closed lips. There’s more saliva this time– a lot more; he lets it fall slowly out of his mouth, off of his tongue, feeding it to you one drop at a time, so slow it’s nearly torture. You squeeze your eyes shut and your thighs together at the same time, your hips just barely starting to rock, in desperate need of friction.

You hear and feel it as he spits a third time, fast and aggressive now, so fucking dirty that a shiver rips up your spine.

Yoongi’s fingers brush over your jaw, and you take the encouragement to close your mouth and swallow.

“Good girl.” His voice is dark with lust, and you instantly need more. Eyes still closed, you drop your mouth open again in a silent request.

It takes you by surprise when his tongue meets yours instead, and you can’t help but outright moan as he licks into your mouth, tasting sweet and heady. You find his body under your hands, fingers moving to tangle in the long dark hair at the nape of his neck, enjoying the low groan you pull out of him when you tug gently, the way his lips close around your tongue and suck.

His hands are already fumbling for the button of your jeans, and you’re both breathless when he breaks the kiss momentarily to better see what he’s doing.

“Fuck, how about I spit on your clit next?”

You don’t expect to survive the evening.

[dopeyapples]

so @holycalf and i were brainstorming a fanfiction neither of us will ever write based off of this post that is just genius so without further ado this is our obnoxiously long interpretation of what would happen if anthy were actually a 1 star uber driver.

anthy himemiya’s uber reviews….

-saionji’s review would be something along the lines of “she was hot and when i said so she said thanks so that was cool but she also accidentally crashed the car into a pole that almost killed me. it was on my side too but like i don’t think she meant it like that it was an accident but not very safe. two stars”

-nanami’s one star review: “what the HELL was that!!!! i thought i was going to DIE!! i can’t BELIEVE this girl!! i gave her my address FIVE times and she kept taking me to different dry-cleaners around the city!! i dont know what point she was trying to make!? and she barely even spoke english!! god she was so stupid!! i was over an hour late to my brothers birthday party!!! should be 0 STARS!!!!!”

-anthy would 100% pretend to not understand english so their interactions would be along the lines of “YOU JUST MISSED THE TURN”

-“:) miss nanami?? dry cleaners??”

-“NO!!!!”

-nanami never catches on and ends up making anthy pull over to catch a different uber because obviously she can’t drive herself

-“I DEMAND A REFUND” “miss nanami? :) i’m sorry, i don’t understand?” “GOD WHATEVER”

-juri’s would be like “Honestly…horrible service. Please, save your money. This woman yanked me by my necklace and banged my head against the dashboard, said it was an accident. Then she proceeded to drive me to a gay bar (not my location) and invited me to come in with her. I obviously refused, so she left me to sit in the car. She brought back several women that hit on me…I did not sign up for a dating service. I honestly don’t know how one person could be so incompetent. To make things worse she played some noise very loudly…said it was called “gecs” and I think the volume was at 100. Truly humiliating. One star.”

-one of the very few 5 star reviews is from kozue: “felt like i was going to die the whole time. it was awesome >:) also had some craaaaazy sex so i didn’t even have to tip!!”

-somehow miki sees it and is like “S*X??? While she was driving?? Excuse me she needs to be reported.” he has no idea it’s the same driver that he gave a three star review two days before saying, “Kind of unsafe, and all of the seatbelts were cut off? But she was very nice I actually liked her a lot :) Would definitely drive with again given she fixes the seatbelt issue.”

-also somehow anthy hacks the system so she’s always nanami’s uber and every time nanami’s like “NO!!!!!! HOW IS THIS HAPPENING”

-wakaba gives her five stars but then once she thinks about her experience she changes it to one star “she was so nice and pretty but kind of weird she didn’t talk to me even when i tried to make conversation. actually it got to the point where i felt like she wasn’t even listening. actually then she started playing this song that me and my ex boyfriend used to listen to (he ended up being gay :( ) and i started to cry so i asked her to change it but she turned it up louder? and then she dropped me off at his house, actually, and i begged her to let me go home but she just smiled and said “i’m sure he’ll let you in” and drove away what sort of monster does that also she’s not pretty i take it back actually one star. im not homophobic but one star.”

-utena leaves a two star review that just says “ummmmmm…” but then changes it a month later to a five star review with the comment, “:) love her!” thats it

-irl utena’s like “maybe you should look into a new profession, anthy” and anthy is like “but it makes me so happy utena”

-nanami sees them and is all “OH MY GOD! IT’S THE UBER DRIVER THAT TRIED TO KILL ME ONCE!” and utena’s like “HEY!!!! she’s just doing what she LOVES! take your negativity and hatred somewhere else!!”

-touga has a one star review that’s really nasty but the more you keep reading it the more obvious it is that it’s just nanami on his account

-rival uber driver akio says “ride with me instead” and everybody recognizes that its gross and his review is removed after it gets reported by utena

-also he gets run over by anthy ;) five stars from me

-shiori’s uber experience with anthy would probably just be complete silence until anthy drops her off at the local dump and shioris like -_- but she cant even argue so she just gets out of the car anyway and walks home

-but she’d leave a five star review not even mentioning it: “i paid her 20 dollars to bang my friends head against the dashboard and she did”

so. that’s what we came up with. you’re welcome

[thatsarcasticgemini]

Alone time

Ash Lynx x reader

A/n: Banana fish broke me, but writing is my coping mechanism, so...This is an AU where Ash and the reader are married and live in Japan, Ash being a model. Also, Shorter is alive cause I said do ( i would die for him to live tbh). I am so sorry for any mistakes.

     Babysitting is a very challenging task, especially when the kid is a carbon copy of the most intelligent, cheeky and bratty man Eiji had ever met. Isaac Callenreese was giving the man a headache and pills were not fixing it. Sure, he knew what he was getting into and knew how much Ash and Y/N needed a break from parenting, but why on earth did he agree? At least Shorter was there to help him right?

     Wrong! Shorter was like a second kid. Yelling, running, coloring, making a mess and getting little Isaac even more agitated. Just how much energy did the 5 year old have? 

“Shorter, please! You are 30! Your playing days are over. You’re gonna break something and I will yell. I almost had Isaac under control, but then you came along to ruin the peace we had. Isaac come here right now or I’ll call Ash!”

“Jeez, Eiji...you almost sound like a grandpa! I haven’t seen Isaac in about a year. I missed him a lot, you know? Little gremlin did a lot of growing up!” said Shorter, with the same goofy smile he had all those years ago. Isaac was seated on the his lap, looking up at his favourite uncle with a wide grin. Based off the resemblance between him and Ash, Eiji could already sense some sort of comment coming.

“Nuh-uh. I wanna stay right here. Call dad “dad” please. And I love uncle Shorter, he’s taller, funnier and smarter than you, uncle Ji. He was telling me how dad knows how to ride a motocycle! It doesn’t get better than this!”

“Yes it does. If you stay quiet for five more minutes, I can get the rice done and I can tell you how Ash and Y/N..”

“Mom and dad, uncle Ji!”

“How mom and dad met while we eat. Does that sound nice?”

“Dunno, let me ask uncle Shorter too.” The two began whispering to each other while Eiji rolled his eyes. Just one more hour and Ash would be here to pick his spawn up. After a minute, both Shorter and Isaac nodded their heads and went to sit down at the kitche table.

     Once the table was set and the rice was done cooking, Eiji put it is bowls are brought it to the table. They all dug in, but Isaac seemed to be watching Eiji with great intrest, expecting the story he was promised.

“So Ash and Y/N...”

“Mom and dad. Continue uncle Ji.”

“Mom and dad met around 9 years ago. They met here, in Tokyo, and I am proud to announce that I am the one who got them to meet up, since Y/N went to the same highschool as me. We were both on the drama club in my third year. She was about 2 years younger than me, but she was so mature. Anyway, they started dating around three months after they met. The had a really pretty relationship. You dad was so hooked he embarrassed himself in front of her on multiple ocations. They got married two years later, lived together for two more years and then you came along. You were a very loved little boy. I wish I took a picture of the face your dad made when he held you for the first time.”

“Yeah! He teared up, but don’t tell him you know. You had this little puff of blond hair on your head, it was as fluffy as the little kitty we saw this morning, if not fluffier.” Isaac had look in his eyes that Eiji had only seen once before and that was when Ash told him about Dino and his childhood. The tiny blond seemed to be so vulnarable almost like a porcelain figure. 

“What about mom? Was she happy to see me?” There it was. The love Isaac, much like his father, held for her. It was like they would both die if it wasn’t for her love.

“Well of course she was. She really loves you, you know? Your mom loved you even before she had the pleasure of holding you. You have been one of her favourite people ever since she found out you were in her belly. They both love you a lot.”

“Then why am I here? Why wouldn’t they take me with them? Why do they want alone time?” Eiji couldn’t find an answer. He looked at Shorter, who still had that dumb grin.

“Well, Isaac, mom and dad need to rest every once in a while. Since mom got pregnant with your brother or sister, she hasn’t really been able to rest properly, so dad wanted alone time with her to help her rest, but I am sure they will both be so very happy to see you.”

     Just like magic, there was a knock at the door, Eiji went to open it, while Isaac trailed behind him, with his little backpack in hand. The door opened to reveal Ash and the boy jumped in his arms at the speed of light. 

“Wow! Hi bub! I missed you so much. How was today hmm? Did you have fun with uncle Ji and uncle Shorter? Were they nice to you?”

“Mhm, they told me how you and mama met. I miss mama, is she in the car?”

“No bub, she’s at home. She missed you too. Told me we should race all of the cars and get home in under ten minutes. We have cake.” And with that, Isaac was set back on the ground and the little boy dashed to the car. 

“Damn gremlin didn’t even say bye. Here i was thinking we have something special.”

“Hi Shorter! Hi Eiji! I can’t thank you enough for tonight. She really needed it.” 

“It’s ok Ash. He is a little loud and Shorter here is never truly helpful, but it’s our pleasure. Are Y/N and the baby ok?”

“Hm, not really. I mean the baby seems to be fine, but she isn’t. Throws up everything she eats. The doctor said it is because her body is getting used to the pregnancy, but this didn’t happen when we had Isaac. I’m just worried for her.”

“She’s strong. She can take it I’m sure.” Shorter nodded, agreeing with Eiji’s statement. 

“I know Eiji, I’m not worried about that. Truth is she seems happy to be pregnant. She’s beaming all the time, even after she got everything she ate out, and I feel bad. I feel like she’s in pain. Her smile makes me feel even worse.” Shorter laid a hand on his best friend’s shoulder, taking his sunglasses off. 

“Ash...listen to me. Y/N is someone who’s never lied to you about anything. She’s been genuine about everything. She would never fake a smile and she would tell you if she wanted to abort the baby. The fact that she’s smiling and being her bubbly self only means that the pregnacy isn’t that hard on her. Trust me Ash. I see the look in her eyes when the baby is brought up in any conversation. She’ll be fine. You’ll be a bigger family. Loosen up a little.” 

“Thank you Shorter. I owe both of you a drink. I’ll call you. Thank you for babysitting again.” And with that, all three of tehm smiled at each other while Ash picked the tiny shark backpack and went back to the car.

     Once inside, the older blond turned towards the younger one, smiling.

“Ready to see mom, bub?”

“Mhm! Is she feeling better?”

“Yep.”

     The car ride was one of the happy moments Ash wanted to hold onto. The sang together and talked about how Shorter told Isaac about the motorcycle.

“It’s true, you know? I do know how to ride one. When you’re older, I can teach you too.”

“I wanna ride one now. I’ve seen my friends with theirs, I want one too!”

“Those are lame. I’m talking about the real ones. That’s the true fun.”

     Once at home, Ash dropped everything on the floor and went to help his son hung his coat on the wall. The little boy jumped out of his red sneakers and ran down the hall yelling for his mom. 

“In the kitchen baby. I was cutting you a slice of cake.It’s vanilla, since I know you like the chocolate one’s less. Where’s daddy?”

“Right behind you.” said Ash, placing his hands on her hips and swaying her a little. She turned around to give him a kiss on the cheek, but her 5 month bump got in the way, making her pull a frustred face and Ash smile even more. Isaac pushed his dad to the side a little, making grabby hands at his mom. No matter how old he acted, his real age was always given away by his gestures around his mom. 

     Getting his slice of cake, Isaac turned back towards the living room. Eating on the couch was never truly forbidden.

“Mama, tomorrow is Yuri’s birthday. He celebrating it at home, I have the invitation in my drawing notebook. Can I go?”

“Sure you can. we just have to go buy a gift in the morning.”

“A birthday huh? That means a little more alone time for us two.” Y/N hid her face in her husband’s neck, smiling a little. Ash’s finger went to the back of her neck, getting her to look up at him to give her a kiss, but then...

“Gross! He likes cars mama, go brainstorm on that insted of smooching dad in the kitchen!”

[doriana-gray-games]

Hey!! So if you ARE down for character asks, (if not no worries, I know some authors love them for brainstorming and fleshing out their characters in their mind, but others can find it time consuming when they'd rather just write the story lol, so no pressure either way) here's a classic: how do ROs in a crushing stage, react to the "there's only one bed," trope?

This is a bit tricky with the time period—if there is only one woman in the combination, whether that be an RO or Sherlock themselves, I think it would be incredible improper for a male character to even suggest anything but sleeping somewhere else... But if we think of it as more of a general reaction, and we set aside some of the more complex social customs, then I think it would be something like this—

Lestrade:

They would be momentarily embarrassed. Then they would try to solve the situation. And while they might want to sleep next to Sherlock (because that is all that would happen), they couldn't possibly push something like that unless they knew Sherlock's feelings. If this is a hotel, they will convince/unintentionally-intimidate the staff for a different accommodation or a spare mattress. Otherwise, they would sleep in a chair or on the floor.

If it was a non-crush Lestrade, and more of a "bickering and angrily passionate lustful feelings "Lestrade... They would probably angrily agree to sleep in the same bed if pushed. Until the arguments heated to a level where one either stormed out of the room or the hate/lust feelings took over and... well, you know...

Watson:

They would gladly sleep next to you if they were absolutely sure that is what you wanted and was comfortable with. They might blush a bit and take quite a few calming breaths. But they would mostly be happy to be close to you. I told you ~ Golden retriever ~

My idea is that if you choose any (serious) romantic option with Watson, it retroactively makes it so they have been crushing on you all along. Thus they have had practice keeping their feelings quiet. (And before you get too sad for Watson's sake, they are perfectly fine with loving you in a platonic relationship unless you stop spending time with them, or they enter the "love" stage.)

Adler:

They would love that.

So many innuendos and flirts. They will hop between being genuinely charming and extremely annoying and gross. They will respect your wishes, of course, but might test the waters a bit... Sort of like a dog sniffing the food on the edge of the table... (Sry for equating Sherlock with food...)

I found this in my Adler notes: "I have a question. Would you allow me to have my way with you? No—two questions—would you rather wish to seduce me, instead? Me personally, I am partial to number two,"

Hamish:

They would never find themselves in such a situation unless they wanted to—too improper and ill-planned. They would take the bed, but, as you said, they are crushing on you. So perhaps they would invite you to join them... Maybe.

I reserve the right to change my mind completely 😅

Edit:

Btw did I do this character ask correct, or should it be written more like a scene?

[soundtechrapture]

Why are so many eproctophiles also horror fans??

Like it’s a surprisingly common overlap.

Is there a reason for that or is it just a really weird coincidence?

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #30 - The Cybertronian Judicial System is a Friggin’ Joke

Have I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of court case stories? I think they’re pretty boring, on average, so the last couple of issues have been slightly dragging for me.

Anyway, back to Megatron’s trial. 

Our issue opens up with a full back shot of Ultra Magnus.

Artists take note, he really is built like a capital T.

As Magnus reads out Megatron’s statement retracting his “guilty” plea, we get some decent points as to why. See, telling a guy that you’ll stab him in the brain, so his trial can be over as quickly as possible, maybe isn’t such a hot idea. Megatron wasn’t a huge fan of that, or of how those memories they would’ve yanked outta him would have been used to fuel the Autobot propaganda machine. Why, you may ask?

Well, I don’t know if you knew this or not, but Megatron… doesn’t particularly care for the Autobots, nor the rhetoric they uphold.

I know, I was surprised too!

There’s also the fact that Optimus Prime is the judge on this whole thing. You know. Optimus Prime. Off and on leader of the Autobots, whenever it suits him. The guy who fucked off into space for a year after the war. The guy who threw a hissy fit when someone pointed out that he was compromised the last time they did something like this with Megatron. This guy:

Yeah, there might be a slight conflict of interests here. Remind me again why this had to be a military trial?

Anyway, enough of that, it’s time for a fight scene.

A swarm of Decepticons storm the arena, going after Megatron so they can help him escape. Magnus, though acting as Megatron’s defense, cannot abide by this disorder in the court.

Wild to think there’s a tiny little Pringles man with anxiety in there, isn’t it?

Optimus joins the fray, because there really are, just, so many guys to deal with here. A dude goes to collect Megatron, stating that they brought teleport packs for this little shindig. Megatron isn’t super jazzed about that though, not bothering to grab on before the dude gets shot to death. There’s a brief recess, I guess so the janitorial staff can deal with the mess of corpses littering the courtroom.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Rung’s building a model spaceship in Swerve’s, which is a very brave thing to be doing, seeing how sticky and gross bars can be. Brainstorm’s brought a flask to the bar, and proceeds to pour the contents into a funnel sticking out of his arm.

Our bartender for the evening- I’m assuming it’s evening, but I doubt the concept of time has any real weight in space- is Bluestreak. Bluestreak was stationed on Earth for a while, which is some Phase One stuff, and took a liking to human media while he was there. He’s the guy who handles movie night these days, seeing as Rewind’s too busy being dead to do it, and I doubt Chromedome has the emotional bandwidth to take over for his late spouse.

Bluestreak’s favorite movie is Zulu, a film glorifying the colonialism of the English over the native populace of an African kingdom. Make of that what you will.

Whirl wants to watch À Bout de Soufflé, or Breathless, as it was translated for the English-speaking world, which is a French New Wave film about a criminal who shoots a cop, hides from the police in a journalist’s home, who he seduces and likely impregnates. She eventually finds out what he did, reports him to the police, but then has a change of heart and lets him know what she’s done. He runs, but is shot, and dies in the street. The film is notable for its final scene, in which the following dialogue happens, between the dying criminal Michael, his lover Patricia, and an officer.

Of course, any poignancy would almost certainly be lost on the average comic book reader, and is also somewhat nullified by Whirl praising the film with internet lingo.

Then again, I suppose Whirl would be the type to dismantle any deeper reading of his interest in such a film, lest he be subjected to the horrifying ordeal of being known.

Over with Skids and Riptide, it’s revealed that Megatron’s been teaching classes on the Lost Light, specifically on the Knights of Cybertron. Riptide’s getting an education, because he’s been feeling pretty lost since the war ended- we’ll get to the potential whys of that later on. Swerve isn’t a fan of this community college thing that’s going on, stating that Megatron’s using it as a distraction, so he can devise plots most foul.

Back in the past, Autobot high command is having a talk about what Megatron’s demanding, and man is it a doozy— turns out, since the trial’s happening on Luna 2, the trial proceedings are subject to the laws of the moon. One of these moon laws is the right to request being judged by the Knights of Cybertron. Now, this is a problem, seeing as the Knights of Cybertron have been AWOL for the last several million years, but the law is the law, and you can’t just go ignoring it when someone’s pointed it out.

Bro, your SIC just suggested y’all pull the trial so you could slap it on Cybertron, thus negating any need to pay attention to the Knight law. That’s such a gross miscarrying of justice, it’s genuinely baffling. You’ve got bigger issues going on than flouting. My god, Optimus, you were a cop—

Oh wait, that’s right. Carry on, then.

Back on the Lost Light, First Aid’s checking to make sure that the coffin Rodimus they revealed last issue is true and proper dead. Now, this may seem like a given, but you’ve got to remember that Brainstorm was mostly dead for over a year and a half, and nobody fucking noticed, so it’s probably for the best that they’re checking.

First Aid’s been pretty withdrawn since Ambulon died, so this autopsy is really good for him, since it got him out of his room. Pretty fucked up that it would take a dead body to get him out and about. Has Rung checked in on his poor son of a gun, or has he been spending the last six months getting his professional rocks off psychoanalyzing a genocidal warlord?

Our coffin Rodimus died from having parts of his brain removed, and potentially died screaming.

Yes, that is a Furmanism, thank you peanut gallery, moving on—

Ratchet hands the phone over to Ultra Magnus, saying that a call has to be made, and it can’t be by him, because the callee is mighty upset with Ratchet at the moment.

Oh, I guess he’s fine after all. This must be where the sci-fi bullshit really starts kicking in for the series.

Because seeing your own dead body is likely very traumatic and awful, Rodimus is taking a while to string together his thoughts on the matter. Megatron doesn’t particularly care, because he’s not terribly sympathetic to this sort of thing, and the two get into a spat, where it’s revealed that they’re co-captaining the Lost Light.

Because things weren’t chaotic enough on this fucking ship. Need to mix in some peacocking between the McDonalds twunk and the man who killed half of Beijing.

Back in the past, Optimus Prime visited Megatron in prison to have a little chat. It’s not about that little rescue attempt, though the fact that those Decepticons may have been released from the Lost Light’s brig is certainly interesting. No, Optimus is here to sit way too close to his mortal nemesis on the floor of his room and talk about how Megatron is a sneaky bastard.

You remember the Hellraiser puzzle box from a couple issues back? Yeah, that was a communicube, one that was passed to Optimus to suggest that the trial be held on the moon, so the arena there would be able to hold all the people wronged by Megatron. This seems pretty damn convenient in hindsight, but Megatron swears that the legal loophole wasn’t his only intent when he sent the cube.

Because it’s all about you, isn’t it, Megatron? It’s all about how you’re perceived by future generations. Fuck the guys who had to actually deal with what your personal choices caused to happen.

Megatron wants to make amends with all those who were wronged by him. This doesn’t include being acquitted of his crimes, which, y’know, good- at least he’s being slightly realistic about how this is going to turn out for him.

What he wants to do is find Cyberutopia, so the Cybertronians have a replacement planet, since Cybertron kind of sucks now.

Oh, sorry, did I say realistic? I take it back.

In the present, Rodimus is still bummed out about being dead. Still, the day doesn’t stop just because it’s a bad one, and he calls in the experts.

CHROMEDOME YOU PROMISED TO STOP THIS SHIT

Yeah, no, Chromedome’s fallen off the wagon again, and does his thing on the coffin Rodimus. As he does, Megatron suddenly gets squeamish, Brainstorm pulls out his early early-warning device to lean on the fourth wall, and it’s revealed that the coffin that coffin Rodimus was in was built in the fashion of the Spectralist faith.

All Chromedome can suss out of coffin Rodimus’ memories is the really big important stuff, which includes the speech at Rivet’s Field inviting folks to come join the Knight Quest. Aww, that’s sweet.

With the analysis of the innermost energon complete, the results are in— the coffin Rodimus is a Rodimus. A real one, from the near future. Bummer.

I suppose denial is one of the seven stages of grief, isn’t it?

As everyone argues over whether or not Rodimus is going to die, Nightbeat brings up a good point— there aren’t any numbers carved into the coffin Rodimus’ hand. Rodimus is about to reveal some Ratchet-original wisdom, when things start getting really weird; whole sections of the Lost Light are disappearing.

Over at Swerve’s, Tailgate is regaling his peers with the story of his derring-do against Chief Justice Tyrest. Everyone is very impressed, and this includes our good buddy Getaway.

Jeez, think you’ve got enough antagonist shadows on this guy? It’s almost as if the art’s trying to tell us something about him.

Getaway lays it on real thick, saying that Tailgate could totally be the next Prime, with how courageous and awesome he is, all while completely ignoring Tailgate’s personal space and having a weirdly tiny hand. This seems to seriously bother Cyclonus, who is watching this shit go down from the doorway. Our purple space jet leaves once the drinks start being poured and conversation starts happening. God knows he hates talking about his insecurities.

Then the Pipes is Friggin’ Dead alarm goes off. But Pipes has been dead for a while now, so that must mean something else awful is happening.

Back during the trial, I guess because Optimus has a soft spot for Megatron, he allows him to join the Lost Light’s Knight Quest… even as he says that he could keep the guy locked up until Rodimus and pals find the Knights. However, there are rules to this, and one of the rules is that Megatron must publicly denounce the Decepticon cause.

It is a slow and painful experience for everyone involved, as he reads the statement he was given. It’s an immediate call to action- or rather, inaction.

Geez, think they could’ve made it any more obvious that this was being ghostwritten? I can’t wait to see how long it takes for “Megatron was blackmailed into saying this by the Autobots” to be a plotpoint.

Outside the prison, Ratchet and Rodimus are taking in the brand new Rod Pod, which is genuinely ridiculous in how large it is. Rodimus admits to having taken Atomizer’s list, though he knows that trying to use it to keep those who voted him off would be a pretty shitty thing to do.

Also, no one’s told him about Megatron coming along on the trip. As captain.

Or you could, I dunno, lock him up from the start. Or, if you want to give him a chance to prove himself, slap him into a bottom-rung role, like bilge cleaner, or sewage mucker, or whatever the equivalent would be on a spaceship full of giant gay robots. We don’t have to give the guy any power to hold him to scrutiny— any minimum wage worker will tell you that scrutiny comes far harsher for those who actually carry out orders than those who give them.

But what do I know? I’ve never fought in a several million year war, and I don’t plan to.

Getting back to the list, it seems as if Ratchet and Rodimus are on the same wavelength, in that both agree it’s only going to cause trouble and hurt feelings to keep the thing around. Rodimus destroys it with his usual flare, only to be blindsided by the fact that it was fake this entire time. How does Ratchet know this?

Because his name wasn’t on it.

...Man, that’s gotta sting. No wonder Rodimus was upset enough to not take his calls.

In the present, everyone’s in a panic, as they all bolt for the shuttle bay and start pouring into shuttles. The Lost Light is disintegrating around them, which is sort of a problem. Despite this nightmare scenario happening, Rodimus and Megatron still find the time to be assholes to each other. That’s dedication right there.

As the two bicker, multiple shuttles zip away from the rapidly disappearing ship, including the Rod Pod.

Man, now it really is the Lost Light.

[cassies-closet]

Style Q&As from the old SkinsLife website

Hi guys! In my search to find the striped hoodie Cassie wears at the end of her series 1 episode, I found the old SkinsLife website, where Edward Gibbon (the costume designer) did his Q&As before they moved over to the e4 website.  Unfortunately, not all of it has been archived, but there’s a lot of good stuff about where the series 2 costumes come from, and a ton of questions about Cassie’s clothes.

Here’s what I could find.  I’ll put all of the Cassie questions at the top and then all of the other ones under a cut:

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Hellie Cory: Can you please tell me where they got Cassie's skirt?? I absolutely love it and I've been searching for ages with no luck : (

Edward: Cassie's skirt is from a small Japanese designer in Camden (and well spotted Olivia xx the fabric is from Ikea.)

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TanitaAlethia: Im so happy about this. I have always wanted a nice, not sexy (like in costumes shops, there gross) little sailor outfit. When Cassi had one on, i almost fell of my chair, i love love LOVE it. So i was wondering, where an earth did you fined it? Thankyou =] Tanita-Alethia

Edward: Cassie's sailor top was from New York, but you can always try an Army Surplus store or maybe Camden if you're anywhere near London. Let me know how you get on!

------------------------------- evil_daisys: hey, i wasnt sure where to put this,, but were did you find the dress cassie wore in episode 1 of season one at the party? and episode 2 of season one she wore at michelles? i love the way she dresses its so cute and girly and still slightly different =)

Edward: Both of Cassies dresses were vintage pieces from the 60s and 50s respectively - keep your eye out wherever you are and never turn down an invite to a jumble sale ! -------------------------------

AmyyB: hi edward, can you please tell me where cassies pink chiffon top and grey socks that she wears in chris' episode? thanks sweetheart keep up the good work x

Edward: cassies' chiffon top was from Top Shop and the socks are from H&M.; --------------------------------------

maxine: heya, i was just wondering where cassie's bow t-shirt is from, from the latest advert? ♥x

Edward: cassie's bow t-shirt was from TopShop ------------------------------------------------

Franchesca Allen: Hi im really into weird and unusual style and i love cassie's. I was wondering if you could tell me where you get most of her clothes. And i was wondering in series 2 effy's episode whats she wearing with the leopard skin tights, what top is it? Please reply i've wrote before and got no reply :) Thanks and keep up the amazing brainstorms with the costumes xx

Edward: Cassies clothes are from all over the place ! Her style is a mixture of amazing vintage pieces, charity shop finds, vintage designer stuff and high street sale stuff (normally the things no one else wants ! ) The top you are talking about was a vintage nylon 'teddy'(an all in one , shorts and top underwear item ). This year she has been wearing a lot of underwear as outerwear so keep your eyes peeled in charity shops and don't be afraid to rummage through dead peoples' clothes! ------------------------------------------------

rachey_babey: hi can you please tell me where cassies gold high hees are from that she's wearing when she spills the milk and could you please tell me where the dress / nightdress cassie wore when she was sitting on the couch with chris and watching telly is from? i think it was white with a green or blue rim. ta.

Edward: Cassie's gold shoes are character shoes from a dance shop , customised with gold leaf and cassie's nightdress was a plain cream dress from H&M; which we customised with green lace ------------------------------- sarinda: hello, i really love cassie's style, i love going to jumble sales and charity shops looking for vintage finds so its really great that there is someone like that on tv. i was wondering where you got cassie's red skirt and gold shoes when she is at her exam? and also where her bra if from when she is getting dressed before that. thank you xx =]

Edward: Thanks, Sarinda. Cassie's skirt was Prada, shoes from Bertie and bra from M&S...;

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Lauren Jones: Hey I was hoping you could please tell me where Casie's night dress with the skeleton on it is from?? I have been looking everywhere and cant even find something similar! I would love to know where I could get one from please x

Edward: Cassie's skeleton dress was from TopShop Unique. It's probably not available any more, I'm afraid, but keep looking - you never know! ------------------------------------------------ Leelee: Helloo! My question is regarding the reaons behind Cassie's rapid change in clothing style in episode 9 when she arrives in NYC. At first I simply assumed it was to make her seem more vagrant looking, as though she was wearing simply what she grabbed in the dash. But then in the last scene of the episode, she is running down the street and is in another compltely out of character outfit, and wondered that would she really have all these clothes that she just never wears? Was there any specific reason as to this change? Thanks!

Edward: By the time we see Cassie in NYC she has been on the road for a while and grabbed clothes wherever she finds them , if they don't seem quite like what she normally wears that's because of what she has been through and the clothes she goes running in are Adams - see clothes tell a story as well ! ------------------------------------------------ asdfghjklxx: hii i was just wondering if you could tell me where cassies boots and jeans were from that she was wearing in the last episode when she arrives in new york, also where is the red and white candy striped skirt that she wears with the bow tshirt in her exam from? thanksss xxx

Edward: The jeans are from Uniqlo and then distressed, the boots from a Charity shop and the skirt by Prada

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meli_x: In the latest episode where was cassies t shirt with the bow on from and the socks she was wearing with that outfit (when she was in the exam). also her hairclip with two robins in (i think) and the necklace with the trophy on and her stripy dress from when she met chris' mom thanks :) x

Edward: the t-shirt was from TopShop, socks from Noa Noa and the birds were christmas decorations from a craft shop... ------------------------------------------------

Sara: Hey Edward, any chance you could tell me where Cassie's necklace (the cup/trophy) that she wears throughout ep. 9 is from? Thank you very much, loving your work!

Edward: Cassie's necklace was made from a piece of ribbon and an old badge from a Vintage Fair. It said 'victory' on it, if that helps. ------------------------------------------------

Danni: hey, i was wandering where cassies big blue jacket/coat was from, the one where she first arrives in new york? thankyou :)

Edward: Cassie's jacket was a vintage American College jacket - which was worn by Chris in the last series on the school trip to Russia, adding a nice bit of continuity ! ------------------------------------------------

rachael tallentire: hey 2 thngs i want to know where is cassies skeleton dress/nightie she wears in the last episode and also where is her top she wears for her exam from?

Edward:- both are from TopShop Unique range...

And a few Effy questions as well:

Munchkin: Where is the dress Effy wore to the rave in episode 1 series 2 from? i absolutely love her style, you dress her amazingly, it matches her personality exactly. please show us more of effie she is immense!!

Edward: Effy's rave dress was made by customising 2 dresses: one from Oasis and the other a vintage one from a charity shop...

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Michelle123: I hope this doesn't sound pervy but where is Effy's underwear from when she is in her room with Sid? x

Edward: Effy's underwear was from Primark and M&S; !

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larry the lady: Must, must, must know where Effy's jeans or leggins or what ever are from. i could die happy if i could get a pair. I'm on about the large striped black and white ones. XD oh and where would effy's character typically shop for her rave clothing. Love love love xxx P.s the black and white striped jean things, remember, we want them!! lol

Edward: Effy's jeans were from phunky phish/ Effy loves shopping in unexpected places - other peoples houses / old ladies wardrobes / her gran's charity bag and then she customises with scissors and a blowtorch !

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Other costume questions:

Pascha Rix: I really loved the gorgeous white shorts that Michele was wearing once in a club scene when she was dancing up against two other guys. The shorts were tiny, white and with pink sequins on them and they were absolutely gorgeous! Where do you also tend to look for other clothes she wears? Are there particular shops you goto?

Edward: The skirt's from Top shop but you can make your own if you like: hack off a pair of old jeans as high as you dare and then cover randomly with sequins...

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Kris Jones: I'd just like to know whether ALL the actors' clothes are chosen by stylists, or do some of them get to wear their own stuff? Do you even choose their pants?

Edward: Pretty much everything they wear is chosen by me - especially their pants and socks; they play an important part in defining their characters.....

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Savethesoundsystem: I wanna know where sid's yellow/orange nikes and the headphones t-shirt are from in episode 3! Oh and chris' flags of the world jacket!

Edward: Mike's trainers are retro Waffle by Nike, the headphone t- shirt is by 77 and the Flag Jacket was a rare vintage find.

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Ben Smith: Hi, the trainers maxxie's wearing in ep2 when hes taking off his superman costume.. where are they from? And the luminous yellow stripey tshirt in ep 3? Cheers.

Edward: Ben Smith - Maxxies' trainers are Nike Air Force hi-tops and his T- shirt was from Top Man.

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Stephan: I was just thinking.. i want all of Maxxie's clothing, shoes. lol. I watched a clip from episode 4! And i would like to know where did you get the stuff (shoes, shirt, jacket, everything...) he was wearing when he came to sit on the grass with Anwar and Michelles stepsister?? I got a pic, but isn't clear...

Edward: Hi Stephan, The jacket's Nike, The T-shirt's Etnies and the hat's from River Island.

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Emul 8: Where's Chris' shirt from that says "I love (heart) hate" from the episode 4 series 2 preview from?

Edward: The 'I love Hate' T-shirt is by 77 and Maxxie's orange shoes are from Polo.

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hsto1234: hi! i would really like to know where Chris' t shirt in episode 1 series 2 is from? its white with 'pretty vacant' written on it. thanx

Edward: The 'Pretty Vacant' T-shirt is by by Japanese label KTZ and it's available from Concrete or Koko To Zai.

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James Davidson: i Love the clothes tony wears, where's the best places to look? thanks james :)

Edward: Tony's favourite labels are Farah, Junk De Luxe, Buckler, Penguin and Nike...

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Gloria Good Chris wears a yellow type jacket a lot of the time. He was wearing it on the last episode (Series 2:Episode 3). Really want to know where it is from !

Edward: Chris' yellow jacket is from American Apparel . --------------------------------------------------

Thomas Judes Kaplan: heya, i'd be pleased to know where you guys found chris white tee shirt with wasted brit youth tagged on it with yellow pink and orange, the one we can see in episode 5 thanx and if you need fucked up french fashion tips (maybe for a series 3 french character), i'd be honored to help you :)

Edward: thomas and everyone else - Chris' wasted British Youth is by Unconditional (available from Concrete and Selfridges ) and would love to see some fucked up French Style! put some up in your profile so we can see... ------------------------------------------------

Rhiannon Irving: Hi! Where are Jal's necklace and green dress from Episode 5 from? Many thanks :-) xx

Edward: Jal's dress is by The Prisoners of St. Petersbourg (from Kokon To Zai ) and necklace is by Chateau Roux ------------------------------------------------

ryan keys: Edward i love the top that chris is wearing, the one that looks like a shirt and bow tie. where did you get it?

Edward: Chris shirt and bow tie t-shirt is by Unconditional ------------------------------------------------

charlie lewis: Do you know where i can find tonys burgandy cardigan featured in the first episode of series 2 where can i find this hoody josh is wearing in series 1? Thankx alot

Edward: Tony's cardigan is from Zara and Josh's hoody is a customised cheap white hoody from primark ------------------------------------------------

Jman: Hi, I'd really like to know where Maxxie's necklace from Series 2 Episode 1 is from - the bronze one with the dice. Thanks & great website BTW!

Edward: Maxxie's dice necklace was from River Island ------------------------------------------------

legoac: can you tell me where the following are from?: -maxxie's t-shirt, trousers, and shoes from ep. 1's rooftop dance scene -chris's grey and white long sleeve shirt in careers officer scene -anwar's long sleeve striped yellow and white shirt in club scene (the one under the polo) -chris's green belt in scene where cassie shows him the notice thanks!

Edward: Maxxies t-shirt was from All Saints, trousers from Jungle or your local Army Surplus. The shoes are Lacoste. Chris' grey and white shirt was by Buckler, Anwar's yellow stripe t- shirt by H & M and Chris' belt from Honor Lulu ( a great 50s shop in Bristol).... ------------------------------------------------

Lewis Jones: can u tell me where maxxies checkered shirt from episode 4 series 2 is from please.

Edward: Maxxie's check shirt is by Junk de Luxe ------------------------------------------------

Evans17: In episode 5. just after swimming, tony was wearin a cardigan an a shirt where are they from??

Edward: Tony's cardigan is by Zara and shirt and tie are by Junk de Luxe. ------------------------------------------------

Pixies: Jal's big gold necklace in episode five. She wears it at the beginning when she is sitting on the bench with chris (where they stick paper on each others foreheads) and at the party when she gets up on stage. its impossible to make out what it says and i NEEEEED it. thanks a bunch :) xx

Edward: Jal's necklace is by Chateau Roux and says Chateau. Hope that helps! ------------------------------------------------

Bex Crawley: Heya, i was just wondering in episode 5, where is Jal's dinosaur jacket from? It is so cool! thanks xx

Edward: Jal's jacket has got chickens on and is from SkunkFunk ------------------------------------------------

And finally, for red polka dot - Chris' red cardigan is from a charity shop and Anwars jacket is by 55DSL

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chook: Hey there, just wanting to know where anwars hoodie jumper is from...he wore it in the last episode. thanks

Edward: Hi chook - Anwar's hoody is by Artful Dodger... ------------------------------------------------

zander: hey edward i was wondering where the pink cardigan maxxie wears in the the adverts to promote skins two, the t-shirt under it and his trousers are from?likein the style thanks!

Edward: Maxxie's cardigan was from Zara, t-shirt from Etnes and trousers from Cos ------------------------------------------------

pinkdreamz: from season one. the dress michelle wears in episode one, the black and white one, where is it from? this might be rude, but what do u guys do with the clothes after the show? Edward: Michelles's grey/black dress was from Oasis. At the end of filming we have a costume sale for cast and crew and anything not sold we hang onto or donate to charity - don;t worry, not a rude question at all!

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Joe Wood: wer did tony get his bed sheets and wear did u get sids hat =) and wear did he get that top which makes sounds in series 1? cheers fella

Edward: Tony's duvet cover was specially made for the show , Sid has many different beanies from H&M; primarily and Mega Dog was a one off creation ! ------------------------------------------------

dannymilhouse: wat r sids favourite makes/designer????? and wat shops cud i get them makes from????????????

Edward: Sid loves Plain Lazy , Nike, jumble sales and skips ! ------------------------------------------------

Foxy: Where would one find the tan belt that tony is adorning his suit with in Episode 6? It looks similiar to paul smith.. i may be wrong.. AlSO the waistcoat toby is wearing? Cheerss

Edward: Tony's yellow belt was a ladies' belt from Gap ! and Toby's waistcoat is a period early 20th. century piece from an antique clothing market (try Blind Lemon's website for similar fairs ) ------------------------------------------------ Bapo: Hi Edward, I am wondering where you found Sid's military jacket that he wears in the Secret Party special episode... Much love from France to all the Skins family!

Edward: Sid's military jacket is an original from a costume hire shop in Bristol - try vintage army surplus clothes stores or markets ------------------------------------------------

Louis: Hey Edward, I absolutely adoore your taste, especially tony's clothes and i was wondering where you got his black polo with white stripes that he wears in episode 6 please...?

Edward: Tony's black/white stripe polo is by Farah , pink/black by Topman ------------------------------------------------

Jowellzz: hey edward, I know this isn't series 2 related but, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Maxxies brown coat and blue-checked hat in Season 1 Episode 6 where they go to Russia. could you tell where they're from? xx

Edward: Maxxie's coat was from H&M; and hat by Etnies ------------------------------------------------ JimBuns: Hi Edward, i hope u guys can help out, do you know where i can i find that grey cardigan with pink and blue circles on it, that chris wears in the club , series 2 on episode 5, ive been lookin for it every where, any help is much appreciated

Edward: Chris' cardigan was from Behave on Lexington Street in London ------------------------------------------------

Pixies: Hey edward thanks for responding! I have my Chateux necklace ordered jal style :D could you please tell me where michelle's flowery necklace is from in last nights episode? thanks x

Edward: Michelle's necklace is vintage plastic 60s from a market -------------------------------------- Rubyred: Hey, would you be able to tell me where the outfit that that girl Tony meets in the club is wearing there is from and also what she's wearing at the university?

Edward: Beth's dress in the club is from Kate Moss for Top Shop , shoes vintage Dolce and Gabbana at the University her vests are from Miss Selfridge and Gap, jeans by Cheap Monday, belt from Urban Outfitters and shoes from Gap. ------------------------------------------------

Abby Fletcher: jal's green shirt and yellow top when she finds out shes pregnant NOW! o.. i mean... it really would be nice of you... :)?

Edward: Jal's green shirt from H&M; , yellow top by People's Market.

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Kim Matthews: hi edward, could you tell me where michelle got her cow print pyjamas from in series 2 episode 7? also where did you get the blue top she was wearing when she went round to chris's looking for jal in the last episode? thanksxx

Edward: Michelle's pjs were from La Senza and her blue top was from Oasis ------------------------------------------------ red polka dots: thanks loads for telling where anwars jcket was from, its great. but could u plz tell me where to get maxxies jeans in this pic. they are so amazing!!!!!! thank u

Edward: Maxxie's jeans were by Replay ------------------------------------------------ tommy the 2nd: hey edward could you please tell me where to get maxxies great hat from episode 1 series 1. its soooo great!!!

Edward: Maxxie's hat was from H&M; ------------------------------------------------ Maciej: Hello Edward. I have trouble with shoes. I was just wondering if you could give me some advice. I like Maxxie's style, but I still don't know what should I pick. The clothes I mostly wear are from American Eagle (ae.com), no ripped jeans though. I don't think ripped jeans look nice. I also don't wear baggy jeans. I'm 6'2" and kind of skinny (pant size: 30x34 or 31x34). My shoe size is 12.5. So I'm big, skinny guy with big feet. I have no sense in how a shoe should match. I was just wondering if you could tell me what would look best on my feet from a brand like Nike, Puma, or one I could easily get in Chicago area. Btw. love watching Skins :-) Thanks.

Edward: the best look for fairly big feet is the plainest styles of trainers - good old Converse are a safe choice, mess it up with some of the great colours they do . Old school trainers like Nike Tennis shoes or their retro Waffle style / addidas gazelle or stan Smiths . Swear is a British label that does great very flat plain trainers with a twist - they have a brilliant new collection in collaboration with Hummel . So basically the plainer and flatter the better, avoid anything with chunky soles and too much detailing . ------------------------------------------------ HaydenWing: hi Edward, could you please tell me where can i get Maxxie's bag in Ep. 8 when he comes into the classroom with James. Thankies!

Edward: Maxxie's bag is by Freitag , who make great bags from recycled materials like tyres ,seat belts and inner tubes ------------------------------------------------ Chris Murray: Hey Edward, cheers for looking :) Could you tell me where Chris' tiger skin pink and black top is from, the one he's wearing in Episode 2? Its the coolest thing I've seen him wear!!

Edward: Chris's tiger t-shirt is from Behave on Lexington Street ------------------------------------------------ windinthewire: please can you say where jal got her giraffe earings from, i love them and reaaaally want a pair!

Edward: Jal's earings were from TopShop ------------------------------------------------ AlexGabriel: Hiya. I'd like to know where Maxxie's grey trousers are from, the ones he wears when he comes into the classroom with James.

Edward: Maxxie's trousers were from Cos ------------------------------------------------ trainstobrasil: could you please tell me what Jal's book bag is in episode 8 this season? the lovely yellow one with the design that she carries around throughout the episode. I loved it! thanks :)

Edward: Jal's bag is by Eastpak ------------------------------------------------

Abby Fletcher: hey, just wondered where jal's yellow dress with the black shirt underneath came from, and the earrings she has in in the audition! thanks much! xx

Edward: Jal's yellow dress was from Monsoon and the brown shirt underneath was Calvin Klein Jeans ------------------------------------------------ Jerry: Hi, I was just wondering what bag Tony wears in season 1, it looks like a Gucci bag but I never get a good look at it. The name of it would be swell!

Edward: Tony's bag was an unbranded one from Camden Market ------------------------------------------------ verity: hey, wondering where michelle's silver vest in tonights episode came from. and her vests in general :) then i just need to wait for some warmer weather..! thanks

Edward: Michelle's silver vest was from Kate Moss for Top Shop - her vests are from all over , American Apparel is great for brilliant coloured basics made in ethical factories ( much better for your conscience and the world than Primark !)

Episode 7

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moppet: Hey Edward, I just want to say I think the overall look of the characters in the show is amazing so whatever you are doing with the wardrobe you are doing it extremely well! I hate to be the 1,000,000,000th person to ask you this but...in Michelle's episode (Series 2, Episode 4) she wears a pair of skirt dungarees or a skirt with braces made of denimn. I would love it if you could tell me where you found it? Or where I could find a similar item? I know several people have already asked you on this about it. I would really appreciate it if you could get back to us about it. It would actually mean a lot! much love, moppet xx

Edward: Really sorry but can't actually remember what label Michelle's dungaree skirt was - it was a TKMaxx find - but try Lees new stuff designed by Jane Birkin for something silmilair ------------------------------------------------ HarrietBABESS: Hi, i was wondering if you could please tell me where michelle's necklace is from in her lost weeks diary, the black bow one, and effy's dress she wears to the club in series 2 episode 7? I would really love to know where to get them. Thanks

Edward: Michelles necklace was from Warehouse and Effy's dress was created from a vintage beaded dress , customised over another dress from Oasis - so sharpen those scissors and start creating ! ------------------------------------------------ geodude: hi i was just wondering if you could tell me wer you get the majority of chris' vest tops from i just think there so good that i have to have one especially this one!! thanks XD

Edward: a lot of Chris' vests are 70s deadstock - original stuff that was never sold - from markets and vintage shops - try some of the retro stalls in Camden or local car boot sales ------------------------------------------------ christian20: Hey I was just wondering if you could tell me where Maxxie's jacket is from that he wore at the skins secret party??? thanx

Edward: Maxxies' rowing blazer was hired from a Bristol Costume Shop and is probably about 100 years old - still looks good doesn't it , just goes to show great style never goes out of fashion . ------------------------------------------------

alex: hi edward, i've been spending my internet millions on some new clothes recently. can i tell everyone about them? (Note: Alex, despite his yuppy question, is not the sugar daddy he claims to be. You've been warned, girls...Ed.)

Alex - we need photos of you modelling your new looks maybe with some of your Skins' co-workers ! ------------------------------------------------ AnnaBanana: Hi Edward! First of all, well done on your supreme costume choosing, its impeccible! I was wonder where Chris' fluffy hat from the Skins 2 opening credits is from? Its pretty much the best hat i have ever witnessed :0 Thanks

Edward: Chris' fluffy hat was from the brilliant hip/hop stall in St. Nicholas's Market in Bristol ------------------------------------------------ Bridget Burton: hi i was just wondering if you could tell me where you got Jal's Shirt, shorts and (i think they were Nike) Trainers rom episode 1 series 2, where she and chris go to pick up Tony from Maxxie's. That would be very helpful.x

Edward: Jal's shirt was from H&M;, shorts were from Uniqlo and her trainers were indeed Nike . ------------------------------------------------

mindemo: hey edward...i was wondering where maxxie got that purple and silver nylon jacket in his unseen episode on his myspace...cheers mate...haz...XO

Edward: maxxie's jacket is from Nike ------------------------------------------------ SamR: Could you tell me where the outfit Tony wore to the university came from please? Thanks

Edward: Tony's shirt from Junk de Luxe , tie by American Apparel , jacket by Parkes , trousers from Cos , belt by Gap shoes by Converse ------------------------------------------------ Grantlock: Please could u tell me if theres a peoples market shop in bristol or wher i could get the clothes from fank you!!!:D x

Edward: Not sure if People's Market sell in Bristol - it's available in Number 22 on Carnaby Street and TopMan at Oxford Circus ------------------------------------------------

Kaz: Hi Edward, I didn't get my question answered last time and I really need those socks lol. Was just wondering if you could tell me where they were from? Michelles socks in episode 1 when shes in the club and outside with Sid

Edward: Michelle's socks were from American Apparel ------------------------------------------------

charlie lewis: hi. Do you know where i can find the tank top chris is wearing at the end of the latest episode, the one with horses or something on it. cheers.

Edward: chris' vest was 70s deadstock from Camden Market ------------------------------------------------

john Rainey: hi jakes yellow/orange cardigan from the start of the effy episode? can you tell me where it's from?

Edward: jake's cardigan was an old ladie's from a jumble sale

Episode 9

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Dave Gee: Hi, can you tell me where Tony got his pink underwear and t-shirt from, please? It was the episode where Effy's mad mate came over.

Edward: Pay attention, Dave! Tony's underwear was pink due to Effy's inefficiency in the washing department! ------------------------------------------------

Christina_Marie: Hi, i was just wondering where Michelles green dress comes from in the calander cover photo below theres a photo. And also were do Jal's pink star earing come from which she too wore in the same photo? Thanks xx

Edward: Michelle's dress was by Lux from Urban Outfitters and Jal's earings were from H & M.

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Branwen: Hi edward can somebody PLEASE tell me where jal got her white dress top she wears in episode 8 series 2 when shes at her music audition, ive asked like 8 times lol! Thanks a lot xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Edward: Jal's audition dress was from Oasis - well asked!

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snoogins: This may sound like a stupid question, but i thought you should be the one to ask. I have a big problem buying trousers for myself. I dunno if it's just my frame (I'm 6 foot and pretty thin). But anything outside of blue jeans look awkward on me. I was wondering if you had any tips when look for mens trousers. Oh and everyone always asks where certain characters shop. I was wanting to know whats your own favourite brands of clothing?

Edward: Hi snoogins. Blue jeans are a pretty good basic for any look - take advantage of your height by maybe wearing trousers a bit shorter than you normally would - Farah have a great range of trousers that suit all shapes, so check them out. My favourite labels are Margaret Howell, Vivienne Westwood, Thom Browne and thanks for asking... ------------------------------------------------

skinsfreak: hey edward, was just wondering where Chris's Monkey Man t shirt was from?

Edward: Chris' Monkey Man was specially designed by me.

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beth babe: hi edward:) could you please tell me where michelles gold-like jeans are from that she wears with the silver vest in episode 8? also where is the blue vest top and the orange bra from that she wears? i cant remember which episode she wore them in sorry, thanks so much! the skins style owns:) x

Edward: Michelle's gold jeans were from Morgan , blue vest from Oasis and orange bra from La Senza. ------------------------------------------------

[greywindys]

Cute noit'snotadate we're two mates hanging out: 2d and murdoc go to different spots that serve vegetarian/vegan foods to brainstorm over lyrics, but instead end up talking about the food.

Love that. 2D also keeps inviting him and picking new places under the guise of trying to gross him out (iirc vegan/vegetarian food used to gross Murdoc out...or he didn't like it...I'll have to check the sources), but really he's just trying to hang out as friends more. Murdoc keeps accepting under the guise of wanting to prove 2D wrong, but really he just wants to hang out as friends more, too.

[gripefroot]

Troublemakers

The flashing red lights and blaring siren have Bucky jumping out of bed before you even get a chance to lift your head from the pillow. Blinking around blearily, you see his shadow outlined by the red, his chest heaving as he runs his hands through his hair.  

“Emergency,” he grumbles, and with a sigh you crawl out of his bed, too. A little slower, but your heart is picking up its pace a bit as he grabs your hand to drag you to the door. 

Code Blue means intruders at Stark Tower. Code Yellow means lockdown. Code Orange is fire. Code Black is ‘call your mother and tell her you love her.’ Code Red? Evacuation.  

“I need clothes,” you tell him, a little belatedly as he shoves his shoulder through the door. “And so you do.” Although it’s hard to complain of your view - you tilt your head back, and watch the curve of his backside in those fantastic black briefs you’d helped him pick out a few months ago. 

“No time.” Bucky’s voice is clipped, and he picks up the pace as the two of you hurtle down the hall - Steve and Sam’s doors are already opened, clearly deserted, and Bucky cusses under his breath. The jogging turns into a run. A split second later, you turn into the common room and bump straight into Bucky’s bare back as he stops suddenly, to see -  

Tony, Steve, Sam, Natasha and Clint - all howling with laughter at your sudden appearance. It takes about half a second to figure out what’s going on (the emergency lights and sirens are mysteriously not on, in the common area), and you cover your hand to keep from giggling as Bucky splutters.  

“What the crap?” he demands.  

“Nice,” Natasha says, and pulls out her phone to take a picture. Immediately Bucky puts his empty hand in front of his crotch, (they’re tight briefs - like you’d said, you had picked them out) - and for once, you’re grateful to be wearing a t-shirt with your underwear, even if it is worn and white and practically see-through, anyway. Squeezing Bucky’s arm, you rest your chin on his shoulder. 

“I think that since they’ve woken us up on a weekend, they get to treat us to breakfast,” you tell him with a grin. 

Sam stops mid-laugh, turning to a groan. “Oh, man - I forgot about that.” 

“You can turn off the noise now, FRIDAY,” Tony says - well, he wheezes, clutching his belly as Clint offers a high five.  

“I’m glad I didn’t bet on them being stark-naked,” Clint says, as Steve pulls out a wallet from his running shorts.  

“Buck-naked,” you correct, and Bucky growls low - it’s a little exciting, really.  

“If I’d known pranking these two could be so much fun, I would’ve outed them sooner,” Natasha remarks, as Steve hands her a crisp bill, too.  

“I’m horrified,” Bucky snaps, at the room in general - Clint swallows another chortle, and Steve assumes a solemn expression. Sam and Tony don’t even try, and Natasha just looks more amused. “What are you, a bunch of kids? I was thinking aliens or Hydra, that I’d be attending a half-dozen funerals at the end of the week - ” 

“It’s okay, Bucky,” you interrupt, giving his arm another squeeze. “Just goes to show, you can’t always trust the people you want to.” And you send Stark a good-natured glare. 

“Oh, you trusted me?” Tony pretends to gush. 

“Not anymore,” Bucky grumbles. “I’m going back to bed.” 

“I’m sure we can find a way to amuse ourselves,” you say lightly, as Sam pretends to gag. This lightens Bucky’s mood somewhat - he chuckles, and wraps an arm around your shoulder to steer you back to his bedroom. A belated thought, and you turn back to call over your shoulder, “I can’t wait to see what you make us for breakfast!”  

“Man, this was your idea!” Sam’s voice snaps at Stark. “Now I feel like I was the one pranked - I have to make those two nasties breakfast, and I had to see them practically naked? What kind of sick joke is this?” 

You can’t help laughing as you return down the now-quiet hallway, Bucky pressing a kiss to your temple.  

“Don’t worry,” you whisper to him, as he locks the door to his dark bedroom and pulls you further inside. “Tony’s just opened the way for retaliation; you know that, right?” 

“I know,” Bucky murmurs, and his hands pull you close by the waist as his lips ghost over your cheeks and lips. “We can brainstorm afterwards. Let’s really make Sam regret this.” 

“Oh, let’s!”  

Not even six a.m. on a Saturday, and apart from the false alarm, it starts off so good.  

It would be even better if Tony was bothered by the same things that Sam was - his retribution would have to wait.

Six days, to be exact. The next Friday, you wander into the kitchen of the Tower where Bucky and Steve are indulging in a post-breakfast snack, and you grin as Bucky’s eyes rest on you, and dance. He knows. He always does.  

“I’m running out for a few things,” you say, for Steve’s benefit. “Wanna come?”

“I’m assuming this invitation isn’t meant for me,” Steve replies, but he’s grinning. 

“Sorry, Cap. Buckys only.” 

“I’m a Bucky,” Bucky says, shoving the last of the muffin in his face as he stands. “I’ll go.” 

“Perfect.” 

His eyes never leave yours, and he winds around the table to wind his fingers through yours, and you smile all the way down the elevator.  

Not hiding your relationship is really nice.  

“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Bucky asks, as you step onto the sidewalk, and the usual Manhattan crowd flows in around the two of you. It’s blisteringly hot for August - but that’s the point. Your lips twist into a smirk.

“You’ll see.” 

At a convenience store, your purchases are simple: a can of tuna and a bottle of superglue, with a pack of gum for good measure. As you’re checking out, Bucky deadpans,  

“I still don’t see.” 

With a laugh you leave the store, Bucky trailing - and you catch his hand to start pulling him in the direction you need to go.  

“This isn’t the way to the Tower,” he points out.  

“I know.” 

“This is going to be a surprise, isn’t it?”

“For more than just you.” You cast him a smile, and he chortles along, shaking his head.  

“Insatiable,” he murmurs, in a way that makes your spine tingle. “You’re ruthlessly insatiable, you know that?”

“Oh, I know.”  

About four blocks, briskly walked, bringing the UN headquarters into sight. Across the street, the parking garage - and Bucky follows you into the cooler shade.  

“Isn’t Tony at the summit today?” Bucky asks, as you pull out your phone. 

“Yeah.” A little hacking displays that Tony’s ride is on the second level. Up the stairs - and you suspect Bucky might be starting to get the idea, because he’s positively bouncing along. “Alright,” you say at last, pausing at the driver’s door of the purple sports car. “Watch me work my magic. You’re about to fall in love with me all over again.” A wink for Bucky - and he lifts his brows in expectation. 

A tap on the window, and a robotic voice sounds: “Authorization please.” 

Your phone responds, a little crackly but loud and clear: “Sergeant Rogers, 18 dash 45 dash 12 bravo bravo alpha sigma delta.”  

“Thank you, Sergeant Rogers. Enjoy your ride.” And the locks of the doors pop open.  

“Not bad,” Bucky says in a slight drawl. “And you’re right - I am falling in love with you all over again.” 

“Good,” you say, yanking two of the doors open. “We gotta find a place to put this can of tuna where Tony will never find it.” 

“You’re gonna open it, right?” 

“Of course! But not yet - there’s no need for us to suffer.”  

Bucky laughs, crawling into the backseat to start looking around - you open the glovebox (too obvious), and feel under the passenger seat (too tight). As he’s ruffling beneath rugs to search for secret compartments, he says offhand,  

“You know, I once got trapped in a deadbeat town in Canada in the 60’s and had nothing to eat but canned tuna for about four months.” 

“Gross,” you wrinkle your nose. “There’s not a lot I would turn you away for, but smelling like tuna is probably one of them.”  

“You’re saying you wouldn’t want to have sex with me if I ate so much tuna I was practically a fish myself?” 

“Yep.”  

Bucky’s head peeks out between the front seats - you laugh, and tweak his nose. “I’ll have to keep that in mind, won’t I?” he teases, eyes sparkling bright blue even in the dimness of the car. “You wear me out sometimes, babe.”

“You love it.” 

He gives an exaggerated sigh, and dips back down to search the car. “A burden I gladly bear.” 

It’s a good thing he hides right after that - because you would’ve liked to pinch him for that one.  

Bucky ends up finding the perfect hiding place - hanging half out of the back door, he slides a knife beneath the driver’s seat, opening some leather to expose wires and gadgets. You pass him the can of tuna, which he opens next with a wrinkled nose (it is a hot day) - and slides it under the seat. Perfect.  

“I thought we might have to cover our tracks,” you say, pulling out the tube of superglue next. Bucky scoots away with a laugh, so you can duck down and glue up the leather. Unless someone’s on the floor of the car, they’ll never notice. You smooth it over with a grin, and with happy anticipation of Tony’s reaction.  

“Let’s turn on the heat in the car and run it for a while,” Bucky suggests as you close the back door.  

“Genius.”  

He folds himself into the front, pushing the ignition so that it rumbles to life. A few buttons to push, and he leans his head back against the headrest, choking slightly as the stench drifts through the car.  

“Too bad we did the tuna first,” you sigh, leaning an arm against the door, only too happy to be outside with the fresh air. “Otherwise we could’ve really desecrated the car.” 

Bucky laughs. “We’ve desecrated plenty of Stark’s cars already, though.”

“Well, he doesn’t know that,” you point out. “And Tony being horrified by the knowledge of your bare ass rubbing against the seats of his car would be the best part.”  

“We should tell him.” 

“I think he’d probably pretend not to care,” you admit. “Not much rattles Tony Stark.”  

The hot air blowing from the car is making your skin break out in sweat; combined with the humidity sneaking into the parking garage, it’s getting really miserable. The tuna is only part of it.  

“Good enough,” you say, wafting your hand in front of your nose. “Let’s go.”

“Gladly.” Bucky turns off the ignition and steps out of the car, still choking a little. “Ugh, I’m so glad Steve’s gonna get blamed for this. I don’t need anymore 5 a.m. alarms from Stark.” 

“I’m sure it’ll teach him...for a while,” you laugh. 

Friday nights are poker nights - and Natasha suggests turning on the news to watch while the pizza is being snatched up. Tony’s voice can be heard on the television, and while you’re trying to keep your last slice away from Bucky and his paws (though to be fair, it doesn’t seem like he’s reaching entirely for the pizza - and Sam is yuck-ing across the table) - a interesting phrase has everyone quieting at once: 

“Tony Stark was one of the delegates at the Summit today; he was sat by the President of Bhutan, and gave our reporters a lengthy statement on the issues discussed today. More interesting than that, however, was the footage we caught of Mr. Stark driving  away from the Summit. He nearly caused an accident on 42nd Street, when he suddenly pulled over and jumped out of the car to vomit on the sidewalk. 

He gave no statement following the incident.”

Bucky’s eyes are wide. Yours probably are, too - a split second, and then you burst out laughing, and Bucky’s deeper laugh joins in. Natasha’s head snaps to you.  

“What did you do?” she asks curiously. 

“Ask Steve,” Bucky says. 

“What?” Steve says.  

“Well, I’m heading out tonight,” you say, and stand, grabbing your water bottle and an extra napkin. “See you guys.

“I’m out, too.” Bucky is quick to follow, and as FRIDAY announces Stark’s return, you rush with Bucky to the stairs. Tony’s bellowing for Steve in the back the perfect background music.  

Serves them right.