#my brain is just full of superhero redesigns

[notsocheezy]

Brain Curd #200

Culture Shock - On the Origin of NotSoCheezy

Brain Curds are lightly edited daily writing - usually flash fiction and sometimes terrible on purpose. Today we celebrate two-hundred days straight (me? never) of writing every single day by exploring the history of my creative exploits - and bringing the total Brain Curd word count up to one-hundred thousand!

I was not the most ambitious child from the get-go - and why would I have been? I lived in a desert, my parents were divorced, and outside of school I spent all my time sitting in my bedroom, playing video games, reading books, or watching cartoons. I didn’t make anything. Unless you count microwaving Kid Cuisine.

One fateful day, however, my third grade teacher recommended a book to me that he thought I’d like - Captain Underpants. I read it and loved it, but more importantly, I saw these two kids making comic books all by themselves and thought, “I can do that.”

I took two characters I’d come up with after discovering slugs and snails living at the edge of the grass field at school - Oofus and Doofus - and threw them into a comic strip. I’d spent a lot of time reading collections of Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, and The Far Side, but not so much with superhero comic books, so this was the logical thing to do: I’d make enough of these comic strips to fill ten or so pages. Unfortunately, I did not know how to structure a three-panel joke.

I couldn’t tell you for sure what the first one I made was, because my childhood self decided that the canonical first strip involved Doofus hypnotizing their worm friend into thinking he was Jerry Seinfeld - an amusing non-sequitur at best. I was satisfied by this workflow, for a time, but then I heard someone else was making comic books.

This kid named Edgar had come up with a superhero character, and he was cranking out comics like there was no tomorrow. I asked to read one, and I was relieved to see they were much worse than mine. I couldn’t make out the words through his penmanship, and the plots were incomprehensible. The snarky brat I was, I decided I would start making full length comic books with my characters, under the ‘publishing’ label of Better Than Edgar’s Comics. The logo was his superhero character inside a ‘prohibited’ circle.

I made a good few of these, but since I didn’t know how to use a Xerox, they remained exclusive to my possession. I allowed people to read them on request, however, and eventually word got back to Edgar. He wasn’t a big fan of my trademark infringement.

Authorities got involved, there was much back and forth, and though I argued that I was building a brand and a name change would adversely affect that, we eventually settled that I’d change the name and there’d be an option for a crossover in the future (this failed to materialize).

So now I needed a new name, and I already sort of had one. Sometime prior, I’d come up with Not So Cheez-e Animation as a candidate, but discarded it when I realized comics were in fact not animated, deciding that I’d save it for my future television channel. Still, it had the Treehouse Comix-esque charm of misspelling a simple word, and I had no better ideas, so Not So Cheez-e (un)Animation was born. I designed the very first logo for the label, purposely making it overly complicated as first logos were supposed to be. After a few more issues, I redesigned it to roughly the isosceles triangle with holes that it is today.

Oofus & Doofus continued through approximately twenty issues and several spinoffs, most of which have never seen the light of day but remain safely stored with my grandmother. Over a few years, my storytelling, artistic ability, and (most importantly) handwriting improved substantially. I'm still reasonably proud of some of those comic books.

In sixth grade, I got bored in class and started making a flipbook with the characters. It was nothing complicated - Oofus waving, Doofus slithering, just simple cycles. But I struggled to get a satisfactory result from flipping the pages since they were so small, so I unstapled them and scanned them into the computer, animating them with Powerpoint and Movie Maker. I realized that I was legitimately making an animated film, so then added some lip-synced dialogue. I didn’t have a microphone, though, or a budget for voice acting, so a silent film it was.

There was very little meat to it, but it was undeniably a cartoon - even if more than half of the runtime was a credits sequence with the waving loop on repeat. There was no way for me to show this off at school - I didn’t have a smartphone, of course - but if I put it on the internet, maybe I could tell people where to watch it, or show them on library computers.

Enter YouTube. I wasn’t technically old enough to make an account at the age of eleven (almost twelve, though), but I did it anyway because I didn’t give a heck about the rules. Oofus & Doofus - Now We're Movin' was unleashed to the world on March 3, 2011, on the brand new channel, NotSoCheezyAnimation. All one word, as was the style at the time. I figured I’d earned the name.

After that, I made a few more channels: NotSoCheezyFilm, NotSoCheezyGaming, and NotSoCheezyTech. That’s right, I had a quadfecta before MatPat stole my thunder. Not that I did much with them, but NSCF was to be for non-animated content (since I couldn’t fathom putting such things on the original channel), NSCG was to host a Minecraft let’s play series, and NSCT was for a prospective tech news show. The latter two never made it past the concept and logos stage.

NotSoCheezyFilm became the de-facto main channel thanks to series such as Tiresome Reviews and Thank You Dr. Steve Brule which were just about the only things I made during my early high school years. You might find it very interesting to watch the former, by the way, as I was really leaning into the baritone part of my vocal range at the time, and at this point it’s downright uncanny to listen to. I’m not sure I can do that anymore.

Meanwhile, I started writing short stories - first as part of a class assignment, then just for fun. They weren’t initially good, but they got the storytelling bug back in me after years away from comics. Though the execution was rough, Everyone Has Their Price is a highlight of that era. It’s still on my website, but don’t read that version of it.

In 2017, I became the lead actor in I Found My Love In Avalon, a short film produced as an extracurricular. I had a decent amount of input on the outline (we had no script since there was no dialogue) and even directed a shot or two, though I was mostly in front of the camera. It was, to that point, the most complicated shoot I’d done.

I found that I really enjoyed filmmaking, so when I came out as trans, I did it with a bang. 3-31-19 was written over the course of a year and filmed and edited in a span of three months. It was released on the titular date and I forced everyone I knew to watch it. Much easier than one-on-one chats with everyone in my graduating class of high school.

After that, I decided I was done playing my main channel as second fiddle. It was high time for a rebrand, I figured, so I put my nose to the grindstone and refreshed my logos. The name of the game was color - gradients, mostly. For once, I was actually making my logo more complicated. Thus, my active channels became NotSoCheezy and NotSoCheezy ². Just in time for me to spend twenty minutes recording a Weezer shitpost to entertain my friends and inadvertently releasing unto the world the most popular thing I’ve ever made.

Let’s stop there - I think you can figure out the rest.

Please comment, reblog, like, and follow if you enjoyed- I'd love to know what you think! Can we make it to 200 notes?

Stay tuned for the top ten one-offs of the second hundred Brain Curds!

[wizkiddx]

in your own way

so someone sent me this idea and I thought it was really cute and wanted to do it as a blurb but then I got all confused so it’s very shite and I can only apologise. also I am not no genius so pretending to be one was literally just putting words together they make no sense ahaha

Summary: tom gets self conscious of his intelligence compared to you

        (bit of angst but mainly fluff ;))

tomhollandxreader

The doorbell ringing through the couch grabbed the attention of all five of you, your heads all whipping towards the door the round to each other. You’d already got the pizza (had demolished it too) and nobody had ordered any desserts - at least that you knew of. It had been a rather tame evening, your four uni mates all stuffed into you cosy but homely studio flat. Lix had just moved to London and had wanted some help with a new project that she couldn’t afford to cock up at her new job. So, assembling the ‘dream team’ back from simpler days, you were all crouched down over many print outs - trying to puzzle your way through how the plans could be redesigned to make the invention much more ergonomic. 

“Don’t stop working!” The four around you all just groaned in return, Josh lightheartedly slapping your leg as you skipped over him.  Laughing at their exhausted and almost beaten brains , you jumped up and hopped toward the door frame, picking a discarded pizza box off up the floor and onto the countertop on your way.  As you reached the door you tightened your hair in the scrunch before painting a welcoming smile on your face and opening the door. Whatever you had been expecting, it was definitely not what you saw. 

Warm brown ochre eyes, a mischievous grin and a bunch of beautifully arrange yellow and white flowers.

“TOM!”

Squealing his names, your body apparently decided to ignore the flowers he was grasping to his front, still choosing to throw your arms around his neck and pull him close - the precious petals squashed between your two bodies. 

“God I’ve missed you!” He grinned into the side of your head, only stopping to press multiple kisses to the side of your face till you arched back and met him with your own lips. 

“Thought we were meeting tomorrow? You asked against his lips, with a little smirk - you could have a pretty good guess as to why. He had just returned from a long shoot abroad and had planned on spending the evening with his parents and brothers, then in the morning the idea was for you to go get breakfast together. You would never dream of competing for his affection against his family, so had been more than happy to give them a day with their eldest back before you saw Tom. It was still early days in your relationship anyway, you actually only been a couple and in the same country for a matter of weeks, but of course the time he was away you made time for the long distance phone calls and FaceTimes. 

“Mhmm well I just kept imagining you in a cold lonely bed and it’s not like I’m gonna let them all hop into my bed for quality time is it?”

“Well you are close!” Giggling back, Tom playfully gasped before releasing his one arm from round your waist - both of you chuckling at the crumpled flowers. You stepped aside to let him in, in all the excitement forgetting you weren’t alone until you turned around and were met with four pairs of beady eyes staring at you. Because yes perhaps it had slipped your mind to mention to them you had a boyfriend of six months, especially forgetting to tell Josh - who you had a complicated history with to say the least.

Cursing under your breath, you watched Tom freeze up, clearly shocked by the fact you had company too. He hadn’t met many of your friends, purely because you and him were still on the downlown. Not that that particularly mattered with these 4, you were more than certain they would have no idea who he was - as Lix had said before ‘superhero movies are just stupid peoples version of research papers. Innovative and exciting, except papers don’t require the variables to beat each other up to keep their audience entertained.” 

So tom’s reputation wasn’t the issue in this situation…. Instead your ex boyfriend meeting his replacement. Josh could be cruel too when he was jealous, even if it had been a year and a half since you’d called your brief relationship quits, it was evident he still wasn’t completely over you either. The amount of drunken calls asking for a hookup was evidence of that. 

You’d been almost transparent with Tom, he knew this name ‘josh’ was your ex, he was aware you were still friends and hang out. He didn’t know about the 3am booty calls but that was just to protect everyone, no other hidden agenda. He’d always regret it in the morning and beg for your forgiveness so it appeared very much to be a subconscious thought only copious amounts of alcohol could release.

“Sorry I didn’t know you had-“

“No no” You interrupted Tom, grabbing the flowers and placing them on the counter, ontop of the pizza boxes, before reaching out and squeezing his hand reassuringly. “It’s okay, let me introduce you guys.”

Following that preceded an awkward taking turns of hand shakes and small talk, though you were acutely aware of Tom’s tightening grip round your waist when the blue eyes boy introduced himself as ‘Josh’ - and in fact every time he spoke thereafter. 

The small talk was nice enough, the group of you all resumed your positions on the floor with Tom now squiggled between you and you painfully awkward ex flatmate Will. In fact it was all going oh so well till Lix opened her big bloody mouth. 

“So Tom, what do you do?” 

He immediately tensed against your side, you saw his eyes widening with shock. Instantly reading him, you realised Tom was shocked by the fact they didnt know. 

And he was! He assumed they hadn’t mentioned it purely out of respect, not wanting to make the situation awkward. They were, as you’d summarised to Tom before, nerds. As you were - no nerd shaming here. But this type of people were normally primed marvel superfans, or at least had some sort of awareness- so he was surprised to say the least. 

“Oh uh I…. I’m an actor”

“Oh really?” Josh’s eyes widened and he smirked. You knew , you knew what was coming. “So you convinced Y/n that drama’s a good thing? She used to absolutely hate everything when we had to do it at college.”

“I hated drama classes, that doesn’t mean I hate the whole entertainment industry dickhead!” You tried to joke, tried to lighten the mood. 

“Uh well she’s supportive of my stuff and I’m supportive of hers it doesn’t mean I have to like neuroscience either.”

“Neurobiologist. You’re a neurobiologist right Y/n?” For fuck sake. Will had no intention behind it at all. He was just oblivious to people and was so upfront at times it was painful, even if underneath it all he was the sweetest person you’d ever met. Watching Tom out the corner of your eye swallow thickly as he tried to compose himself you quickly worked to diffuse the situation. 

“Yeh but it’s kind of the same thing isn’t it? I say either or a lot!” Josh took a swig of his half drunk beer before nodding at Tom.

“Acting though… it’s impressive. I definitely wouldn’t be able to persevere through all the rejection though, seems cut throat to try and make it in.” There Josh goes. Tom shifted, his hand dropping from you side and his eyes fixed on the beer bottle you’d given to him as he smirked. 

“Yeh well the rejections hard when I was younger but I get that less now. Now I get to reject the parts I don’t like which makes it all so worth it.”

Josh’s face morphed just slightly in pain, as the penny somewhat dropped. Apparently Tom wasn’t the aspiring actor working 3 jobs between failed audition as he had assumed. Just as you were getting bloody desperate, a literal light went off in your head, shooting your back straight as you rifled through the haphazardly spread papers in front of you -  the groups focus now away from the obvious tension between Tom and Josh. 

“Y/n what do you need?” Lix asked slowly realising you might’ve just found the answer and not wanting to disturb the thought process. After asking for a pen and triumphantly ‘ah’-ing when you found the right plan you looked up with glee evident in your eyes first to Lix, then Will, then Sophie, then Josh. 

“We’ve been missing the whole point the whole bloody time. Look!” You jabbed your pen at an intricate diagram “It’s so bulky because we’ve been going on this assumption we need a battery and recharging ports but if we take that component out-“

“Then you just need a transformer for there” Will joined in with a sparkle in his eyes, him being the first to click where you were going with this.

“Exactly! And then size is no longer an issue and by placing an external detachable unit-“

“Y/N YOU GENIUS” “fuck that’s good” Lix exclaimed an dsimultaneously Josh much more inwardly praised your ingenious. 

“We got it!” Laughing back, you encouraged all of them to join in with, noting down all the necessary inputs and outputs and components necessary to form a vague redesign. 

Though it felt no time at all, the 5 of you consumed in mumbling through thought processes and logic of trying to actualise your theory, in reality it was almost 45 minutes before Lix leaned back with a relieved sigh. Announcing that you’d saved the day, she called time on the night, relieved that she could sleep worry free that night. You made light work between all of you of clearing her stuff up and saying goodbye to all of them with brief hugs. In all honesty, you were so in the zone you’d completely forgotten about Tom, who you were only alerted to when Lix went over to the kitchen to say bye as well. He’d obviously been there for sometime, clearing up all the greasy plates and pizza boxes, the flowers now sat in a vase in their full glory - or at least what was left of them after the crush injury. 

This wave of insurmountable guilt washed over you, realising he’d come here after only spending a couple of hours with his family after a long haul flight home to fall asleep with you in his arms. Instead, he’d faced your rude ex, been ignored for the majority of the time he was here and he’d done the washing up. You fucked up. 

Choosing till you’d finally ushered Will and Josh out, promising Will you would go and see their new shared flat soon, you closed the door slowly - knowing this wasn’t going to be simple. 

You walked up and leant against the kitchen counter, watching him place the last two mugs in the top drawer of the dishwasher before pushing it closed and then closing the appliance door too. 

“Thankyou for doing all this. You really didn’t have to.” He didn’t make eye contact, moving about the kitchen to wash his hands in the sink opposite. “And I’m really sorry I-I was gonna usher them out but the I worked it out and kind of got overexcited.”

“Mhmm … for an hour?” It was a rhetorical question and although he said it very quietly you knew he was demanding an answer. 

“I know I know I’m a shitty girlfriend, I should’ve sent them away as soon as you got here. I am so so so sorry.” That statement was left in silence for a few, painful moments.

“I was the one who showed up here. Don’t worry about it.” It was muttered and god only know you were still very worried about it. 

“No Tom I was a dickhead you have a right to be ang-“

“It doesn’t matter!” If it didnt matter, why the hell was was he answering so grumpily.Turning back around to you with a sigh, he spoke with shoulders slumped. “Look… lets just go to sleep yeh? I’ve had a long ass day.

He wasn’t in the mood to talk, you weren’t about the force him too - so with a small nod you half heartedly agreed. You knew you would have to address it at some point, but apparently now wasn’t the right time. 

So without much more conversation the two of you got ready for bed, even if the atmosphere felt jilted and cold. It was rehearsed, this wasn’t not the first time he’d stayed over so like a rehearsed scene the two of you got ready and then wormed your way underneath the sheets. You waited for him to make the first move, which of course he did. Pulling you into his bare chest which you happily obliged to, your leg wrapping round his as you nuzzled into his chest. Both softly whispering ‘goodnight’ your eyes closed as you tried to sleep.

Except it didnt work and wasn’t going to. Mainly because Tom’s heartbeat was thundering right under your ear. So you were hardly surprised when he whispered in the quiet. 

“Do we work?”

“What?” You arched up, a hand on his chest as your head hovered over his - your eyes burning into his in the dim light of the street lights. He sighed heavily, shaking his head and trying to avoid your gaze.

“I just- we have so little in common” 

“That’s not true.”

“It is. I have no idea about even what you do! Seeing you with all of them tonight… you were enjoying talking about stuff I could never ever understand!”

“I don’t have a clue about scene direction or physical acting does that make you dislike me?”

“No course not!” He argued huffily, making you sit up in frustration and reach over to turn the bedside light on.

“Then will you please explain what is going on?”

“Just… just look I know intelligence is attractive and-and well you are and I’m not.” 

That physically hurt you hearing him be so self conscious in front of. Clearly, you had made him feel like pure shit this evening and that guilt would surely eat you up later - but right now the focus was purely on making him feel assured of his own mind-blowing talents. 

“Tom…it’s not intelligence that’s attractive! You know…” You sighed, how the hell were you going to explain to him how much you LOVED HIM.liked him, you hadn’t said that yet. “You know when you’re reading a script that’s good your mouth move along as if your living and breathing every single word. And you completely are oblivious to anything around Tom, I always thought if someone crashed into the house you wouldn’t notice cos your so into it. And then when your finally finished with it, no matter what time of the day or night, you’lll be like this excited puppy running in to tell me all about it. Or-or when you’ve visited a children’s hospital and you phone me bouncing off the walls, full of stories of how these kids inspire you….” Trailing off, you looked intently between both of his two brown eyes. “Thats passion right? And ambition?” He nodded minutely. “Thats what’s so bloody attractive. For all I care, you could be a supermarket shelf restocker if that’s what your passionate about and you would still be the most incredible person to me. I love your passion you idiot, I don’t care if you don’t know stupid facts about astrophysics or where in the brain control movement of your big toe! In your own way your so bloody clever and I love you because of you and your passion you idiot.” 

“Seriously?” You nodded profusely at his whisper, now cupping both hands round his cheeks. “You seriously think…. I’m like a puppy?”

There was your boyfriend again, grinning from ear to ear as you giggled at him.

“Yes you most definitely are.” He gasped in fake shock, before pulling you closer and pressing his lips against yours. Now straddled over his body with the duvet weighing down on your back as you tasted the minty toothpaste still fresh on his lips. After a short while you once again settled back down on his chest, feeling much more warm than mere moments ago, and confident that Tom was reassured and happy once again. 

The silence lasted long enough for you to be slowly drifting off before a deep rumble had you blinking your eyes open, eyelashes dragging against his shoulder as you tried to focus on his voice.

“By the way…” Tom dragged it out, making you hum in encouragement as you listened to his slightly hoarse and sleepy sounding voice ��in your big soliloquy just then… you said you love me?” You froze, desperately trying to claw a good answer or cover up. Completely failing, you went for the next best and oddly relevant statement. 

“I don’t know what solliquarity means because its an actory word so I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Solliliquy darling… but for the record, and I hope you understand this… I love you too.”

[inkribbon796]

Forgotten Light Ch. 3 I’m All Rainbow, All the Time

Summary: Thomas is back, and no one is sure what to do about that.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

Everyone in the base was braced. None of them, not even King or Mare had dealt with or seen a demon like this. They had only heard rumors. Rumors of temperament creatures that lashed out with no warning, driven only by near animalistic emotions.

“Joan?” Thomas asked in confusion, reaching up to hold the side of his head.

“Yeah buddy, you okay?” Joan knelt down. “Took quite a bad fall, buddy.”

“Ugh,” Thomas moved to a seated position. “I feel like it.”

“You okay, can I get you anything?” Joan asked. “Your head hurt? You want me to get you something?”

“Yeah, I,” Thomas looked around in confusion, realizing that he wasn’t in his old apartment he used to share with a couple of his friends. “Where are we?”

“I know it’s super confusing but we’re safe right now, let me get you something for your head,” Joan promised, gesturing to a seat.

Down the hall, Virgil felt weird. His heart was racing with more than just apprehension over Thomas being freed. Now he felt something deeper, like he was being pulled somewhere or in like a limbo space waiting to be moved somewhere else. Virgil clutched onto Roman’s sleeve for dear life.

Joan smiled and Thomas got up on shaky legs, almost falling forward but Joan caught him and helped him into a chair. “Just sit tight, we’ve got coffee, juice, soda, water?”

“Just water’s good,” Thomas looked around, Nate tensed when he stared in his direction a touch too long. “I . . . Who’s house is this?”

Joan opened their mouth to answer — they were actually going to redirect the conversation — as they were getting a glass of water and some random painkillers they always had stashed in the common room for little aches and pains any of the heroes so often got from their line of work. Before Thomas could hear their answer a sharp shock of pain shot through his brain, it was one all the Sides felt regardless of their distance to Thomas.

The pain brought with it brief flashes of memory. Of alarm as something was dropped, and then relief of catching the object . . . followed by pain so intense and deep his body couldn’t process it.

“Thom—” Joan began, watching Thomas double over in pain before he froze because suddenly wisps of blue aura appeared before Logan and Patton materialized out of almost thin air. They had been standing down the hall with Roman and Virgil, and suddenly it felt like something had shoved them away.

Thomas still had his eyes closed for a second as the dull throbbing subsided down again, Logan realized with minute horror that Thomas would see himself and Patton and there was nothing he could do to stop that.

The world seemed to come to a tense halt as Thomas startled at their presence, and Patton spoke.

“Hey there kiddo,” Patton greeted loudly, he’d had plans to rush out before Logan could because the logical Side had been asked to make enough sacrifices lately in Patton’s mind. But this worked as well, Logan wouldn’t have to be alone.

“Who?” Thomas stared in confusion and Logan was at a complete loss of what to say.

Patton however was not, “Hello, I’m your conscience. I tell you all the good you should do, and remind you of all the good emotions you feel.”

Logan stared at Patton in alarm. Patton was a terrible liar, anyone who knew him well enough, knew that.

And the situation was precarious enough.

“Uh, okay,” Thomas told him nervously, down the hall, Virgil felt the pulling sensation again. But there was something in him that was fighting it.

“Do you remember anything?” Logan cut in, he still felt like his usual self so if he was a thrall, it was no different from how he usually conducted himself.

“No, should I?” Thomas asked, feeling anxious.

“Well Thomas, we didn’t want to rush you but you’ve been kinda having amnesia lately,” Joan lied.

Logan panicked, knowing how unsustainable the situation was, “Stop. Stop.”

Joan, Patton, and Thomas all looked at him. “We cannot start all this with lies when the instant he steps outside he’s going to figure out we deceived him.”

“What’s going on?” Thomas asked as Logan rubbed at his eyes.

“You’ve been dead for almost twenty years,” Logan admitted, adjusting his glasses. “Truthfully no one can say if you even are the original Thomas or a projection based on aura.”

Thomas stared at him in horror and alarm, “What?”

“Lo, maybe we should do this delicately?” Patton urged.

Logan looked around and saw the broken camera that had been the source of so much trouble lying on the ground and held it up for Thomas to see. “You were killed over twenty years ago and were split into multiple parts. Morality and I are two of those parts.”

“Wait, I am so confused, I don’t remember anything, I was at some party before,” Thomas’s voice was starting to pitch towards hysterics.

“Yes, we only recently discovered there was anything left in the camera and you came out,” Logan explained.

Thomas felt his heart beat faster and the sensation of needing to run away as fast and far as possible. And finally the tugging sensation inside of Virgil overcame whatever was keeping him clinging onto Roman in pure terror. He was ripped away from Roman’s arm and came to stand directly behind Thomas. Thomas immediately sensed there was something behind him and turned.

Virgil looked over at Thomas and the two of them startled before they screamed at the same time.

Thomas threw himself off the couch to get away from Virgil, and the anxious Side ducked behind Patton and Logan, nervously looking around him at Thomas, his hood tugged deep over his eyes.

“Uh, hi,” Thomas greeted nervously from the floor.

Virgil, surprising even himself, hissed at Thomas like an angry cat. His eyeshadow darkening, pupils little more than needle-thin slits.

Thomas leaned away in alarm, Joan rushing over to him. Roman rushed out of his hiding place when he heard the hissing but calmed down when he saw that Virgil was hiding behind the other two Sides.

“He’s not that keen on new people,” Joan apologized, helping Thomas up. “He just about hit me in the face when we met.”

Not offering an immediate comment, Thomas watched Virgil cautiously. Logan broke the tension by stepping in the middle.

“He’ll calm down a bit if you keep your distance,” Logan promised and Thomas nodded, looking around and seeing Roman standing down the hall. “Is the color theme normal?”

“Yes,” Logan answered. “Princey, you are doing no favors by loitering in the halls.”

“I do nothing of the sort,” Roman huffed out, strolling over. “I was merely waiting to make my grand entrance, which you so rudely spoiled.”

Logan rolled his eyes, “This is Princey, the one in purple here is Anxiety.”

“Anxiety,” Thomas repeated tensely and Virgil hid even further into Patton’s back.

“Yes, he wanted to be a little overdramatic with his name,” Logan answered. “But if you don’t harm him, he’ll leave you alone.”

“Okay, but I never did get an answer on where I am,” Thomas reminded.

“You are in the Coalition of Heroes’ base,” Logan answered. “We store all types of magical artifacts here. Some heroes live here, others like us only come in and out for patrols.”

“Heroes?” Thomas repeated.

“We’re superheroes,” Roman waved his arms and red sparks of magic spread across the air.

Thomas gasped in excitement, “Like Spiderman?”

“If that helps you internalize the idea,” Logan sighed.

“We all have superpowers,” Patton smiled.

“Cept[1] for Lo over here, he’s just a nerd,” Roman joked, jabbing finger at Logan.

“I happen to be a very crucial part of this team,” Logan huffed. The more jovial atmosphere helped calm Thomas down, which in turn was calming Virgil down. “I helped redesign all of our suits.”

With the mere idea that superheroes were real that got Patton and Roman to start recounting some of their wilder stories. Thomas was clearly excited and Virgil was starting to unglue himself from Patton’s back.

The situation was starting to de-escalate. Logan dared to get hopeful. But he wasn’t going to just accept that Thomas couldn’t turn them into his thralls. Logan needed to bridge the gap first. Consciousness wasn’t enough to thrall them. Proximity wasn’t enough. Even the knowledge of what they all were didn’t do it.

But would tactile contact—

“Come here!” Patton cheered and threw out his arms before he tackled Thomas with a hug, alarming everyone in the room except for Thomas.

“Oh, we’re, uh,” Thomas stammered in surprise but accepted the hug.

Everyone in the room stayed braced but Patton pulled away and smiled.

“See, a hug always makes things better,” Patton gave Thomas a huge smile. Both his and Thomas’s eyes were a sky, baby blue color.

“Yeah,” Thomas echoed his smile as his eyes slowly bleed back into his normal brown. “It does.”

“We should go home,” Patton suggested warmly as his eyes were slower to fade back to brown. “Been a long day, I’m hungry.”

“What do you want?” Logan tried to remain calm, trying to see if there was anything different about Patton.

“Cake!” Patton cheered, and Logan couldn’t help but smile.

“Nonsense, you will eat something of substance,” Logan told him and Patton pouted, making Logan roll his eyes and give a relenting huff. “If you eat a full, nutritious meal, then you may have cake.”

“Yay!” Patton threw his hands up.

Logan brought all of them into the little kitchen area. Distracting Thomas and the other Sides as Joan went to talk to Nate and orchestrate a way to empty the room to feed people back in bit by not.

Thomas was, at first, nervous with meeting new people. King kept his distance, and Mare didn’t even make himself visible. The young hero refused to get closer than halfway across the room. Eventually Thomas warmed up to people, irregardless of whether King’s presence made him wary.

Logan chalked it up to the presence of food and brightly colored costumes. The newcomer was enamored by the idea of being a superhero and if it kept Thomas close enough for them to watch for any hint of violence or thralling the Sides, then no one was going to fight it.

When it came time to turn in for the night, the Sides quietly decided to stay close to Thomas in case anything happened. Roman, Virgil, and especially Patton we’re so exhausted they fell right asleep.

However, Logan wasn’t so fortunate. He found himself unable to sleep. But he wasn’t tired, the farthest thing from it, in fact. He was wide awake. As if he had slept a full eight hours and was ready to restart his day.

Logan lay in bed and tried to get to sleep. But as the night passed, he found sleep was impossible, but unlike every other time he was not exhausted and fatigued come morning.

In fact as he watched Virgil check his phone, the anxious Side pressed up against him as the others were getting out of bed, Logan found he still felt rested.

And he worried if Thomas’s re-emergence had anything to do with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations:

1. Except

[djsherriff]

Here’s redesigns of the other 3 new warriors , more in depth comments under cut 

B-negative is now Blood Saint!

When he was born ,instead of being a bundle of life ready to take on the world, he suffered from extreme blood due to complications from the labour, meaning he had to have a blood transfusion.

Though unaware at the time, doctors actually used the blood of a vampire to save his life, causing him to become a living vampire of sorts. (So yes he can still age)

It’s his life long mission to learn who his mysterious blood donor is and master his dark powers, but it would be much easier his parent stopped bugging him about him wearing 4 layers of leather in the summer and his loud music. “augh , my parents are the REAL blood suckers around here”

You’re probably curious why he would go by “blood saint” , well besides sounding cool, it’s also a bit of irony for him.

See , unlike other vampires Saint can actually heal people when he bites them rather than turn them, which also works cause he actually can’t stand the taste of human blood (no matter how much he loves to push the brooding vampire aesthetic), he eats foods like any other kid his age, though his diet consists of more meat than the average teenager.

Besides that , he has the standard vampire traits like turning into a bat, weak in sunlight , can’t stand garlic , you know like the classics!

Artist comment:

Since Marvel has a bunch of other vampires they rarely use, I rewrote his backstory a bit so he wasn’t tied to a well known superhero , as well as have a chance to have more original vampire characters in the marvel universe.

The only thing I really pushed design wise was tone down the red/pink and use it more sparingly throughout to make it pop more (hence his hair colour being changed), as well as add a few more punk aesthetics to it such as spikes.

I imagined that his your standard punk teen who trying way too hard to rebel against everyone and everything besides what he personally likes, you know the “its not a PHASE mom” kinda teenager. I thought it be hilarious if besides the vampire thing he has going , his got the most normal home life outta everyone on the team and thus the most “boring”. Yes he totally makes up ridiculously tragic backstories for himself when meeting strangers , his a complete drama queen and is definitely a theatre kid.

Speaking of hilarious, I also made him the team’s medic with his healing bite, cause I also thought that was funny and also a great opportunity for both good comedy and some good character development for him.

His greatest character flaw is his tendency to overdramatise EVERYTHING and he needs to learn that sometimes , life is that simple and that’s not a bad thing.

Trailblazer is now Void Caster

Void Caster is a young teeenager from a family who regularly travels through the universe to explore the wonders and to gain a living , though her mother decided she needed to stop having her head up in the stars so much and return to Earth- literally.

She comes from a long line of space witches : witches ...... but in space! The deeper history is that her ancestors were witches who came into contact with aliens and decided to use their magic to explore beyond the world of earth , which lead to a brand of magic that’s more “sci-fi “ aesthetic than its earth counterpart.

Thanks to a life full of space adventures, Void Caster is what most people would describe as “quirky” as she very new to a lot of concepts on earth , like selfies! She always has a smile on her face and a sparkle in her eyes, though those sparkles can be seem almost forced sometimes. But she generally curious to the world around her and always open to learning new concepts!

You wouldn’t think it , but Void Caster’s seemingly mundane mother has a lot more in common with her daughter than either of the two release, though what remains a mystery.

Void Caster main ability is to create worm holes to transport to one place to the other, which is the main form of transportation for the whole team, she is also capable of making items shrink and grow whatever size she wants and effect gravity of those said items. The limits of her powers though is that she can only effect the size of an object as long as she can see it without straining (so she can’t turn people into the size of an atom or make someone be big enough to sit on the sun) she also struggles to change her own size (she’s very self conscious of it) her portal powers also have a similar size limit (she can’t make a planet size portal but making one a size of a tank would be possible, but straining for her)

Artist comments:

So with Trailblazer’s redesign I could’ve went with one of two options:

Make her a Native American and very likely make her a stereotype due to my lack of knowledge on the culture.

Or

An obvious Dora the Explorer knock off

I went with making her an obvious Dora the Explorer knock off , with a bit of a sci- fi twist to her. Her hair being a short bob is an obvious nod to Dora, as well as sticking with a pink and purple colour scheme which was also a way of ditching the all neon palette she originally had.

While she still has pockets , I completely ditched the bag all together and instead made it so she had space themed powers instead. I went with the weird idea of “witches but from space” since I didn’t want her to be a mutant as there were already 3 mutants on my redesign of the team, but adding onto the weirdness I also made it so her style was more “quirky” in comparison to her teammates , as well as stand out as the leader of her team.

I like to think that she’s a very outgoing girl but doesn’t grasp social ques all that well and usually ends up feeling like an annoyance to people when she tries to connect with others, though she also struggles with her more negative feelings and tries bottling them down to avoid bothering people , only for those feelings to explode at the most inconvenient time.

So naturally her biggest character flaw would be that she tries too hard to please people and fit in and that she’ll have to learn that she can find friends without sacrificing her own quirks, and that expression negative emotions isn’t a burden to anyone.

Screen time is the worst so I made him Brain scan

With the others I made in depth backstories and such for them as well as some notes on their rewritten character.

But here I didn’t, I honestly hate screen time , his the worst character outta everybody if you ask me and the first I would throw off a cliff if given the chance.

This is less of a redesign and just me making up a straight up oc here cause what the hell is “internet gas”???

Soooo uh, Screen time is now brain scan.

His an autistic kid who spends most of his time online cause his power of telepathy makes it extremely difficult to be around people. He learns to control his peers and socialise more

I’m sorry , that’s literally all I could do here.

(If I do turn these redesigns into my own ocs, I would 110% make “him” a “she” ;) )

[robininthelabyrinth]

Unexpected Development 9

Fic: Unexpected Development - Chapter 9  (AO3 Link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Barry Allen/Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Mick Rory/Barry Allen, Barry Allen/Leonard Snart Chapter 9 of Unexpected Development

Summary: “Sorry, kid,” Len says, sounding – and likely even being, knowing Len – sincere. “We gotta run, and it looks like you’re coming with us for a bit.”

“Oh crap,” the kid (Barry Allen, he said his name was) says.

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

What.

What even.

What the hell even just happened?!

First Mick and Barry are standing in the tunnels, talking, realizing what’s going on, then Mick’s telling Barry to go run and disable the rest of the bombs in their section as fast as he can while Mick goes to find Cold, and for Barry to catch up later.

Mick’s emphasis on the whole “as fast as you can” is a little weird, since he says it with a lot of stress and repeats it, like, three times, but Barry doesn’t think much of it – Mick’s probably super worried about his partner in crime and wants to be sure Barry won’t slack off on his part of disarming the bombs. Cold would be upset if they let the city infrastructure crumble just because they got distracted trying to save his life, even Barry has figured out that much about him by now.

Cold is such a bad supervillain.

Or, well, he’s pretty good at supervillaining. He’s just really bad at evil.

Either way, as soon as Mick takes off towards the west side at a run, Barry can speed up to full Flash mode. Sure, he doesn’t have his suit, but that’s not necessarily an impediment when he’s moving faster than people can see.

The rest of the thugs aren’t a problem, either, as it turns out. The second they see lightning, they all shout, “The Flash!” and turn tail to run, dropping whatever bombs they have left.

It’s…kind of weirdly offensive, actually?

Barry’s a superhero. People should not be running scared like he’s going to hurt them or kidnap them or something awful. Not even bad guys!

Maybe Cold’s whole “it’s better for people to know about the local superhero as more than just a legend” thing has some merit to it after all.

...maybe not disappearing supervillains into the Particle Accelerator jail would help, too. Just maybe.

Something to think about.

Barry defuses the bombs pretty quickly – honestly, at this point he’s barely even following Mick’s directions, he’s just ripping them apart with his bare hands, but it still works pretty well – and then turns around and zips after Mick, only slowing down when he’s in the tunnel directly behind him so he can jog the rest of the distance like a normal person.

After all, if Mick saw him arrive in a burst of lightning, he’d probably be a little suspicious.

More than he’s already going to be, given that Barry’s clothing is kinda-maybe-sorta sizzling from how fast he was running and his sneakers’ heels are starting to melt a little bit from the friction.

Yeah. Definitely suspicious.

Which would be bad.

For…reasons that Barry will have to remind himself about later.

After all, if he's discovered, terrible things would clearly happen. Like, he might be blackmailed into helping support their fight for economic justice and against gentrification and there will be barbeque and sexy threesomes –

The secret identity thing is important. Barry has to remind himself of that.

But at least it's clear that Barry’s supervillains are obviously the best.

Oliver’s gonna be so jealous.

Not that Oliver’s going to get told about this whole disaster of a day. Ever.

Barry’s just going to...convince everyone in Central City to take a vow of silence about it. Forever.

Yeah.

That’ll work.

It's not like the media would pay all that much attention to a jailbreak from the middle of the CCPD headquarters –

Oh god, Oliver already knows.

Barry is so doomed.

But first they have to make sure that Cold isn’t.

Barry runs down the rest of the tunnel at his best attempt to mimic a more normal speed, which ends up being a sort of half-jog, half- skip sort of thing because if he actually tries to run he goes straight into lightning mode and wow he really needs to work on that, but one way or another he ends up catching up with Mick.

“Get ‘em all?” Mick asks when he sees him, and Barry nods. “Good.”

Oh, good, he doesn’t question why Barry’s there so fast or why he's skip-jogging instead of running. Secret intact! Barry mentally pats himself on the back. He’s doing great.

That’s when they both hear a blast.

“Bomb?” Barry asks, eyes wide.

“No,” Mick says grimly. “That was more like a truck hitting a wall real fast.”

A truck, yeah. Or a person.

Mr. Banana – it’s actually kinda funny how quickly Barry picked up that moniker, given that he’s called him ‘the man in yellow’ for years on end and Cisco has been campaigning to get ‘Reverse Flash’ in as the guy’s official nickname – is springing his trap for Cold.

For Len.

Damnit, Barry, if you’re going to sleep with them, you really ought to call them by their first names, not their supervillain names.

…okay, apparently at some point in this whole mess, Barry’s subconscious has decided he’s up for it if they are.

Which they wouldn’t be if they knew he was the Flash. Their nemesis. Their archrival. Their superhero enemy.

Well. You know, there's actually a chance that they still would; they did have all that discussion about the Flash being really attractive earlier, so maybe – but no, it would never come up, because Barry wouldn’t be able to tell them or else they’d know his secret identity and –

Wow, this is so horribly inappropriate to be thinking about when Mr. Banana is planning to kill Len.

Barry can barely force himself to stop from flashing forward and yelling “don’t you dare touch my (prospective) boyfriend (out of two) you bastard!” or something stupid like that if Mr. Banana is there.

Uh, boyfriend’s probably a bit premature, and that’s not even the biggest thing wrong with that sentence.

What is wrong with him?

(Answer: his libido. Clearly.)

And that’s when Mick barrels out of a tunnel and onto some rubble, Barry right behind him, and, shit, Mr. Banana is there, vibrating too fast to focus the way Barry can, and Len is on the ground just like Mom had been – oh God no, not again – and the Man in Yellow is saying something that Barry can’t hear through the roaring in his ears, and Barry’s shouting “No!” futilely because even at Flash speeds he won’t be able to get there in time to stop what’s going to happen because he’s just not fast enough and then –

Uh.

And then –

Okay, and then Barry’s brain needs to go reset itself because suddenly the Man in Yellow (Mr. Banana, Barry reminds himself) has a bright red lacey bra hanging on his head and he looks vaguely stupefied about it.

This may be the only instance in which Barry sympathizes with the bastard.

To reiterate: what just happened?!

It’s not the only piece of underwear, either; the next thing that happens is that someone, somewhere, manages to pitch what appears to be a pair of booty shorts composed about 90% of shiny pink sequins right at Mr. Banana’s face, followed by something involving bright blue tassels but not a lot of fabric otherwise.

Superspeed reflexes or no superspeed reflexes, Mr. Banana immediately drops all attempts at murdering Len in favor of batting the increasing shower of various pieces of underwear away from him.

“What in the world..?” he demands, sounding absolutely baffled.

Barry kind of agrees. Not going to lie.

“You know,” Len drawls from where he’s sitting on the ground, “this here’s union territory. You really ought to be careful about who you try to knock off; they take that personally.”

“Union?!” Mr. Banana exclaims. “What union?”

“Oh my god,” Barry says. It can’t be.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mick says flatly, briefly shutting his eyes as if that could make what’s happening stop happening by sheer force of willpower.

But nope, it’s happening.

There they are, appearing on all of the rooftops and in the alleys and all around.

Leonard Snart’s goddamn hooker union.

Barry bursts out laughing.

And not just laughing, full on belly-slapping, howling and hollering, tears streaming down your face laughing.

He can’t help it.

It’s just –

Do you know how hard it is to be scared of someone, even if it is someone who murdered your mother, framed your father, and traumatized you for life, when they have a set of red-white-and-blue flag-themed undies hanging off one of their lightning-shaped ear-spikes?

Also: how did it not occur to Barry how dumb those look? Man, he is seriously going to have to have a talk with Cisco about a few redesigns.

Mr. Banana twists around to stare at where Mick and Barry are standing.

Barry’s making hooting monkey noises again, he just knows it, but he can’t help it.

This is just so dumb.

This is the dumbest thing that has ever happened.

They’re literally just throwing underwear at him and he's paralyzed.

The great Man in Yellow, defeated by shiny stripper underwear.

Obviously the Flash needs to turn in his superhero card because this is clearly a superior crime-fighting method.

Maybe he should consider adopting it.

Oh, oh, and the underwear could have little lightning bolts on it -

Nope, now Barry’s laughing even harder.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mick says again, and his voice is still disbelieving.

Barry glances at him, still trying to keep from strangling himself laughing.

“It’s a pun. That fucker.”

“What?” Barry manages to choke out.

“Mr. Banana,” Mick says, and he looks up at the sky as if asking for help. “You said he calls himself the Reverse Flash, right? He wants to be the enemy of the Flash? And Len stopped him –”

That’s when Barry gets it and he has to cover his face because no. No. Len didn’t.

He did.

“– with a flash mob,” Mick finishes.

“I really hate the fact that I’m gonna sleep with that guy,” Barry says, aiming for a meme-appropriate despondent tone but probably not making it anywhere near because he’s still giggling.

“I feel you,” Mick groans. “What’s worse, I actually found that funny.”

Yeah, Barry too.

“I’m gonna suggest you get the hell off our turf,” one of the ladies (Barry is not calling her a hooker!) says.

“How did he even get all of you to come here?” Mr. Banana asks, absolutely bemused.

Someone sling-shots something sparkly at him. Barry’s not even going to try to figure out what it is, but there’s even less fabric involved than the thing with the tassels.

“Standing up for each other’s what a union does,” the lead lady says smugly. “Time for you to go now.”

She’s got something in her hands.

A phone, actually.

“And how do you plan to make me?” Mr. Banana snaps. He sounds angry.

No, he sounds pissed off, and that’s almost enough to get Barry to stop sniggering uncontrollably, because he knows how dangerous he is, but every time Mr. Banana spins around, the flag-colored underwear flaps around behind him like a little waving flag and yep, there Barry goes losing it again.

(Mr. Banana keeps glaring at him about it, too, which for some reason keeps setting Barry off again. He looks so offended, even through the blurring.)

“Clearly you don’t understand. I could kill each and every one of you in the time it takes to blink,” Mr. Banana continues, glaring at all of them. “And there’s nothing any of you can do to stop me! There’s no weapon fast enough!”

“Think the Flash might object to that,” Mick says.

“He’s not fast enough to stop me,” Mr. Banana scoffs.

Barry bites his lip, his laughter fading.

That’s true. He’s not fast enough. It’s on him, because if only he were faster –

No, wait. Len had been very clear, earlier, that the Flash’s weakness (Barry’s weakness) was that he kept playing into people’s expectations. He’d even proposed that Mr. Banana was setting up this whole trap to make Barry have to run faster.

It wasn’t that, of course, the aim of the trap was Len, not Barry.

…wasn’t it?

Mr. Banana could’ve killed Len a dozen times over before Mick and Barry got there, given how slow they were moving, but he didn’t.

Think, Barry, think.

He wants you to run faster. That’s why he taunted you – he wanted you set up the trap with the bait so that he could escape. He was playing you then, he’s probably playing you now.

He’s jealous of Len being your rival, just like Mick deduced.

So why not kill Len efficiently? Unless -

Mr. Banana wants Barry to see this.

But – why?

“You might be able to kill us,” the lead lady says with a sniff. “But we’ve got you on camera – on a lot of cameras, now – and we’re going to bring down the whole of Central City on your head.”

“Central City,” Len adds helpfully. “Not the Flash. Hell, there’s that army base outta town that’s been real into speedsters recently; I bet they’d be into helping out. And all the Flash’ll have to do is sit back and wait. Wouldn’t even have to take the time to fight you himself.”

Mr. Banana looks even more pissed off by that.

“You’re not gonna be much of a rival for the Flash,” Mick observes, “if he never even bothers to fight you.”

“Yeah,” Barry says. Oddly, Mr. Banana seems to be avoiding looking in Barry’s direction now that he’s no longer laughing, even though Barry knows he knows who Barry is. Almost like he doesn’t want Barry to look at his face too hard or something. “Not much of a rival at all.”

Mr. Banana looks super angry.

Mick is definitely right about him.

“The Flash will come out to fight me,” he boasts, but he’s looking around at all those cameras, scowling. Seems pretty clear he doesn’t want this to be made public yet.

Barry figures out what he’s going to do a second before he does it, but there’s no time to stop him and no way to stop him, not without speeding up himself and revealing himself in front of all those people – and he can’t do that, not with Joe and Iris and everyone depending on him –

He hesitates.

Mr. Banana flashes off, zipping around the square and grabbing all the phones. Barry’s the only one who can see fast enough to see what he’s doing, but it’s okay: he doesn’t hurt anyone, just grabs the phones. His restraint is weird, but Barry’s not going to complain, not when people aren’t dying.

But by the time he’s back in his original position, smirking, phones gathered in his arms, Len’s gotten his gun back and Mr. Banana steps right into a beam of frozen light that ices over his feet up to the knees.

Heh.

“If Len smashes him to pieces after freezing him, would that make him a Banana Split?” Barry loudly asks Mick, who groans.

“You’re goddamn perfect for him and he’s going to be so disappointed if you turn down his little offer,” Mick grumbles back even as he leads the way forward, gun pointed at Mr. Banana. “You know that, right?”

“He’s not going to say no,” Len calls back, grinning like a maniac; just as Barry had intended, he’d heard Barry’s question.

Mr. Banana is making a disgusted face, so he clearly also heard what Barry said.

Maybe he’s judging himself for setting himself up as Barry’s nemesis now or something.

Clearly, Len and Mick are a better class of villain.

So there, Mr. Banana!

But Mr. Banana kicks his way out of Len’s ice pretty easily – how does he know how to do all of this stuff?! – and stepping forward.

“Your stupid puns aren’t going to save you,” he sneers, ignoring Barry entirely. “And neither is your ice.”

“Cold,” Len says, sounding annoyed. “Not ice.”

Mr. Banana rolls his eyes. “Your cold won’t save you.”

“How about gold then?” a female voice drawls from behind him.

Barry looks.

There’s a vaguely familiar-looking woman there, brunette, in a slick leather jacket with gold chains, and she’s pointing what is a very recognizably Cisco Ramon created gun, colored dark yellow this time, right at Mr. Banana.

And, much to his surprise, Cisco and Caitlin are standing right next to her.

Well, to be fair, they’re slightly behind her, but that’s fair. She’s the one holding the gun.

She looks really familiar for some reason, but Barry’s pretty sure he’s never seen her before.

“Hey, sis,” Len says, sounding pleased.

Oh.

That’s why.

Dear god, there’s two of them.

[threezoz]

Yes, it's the same picture. Does it count as a painting if there's no brushes involved? It's all ink and my dip pen and like smudging with a finger... *shrug* I'm liking the effects, haven't really got the hang of directing the smudges so much but meh. 

This is for Pink been a long time coming, promised something ages ago.