#redbubble is a dumpster fire but it's a USEFUL dumpster fire

[bruciewayne]

[3/7] 6 times Steve Rogers met the Avengers

and the one time he got introduced to them

read on ao3

masterpost

part of the shrinkyclinks roommate 'verse

Steve only worked at the coffee shop three days a week, maybe four if someone called in sick, he used to work pretty much every day when he was in college but now, his commissions were picking up, more people were buying stuff from his redbubble and most importantly, he was getting picked up for another comic run.

But he doubted he would ever fully stop coming to the ‘shop, he’d been coming there ever since he was in highschool, when they still had a jukebox (they threw it out after him and his friend John played ‘what’s new pussycat’ seven times), he got hired, fired and then rehired on his first day, halfway into junior year of highschool because Angie was sick of him and John dicking around - she’d written out all the papers for each and every time, Steve had a wall at his mom’s place where he’d stuck up all the papers from the times he’s gotten fired and then rehired over the years.

But maybe his favourite part of working at the ‘shop were the customers, and holy hell, he’s had some strange and outright bizarre customer interactions.

They closed pretty late, midnight on most days, one am on Fridays and Saturdays, which meant that past around 10 pm, the only people who came in were college kids, insomniacs or drunk, or all three of the above.

The college kids stuck out in the way pretty much all college kids stick out - the energy of a ninety-year-old on their deathbed in the body of a millenial, most of them bought whatever had the highest concentration of caffeine and stayed in the ‘shop for a couple hours. They let them use the Comfort Cupboard in the back because most of them were on the verge of tears a lot of the time. The drunks were the loudest and got kicked out the fastest and sent to the diner down the block. The insomniacs were regulars that Steve sometimes chats with for an hour-ish if he gets the graveyard shift. They were his second favourite type of customer.

His absolute favourite type of customer is Clint Barton.

He usually brings his dog, Lucky if Angie’s in a good mood (her good mood levels are inversely proportional to the amount of drunk people they got that day) and sometimes Kate his… protegé? Something like that, the Hawkeye version of Spider-Man.

Clint was his favourite customer because he always had a completely ridiculous story that he told either a) completely unprompted or b) when Steve would say a particular word or move in a specific way that would remind him of something that happened anywhere between five minutes ago to years and years back, even some from his days in the circus.

As a result of this, Steve had so much more information about the Avengers than he could ever need and it was wonderful - apparently Natasha like trashy superhero movies and Thor wore lingerie for Bruce.

Today, he had the afternoon shift on a Saturday so it was relatively quiet, only two college kids - the Arts, judging by the fact that everything they had was slightly paint stained, there had been a couple on a date around half an hour ago that had not ended well, but, thankfully, no drinks were poured on anybody. Steve was all for pouring beverages of more/less-than-optimal temperatures on deserving people, but he hated cleaning it. They’d had to install a ‘please take fights outside’ sign after 13 consecutive days of people pouring drinks very deliberately on others.

Steve was flicking through his emails when Clint Barton burst through the doors, dragging a well dressed, blind, going by the cane and the glasses, behind him. They were both covered in the remnants of trash - as a guy who used to get thrown into dumpsters and trash cans on a fairly regular basis, Steve can recognise the… je ne sais quoi of a person who’s recently taken a dive into a dumpster.

Steve dug around in a drawer under the counter for the deodorant he kept for Clint because that man got thrown into dumpsters an alarming amount, and that was coming from a guy who was openly and outspoken in high school - he still was to be fair.

He tossed the can to Clint, muttering “Show off,” under his breath when he deftly caught it with his left hand - which had Peppa Pig plasters on three out of five fingers, must be a good day. The suit guy turned to Clint and said, “If he keeps deo for you then you’re the bigger mess,” and then he turned to Steve grinned and asked, “two of your biggest coffees please, he’s paying.”

Clint spluttered and looked at the guy in disbelief after leaning over the counter to put the deodorant back, “You’re the one who was trespassing in my dumpster-”

“You’re an Avenger!”

“You’re a lawyer!”

“I get paid in pie!”

“I wanna get paid in pie,” Clint whined, to Steve who decided that now was probably a good time to intervene.

“Clint, you do not need to get paid in pie, it’s the state of New York’s dumpster, not yours-”

“I can’t believe that you’re taking his side in this, he’s a lawyer, Steve, a lawyer,” Clint said, dramatically draping himself over the counter. Steve snorted and shoved him off, wiping down the counter, “People get served food here, I’m half convinced to get Angie to ban you permanently.”

Clint immediately straightened up, “You’re my favourite barista?” he said, hopefully, pressing an obnoxious kiss to his cheek and declaring that he loved him when he handed them their coffees. Steve laughed and vigorously rubbed his cheek with his hand where Clint had kissed him, “I’m taken, you should have left him in the dumpster,” he said, directing the last part to Mr. Lawyer.

“Yeah,” he sighed dejectedly, taking a sip of his coffee, “I have so many regrets.”

[katherine-montalto]

Some Highlights from September 2018.

Zines I’ve been really getting into making zines. I first started making zines in the 1990s, learning about them from the pages of Sassy magazine. They had a “zines of the month” column and I would write letters to other teen-aged girls across the country making zines requesting a copy of their zine usually swapping for a copy of one I made myself. From those zines I learned about other zines and zine distros which is how my zine ended up in Sarah Dyer’s Zine Collection. She donated this collection to the Duke University Library sometime in the last few years. So this not-very-good zine I made in middle school is being saved for posterity in a public collection.

My latest zines are better, not sure if that makes them ‘good’ or not but you can see what I’ve been working on here. There are zines of poetry, art, and fiction.

Writing Workshops Fall seems to be a good time for writing workshops as quite a few publications and writers organizations I follow are having them. I’ve recently participated in two online workshops with One Story, Hit Submit: Sending Your Work to Magazines, Residencies, and Agents and Lost & Found: A New Way of Looking at Plot. I’m also signed up for some local workshops with Writing Workshops Detroit, Turbo-Powered Narratives: A Master Class and This Must Be the Place: Developing Setting in Fiction

Mastodon Social media can really be a dumpster fire. I’ve deleted accounts on more than one occasion after being fed up with it all. Sometimes I come back, like with twitter and instagram, but sometimes I’m gone for good like with that toilet, facebook. I’d say I’m most active on twitter, instagram, and tumblr but I post on other places like Mastodon and google+ to reach people who might prefer other sites. I just learned that google is discontinuing google+. I’m trying to be more active on mastodon but am still finding it confusing. I felt that way about twitter too when I first started using it. Any way follow me there.

Library Apps After racking up charges using bookbub for ebooks, those $1.99 charges add up quickly, I downloaded two library apps Hoopla and Libby. So far I’ve been enjoying the audiobook feature as audiobooks are really expensive. Hoopla also has music, movies, tv, and comics. I haven’t tried those features yet but they look pretty cool.

Inktober I’m participating in Inktober for the second year in row. Check out my efforts from last year.

Art of September  Amara in Color is my newest effort in digital painting.

Here is my sketchbook for the month of September.

Here are the line art portraits for the month of September.

My favorite Thought Portal posts of September.

Liza Minnelli and Alice Cooper tell the same story.

This is the best short story I read in September.

This poem made me think of war and weapons and pollution and capitalism.

When you feel all warm and fuzzy by not patronizing companies you deem to be bad, do you ever stop to think about the workers at those companies and how they need those jobs. Maybe support them instead. Ps, there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Spiders terrorize a town.

Don’t engage with holocaust deniers.

Read this in Julia Sugarbaker’s voice and remember that many of the kinds of female characters you get to see in movies and TV are chosen by abusive men who hate women.

In honor of inktober the Featured Redbubble Item this month is: A Couple of Wavy Lines from the Patterns Series.