#warning this is long

[plothooksinc]

For NRFTW prompts; this may or may not be a bit of a stretch since it's outside of the POVs in the original fic, but I'd just love to see what happened when April's parents were at Run of the Mill. I think it would be really funny to see Senior Hueso getting increasingly more exasperated.

Either that, or seeing the dinner that was promised at the end of NRFTW. I do always love me some found family fluff.

Honestly, both would be great, but even seeing just one of those would absolutely make my day.

You're in luck, actually! I chose Hueso, but the prompter after you asked for the dinner |D so I guess I'll write that next!

Fair warning for this: I do not know Spanish. I have thus used it sparingly. If anyone else knows Spanish and I have it wrong, please tell me and I will course correct.

They were closed.  They’d been closed for days, but the announcement that the lockdown was officially over had been just a few hours ago, and so perhaps it was lucky that Hueso had decided to check in on his beloved restaurant to see if it had survived the surface invasion intact.  He had high hopes, given its highly secretive entrance to the mundane world, but he also needed to take inventory of his kitchen because the lockdown had been unexpected, to say the least, and some of his more delicate ingredients would not have survived a four day absence of care.

Perhaps it was also lucky that Hop had come with him, lured by the promise of double pay, to help him clean out the pantry and set any issues to rights.  Because when the yokai popped into existence in the middle of his dining room—complete with two shell-shocked, dark-skinned humans—Hueso himself was not at ground zero.  And he was not their first impression.  And a fluffy, wide-eyed black and white rabbit yokai was perhaps less terrifying to two panicked humans than a skeleton in a fedora.  Hueso was not convinced that, had he been the first point of contact, the woman would not have tried to run him through with her knife.  

For all the good it would do her.  But… details.

Instead, he bolted out of the kitchen to the sound of multiple screams, stopping short at the counter to see Hop on the floor with both arms over his head, his feet thumping a pattern on the ground—and a woman breathing hard in a pair of blue jeans and an orange shirt and dark, wild curly hair that reminded him of someone else.  He couldn’t work out if the man holding onto her shoulders was cowering or merely holding her back, they both seemed so terrified, but at least the knife in the woman’s hands wasn’t actually in use.  Held in a death grip, maybe, but—

Mayhem, he did recognise.  Because the traitorous little yokai hopped from the woman’s shoulder onto his counter, stared at him pointedly, and then vanished. 

Which drew all attention in the room his way. 

And if the screaming had been loud before…

For a moment, he considered turning on his heel and walking back into the kitchen, locking the door behind him.  It was so tempting. But he had a duty of care to Hop, and he should probably… do something about the humans in his Yokai Only (With One Exception) establishment.

“I’ll thank you to stop yelling,” he said irritably.  “Nobody is going to hurt you.  You will perhaps tell me why you are here, yes?”

The knife swung in his direction, the woman’s expression fierce, and Hop took the opportunity to scoot away from the couple, jamming himself into the corner instead.  Hueso sighed.  “No trust.  Senora, this is a pizzeria, not a death trap.  That’s next door.  If you put the knife down and take a seat, I will fetch you some soothing tea and you can explain to me why you have appeared without warning when we are closed.”

The woman blinked at him, and then her gaze travelled across the menu boards behind him, and her eyes widened.  Thankfully, she finally lowered the knife. 

“…Run of the Mill?” she said, sounding dazed.  “I know this place.”

He stiffened.  “How so?”

“My daughter... orders from here?”

Ah.  That would be why she looked so familiar to him, then.  Hueso adjusted his fedora and graciously kept his sigh to himself.  “Your daughter has good taste.  In pizza, if not in company.”  That was mostly a lie; the boys weren’t that bad, but he wasn’t about to admit that.  “However, she is not here today, and so my question still stands.  Why did Mayhem bring you to my closed establishment?”

“Oh, good,” the man at her back murmured, and he smiled in a way that suggested he was not, in fact, happy at all.  “April and Mayhem have both been here before.  Isn’t that great, honey?  Hmm?”

“Wait, that’s not important,” said the woman—Mrs O’Neil, he would assume until told otherwise.  To his great annoyance, she swung the knife up again.  “You have to send us back.  We left her there, you took us away—“

“I took you nowhere,” Hueso snapped, both from impatience and the realisation that something untoward had possibly happened.  He just wanted to check on his restaurant, but apparently that was not in the cards today.  “If you listened, I said the furry creature with you—“

“Mayhem,” Mr O’Neil muttered.  “I think that’s right.  The… nice skeleton man is just as surprised as we are.”

His fingers squeezed into her shoulders, and she lowered the knife again.  Hueso raised an eyebrow at her, wondering if she’d just threaten him again in a moment—she seemed the type.  But Mrs O’Neil looked tired, and had begun to shake.  Definitely something terrible had happened.  Besides their sudden appearance here.

Now, he did sigh.

“Hop, go home,” he said wearily.  “I will pay you until the end of the evening as promised.  The two of you, please.  Sit down.”

---------

Hop was a good kitchen hand but otherwise terribly anxious and hadn’t needed to be told twice to leave; by the time Hueso came back from the kitchen with tea, he was gone.  Hueso eyed the corner where he’d squished himself in case the woman had somehow gone crazy in his absence, but there was no sign of violence and the couple was now sitting at the corner booth, though they both seemed as rigid as corpses.  It was as if they were expecting the booth to come alive and eat them whole.  (He… would refrain about joking about that sort of thing.  They might actually believe him.  And one day, it might not actually be a joke, given some of his clientele.) 

The knife sat on the table with the blade facing away from the edge.  It was as close to a truce as he suspected they could manage, and he placed the tray on the table, amused as they stared at it suspiciously. 

“You will be reassured to note my tea is a mundane herb for soothing the nerves and likely something you are familiar with,” he said blandly.  “Just as I’m sure you are already familiar with pizza.  This is a normal restaurant, for all intents and purposes.”

They didn’t need to know about the delicate ingredients.  Not unless he decided he didn’t like them.  The jury was still out; for one thing, the knife.  The yelling.  His restaurant being closed.  But on the other side of the equation, they were related to April, who had thus far been a surprisingly tolerable human guest. 

They were also traumatized, and once he listened to their slightly incoherent attempts to tell him what had happened—tripping over each other in their haste to talk about alien zombie creatures—he realised Mayhem had brought them here to save their lives.  He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.  Surely, there were other places Mayhem would consider safer than a yokai restaurant.

Well.  Small mercy that at least the dining room had not been open at the time.

Mrs O’Neil took a sniff of her tea with a cautious face, and then pulled back in surprise.  “Chamomile?”

“And a touch of honey.”

“Oh.  I wouldn’t have thought—“

“I can assure you, Senora, that many yokai tastes run quite similarly to those of humans.  Like pizza, for example.  Consider that you are sitting in a pizzeria.”

The look she gave him was actually irritated.  “I was going to say it’s weird to find chamomile in a pizzeria.”

“…ah.”  Well.  Perhaps, when she wasn’t panicking, she was a reasonable woman.  He tipped his hat.  “My apologies.  It is actually a blend for my own personal use.”

“Why are you Spanish?” Mr O’Neil asked abruptly, and Hueso stared. 

“…I beg your pardon?”

“Hon,” his wife said tiredly, “You can’t just go around asking random skeletons why they’re Spanish—“

“It’s a valid question,” he insisted, but his expression was sheepish.  “You said yokai.  Yokai are Japanese in origin.”

“In origin,” Hueso repeated back pointedly.  “A very, very long time ago.  It is an adopted term for many of us.  Your daughter has been consorting with yokai for more than a year now; I am surprised to find the two of you so ignorant.”

“…she what.”

…ah. 

Well, if April was going to send her parents to him, what was he meant to assume?  Hueso rubbed his fingers against his skull, trying not to hold it against them when they flinched at the click of his knuckles.

“Let’s start over.”

--------

Their first cup of tea settled their nerves enough that they thanked him politely for his hospitality, though Hueso noted tiredly their gratitude came with shell-shocked expressions, and he wondered how much of this they would retain later.  The woman asked him if April had friends here—while her husband tried for the fourth time to call his daughter—and Hueso gave a faint shrug.  He may have only a slight regret about accidentally throwing April under the bus, but Frankie’s daughter and the turtle boys were another story.  Now that he knew how little they knew, it was time to keep his distance:  he left them to continue their phone calls and vanished into the kitchen.

He was just putting a pizza into the oven when his kitchen door slammed open, and Hueso ground his teeth at the sight of Mrs O’Neil bursting into his kitchen looking upset all over again. 

“Senora—“

“You don’t have a front door,” she said shrilly.  “Why don’t you have a front door?”

Ah.  They’d tried to leave.  He could understand this particular panic, and he straightened.  “Senora, this is a non-human establishment.  As such, there is no door that any casual tourist can just walk through.  Imagine the upset.”  He raised an eyebrow.  “Imagine if they all had knives.”

“They wouldn’t be carrying knives!”

“That is… reassuring?”

Her mouth opened and closed, and then she ran a hand down her face, face suddenly so tired.  “Guns.  They’d be carrying guns.”

“Less reassuring.  Also an odd tangent.” He blinked.  “This may be a strange question given the circumstances, but are you—“

“I’m fine,” she muttered.  “I was trying to protest and then I realised you had a point.”

“Gracias.”

“No, but—sorry for bursting into your kitchen—“

“And again.”

“—but we really need to leave.”  Her hands twisted into her shirt.  “April isn’t answering her phone and we’ve tried, we’ve tried a lot, we’ve left messages, and we left her there and there are zombies, can you please let us out?  There’s another way to leave, right?”

There was, of course.   There were three ways out, and he wasn’t particularly inclined to show her any of them for a variety of reasons.  First and foremost was the safety and privacy of his family and his livelihood.  The O’Neils seemed like decent people, but they were still human and he’d only just met them.  Giving them the mystical keys to get in and out of his restaurant—or allowing them to see where it was in New York—was not something he was willing to commit to just yet. 

Another reason, of course, was plain common sense.

“Senora, the little furry yokai brought you here for a reason,” he said gently.  “Did April ask him to bring you?”

“Yes,” she said heavily.  “But—“

“Then you didn’t leave her there.  She made you go.  And most likely for the reason that she can hold her own far better when she does not have to worry about you as well.”  He’d never seen April fight, but he knew the company she kept.  It stood to reason.  “Though I am curious as to why she sent you to my restaurant.”

“She told Mayhem to take us somewhere safe.” 

“Ah.”  Then this was a choice of Mayhem’s.  The next time the little yokai came in, they were going to have words.  Or at least… pointed stares.  “You seem to be quite familiar with Mayhem, at least.”

“We knew he wasn’t, uh, quite a cat or a dog.  And there are mutants out there,” she said awkwardly.  “I figured he was a mutant animal of some kind, but… yokai, huh?”

He relaxed a little, leaning back against the counter.  “You do not have a problem with mutants?”

“Well, I don’t know any, except for—well, no.” She folded her arms.  “If Mayhem’s a yokai, then I’ve never met one.  But they’re just people, right?”

A good attitude to have.  He raised an eyebrow.  “As are yokai.  But you drew a knife on my kitchen hand.”

She had the grace to look sheepish—for all of half a second before she straightened against the door, ticking off points on her fingers, voice incredibly polite.  “First, I already had the knife out because I was under attack by zombies.  Second, I’ve never teleported in my life, and switching out a zombie for a sudden furry rabbit guy didn’t do wonders for my anxiety.  I didn’t stab him.  I would have stabbed a zombie.”

“I am glad you are such a discerning knife wielder,” he said dryly, and was rewarded with the small upward tick of her mouth.  Ah.  He was beginning to like her.

“I’m sorry I frightened him, though.”

“I will pass on your apology.” He tapped his finger on the edge of the oven.  “Senora, I know you wish to leave, and I do not wish to spite you.  But I feel it is best that you stay here for the moment.  Your daughter…” He hesitated, but he’d already thrown April under the bus once, and he doubted very much her parents would still remain ignorant after this evening regardless.  “I imagine she already has much experience in dealing with such issues.  One assumes she knows where you are and will come to collect you.”

She was quiet a long moment, dark eyes sizing him up, and the faint smile faded.  “And if I insist?”

“Then I would think you are remarkably foolish.”

“But would you keep us here?”

He sighed, throwing a hand in the air with some impatience.  “I am not a jailer.  I will find some way of returning you home.”  He just—didn’t really want to.  But Hueso wasn’t about to take a pair of humans prisoner, either.  “Consider this also, however:  by the time you return home, it will be too late regardless.  Your apartment is some distance from here.”

She blinked.  “You know where we live?”

“Your daughter orders from us,” he reminded her.

“…are your delivery boys also yokai?”

“Girls, actually.  And yes.”  Cloaked for the outside world, but nevertheless.

“…huh.”

It was a thoughtful huh, and she sagged against the wall, running a hand through her hair.  It made the curls stand up at awkward, frizzed angles, and he suspected his heated kitchen was doing her no favours.  “What do you suggest?”

He gestured toward the oven.  “Sit and recover yourselves.  Have a meal.  It’s likely either Mayhem or your daughter will come looking for you.  Honour April’s attempt to keep you safe and stay safe.  If she still cannot be reached—“

Mrs O’Neil straightened suddenly, cutting him off.  “Do you know who Donnie is?”

That…was unexpected. 

He stared at her, mouth open for a moment, before he clicked his jaw shut.  “Out of curiosity, why do you ask?”

“Before we left,” she said steadily.  “She was yelling at him over her—uh, watch.  I think she was asking for help.  We can’t reach her on the phone, so—“

Ah.  This he could work with, and he wished it had come up sooner.  But he could hardly blame them for the stresses of the evening.  Perhaps he could help more directly after all.

“Donnie is a customer of mine,” he said.  “Go back to your seat, Senora.  I do not have his number, but I do have his brother’s.  I will try and reach him for you.”

---------

Leonardo was not picking up his phone. 

This was somewhat surprising, as Hueso had a long history of having to grit his teeth when calling the boy, because his reaction was always, always over-enthusiastic and immediate and what’s up, Bone Man? and I knew I was your favourite and sometimes he wished that he had Raphael’s number instead, but Leo had insisted they were ‘mejor amigos’ (and Hueso regretted answering his questions on various Spanish words) and he was the one who forced his phone into Hueso’s face first. 

He left a message.  It was simple.  The situation was too complex for more.

Pepino.  Call me.  Immediately.

Surprising, but when he thought about it, if the boys were at April’s apartment dealing with an apparent zombie situation (zombies?  Really?  Not that he doubted the O’Neils, but zombies?) they were perhaps too busy for phone calls.  He fetched the pizza from the oven and carved it up into slices.  Only Mrs O’Neil was at the booth, looking even more frazzled and now exhausted, but she looked up as he slid the pizza onto the table on its wooden platter.

Then she peered at the pizza with the sudden interest of a woman who has just remembered she is starving, and she reached forward for a slice immediately.  “Wait, is this—“

“Spicy chicken.  Extra sauce.”

“How did you know?”

“We have had this conversation three times now,” he said with amusement, and she huffed a small laugh.  “Again—“

“My daughter orders from you, yeah, I got it.”

“And I know what her favourite is when she eats here.  I had to assume this one was either your favourite or your husband’s.”  He paused.  “Where is he, by the way?”

“Oh… he went to find your restroom.”  She took a bite and leaned back, pointing across the room, speaking with her mouth full.  “An’ got distracted on t’way back.”

That could be alarming.  His restroom was perfectly average, but the hallway down to it was lined with multiple artworks and posters and news articles that were largely from the Hidden City.  Including a picture of April with Sunita and Frankie, which he hoped very much that the man did not see.  He was fresh out of explanations he desired to give.

Fortunately, it seemed Mr O’Neil had been distracted by something much more mundane, if more important to Hueso than the contents of the hallway combined.  He was stooped by the model ship on its stand, eyeing it with obvious delight, and Hueso decided that perhaps both of April’s parents were not, in fact, bad people.

“I have left a message,” he told Mrs O’Neil.  “Donnie is… very much a foolish teenager, but he and his brothers are more than adequate to help your daughter deal with any trouble.  It won’t be long.”  (He wasn’t used to calling the boy Donnie, but it was wise not to give her even more information.  Hueso was a restaurant owner big on confidentiality and wished to stay in his lane.  April could deal with that tangle.)

She swallowed before answering this time.  “Thank you.  Uh…”

And she glanced back at the signs on the counter as if looking for inspiration, and that’s when he realised he hadn’t introduced himself. 

“You can call me Senor Hueso.”

She mouthed something for a brief moment—he suspected it was bone from the confused look on her face—and then she smiled tiredly. 

“Carol O’Neil.  My husband’s name is August.”

“A pleasure.”

Well.  That was stretching it.  But they could certainly be worse company.

---------

Leonardo still wasn’t answering his phone.

---------

“You speak Spanish?”

“Si, Senor.  August too, but not as fluently.”

“He is still looking at my ship.”

“He loves boats.  Or ships.  Whichever.  He has a collection at home.”

“Ah.  Is he a sailor?”

“Not since he was a teenager.  You?”

“For a while.  Then I decided to turn my gaze towards more…. legitimate business.”

“Oh.  What, were you a, uh.  Smuggler?”

“Not quite.”

“…you weren’t a, um…”

“Pirate?  Yes.”

“Oh!   I was thinking something more… skeletal.”

“…Senora.  I assure you that I am not now, nor have I ever been… Santa Muerte.  A ‘Grim Reaper’.”

“I guess that was a stupid question.”

“A little, yes.”

“…”

“…”

“…wait.  Piracy?”

“Of course.  I obtain media illegally all the time.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.  Really?”

“No.”

---------

It had been hours.  Now he was worried. 

He would deny it for the rest of his bony life, of course. 

---------

The O’Neils had passed from shock to exhausted complacency back to a growing urgency the more time passed, and Hueso found himself wishing Leonardo did not know portal magic, because then he would perhaps have an address for delivery that he could pay a visit to.  April was not answering her phone. Leonardo was not answering his.  Mayhem had failed to reappear.  Something had clearly gone amiss and, aside from the humans growing more agitated in his dining room, Hueso’s mind was filling with terrible images of dead teenagers.  Or zombie teenagers, or—

They were good customers.  They paid well.  That was his only concern.

(He was lying to himself.)

The chamomile tea had been swapped out for spirits; just enough to settle nerves, because he wasn’t about to have two agitated and drunk humans on his premises.  As it was, they were both back at the table, Carol tapping an uneven rhythm on the table with her fingers and beginning to stare off into the middle distance, and August kept glancing between Hueso and the walls of his establishment.  Perhaps he was wondering whether there was a secret door he could find if he looked hard enough.  Unless he suddenly developed mystic vision, unlikely.

Their growing fear was perfectly understandable.  He felt a little like he was harmonizing with them.  Hueso leaned against his counter, tapping at his phone, and sighed.

“Ten minutes,” he said quietly.  “I will call again.  If I hear nothing…”

…if he heard nothing, he did not know what to do.  Did he just blindfold them until he could turn them out onto the street, let them go scurrying back home to a potentially tragic scene?  He pondered visiting the apartment himself, but there was precious little point to it; not this late in the game.  He’d left his swashbuckling days well behind him in any case.

“Ten minutes and we leave,” Carol said flatly, knuckles whitening as she curled her hands on the table.  “One way or another.”

Hueso gritted his teeth for a moment, fighting back a withering response.  She was within her rights, and he had already said he would not be a jailer.  There was very little else he could do about the situation, and it frustrated him.

Leonardo needed to call back right now and make a terrible joke at him, so he could yell at him for his terrible sense of humour and his terrible Spanish and for worrying April’s parents, and then he could wash his hands of the whole thing and go home to sleep in relief.  (He thought perhaps that if they called back now he might even make them pizza on the house.)

“Ten minutes,” he said, voice quiet.  “And then I will escort you off the premises and wish you the best.  But give me ten minutes.”

Carol sagged against the table and gave him a watery smile.

---------

Ten minutes later the youngest turtle answered the phone, sounding breathless and cautious, and Senor Hueso thanked every god who might be listening, leaned against the counter, and tried not to panic that it was the wrong turtle. 

“Michelangelo.  Where is Pepino?”  He saw the O’Neils straighten out of the corner of his eye, turning toward him with hopeful faces. 

“Yeah, sorry, Senor Hueso!  He’s not allowed to have his phone right now, kind of doctor’s orders.”

“He is concussed?”  His alarm rose.  “Did the zombies hurt him?”

“Zom--?  Oh!  No!  No, he wasn’t there for that, this was, uh, earlier.”  Mikey was quiet for a moment, then spoke even more brightly, but Hueso could hear the strain underlying it.  “He’s okay, promise!   Just gotta rest up, that’s all.  Do you want me to take a message for you?”

Earlier probably meant during the invasion itself, and many people were hurt in the upper city—he wondered now if he should have perhaps reached out to Leonardo and his family to offer them sanctuary on the other side of the lockdown.  There was nothing he could do about it now, so he moved on, trying to keep his voice level.  “No.  If he is hurt, leave him be.  Please tell me you know where April O’Neil is.”

“…yeees?”  He sounded confused.  “Why would you—OMIGOSH.”  Hueso jerked the phone away from his ear.  “And you know about the zombies.  Are the O’Neils with you?”

“They are here, yes,” he snapped.  “And they are very stressed and eating me out of house and home.”

He heard August protest softly from across the room.  “Hey, now—“

“Oh, don’t be like that, you big softy.”  The strain was gone from Mikey’s voice.  Now he just sounded utterly relieved.  “No way you didn’t just feed them yourself out of the goodness of your bones.  But that’s great!  We didn’t know where Mayhem had taken them, April’s been really worried.”

“She is safe?”

“Safe and sound.”

He glanced over to the O’Neils and gave them a slight nod, and then turned away again as Carol gave a small, aborted sob.  “Then if you please, Michelangelo, put her on the line?  I will hand the phone over to Mr O’Neil.”

“You got it, BM.”

August was already standing, a hand on his wife’s shoulder.  Hueso handed him the phone.

Then he vanished back into his kitchen, shutting the door behind him and eyeing the oven and what ingredients he had.  Pizza; nothing fancy given they were closed, but if he wasn’t mistaken, he was about to have more guests.  And baking them would give him something to do far, far away from the two humans currently having a breakdown in his front room.

Soon, they would all be gone and he could go home and things would return back to some version of normal. 

(The only thing he was relieved about, of course.)

---------

April arrived via ostentatious pink portal, bruised and scuffed and accompanied by the Hidden City’s Most Wanted and promptly threw herself into her parents’ arms, both of whom seemed far too overjoyed to see her to remark on the way she arrived and the company she was keeping.

Hueso stared at Draxum. 

Draxum stared back, arms folded. 

Hueso dumped a stack of pizza boxes on the counter and sidled off to his hallway while the joyous reunion was happening (“Baby, your face!”), and carefully yanked a Wanted poster off the wall, crumpling it in one hand. 

There was quiet for a moment.  And then he heard Carol, voice heavy with disbelief. 

“Barry?”

“Hello, Carol.”  Draxum was extremely casual, examining his knuckles.

“But you—but he--you used a—you’re our neighbour!”

Dios mio.  Hueso would pretend he never heard that.  Instead, he strolled back up, rumpled paper carefully shoved into a pocket.  “Carol, please do not tell me you somehow thought he was human.”

“I could pass for human,” Draxum grumbled.

“Ah, yes, because human legs all bend the wrong way like that.”

“Yeah, okay, enough,” April interrupted, voice small, still latched onto her father as Carol examined her bandaged nose.  “Mom, uh, I’m guessing we really need to talk, so—“

“You do, and I would like to sleep,” Hueso said, shoving his stack of carefully prepared pizzas into Draxum’s empty arms.  To his credit, the caprid yokai merely took them with a long-suffering look and then promptly used them to hide his face.  “And I am so done with revelations tonight.  Please have any further life-changing conversations somewhere that is not my restaurant.  We are, after all, closed.”

April grinned tiredly at him.  “Sorry.  But thanks, Senor Hueso.  I appreciate it, I know it was…a lot.”

Ah.  Well.  He softened, just a little.  “You are welcome. Just do not make a habit of either visiting after hours or zombie attacks.”

“Thaaat, I think we can do.”

“So you say,” Draxum muttered dryly, and then glared as April kicked him in the shin.

“None of that, Barry.  C’mon, Portal Express.  Can you take us to, uh, Central Park?”

“If I must.”

“Wait,” August interrupted, eyeing the portal that was still open with no small amount of nerves.  “Do we have to go through that?”

Whatever the answer was, Hueso didn’t care to hear it.  He swept into the kitchen and snapped the door shut behind him decisively, wiping down the counters.  He didn’t care if Draxum bodily dragged them through the portal at this point; he just wanted to return to the quiet evening he had been looking forward to before all this.

That being said, he would admit to himself he was glad that everyone had turned out to be okay.  Well.  Minus Leonardo, who was apparently hurt badly enough that he wasn’t allowed to have his phone this many days after the invasion.  But Michelangelo said he would be fine—

He paused in his cleaning to dash a quick text off to the boy, and then finished closing down his kitchen in peace.

---------

BoneMan: Pepino.  When you are entirely done lazing around, please call.  You still owe me a shift for the restaurant damage, you can’t get out of it that easily.

He might care a little.

---------

(He returned to the dining room later to wipe down the table and found a folded serviette with words scrawled on it in what looked like lipstick, and he flipped it over to read.

Thank you for everything.  We’ll tell no one.

- Carol

Well.

They seemed like decent people.  Perhaps he would see them again.)

[kensatou]

"i would know her by reformed body alone... i would know her in death"

also... there's official art

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[tomb-of-madeline]

The Bird Daughters. A comic about a bird woman and her dreams. made in the spring of 2023.

[comicaurora]

how do you infinite scroller webcomic people DO IT

[cookinguptales]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[kyra45]

Scammer pretending to be in Palestine v2

This post has been remade with better info! Please go to this one:

Got an ask from someone claiming to be in Palestine needing mutual aid? Unfortunately there is a scammer going around and it’s likely the ask you got sent is the same one being sent by multiple accounts who target users interacting with Palestine posts. These blogs use the text/images off a real fundraiser and then post it here pretending to be the person it’s made for. Their accounts are usually only a few days old and they don’t interact beyond the ask/follow. Lately they might make the link to their PayPal account in different colors or claim their GoFundMe is pending so you will assume the real one is theirs. They don’t have any GoFundMe’s set up. They steal from them. If you need proof of something being stolen, searching the text of their post in a search engine should pull up the source. If you know how to report PayPal accounts, please report those used by the scammers.

(Moved to new list)

Below is a growing list of fake/stolen names used across the accounts:

Nour Samar | maryline lucy | Fred Odhiambo | Jeff Owino | Valentine Nakuti | Conslata Obwanga | JACINTA SITATI | David Okoth | Martín Mutugi | Daudi Likuyani | William Ngonyo | Fred Agy | George Ochieng | BONFACE ODHIAMBO | Sila Keli | John Chacha | benson komen | Alvin Omondi | Jacinta Sitati | Daudi Likuyani | Noah Keter | Faith Joram | Rawan AbuMahady (any PayPal’s using this name are scammers who have stolen it off a real GoFundMe. The real person does not have a PayPal account that they post on tumblr.) | Asnet Wangila | Remmy Cheptau

Keep in mind this post isn’t saying all accounts asking for mutual aid in Palestine are scams. Rather, this post is meant to bring awareness of a scammer stealing money from those who really need it by pretending to be a person in Palestine. To report scams, use this:

Report -> Something else -> Illegal uses or Content -> Phishing

[parisoonic]

Demo has had many careers - tattoo artist isn't one of them.

[tardxsblues]

Because you and Mr. Fell don't ever talk to each other. We talk all the time. We've been talking for millions of years. Bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla. I say something brilliant, and he says something unintentionally funny back. It's great. You never say what you're really thinking.

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[mita-vittua-olivia]

was about to go to sleep, remembered this parallel. rip hammer you will always be famous

[amaranthsynthesis]

First morning wake up after the nautiloid crash and there are still many questions to be answered. Not by Ballard, though! He doesn't know shit or remember fuck all! My man has the lowest possible intelligence stat without incurring a negative, and also there's holes in his brain.

Had the thought a ways back about the notes you find from Kressa in the Illithid Colony re: the dark urge strangling her with his own intestines. I'm not sure how he was healed from her experiments, if they scarred or how long the marks might last, but my policy is not to turn down shit about durge that's funny/deeply upsetting so here we are. This is the first time I've drawn Gale I think and I love him.

Also:

[supreme-leader-stoat]

[savanir]

DP x DC prompt [3]

during one of the final psych evals at Arkham right before he gets to be released, the whole thing wrapped up so tidy, just a little relapse which involved a robbery. Getting sent back to Arkham, but he got to stay at the asylum so long that he no longer has to serve a prison sentence, score!

But during that eval his overseeing psychiatrist recommended him to have a change of scenery, some fresh non polluted air.

Riddler was rather convinced the guy was making this recommendation to everyone in Arkham in their own weird way to convince them to just leave Gotham and become someone else's problem. should he notify Batman about it somehow? nah, it’ll be more interesting to see how this is gonna turn out in the long run.

But can he leave the state? Can he even leave the city? he never really bothered to look into it, at least not legally, up until now if he felt he needed to leave for one of his plans he just did it.

Turns out he can, it’s a whole hassle and a half though, first a judge and then a probation officer and he’s pretty sure both were like “what the hell is this psychiatrist guy thinking!?” but at the same time, shrink probably knows what he’s doing (WRONG) so he’s allowed to go visit out of state family or whatever.

he had to wear this nice ankle monitor though, Wayne Enterprises™ tech, not overly bulky but still very present. real fancy, and a fun extra challenge heh.

now as for a good reason to leave New Jersey he’s going to need distant relatives, and he finds some, great grandpa walker also has a son, who had a son who had a daughter Madeline, who married some guy Jack Fenton, and she lives somewhere out in the boonies Illinois. great he’ll visit her.

far enough away in all sense of the word that there is no way she knows anything about him. it would be best to call her first though, be polite about it.

“hello, you have reached Fenton works, this is Maddie speaking” 

“Riddle me this-” ah whoops, habit, oh whatever, “we don’t share parents, but certainly a part of your life, from laughter to strife. Who am I?”

there is a pause …  he’s going to be a bit disappointed if she hangs up if he’s honest.

“cousins~” comes the cheery reply.

“correct! the name is Edward Nygma, we are distantly related you and I and well-”

“oh you simply must come visit!” 

well this was rather easy, perhaps a little too easy, but she lives in the midwest so maybe just going with whatever some guy says over the phone is normal there? stranger danger not really a thing in a small town where everyone knows everyone?

things start to make a little more sense once he gets there and he’s starting to think some things might run in the family. like a preference for the colour green and weird hyperfixations and genius bordering on insanity. Though that remains to be seen, Jack does not seem like a very bright light after his very enthusiastic welcome.

their kids however are observant and sharp. young Jasmine is wasting no time trying to psychoanalyze him. and the boy, Danny, he had not really meant to and he swears he’s sticking with calling the kid Danny so he wouldn’t seem overly familiar, but he might have called him little bird a couple times now.

but that’s all whatever, he’s playing nice here. and he doesn’t even have to worry about his eccentricities tripping him up because this place is insane.

There actually is a local teen vigilante active but he seems about as loved as he’s disliked. and the ghost boy’s enemies are basically all his own kind, which another crazy thing to now know about. ghost. they are real actually, how is Gotham not completely overrun? and how do they even work? and where do they keep coming from?

Edward might be getting a little sidetracked here. He had fully intended to sneakily get his next big game plan underway all the way out here, ankle monitor be damned. but he hasn’t made any progress at all.

Instead he’s been listening to Madeline and Jack to maybe figure out what the deal is with these ectoplasmic entities, he has to know, at this point he might go crazier if he doesn’t. 

He’s making Jasmine promise him not to get her doctorate in Gotham, he’s going back and forth with space riddles with Danny.

so yeah the whole thing kinda just became a vacation, maybe the psychiatrist had the right idea after all? hmm nah, probably not. but this is fun. He’s thinking about recommending this place to some of the others.

It's different enough to get the vacation feel, but enough crazy shit happens to make it all feel like home.

it is not until Maddie wants to talk with him about potentially switching the position of godfather of Danny to him rather than some weird rich friend of theirs that Edward realizes he might have lost the plot somewhere

Apparently the little bird basically begged them with a powerpoint presentation on how he likes Edward so much more than that Vladimir guy. 

And honestly, the fellow sounds like a Dracula Lutho so even if it’s kinda sad Edward can understand why he’d be considered a better option. Even if the guy has more money and a huge company that makes him said money. And it’s not like the Fentons know about his Riddler activities.

Thinking it over, Edward does think that Danny would like Gotham and Wayne has that space program thing right? The kid is definitely smart enough for that (Nygma certified), and yeah Edward does quite like their space themed back and forth. So, fuck it, why not, what is the worst that could happen?

He doubts Maddie and Jack are gonna kick it any time soon anyway out here in the boonies, it’s just a title thing, a stamp of approval or something.

he should have known he was going to eat those words later… he had this whole beautifully elaborate trap set up for the whole Batclan, and he was just getting to the good part when his phone went off.

Had to put the whole thing on pause cause that particular contact wasn’t gonna get ignored. He did promise to be available.

If the whole thing he had planned now went tits up he could at the very least laugh later at the reactions of the bats as he told them to “hold up one second, I have to take this.” while they were all in various perilous positions. 

Sadly he did have to go, he had a very distressed godson to pick up.

[creoastra]

The lore behind this drawing is that I always ate up @/ectoblastic’s idea/au that after Danny moves in with Vlad in TUE, he raids his wine cabinet to cope which leads him extremely drunk and sick in the end (we’ve all been there tho 💔)

This is now the second detailed piece that includes a background where Danny is having a horrible time involving his own blood-ectoplasm situation that I’ve drawn.

[The first one that I made I ended up putting into the college portfolio that won me a scholarship of 72k to SAIC ;) ]

Elaborating on that tho, the scholarship was not actually enough for me to be able to afford to go to the school, so it’s not really the brag that I was trying to make it out to seem

Art college is so freaking expensive man. I ended up choosing to go to one instate just because the tuition is that cheaper

But my school starts in like two weeks and I have never been more excited!!!!! I can’t wait to actually go to art school!!! I’m gonna learn (hopefully lol) so much :33

I’ll post the original drawing eventually lolz, it’s not actually that good

[thedemonscrawler]

Read Chapter 12 Here!

The group is reunited, though tensions are a little high and trust has been worn thin. Everyone wants answers, but when the Daycare Attendant returns from Moon’s patrol, all they bring with them are more questions. Protocol. Programming. If the puzzle doesn’t make sense, are you sure you have the right pieces?

---

Ouugh, it's finally done! I sketched out this cover about a year ago, but their clasped hands gave me a ton of trouble and I shelved it-- until a couple of months ago, when I just banged out the hands and then kept rolling from there!

There's a decent bit of symbolism related to the chapter worked in here, as well as a lot of me learning how water works. Detail shots + textless versions below!