#well not Technically. i beat the game like three times and it kept crashing at the credits so im giving up for today :thumbsup: but i saw

[death2you]

just finished yakuza 0…

[theheavenlymoon]

A flower’s growth 🌸

I just realized that Hanako is technically a self-insert oc because I use her for more than just twst i-

Also, this is my number one resource https://camp-halfblood-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Hestia_Cabin

Its mentions one important thing that is critical in Hanako's back story. I'll show you the important thing but I recommend reading it all because its really interesting!

"i.e. Hestia takes some essence of a mortal man she takes a liking to and create her child by fire from the hearth with her essence fused to that mortal's. Hestia then proceeds to notify the father as she cannot raise the child." (13 in 'powers and traits')

Also to give you some visuals (I’ll explain the two boys later on)

So with that being said..let's👏talk👏trauma! More specifically Hanako's trauma.

(The writing style might change so just ignore it-)

WARNING: Suicidal thoughts

Virginal Goddesses like Hestia don't really have kids. Athena children are born from their mother's head. So how would a Hestia child be born? Let me explain.

A man caught Hestia's attention. He was compassionate and energetic and always tried to help when he could. Even though he had very little money, even though he had some hard times, he was still compassionate and that intrigued Hestia.

When he was more financial stable, Hestia decided to gift him a child. A perfect gift for a family man like him. Hestia took some of his essence and mixed it with her’s and with the help of some fire from the hearth, Hanako was born.

A small knock could be heard through the small house. Fumihito goes to open the door only for a baby to staring up at him while making cooing noises. Rapped in a purple blanket with flowers on it, the baby had a small name tag that said ‘Hanako’

“Welcome home Hanako.” The man said with a small smile

When Hanako was about 4, Fumihito married his best friend and moved to America. A few months later triplets were born. All of them being male. First is Kaji, Hinote, and Yakeru. Most people would think Hana would hate to have siblings, but it’s quite the opposite. Hanako was ecstatic to have siblings she could play with.

When she was told she was going to be a big sister and had to take her role seriously, that’s exactly what she did. She read the boys to sleep and keeped them entertained as best as she could. When they were a little older Hana liked to make them wear dress and have tea parties. In return she took part in everything the boys did. Sports, video games, music, art you name it she would try it at least once.

Hana grew in grace and compassion. She truly was a great balance between her parents. It was funny hearing advice that sounds like something a sage would give only for it to be a child talking. She was a bright, energetic girl and never could stay in one place for very long. She was very social and was friends with almost everyone in her school.

But some stories can’t always be fairytales and rainbows...

Hanako’s step-mother fell ill and passed away when she was about 10. Everyone was devastated but life doesn’t stop when people fall. So they didn’t either. Obviously they still mourned but they tried to have a positive outlook even though a family member is gone.

(Fast forward to where Hana is 11)

In the dead of night, when everyone was in a deep slumber, there’s a small crash. At the sound, Hana jerks up in a sweat. Call it intuition, but she had a horrible feeling something was going to go wrong.

She snuck into her brother’s rooms and hid them in a small closet in one of their rooms. As Hana was about to go wake her father she heard a noise. Hana turned around only to see a woman holding what look to be like a sword.

Without warning the woman grabbed Hana’s hair and threw her into a bookshelf. Hana let out a small shriek. The bookshelf itself was unstable and the added force made it fall. Luckily Hana was fast enough to move most of her body. Let’s just say her left leg wasn’t as lucky as her other limbs.

The woman had a feeling the father could come out any minute so she ran around the corner and waited for the perfect opportunity to strike

At the sudden noises that we’re going outside his room, Hana’s father slams the door open only to see Hana stuck under the unstable bookshelf.

In at state of panics he rushed over to her. “Hana are you alright?!?!” But Hana didn’t answer. She was to focused on the woman who was still behind the corner.

“I’m calling the police! Just hang on!” Fumihito yelled. After Fumihito called 911 he tried to move the bookshelf. While he was doing so the woman kept stalking closer. “DADDY LOOK OUT-“ but it was to late. In one swipe Fumihito’s head was cut clean off, his body falling limp right beside Hanako. No one in that neighborhood could ever forget the Bloodcurdling scream that came from Hanako’s house. Eyes wide with horror and despair Hana couldn’t keep her tears in.

Before the woman could do any more damage they heard police sirens. “We will meet again someday demigod.” And with that the woman disappeared.

After a full check of the house they concluded that only the children were left. Once they found Hana, nothing was left of the lively girl. After helping her get out from under the bookshelf the police immediately sent her to the hospital. The police told the triplets to pack stuff that was most important to them and follow the police. (The triplets also packed stuff for Hana as well. One of the things being a photo album of the family.)

The police concluded that the children didn’t have any other adults to care for them so they would have to be put in an orphanage. However there wasn’t an orphanage where they lived so they would have to be put in a new town.

It was hard adjusting to this new life. There was barely enough food for everyone, you had to share rooms with other kids. Hanako had to use crutches for a while until her leg healed. Her new school wasn’t that great either. Hana, not being as social as she once was, was bullied for being too quiet. Not to mention, no one had ever seen a kid with natural yellow eyes and violet hair.

From beating her almost to death, to threatening to cut her hair and gouge her eyes out because she was ‘too pretty’

On terms of Hana in general, she wasn’t acting like her normal self. She had gotten more reserved and became a cry baby. You could easily tell she had eye bags and her anxiety was always threatening to go through the roof. You can only assume those eye bags were because of nightmares from that night. She talked much quieter and always wore a frown with her eye brows scrunched in a worried way.

The other three were to young to understand what happened. The police had to lie to them saying “your dad is on a special trip right now.”

About 6 months later the triplets were adopted by a man who looked like he was the head of some company. Hana tried her best to run after them but the staff had to hold her back. All the while the three were screaming for her to come and save them.

What no one knew is that the triplets would be forced to become assassins. It’s not like they wanted to! The man said if they didn’t he would kill their sister! The night after the adoption they all made a promise to keep Hana safe no matter what.

So there Hana sat all alone on the swings of a play ground, with no one around to comfort her. Surrounded by people who have families and are happy. It’s like the universe was taunting her.

The only thing that didn’t change is her older sibling nature. Giving her food to the little ones. Playing dress up or soccer. Her smiles were always fake. Maybe to the blind eye she seems happy but some could easily tell she was anything but happy.

6 months later Hana finally gets her cast takin off. At this time Hanako is 12 and is at her breaking point. After another day of school, and another day of almost getting beat to death, something snaps inside of her.

(TRIGGER WARNING⚠️)

You have to understand, Hanako didn’t have anybody to talk to. Everyone was either to busy or didn’t bother to care. Which left her all by herself. It felt like she was trapped almost. No one there to listen or laugh with.

The scissors on her dresser looked quite tempting. The relief of not having to go through any more of this pain and loneliness was very appealing, but before she could touch them a huge gust of wind blew into her room. Taking the scissors away from her while she was distracted.

If that couldn’t work then running away would be the next best option. That night Hana packed her things (including the photo album) and drew out her plan. It was quite simple really.

She would skip school and go behind it, where a cliff is, to get a good view of where she could go from there.

After running around the school and into a forest, Hana reached a stream. Cupping some water to drink, Hana got caught up in how refreshing the water was. A snap of a branch snapped her out of her state and made her look around. That’s when she saw the manticore out of the corner of her eye.

Hana quickly got up and started backing away only to forget that there’s a cliff and slips. Plummeting to her presumed death tears start to seep out once again. Out of no where a boy that looks to be about 15, swoops in to save her, but the weirdest thing is that his shoes have wings on them, But she was to tired to care. So acting like she didn’t have a care in the world, she rapped her arms around him and snuggled into his neck.

The last thing she could make out was something like “ Let’s get out of here before that manticore decides it wants a 3 course Demi-god meal!” Or something like that.

When Hana woke up, she looked around and realized she was in an infirmary room. The same boy she saw was sleeping on the bed next to her. A knock on the door was heard, and in came girl who looked about the same age as the boy. “You two have been out for a while.” She said “I would’ve never suspected that a tiny demigod like you could cause so much trouble.” Hana looked confused “Do I know you? And what do you mean by demigod?” She asked.

The older girl let out a small chuckle before walking up an sitting next to Hana. “I’m Jane, daughter of Aphrodite! The reason why I called you a demigod is because, well... you’re half god half mortal.” The younger girl couldn’t believe her ears. “B-but how do we know I’m a demigod?” “Have you seen your other parent before? Can you never be in one place for to long? Those are all signs my dear, of course if you don’t believe me we can wait till your godly parent claims you as their kid.”

After that small encounter Jane took Hanako on a tour of where she’d be staying the whole summer. “W-why are we at a camp? And who was that boy w-who saved me?” The younger girl asked in a quiet voice. “This camp houses demigods, there a two from what everyone knows. One for Greek gods and one for Roman gods. The boy who saved you is my best friend Chase, he’s a child of Hermes! Speaking of Hermes, you’ll be staying in that cabin until your godly parent claims you.” The elder girl pointed at the Hermes cabin. “The gods have specific cabins for them and their children, and depending on your mom or dad you could end up housing with me or Chase.”

After the tour, there was dinner, after dinner it was time for everyone to sit around the big campfire. Everyone was laughing, talking, and telling stories. One kid asked Hana if she knew her godly parent yet, but before she could answer something flashed above her head.

The warm glow of a fireplace hung over her head. Everyone stopped talking, looking shocked. Hana was the first ever child of Hestia! From the back of all the campers you can hear someone yell “All hail Hanako! Daughter of Hestia!” And just like that everyone bowed.

After all that craziness, Hanako was escorted to her own cabin. She let out a small thank you before going inside. To her surprise there was a woman waiting inside, but this woman felt oddly familiar. Almost as if Hana saw her before! The woman turned around and said “We have quite a lot to catch up on, Hanako.” With a welcoming smile. Just like that Hana dropped her bag and ran to the woman. It didn’t take long to figure out that she was her godly parent.

That night the two girls talked and talked till midnight. That’s when Hestia tucked Hana into bed. For the first time in a year she finally felt happy, and that night she went to sleep wearing a smile. The next day Hana sat by a tree relaxing when suddenly two boy came out of nowhere! One had black hair, blue eyes, and he had some freckles on his nose. The other had light brown hair and cyan blue eyes and wore a black baseball hat.

“We h-heard you were the daughter of Hestia and w-we were w-wondering i-if you would like to-“ “What he’s trying to say, is that we wondering if you to be friends!” The brunette interrupted. “A-are you sure you want a crybaby like me to be your friend??” The boys looked at each other and smiled (the brunette smiling more brighter and the blackette smile more small)

They nodded and reached out their hands to her’s. At first she hesitated but quickly grabbed their hands, afraid they might disappear. When she grabbed their hand it was like weights were lifted off her chest. She never realized until now, how important friends and family are until recently . “I’m Xavier and the dork with the freckles is Kai!” “I AM NOT A DORK!! I’m just not that great when it comes to ladies!” “Right, Right.” The brunette said sarcastically. “Anyway my godly parent is Hermes and Kai’s Mother is Athena!”

Maybe thing we’re starting to take a turn for the better.

Once she met those two Hanako started coming out of her shell more. She was still quiet and anxious but it isn’t as bad as before. Not to mention she gets more loud and energetic with Xavier and Kai around!

Hanako HATES libraries and bookshelf. She’ll go in a library if she has to, but she avoids them as best she can. If she’s ever in a vicinity of a bookshelf she’ll distance herself as much as possible. Let’s just say she gets very anxious and nervous when she around them.

If you ever asked about Hana’s past she would never be ashamed to tell you what happened. She isn’t happy about the events that took place but there’s nothing she can do about it know. So know matter what Hanako always tries to keep her head up high when it comes to her past.

(More visuals)

🌸Some side notes here🌸

(Don’t mind the last one’s eyes being blue. I was trying to decide if I wanted to stick with yellow or try something new-)

(I can go more into depth on Hanako’s two besties if anyone would be interested)

(I’m also thinking of reintroducing her because the first one is her in twst but she’s like that in every fandom basically. Obviously I won’t delete the first one I just wanna talk about everything she’s in and what her relations are to everyone!)

[calwrites]

The Illusion (pt 4)

Summary: The BAU is officially on the case, the outcome of which will probably decide the reader’s future with the FBI. The reader begins to realize that there’s more going on with this case than she thought and she can’t share with her team just yet.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x UA!Reader

Warnings: Umbrella Academy spoilers

Word count: 6.4k

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

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes as you entered the department store. Already, local officers were wandering around contaminating the crime scene. You had hoped that your team would beat you here, so you wouldn’t have to order the locals around. It always made you feel a little weird, especially when no one else from your team was at the scene.

After setting up a room at the station for your team, Hotch had called and told you to head over to the department store, where Morgan and Prentiss would meet you. You had a feeling that he was trying to stay away from you. You had questions about why you had gone from desk duty to being required to be in the field in less than 24 hours. Chances are Hotch didn’t have any answers, but he would have ideas. Ideas that it seemed he didn’t want to share with you.

“All right,” you called, making sure that you could be heard easily over all of the low chatter. Immediately, curious eyes were on you, wondering who the new woman was. You made yourself continue standing tall under their gaze. Luckily, you hadn’t changed since leaving Quantico, so you were still dressed professionally. Unfortunately, you hadn’t changed since leaving Quantico over 12 hours ago, and you probably looked a little worse for the wear. “I’m Agent Y/L/N with the FBI. Crime scene techs can keep taking pictures, but I need everyone else to get out. Carefully, please, so we don’t contaminate the crime scene any more.”

You could see some officers muttering amongst themselves. They were being a little slow to follow your orders. It was pushback that you were used to getting. Local officers often didn’t love the FBI showing up and telling them how to do their job. But it just so happened that in some cases they were doing their job wrong.

You were about to repeat your order when a loud voice behind you yelled, “You heard the agent. Get to it and get out.”

You allowed yourself a small smile as you turned to find Derek and Emily walking into the store. It was possibly that you had never been so relieved to hear Derek yelling before.

“You know, if you were going to drag us back here, you could have at least warned us. Imagine how much time we could have saved if we weren’t flying back and forth.” You rolled your eyes at Derek’s teasing, but a weight lifted off your chest at his words. At least for now, Derek was going to act like everything was normal. And if Derek was willing to ignore the whole super hero thing, chances were everyone else was too.

“Hey, I had no part in picking this case.”

“Oh, so you didn’t give the detective Hotch’s card and tell her to call if she wanted out help?” The heavy sarcasm in Emily’s voice made you grin, but you didn’t get a chance to answer before Detective Patch approached your group. She quickly shook hands with Derek and Emily.

“Detective Patch. Was all of that really necessary?”

“All of what?” Emily asked carefully. While it was usual to get some resistance from most of the local officers, the person who called the team in to help was usually pretty helpful, if not friendly. You weren’t surprised by Patch’s less than friendly demeanor. She struck you as a person who liked doing her job well on her own.

“That little display of power.” She gestured to the now mostly empty department store. Crime scene techs were still taking pictures, but the rest of the officers had cleared out.

“Detective, that was to make sure that no crucial piece of evidence gets destroyed because too many officers are stumbling around the crime scene.” Morgan raised his brows at Patch as he spoke. “We don’t play power games with officers that we’re supposed to be working with. We hope your guys will do the same. So, what do we have here?”

“Got a report of shots fired. So far, we don’t have anyone who’s seen anything. I’m not sure if this is even connected to the donut shop shootings, but I figured I’d check it out.”

“You were at another crime scene when you got the report of the shot here, right?” Patch shot you a look you couldn’t quite decipher. You could tell she was dying to ask why you were here.

“Yeah. I went by to question the tow truck driver from the donut shop, but he was dead when I got there.” For a moment, Patch looked tired and maybe a bit frazzled. This case was turning into more and more of a mystery. It was already stranger than most cases in the city were.

“Rossi and Reid are heading to that scene,” Derek told you. You tried to ignore the butterflies in your stomach at the mention of Reid’s name. You had to focus on the crime scene in front of you.

“I guess you should have listened to me earlier.” You and Patch both rolled your eyes at the voice coming from a few rows over. Derek and Emily, on the other hand, were immediately alert, quickly following the voice. Diego knelt on the ground, inspecting a bullet. Derek and Emily both looked over his leather outfit critically.

“I’m sorry. You are?”

Diego looked up at Derek. “You don’t recognize me? You crashed my father’s memorial. Got to see a pretty good show. I would’ve thought it’d be hard to forget.”

“But what are you doing here?”

“And do you seriously still not understand the chain of custody? If you touch it, I can’t use it.”

“Let me save you some time running ballistics,” Diego started like Morgan and Patch hadn’t said anything. “These nine millimeters haven’t been manufactured since-”

“1963. Odd. I know.” You tried not to smile at the exasperation in Patch’s voice, but it was nice finally having someone else be more over Diego than you usually were.

“They match the casings at the other scene?” Morgan asked. He took the bullet from Diego. “And, unless you’re a detective, you need to get out of here.”

“Y/N said I could be a consultant.” You started shaking your head before Diego had even finished his sentence. He tried to sling his arm around your shoulders, but you promptly pushed him away.

“I never said that.”

Diego ignored you. “What other scene?” He looked at Patch for the answer, most likely figuring that she was more likely to give him information than Morgan or Prentiss were.

“Ishmael’s Towing. The driver from the donut shop. I found him hanging from the ceiling.” Patch sighed. “I guess he must have known something after all.”

“Told you.” Diego sang.

Patch turned to look at your teammates. “There are other agents there, right?”

“That’s right. Between Rossi and Reid, hopefully they can find something useful.”

“I’m sure by now Pretty Boy has already read through any and all paperwork there. Maybe we’ll be lucky and he kept detailed accounts. Maybe a planner.”

“How did they get stuck going there?”  You tried hard to keep your voice level. “I can’t imagine Rossi would be happy going to a garage when it smells like burnt flesh.”

Derek laughed, shaking his head slightly. “Well it wasn’t his idea. He and Reid were supposed to meet you here, but Reid kept telling Prentiss and I that it wouldn’t be so bad at the garage. Smell is the weakest sense, so we’d be able to ignore the scent after a few minutes. Hotch told him that if that was true, then surely Reid wouldn’t mind going to the garage.”

“Poor Rossi.” You could imagine the scene perfectly in your head. Reid probably thought he was being encouraging. You were sure Rossi wasn’t very happy with him.

“Poor Reid. The kid looked like Hotch had taken away his puppy.”

“I think he wanted to see you.” You narrowed your eyes at Derek’s teasing, but you could feel your cheeks heating up. Luckily, Patch saved you.

“In the span of 24 hours, I’ve had attacks in three different places across town. Whoever this is, they’re not slowing down. That’s why I asked for the BAU’s help.” She paused, clenching her jaw slightly before turning to Diego. “And that’s why I’m also going to ask for your help, Diego. If you actually give a shit, and you have any fresh ideas.”

���What about the guy’s kid? From the donut shop?” Suddenly, Diego’s bravado was gone. The cocky smirk was replaced by a seriousness you hadn’t seen since you were seventeen. That’s how it had always gone. The second the mission was on, Diego stopped playing around.

“We have our technical analyst looking into extended family. Once they’re found, we’ll question them and, in case anyone goes after them, we’ll give them some protection,” Prentiss answered.

“I’m surprised she hasn’t already called. Something like finding children should be easy for Garcia. Plus, she’s always looking for an excuse to talk to the Derek Morgan.”

“Ha ha. Very funny, Y/N. I am going to call her though. Make sure she hasn’t found something, and Hotch just didn’t tell us yet.” Derek took out his phone and stepped a few feet away. You could see both Patch and Diego raise a brow at the flirtatious way Morgan spoke, but you ignored it. 

Instead, you took a careful look around the room. “They really didn’t care whether or not they trashed this place, did they?” 

Prentiss huffed in agreement. “Any security footage?”

“Nothing from in here. Outside cameras caught two shooters fleeing. Get this, they were wearing some creepy kids masks.”

“This town really is going to shit,” Diego sighed.

“Coming from the guy dressed in spandex.” Prentiss’s eyes once again looked critically over Diego’s outfit.

“It’s leather.”

“And don’t act like you didn’t wear an outfit like that in high school. I’ve seen your yearbook pictures, Prentiss.”

“All right. You guys go fill out your forms. I’m going to go catch these animals.” Diego paused as he walked to the doors, turning to look at Patch. “And Eudora, I do give a shit.”

“Let’s hope he does,” Emily mutters as Patch leaves you two. “If your brother does something to screw up this case, the brass are going to be all over you.”

You sighed, nodding slightly. You had figured as much. It would be best for you if this case was solved quickly and quietly.

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

You chewed your lip thoughtfully as you studied the crime scene pictures stuck to the board. The room that your team had been given at the police station was empty currently. Hotch and JJ were dealing with the press. Rossi and Reid were heading back from the garage where the tow truck driver had been found. Derek and Emily had gone to the medical examiner’s office to see the body of the tow truck driver. Based on the pictures in front of you, that wasn’t going to be a pleasant sight.

It was clear that the man had been tortured. He had severe cuts and bruising. Not to mention the electrocution. Placing the clamps on the man’s nipple to electrocute him was an...interesting choice the unsubs had made. 

You glanced outside into the bullpen to see Hotch and JJ talking to Patch and the other detective working the case. Beeman, you thought his name was. He was much more receptive to you than Patch was. It wasn’t that she was hostile, per say. It was more that you could tell that every time she looked at you, you could tell that she was assuming that you were going to behave just like Diego. You had kept yourself busy in the small room by looking over all of the information so that you didn’t have to talk to her.

As you watched, Rossi and Reid walked into the bullpen, making their way over to Hotch. After a few words, Reid looked up sharply in your direction. You looked away immediately when he caught your eye through the glass, feeling like a kid who got caught staring at their crush as your cheeks heated up.

You didn’t look up from your papers when the door opened, but you could tell that it was Spencer who sank into the seat next to you.

“So I was thinking that maybe, if you wanted to...I mean it might be a good idea if we, maybe-” The softness of Spencer’s voice pulled the corners of your mouth into a small smile. You looked up at him, watching how his hands moved as he continued to ramble nervously.

“Spencer, do you want to talk later today? About what happened yesterday?” Spencer looked at you gratefully and nodded.

“What happened yesterday?” The tone of Rossi’s voice made it obvious that he had his own suspicions. He, Hotch, and JJ took their own seats around the table. Hotch, of course, was pretending he hadn’t heard anything. JJ and Rossi, on the other hand, both wore victorious smiles. On many occasions, both of them had encouraged you to ask Spencer out.

“Garcia called when we were on our way back from the ME’s office.” For the second time that day, you thanked the timing of Derek Morgan. He and Prentiss walked into the room and took the last two chairs. “The bullets from the department store definitely match the bullets from the garage.”

“But not the bullets from the donut shop?” Rossi asked.

“No. All of the bullets found at the donut shop match guns found at the scene.” Hotch checked his notes. “Did Garcia run the prints found on the knife?”

“Yep. They don’t match the driver’s prints. And she ran them through all of our databases. The only match is the cold case that local PD told us about.”

Hotch looked at Prentiss for a moment, going over her words. “Tell her to run them again.”

“She already did. Multiple times. She said that she could try to get access to some international databases if we wanted her to check those.”

“That won’t be necessary for now.”

“Hotch, you should also know that Garcia said she can’t find any records of the driver having kids. He’s married. Wife lives in town. No kids though.”

Hotch nodded, but you could tell by the way his eyes shifted that he was stumped by this. “Might not have been his child. Maybe the child of a family friend. Morgan, you and Prentiss go interview the wife after we’re done here. Try to find out who the child is and whether her husband might have had any enemies.”

Your team was quiet for a few seconds. The case didn’t make much sense yet. You were still missing a few pieces. Hopefully, you could start figuring out the puzzle before more people died.

“Say the driver was the target,” Rossi began slowly, thinking off the top of his head. “Whoever’s after him sends a bunch of local goons to the donut shop. He manages to get away, but they find him at his garage. Then they torture him for information.”

“They probably killed him after he gave them the information they needed.” Derek threw his pen down onto the table. 

“Or after they realized he didn’t have the information they needed.” Your team looked at you in confusion. “The woman working at the donut shop said she heard the tow truck drive off before the shooting started.”

“She could have been misremembering.” You nodded slightly at Derek’s suggestion, but you didn’t agree. 

“Someone should head over there to interview her after this.”

“I’ll go,” you volunteered quickly after Hotch spoke. He hesitated a second too long before nodding. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but a room full of profilers definitely did. He didn’t want you out in the field. But was it because he didn’t trust you or was there another reason?

“Take Rossi.”

“Actually, Hotch, I was hoping to look over the file for the cold case. JJ and I were wondering if there might be anything in there that’s similar to this case.” Hotch missed the quick look of confusion that JJ shot at Rossi, who cut his eyes between you and Reid in response.

JJ’s brows raised in realization. “Yeah, we were hoping some fresh eyes might shed some light on the case.”

“Fine.” Hotch looked between you and Reid. You tried not to shift your body language in any way that might make him suggest something was going on between the two of you, but you immediately started overthinking it. Did you always sit so much closer to Reid than you did to whoever was on your other side? Was your head usually turned ever so slightly to face him more. “Reid, you go with Y/L/N.” Hotch turned his serious gaze to you. “Why do you think they weren’t after the driver?”

“Well, say the woman at the donut shop is misremembering when the car drove off, it still doesn’t make sense. Looking at the pictures of the driver, I wouldn’t think he would be able to fight off all of those men by himself. Were any of the wounds on the body gunshots?”

Derek shook his head. “No. The ME said there were no gunshot wounds. All of the wounds were made well after the attack at the donut shop.”

“And you’re right,” Emily said slowly. “There’s no way the driver could have overpowered all of those men.”

“So when the driver left there must have been someone else in there. Whoever that is was skilled enough to take out all of those guys. I doubt he did it without injuring himself though. Garcia should check hospitals for any gunshot wounds after the attack.”

“So then why torture the driver?”

“Maybe…” You were distracted from Prentiss’s question by your phone buzzing in your pocket. You dug it out quickly, but declined the call when you saw it was Allison. It was the third time she had called since you got to the station. You had sent her a quick text telling her you were busy, but apparently she didn’t care.

“Everything okay, Y/L/N?” You nodded quickly to Hotch, pocketing your phone once more.

“Fine.” You sighed as you thought over the situation quickly. “Maybe whoever killed the driver didn’t know that he wasn’t the target.”

“What do you mean?” Rossi asked, leaning back and steepling his fingers as he studied you.

“What if whoever killed the driver just assumed that he was the target? What if this is some sort of organized crime? Whoever is in charge hired some local goons to kill the target at the donut shop, but he kills them all and gets away. So they send in two new people, who are maybe the next tier up. All these people know is that the target was at the donut shop, but got away.”

“So they assume it was the tow truck driver, and then torture him for whatever information they’re after.”

You nodded at Morgan. “But then they realize that he’s not the target, so they kill him. I bet whoever they’re after was at the department store, but got away again.”

“There’s only video of two people leaving the store, though. Looks like a man and a woman.” Prentiss frowned at the picture in front of her. “And what’s with the weird masks?”

“Maybe the target knew another way out. The security system at the store wasn’t exactly top notch,” Rossi suggested.

“Do the masks mean anything to you, Y/L/N?” You looked up at Hotch in surprise. “Are they local mascots? Characters from a local business? Something like that?”

“I don’t recognize them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t mean something to the community. They could still be from a pizza place or a school. It’s not like I got to spend a lot of time at either of those places.”

For a second, it was like the wind had been sucked from the room. Everyone sat still, once again aware of how different your upbringing was. As your team had gotten into the groove of trying to work out his case, any of the remaining awkwardness had started to dissipate. Now, it was back in full force.

“We can ask local PD if they recognize the masks,” Rossi suggested after a second of silence.

“You know it’s common for children to be scared of people in masks. While most kids grow out of it with time, many adults are naturally unsettled when faced with strangers in masks. It’s one of the reasons so many horror movies feature villains wearing masks.”

“Good to know, Reid,” Derek muttered.

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

The bell rang clearly through the empty store as you and Spencer entered. The mess from the attack was gone, but the store was still devoid of customers. The door to the back swung open and an older woman came out.

“Hello,” she greeted cheerfully. “What can I get for you two?”

“We’re actually with the FBI.” The woman’s face fell as you and Spencer both flashed your badges. “I’m Doctor Reid and this is Agent Y/L/N.”

“You two are here to ask about the attack the other night.”

“We are.”

“I’ve already gone over it with both of the detectives. Do I really need to go through all of this again?”

“We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” you answered gently. “We’re trained to see things differently than local detectives. It would help us greatly if we could ask you some questions.” You could see that the woman was still unsure, so you put on your best smile and hopped on one of the stools. “And since we’re already here, we’ll go ahead and take two monster donuts.”

The woman’s eyes lit up as she looked over you once again. “You must be from around here. You didn’t even have to look at the menu to know that the monster donuts are the best donuts. Let me go grab your donuts and then we can talk.” With another smile, she disappeared into the back again.

“What exactly is a monster donut?” Spencer slowly sat on the stool next to you.

“When they mess up a donut, they decorate it to look like a monster instead of throwing it away.”

“So we’re paying for the misshapen donuts that no one would buy without a gimmick?”

“No.” You smiled sweetly at Spencer, watching in delight as his cheeks reddened. “You’re paying for the misshapen donuts. After all, the guy is supposed to pay for the first date.”

Spencer grinned at your teasing. “So this is a date? Here I thought we were on the clock.”

“We can multitask.” You took Spencer’s hand in yours, squeezing it slightly. The back door swung open again and you two sprang apart.

“Here we go. By the way, my name is Agnes.” She placed a plate in front of each of you. Grinning, you inspected the donuts.

“Oh I got Frankenstein. You know, my brother used to beg for a Frankenstein one whenever we came here. Lucky you, Reid. The vampires were always my favorite.”

“We can trade if you want.” You started shaking your head, but Spencer was already switching your plates. You tried to frown at him, but couldn’t stop the corners of your mouth from turning up.

Agnes’s eyes flicked between the two of you. “Well aren’t you two a lovely couple.” You and Spencer both sat up straighter, leaning away from each other slightly. This was still work. You couldn’t afford to do anything unprofessional right now. Spencer muttered something about not being a couple, but Agnes didn’t seem convinced.

“So can you take us through what happened that night?” Spencer seemed relieved that you interrupted his ramblings. He took a big bite of Frankenstein’s head as Agnes began to talk.

“It was a pretty slow night. Only the one man and his son. The man ordered an eclair. His son got coffee.”

“Decaf?” Spencer asked through another bite of the donut. Anges shook her head. “How old would you say the son was?”

“About 13, I’d guess. He seemed so serious though. Very mature for his age. He was wearing a school uniform, but not one that I recognized. I don’t see many private school kids in here. I remember thinking that they looked like an odd pair.”

“Odd how?”

“Well the boy looked perfectly put together. The man, on the other hand, looked a little dirty. Not that there’s anything wrong with getting a little dirty while you’re working. Heaven knows that I can work up a sweat making donuts all day.”

“All right, so you give the two of them the eclair and coffee. Then what do you do?”

“I went into the back to start getting ready to close. I figured I might as well call it a night once those two left. While I was back there, I heard a car start up outside. I looked out the window and saw the tow truck driving away. Then people started shooting. I hid under the desk until I thought it was safe to come out.”

“How much time would you say passed between when the truck drove away and the shooting started.”

“Oh not long. Less than a minute.”

Your phone buzzed in your pocket. You dug it out, ready to decline another call from Allison, but instead you were greeted with a text from Prentiss. Spencer met your eyes, waiting for you to talk.

“They’ve talked with the widow. The driver didn’t have any kids.” 

Just then, Spencer’s phone started ringing. “It’s Hotch. I’ll be right back.” You watched as Spencer quickly exited the donut shop before turning back to Agnes.

“That boy was not the driver’s son. Did you see him leave with the driver?” Agnes shook her head. “Can you describe him for me?”

“Dark hair. Maybe lighter eyes. I didn’t really look very closely to be honest. Very serious demeanor.” You nodded slightly and began to get up from your seat. It was unlikely that you would get anything else useful. Still, it had been nice to have another Griddy’s donut, you thought as you popped your last bit into your mouth. “Oh wait. There was something else. He had a tattoo on his wrist.”

Your blood ran cold. You looked at Agnes, trying to control your facial expression. “A tattoo?”

“Yes. It was an umbrella. I remember thinking it was strange that someone so young would have a tattoo. Is that helpful?”

Without thinking, you pushed yourself into her head. It was easy to find the memory of that night. And sitting there, at the corner of the bar, was Five. Blinking quickly, you exited her head as quickly as you had entered it.

Well it definitely made your life more difficult. “Yes. Thank you, ma’am. And thank you for the donuts. They were delicious.” You dropped some cash onto the counter and walked back outside.

“Did she have anything useful?” Spencer asked as you approached the SUV.

“No,” you replied without missing a beat. “Nothing she hadn’t already told Patch. What did Hotch want?”

“He wants us back at the station to start working on a geographic profile for the potential target. He thinks that if we can find the target, we’ll be able to find the unsubs.”

You nodded slightly before sliding into the driver’s seat. Without any hesitation, you began making your way back to the police station. 

Another car pulls into the parking lot as you’re pulling out. “At least she has some more customers coming,” you say, trying to ignore Spencer staring at you from the passenger seat. Finally, you glanced over, eyebrows raised in question.

“Sorry. It’s just a little weird seeing you here. I mean, it makes sense that you would be familiar with the city since you grew up here, but you didn’t need directions to the donut shop even though we ran into construction. It’s like you know the city off the back of your hand.”

“I do. We had to memorize the layout of the city as kids. We had to be able to come up with the quickest routes between any two points.”

“Oh. And here I thought I was weird for learning classical literature and theoretical physics as a kid.”

“We had to do that too.” Spencer didn’t respond. Instead, he looked through the window as you continued to drive. For a second, you almost looked into his head to see what he was thinking. It was almost second nature, like it had been in the donut shop.

You had to stop whatever was going on with you. It had been a mistake to come back to the city. It had been a mistake to agree to work on this case. You were regressing too much. Wanting to look in everyone’s head just because it would make your life easier. Putting your siblings above all else. You had just lied to Spencer for crying out loud. You should have told him about the tattoo. You should tell your team that Five was at the diner. That he’s probably the target.

But you can’t. You won’t. At least not yet. You have to talk to Five first. Because as much as you hate to admit it, saving the world is probably more important than solving this case. Even if that means you might lose your job.

All of this is running through your head as you pull up at the police station. Your phone buzzes again as you enter the bullpen. “You go ahead, Spence. I need to take this.” Spencer hesitates slightly, but you urge him on with a small smile. You accept the call. “What, Allison?”

“Y/N finally! Where are you?”

“Where am I? I’m at work. Now why do you keep calling me?”

“You have to come home. We’re having a family meeting.”

You run a rand through your hair, trying not to snap in the middle of the bullpen. “Allison, I am working. I can’t go back to the house right now. I’ll probably be by later, once we’re done for the night. I don’t even know if the team got me a hotel room, so I might be sleeping at the house.”

“Y/N, you have to come now. It’s about Mom.”

“About Mom?” you repeat. “Look, whatever it is, I’m sure she’s fine. Let her recharge or ask Pogo about it. I’m busy, so please stop calling. We’ll talk later.”

“Please, Y/N. Diego should be on his way to the police station. Just go with him so we can all talk about this.”

“Diego should be-” You turn sharply to look at the room your team is set up in. Sure enough, Diego is in there, gesturing wildly while Patch seemingly tries to get him out. You hand up on Allison, stuff your phone back in your pocket, and stomp over.

“Y/N, there you are,” Diego says when you walk in. The rest of your team takes in your stoic face and clenched fists without a comment. They know you’re pissed and they know better than to mess with you. “Come on. We need to go home.”

Diego tries to take your arm, but you grab his wrist before he can. “No, Diego, you need to go home. And you need to tell Allison to stop calling me. Because I don’t care about what she and Luther have to say.” Diego tried to get his wrist back as you dragged him out of the room, but to no avail.

“It’s about Mom. It’s serious.”

“I think whatever is going on with Mom can wait until later. She’s a robot. Now, leave me alone. I’m working on the case. You know, the one you’re supposed to be giving a shit about.”

Finally, you let go of Diego’s wrist. He looks at you for a minute and you wonder whether he’s going to try to pick you up and carry you back home. Instead, he shakes his head. “Fine. But if we make a decision that you don’t like, you can’t complain.”

“Ok fine. Goodbye, Diego.” You watch as he stalks out of the police station. You groan into your hands before turning back to the room. Cases were so much easier before your family was involved.

Without looking at anyone, you drop into a seat in between Morgan and JJ. It’s quiet for a moment before Hotch speaks. “Is everything okay, Y/L/N?”

“Everything’s fine.” You push yourself up to look at your boss. “Sorry about him. Diego has no boundaries, professional or personal. He’s also just a general pain in the ass.” If you aren’t mistaken, there’s the littlest movement of Hotch’s mouth. It’s probably the most you’ve ever been able to make him smile.

“So I know that we should pretend like we didn’t hear that, but did you say that your mom is a robot?” You turn to JJ, who’s trying not to smile. However, she can’t help herself when you nod, grinning back at her. “Ok, once this case is over I’m going to need to know more about that.”

“Until then, let’s go over what we just learned.” You sat up straighter, giving Hotch all of your attention. There’s an uneasy feeling in your stomach, reminding you that you have important information. You just need to talk to Five first.

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

“All right, everyone, let’s stop for the night. We’ll go back to the hotel, then come back fresh tomorrow.” Everyone groaned in relief as they began to gather their things to leave the station. You stood slowly, cracking your neck as you did. Next to you, Reid was doing the same thing. The two of you had been hunched over a map for most of the evening, trying to work out the geographical profile of the unsub’s target. It was easy to make yourself forget that it was Five you were profiling, though your breath caught every time you saw your house or the eyeball factory on the map. You just hoped that Spencer bought it every time you turned it into a yawn.

You hesitated for a moment, unsure whether you should follow them out to the SUVs or take your family’s car, which had been sitting at the station all day, back to the house. Spencer paused at the doorway, looking back at you, which caused Hotch to turn back too.

“Oh, Y/N, we couldn’t get you a room when we checked in. You can come with us to the hotel and try for yourself. Or I guess someone might be willing to share.” Spencer opened his mouth, most likely to volunteer his room. The two of you had shared rooms before when the local hotels didn’t have enough rooms for everyone to have their own, but you weren’t sure if it would be weird now that you two were kind of a thing.

“I’ll just go back to the house. My sister has been calling me all day, and I told her I’d be back tonight.” Right on cue, your phone started buzzing. “Speak of the devil,” you muttered as you answered your phone. “Hey, Allison, I was just-”

“Y/N, you have to get back quick. We were just attacked.”

“You were just attacked?” Your voice rose in alarm, drawing the attention of your team. They quickly returned to the room, watching you with concern. “What do you mean you were attacked? What happened?”

“We had a family meeting earlier and then afterwards some freaks in masks showed up and started shooting up the house.”

“Masks? Like creepy animal masks?” Your team’s eyes widened. They quickly began putting their stuff back down. It looked like it would be a longer night than any of you anticipated.

“Yeah some woman in a pink mask and a man in a blue one. We managed to fight them off.”

“Who’s ‘we’? Is everyone okay?”

“Me, Luther, Diego, and Vanya.”

You made a face before you could stop yourself. “You had a family meeting when half the team wasn’t there? But you included Vanya?”

Allison huffed on the other end of the line. “Yes, we included Vanya. Mom was her mom too. And you and Five wouldn’t come. Klaus was here for the meeting, but he’s gone.”

“He’s gone? Was he there when you were attacked?”

“No he probably left to go get high.”

You hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to let the matter of Klaus go. You’d know more once you got the house, you finally decided. You headed out the door, your team following close behind you. You stuttered for a moment as something Allison had said finally landed. “Did something happen to Mom?”

Your team glanced at you as everyone piled into the SUVs. Allison’s voice sounded small on the other end of the line. “What makes you say that?”

Answering a question with a question. She was deflecting. “Allison, what happened to Mom? You said that she was Vanya’s mom too. Past tense. She is our mom.” Your team was doing a good job acting like they weren’t listening, but you knew they noticed how your voice cracked with panic.

“They killed her. We don’t know what happened. We lost them for a few minutes.”

“They killed-they can’t have killed her. She’s a robot. No they can’t have just turned her off. It can’t just work like that.”

“It can, Y/N. And they did.”

You clenched your jaw, forcing the tears to stay back. “I’ll be there soon.” Without waiting for a reply, you ended the call. Your fingers moved restlessly as the drive continued, until Spencer took your hand in his. He gave you a comforting squeeze. Looking up at him, you managed a small smile before letting out a shaky breath. Whoever these masked freaks were, they were going to be sorry they had messed with your family. You would make sure of it.

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

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[crimsonbluemoon]

Kihorri’s Birthday Present: Daithi De Wildcat

OKAY SO FIRST OF ALL

Happy birthday @kihoori !!!! You are the best Owlbun ever and I’m so happy to have you in my life! And since you drew me pictures that made me cry for my birthday, I wrote you a little drabble to get back at you. Won’t make you cry, but it’s a storyline you wanted me to write so I figured I’d spoil it to you and give it to you. 

So again, happy birthday, and please enjoy! ^.^ 

Kihorri’s Birthday Present

Wildcat hadn’t wanted to know his ‘perfect match’. He was in the competition, yeah, but that was because he needed money. Marcel had urged him to enter the competition on a whim; they were looking for single people in the area, and Tyler definitely fit that part (Marcel’s word’s, not his own, and he’d shown his appreciation by throwing a gatorade at his head). Wildcat hadn’t expected a call back, nevermind an actual place on the show. He’d taken the chance, because it was free money and he wasn’t an idiot. So he had to go on weird dates and let a computer calculate his compatibility with a bunch of guys. He could handle that. A plan was formed; he’d come in, watch guys make complete fools of themselves, and then he’d get the cash money at the end. Maybe even get some entertainment out of it. 

But when he actually fell in love? Yeah, that wasn’t a part of the plan.

“It’s just a date, Tyler.” Vanoss rolled his eyes and leaned back on the couch, which was far too large for just the two of them to share. The living room held all twelve men on the show easily, but most of the other contestants were busy getting drunk or falling in love. While Scotty and Marcel (the first perfect match to be discovered by the group) made out in the kitchen over dinner, Smiity, Craig, and Ohm joked around a game of poker and shots. Wildcat was sure the others were scattered all over the home, but it wasn’t any of the people in the house that was causing his pissed off mood. 

“Why the fuck did your boyfriend choose Nogla and Moo for the date? Delirious is a fucking idiot, but even this is beyond his stupidity.” Vanoss flushed and kicked the side of his thigh before slumping back on the couch’s armrest. His hands shoved into the front of the sweatshirt, Evan burying his chin and scowl under the collar of the hoodie. Wildcat knew that technically, Jon and Vanoss hadn’t been paired up yet by Panda’s ‘Computer of truth’, but everyone had all but given up on trying to match with either of them. Vanoss was hopeless, Delirious oblivious, and Wildcat wanted to smash their faces together or drown them (depending on how close he was to the pool at that given moment). Some of the couples in the house were dumb, but these two were hopeless. 

“He was put on the spot after he won the challenge; you know Del’s mind ain’t good with quick decisions.” Vanoss defended Delirious, because of course he did. Wildcat made his feelings about the reply known by a snort and a roll of his eyes.

“Moo’s got a better chance finding water in the desert than matching Nogla.” 

“You know you keep doing that, right?” Vanoss’s tone changed, and Wildcat arched an eyebrow to dare him to continue. Surprisingly, Evan did, even if he sunk lower on the couch and sigh. “Any time any of us put Nogla on a date, you say they won’t match.” 

“What? No I don’t.” The loud groan that came out from Vanoss proved that he felt Tyler’s answer was dumb. 

“First time, we sent him out with Lui.”

“Have you seen the height difference? And the chaos is too imbalanced, neither keeps the grounded side of their stupid relationship-”

“Which is probably why the computer said they weren’t a match, and we moved on to Nogla and Brian-”

“Why, because they both speak like dumbasses? Neither one of them has a grip on reality, and they’d be spending their money in Las Vegas before the first date ended. I knew before they even got scanned they weren’t gonna be a match.” His critical assessment got a droll stare from Vanoss, who kept his judgement quiet because of the pizza slice he’d stuffed into his mouth. “Wait, when did you get-”

“And now-” Evan cut in, the cheese and dough muffling the voice. “We picked Moo. Who is well grounded, mature, will help Nogla’s impulsive nature.”

“Brock’s softer than a sneaker full of shit; he’s too kind for him to keep a steady leash on Nogla’s chaotic energy. I’m telling you, Moo is Terroriser’s match and y’all are gonna send Brian to jail for murdering the next guy who takes Brock out.” Tyler hated how little their group gave him credit for his intuition. He wasn’t buying the algorithms and stupid shit their host, Panda, had explained on the first episode. But he could pick up on human nature; Brock and Brian’s chemistry was soft, but powerful, except both men were just too hesitant to get rejected by the other to suggest they go on a date. Plus, they were already on two strikes each; one more strike and they’d be sent home without finding their Mr. Right. 

“I think Brian’s waiting to win one of the competitions so he can ask Brock.” It was cute, in a dumb kind of way, that Brian wanted to earn his date with Brock. Wildcat could respect that, in a way. He’d only been on one awkward date with Ohm the first week, which he was sure Smiity chose just to get Tyler back for eating his cheerios. Since then, Wildcat had glared at anyone who even looked his way during the ‘date decision’ part of the show, and his name had been kept off the chopping block. 

“Is that why Brian asked your soul-dork to a boxing match? To beat the shit out of the guy who beat him out of sheer luck and sent his lover away for the night?” Because Delirious should not have won their challenge that afternoon; since when did Delirious read? Did he even know how to? He couldn’t figure out the word ‘mountain’ on a good day. Yet he’d aced the trivia quiz about literature, stealing the last three points of the competition out of Brian’s hands when knowing the two men who were sent to kill Hamlet were named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (even Brock hadn’t know that, and he’s the nerd of all nerds). Vanoss had looked impressed, Terroriser pissed, and Wildcat just wanted to yell at Nogla for not knowing who wrote Harry Potter.   

“You know,” Vanoss drawled out slowly, tip-toeing around a subject that Wildcat wasn’t aware of. “Remember how we got split into two teams week three for our date challenge?” 

“Yeah, I got stuck with the fucking idiots.” He’d lost, because Scotty couldn’t figure out how to change oil for the car they’d had to tune up for the competition. Where Panda and the producers of the show got the stupid ideas of the challenges, Tyler didn’t want to know. 

“Panda spun the wheel for the first half of the date, which landed on Nogla. So we had to choose the other person.”

“I was literally right there, why are you-

“Lui wasn’t the group’s first date choice for Nogla.” Vanoss’s words pushed Wildcat away from the back of the couch, fighting with himself for only a moment before he caved.

“Then why the fuck did you pick him?” Wildcat snapped out, crossing his arms over his chest. Evan took time stretching his arms over his head, before letting them dangle over the armrest his head rested against. 

“Why is this my job?” Vanoss gripped into the air, but didn’t give Wildcat time to ask what he meant. “We had to choose Lui because the guy he’s meant to be with had made it quite clear he’s not going on another date.”

“You’re saying… wait.” Dumbfounded, Wildcat sat without words to reply with. Vanoss gave him a few seconds to try and rebuild his brain, then finally pushed to sit cross-legged on the sofa.

“We’re on week six, and you haven’t even stopped to think of why you hate Nogla being on dates with people?” 

“Because he’s an idiot,” Wildcat answered, uneasy when Vanoss shrugged his shoulders and smiled.  

“Or maybe cause he’s your idiot?” 

“Wh-what the fuck? Are you stupid? Why would he ever be-” 

“Nogla’s on two strikes, too.” The words stalled Tyler’s brain, Vanoss leaning to the side to snag another piece of pizza from the box he’d hidden under the table. “If we test him with Brock, and it’s wrong-”

“It will be wrong.”

“-then he’s gone.” Evan folded the pizza together, but kept his eyes focused on Wildcat. “You okay with that?” 

“Course I’m not!” His words came out before he could stop them, and Vanoss nodded like he already knew the answer.

“Wonder why that is.” Both men sat in the silence for different reasons. Evan because his mouth was full of pizza, and Tyler because the bottom was dropping out of his stomach. He couldn’t accept this. Sure, he knew there was a chance, because statistics and algorithms and all of that bullshit. But he’d thought he’d end up with someone softer. Someone who didn’t drive Tyler up the wall with his idiotic nature and weird laugh, his love of dogs and his kind smile whenever he was proud of one of the other guys. Not one who was optimistic about everything in life, made Wildcat’s ragged edges a little smoother, made him wanna just roll his eyes and laugh at all the random thoughts he spouted out at the weirdest time. But he was cute when he got angry at Tyler’s insults and the blush brightened his eyes if he was too tired-

“Oh.” Horror crashed through him, Wildcat slowly rising to his feet. “Oh no.” 

“Yup.” Vanoss didn’t even give him the dignity of looking up from his pizza when he finalized Tyler’s mental breakdown. 

“Fuck that.” Then Wildcat was gone, his panic pushing him down the stairs of the house. He could hear the cameraman chasing him, trying to keep track of his movements. But Tyler just didn’t care; he needed out of the house. 

“Wildcat?” Panda’s voice caught his ear when he pushed out the front door, feet feeling the wet grass because he’d left his shoes in the house. 

“Nope.”

“Where are you going?”

“Away.”

“You can’t just leave! Get back here.” The sound of Anthony moving after him made him walk faster, refusing to let his anxiety or feelings catch up with him.

“Nononononono-” Tyler shouted when he was tackled to the ground, his mouth filled with dirt and grass in seconds. He spit it out and flailed his body, trying to buck Panda off his back. But the host held strong as they rolled, garbled shouts and insults thrown back and forth between them. Panda’s elbow met his eye, while his own palm rocked the side of Anthony’s nose. They fought like school kids, Wildcat desperate to get away from the show and Panda refusing to let him budge. In the distance he could hear cheering from his castmates, and he knew Kryoz well enough to assume he was taking bets. If Vanoss didn’t bet on him, he swore to god-

“Woah, woah!” Moo’s voice caught Tyler’s ear, jerking his head up from the grass Panda was pushing it into to look at the new voice. Not because he wanted to see Brock, but because Wildcat knew who he was with. 

“Is that Panda? Is the host supposed to fight the contestants?” Nogla glanced between Anthony and Tyler, eyes round with curiosity and excitement. “Is Tyler winning?” 

“O-obviously,” Wildcat answered, despite his cheek fully planted into the ground. But he couldn’t really care at the moment; his heart was too busy trying to leap out of his chest to focus. Like a freight train, his emotions finally caught up with his body. Seeing Nogla after Vanoss’s revelation made Tyler realize the idiot wasn’t lying; the tension that’d spun around his spine from the moment Nogla and Moo left on their date finally unraveled. Panda bearing down on his back didn’t affect his breathing anymore; he was able to breathe smooth and easy. The pulse in his neck was going wild, and he’d never felt the desire to kiss and punch someone at the same time so badly.  

“Come on, up you go.” Brock helped pull Anthony up with a laugh, finally allowing Wildcat to push up into a seated position. It was second nature to cross his arms and glare at Panda, who showed his maturity by sticking out his tongue. But he looked proud of himself turning to chit chat with the filming the crew, because he had completed his mission. Wildcat was still at the house, stuck with his feelings and emotions and Nogla-

“Aw, jeeze, Tyler. Look at you, buddy.” Nogla’s goofy grin when he crouched down and rubbed his rough palm against Wildcat’s dirty cheek was overwhelming, Tyler frozen in his spot at the touch. Heat rushed his face, fingers twitching in the grass from the urge to touch the beanstalk gazing down at him in obvious amusement. “You’re a mess.” 

“Well whose fault is that?” Tyler snapped out, sure his cheek would burn off Nogla’s skin from the heat. Dumb as always, Nogla gave a owlish blink, tilting his head to the side curiously. 

“Eh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re my match, you idiot!” His mouth really needed to learn to take a fucking break. His chest heaved from the shout, hating how many eyes and cameras and lights were on them. He wanted to curse himself for making Nogla’s mouth drop open in surprise, proving he hadn’t a clue about their potential match. Which meant the idiot didn’t even see Tyler as a possibility, which was just a kick in the dick-

“Are ya making fun of me because I like you?” The question derailed Wildcat’s thoughts, and he stared at the slight pout that Nogla now wore. “Cause I already told the guys ye wouldn’t want a guy like me, so if this is some sorta bet or something…”

“Since when have you liked me? You never told me shit.” Tyler asked, and Nogla sighed with more annoyance than he should ever be allowed.

“Ya, obviously. Why would I wanna get rejected by my match?”

“Wait, you knew?” 

“Yup! First week, it was kind of obvious. I got all these butterflies looking at you, but nobody else. You’re weird and rude, and I like how funny you are when you make fun of the others.” Nogla scratched his temple with his free hand, the other still holding Wildcat’s face. “Don’t like it much when you do it to me, but I think that’s how you flirt so it’s okay cause you do it alot! Made me feel pretty special.”

“Jesus, what is my life?” Tyler’s shoulders deflated, but even with his irritation, he felt his heart lighten. Trying to cover his hint of a smile when noticing the cameras still watching them, Tyler huffed, rolling his eyes. “We’re going into the scan tonight; if we’re a match, the next date is ours.” 

“Fuck the rest of us, right?” Brian’s shout from the balcony of the house had the rest of the castmates laughing, and Tyler flipped him off long enough that he knew the editors were going to hate him. 

“Yeah! Let’s go on a date.” But when Nogla laughed and dived forward to tackle Tyler (despite Wildcat shouting in protest) onto the grass in a hug, Wildcat forgot the rest of the house. The show, the money, getting revenge of Panda- none of it mattered. 

Wildcat hadn’t wanted to find his match, but maybe he was okay that he did. 

And there ya go! Thank you very much, let me know what you think, and go say happy birthday to Kihorri! <3

[emy-loves-you]

Sanders Sides AU-gust Day 13: Rock Band

Patton is the most popular boy in school, yet he can’t get the attention of his three crushes. When he learns that they’re all starting a band together, he becomes determined to make their dreams come true. Patton POV, endgame LAMP 

TW: Use of homophobic slur

Day 12 | Masterlist | Day 14

Patton Picani liked to think that he had superpowers. He could sway almost any person to be kind with just a smile. He could ask one question and topple an entire social norm. He could transform a nobody into a somebody with just a few words. It was his superpower, the ability to effortlessly sway the masses.

The truth was… complicated. Or rather, it was a series of scenarios and lessons that gave Patton this ‘superpower.’ The people who gave them to him? His parents, Emile and Remy Picani.

Emile and Remy loved their son very much and taught them everything they knew. This wasn’t a bad thing; Patton soaked up the lessons like a sponge. But the parents each had different things to teach him. Emile taught Patton everything he knew as a therapist so he could avoid conflicts. How to tell what someone’s feeling, what to say when someone’s upset, etc. Remy taught Patton how to grow up in a world turned against him. How to tell the difference between real and fake friends, how to lie with a straight face, how to spot a bully, etc. Emile helped Patton be confident in expressing himself with pastel colors and skirts. Remy helped Patton never lose a game of poker. So before Patton even started elementary school, he knew how to use his ‘superpowers.’

Patton also learned things on his own throughout the years. He learned that bullies were feared but not trusted. He learned that teacher’s pets would tell on you at a moment’s notice. He learned how to control the rumor mill, and which friends would stab him in the back. So in their tiny town with only three elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school, Patton rose to power quickly. But Patton wouldn’t abuse his power. No, Patton tried to make a difference. He offered teacher’s pets protection and popularity in exchange for getting bullies suspended. He kept the rumor mill focused on the popular kids and away from the nobodies that couldn’t protect themselves. He ruined the lives of violent jocks and snotty rich kids with a few words and a disapproving frown. Bullying reached an all-time low, and by the time Patton was in high school he was the ‘friend’ of almost everyone in the city under the age of 21 (and all their parents. Patton was a model citizen, no one could dislike him).

But there was a cost for Patton’s power. Even though he was technically ‘friends’ with everyone, he didn’t have any actual friends. Everyone thought they were his friend, but after a while, everyone’s faces started to look the same. And even when they did catch Patton’s attention, they were usually too far down the social ladder for Patton to be more than casual acquaintances with.

There were exactly three people that caught Patton’s attention, and they just so happened to be his three crushes.

The first crush came in the form of Roman Prince. Like the name implied, Roman was a Disney Prince in terms of charisma and charm. He was in every school theatre production, and almost always the lead role. He would have been a popular kid, if not for his rivalry against Janice Mayberry. Janice had been at the top of the social ladder just as long as Patton had. She was extremely pretty, and a cheerleader to boot, so not even Patton’s influence could top the sheer power she held. So outside of the theatre group, Roman was a nobody. But Roman was also daring, and just, and drop-dead gorgeous. Patton attended every single play and musical, just to see Roman on stage. But beyond giving Roman a brief ‘congratulations’ at the end of each production, Patton couldn’t talk to him.

Patton could interact with his other crush a little more. Logan Berry was the definition of a nerd. He was in all advanced classes, he wore ties, he never got below 95% on any test. But he wasn’t a teacher’s pet. Actually, most teachers here hated Logan, for the simple fact that Logan would not let mistakes slide by. If a teacher said something wrong during a lesson, Logan spoke up. If a teacher graded something unfairly, Logan spoke up about it. The teachers always tried to report Logan for his ‘attitude,’ but the truth was he didn’t have an attitude. Logan only stated facts, and he kept his hand up politely while never having any sort of inflection in his tone. There were only a hand full of people that could make him show emotion, hence the nickname ‘robot.’ Patton wanted to speak up about the nickname, but he knew it would only draw more attention to Logan. But Logan wasn’t emotionless. He was kind, and patient, and helpful. Patton had needed help in his math classes, and his parents paid Logan to be his tutor. Patton ignored the fact the Logan was being paid to interact with him. Logan was extremely good with explanations, even when Patton couldn’t wrap his head around a concept. After a few weeks of math tutoring, Patton asked for help with English. One thing led to another, and they were basically study-buddies (with, you know, one of them being paid). But outside of study sessions, Patton couldn’t talk to him.

Then there was Virgil Storm. Virgil had transferred to their high school halfway through Freshman year. He was a loner, never seen hanging out with anyone. But something about him immediately drew in Patton’s attention. Maybe it was the (confirmed) rumors of Virgil getting kicked out of other schools due to fights. Maybe it was the way that his lips quirked every time he got a question right in class. Or maybe it was the way he looked in gym class, hoodie off and muscles exposed. Whatever the reason, Patton had been drawn to Virgil. Even if they had never spoken to each other. Well, until now.

It was September of Sophomore year, and Patton had been strolling down the hallway, minding his own business. He normally didn’t eat lunch at school, so he used this time to interact with teens outside of classes.

Crash!

Patton’s head whipped around, seeing a student shoved into the lockers. Now, that wouldn’t do at all. Patton quickly made his way to the fight, quickly recognizing the two teens. Virgil was on the ground with a bloody lip, while Jacob Smith stood over him. Jacob was captain of the football team, if Patton remembered correctly. Patton frowned as he noticed several of his ‘friends’ stand in the background but not help Virgil.

“Jacob!” Patton stepped between Virgil and Jacob, effectively pulling everyone’s attention towards him. Patton put on his best ‘disappointed’ expression. “Why are you hurting him?”

Jacob frowned. “He deserved it, Patton!”

Patton tilted his head slightly, making sure he kept the wide-eyed, innocent look. “What did he do?”

Jacob growled. “He’s a faggot that deserves to rot in Hell!”

Patton used all of his self-control to not show any of his shock. He didn’t know Jacob was such a homophobe. To use slurs and hurt a kid for being gay? That won’t do at all. Patton kept his curious look. “What does ‘faggot’ mean? Does it mean he’s a meanie?” Poor, innocent Patton wouldn’t know what that word meant. And Jacob Smith just sullied poor Patton’s mouth with those words. At least, that’s what everyone else thought.

Everyone stood in silence before someone spoke up. “It means he’s gay!” Patton couldn’t figure out who said that, but he mentally thanked them for giving him the perfect opening.

“So he got hit because he’s gay?” Patton hunched over slightly, pulling out all the stops for his ‘innocent, defenseless little lamb’ look.

Jacob smirked, glad to see that Patton was catching on. “Yeah, he deserves to be beat until he learns his lesson!”

Patton let his lip quiver as he summoned his crocodile tears. “B-but I’m gay!” While this wasn’t extremely common knowledge, it was extremely implied through Patton’s mannerisms and style of dress. Patton let the tears pour out. Several students started to approach as they caught on to what Patton was implying. “A-are you gonna b-beat me too?”

Jacob seemed to realize his mistake. “Pat-” He moved in to wrap his arms around Patton.

Patton flinched in (fake) fear, throwing his hands over his head. Still, what he yelled was loud and clear. “NO, PLEASE DON’T HURT ME!” Several students grabbed Jacob by the arms and dragged him away.

Janice approached Patton now, making sure to put some distance between them. “Are you okay, Pat?”

Patton let out a shaky sigh before lowering his arms. He gave Janice a wobbly smile. “Y-yeah. I’m gonna go wash my face in the bathroom. Can you go make sure Jacob doesn’t try this again?” Janice nodded, slinking off to wherever Jacob was dragged to. Now that all of the crowd was focused on Jacob, Patton turned his attention to Virgil. He was staring up at Patton with a mixture of awe and… fear? “C’mon, let’s go get cleaned up.” Virgil nodded mutely, getting up on his own. He grabbed his bag and a case of some sort (he probably dropped them when Jacob attacked him) before following Patton to the nearest bathroom. Patton grabbed some paper towels and got them wet before handing them to Virgil, who sat on the counter of the sinks. “Here, for your lip.” Virgil accepted it silently, dotting his lip to stem the bleeding. “I could take you to the nurse if you want.” Virgil shook his head no and Patton shrugged, moving to fix his makeup.

“Is it true?” Patton’s head shot up and Virgil looked away with a blush, hiding his face in his hoodie. “That you’re… um…”

Patton finished the question. “That I’m gay?” Virgil nodded, still blushing. “Yeah, I am. Are you also gay, or was Jacob accusing you of being gay for no reason?” Because if Virgil wasn’t gay, then that was an entirely different can of worms to deal with (one of which being Patton’s crush on him).

Virgil nodded. “Yeah, Jacob had seen my phone screen with me and my boyfriends.”

Patton tilted his head. He didn’t know that Virgil had boyfriends. “Can I see?” Virgil nodded, slowly taking out his phone to show Patton the lock screen. Logan, Roman and Virgil all stared at him, huddled under a mass of blankets. Patton felt his heart constrict at the fact that all of his crushes were dating each other so Patton didn’t have a chance, and smiled. “Awe, you look so cute together!” He moved to resume working on his makeup and accidentally bumped Virgil’s case with his foot. “What do you have in there?” He asked, genuinely curious.

Virgil blushed. “It’s a guitar. Me and my boyfriends were gonna practice after school.”

Patton let his eyebrows raise in shock. “You guys play guitar?”

Virgil turned even redder. “I do. Roman does bass and Logan does drums. We have a small band called The Sides. It’s nothing really.”

Patton’s eyes lit up. “You have a band? That’s so cool! Do you play at parties?” Patton hadn’t been to many parties lately.

Virgil sighed. “No, not yet. I don’t think we’ll ever be good enough for that.”

Patton shook his head. “I bet you are! Do you know how awesome it would be to have a live band at your party instead of some lame DJ? I promise, once you start promoting yourself, people will be begging to hire you!” Suddenly, the bell went off, signaling the end of lunch. “Oh, I’ve gotta go. See you later!”

Patton made a note to bring up playing instruments with Logan during their next study session. Even if Patton could never be romantically involved with his crushed, he could still make them happy. And if that meant pulling a few strings to make them the most popular music group in school?

Well, Patton was willing to pull a few strings for them.

[allweneedissix]

A Target Run: Six the Musical Fanfiction

The queens needed to go to Target. Usually, just two or three of them would go, but it was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and everyone seemed like they needed an outing. At least, that’s what Catherine said.

“Yes! I want Starbucks!” Kat was almost singing.

So Catherine got her list from the kitchen and they all piled into their SUV. As Anna drove, Catherine went over some of the things that they needed to buy.

“And lastly, granola for the yogurt. Does anyone have any particular requests?” 

Anne raised her hand.

“No, Anne, we are not buying any more Five Hour Energy drinks. Last time was a disaster.”

Anne put her hand down, and Anna patted her leg consolingly.

After they got into the building, Catherine immediately got out the list and headed for the grocery section. Kat goes for the Starbucks line and grabbed Cathy’s hand.

“C’mon, Cathy! You look like you need a boost, and I know you haven’t had Starbucks before. You’ll love this coffee!” Kat was insistent.

Cathy shrugged. She didn’t have anything in particular to shop for anyway.

Anne looked at Anna. “Wanna have some fun?”

“Absolutely.” 

They walked off at a pace that made Jane very suspicious. She decided to go after them, but as she turned the corner to follow them, she found that they had disappeared. Well, she had to run into them eventually! She picks a random direction, unintentionally going the direct opposite way from the other girls.

==

“Ok, so the frappuccino is kinda like coffee, but a lot sweeter, and iced and blended. It’s honestly more like ice cream.” Kat giggled. “And we already went over what the refreshers are, even though they aren’t technically coffee. Any questions so far?”

Cathy shook her head. “Really, Kat. Black coffee is fine. Any coffee fine.”  

“But Cathy! Starbucks is too special to just have black coffee. Here, let me tell you what a mocha is, you might like it!”

==

Catherine stood silently, looking at the granola. Should she get the smaller kind? The one with chunks of nuts? No, Kat is allergic to nuts. The one with dried berries? Maybe, but would that work with the yogurt that she was going to buy? What about the nutrition factors!?

“Anne! We need to go try out the switch in the video game department!”

“Yes! I bet you three oatmeal creme pies that I can beat you at super smash bros.”

Anna almost looked offended, but she shook Anne’s hand nevertheless. Behind them, Jane wandered in between the aisle Anne and Anna were in without noticing them.

“Hey Anna, was that Jane?”

“I don’t think so. She usually sticks with Cathy or Kat.”

==

Cathy was getting exasperated. “Kat! For the last time, I appreciate your commentary, and I’m sure whatever a macchiato is, it’s delicious, but can I just get a coffee?”

“Cathy a macchiato is a coffee! Now should I get two or three shots in my iced caramel latte?”

“No-”

==

Jane passed the exercise equipment for the third time. Was this area familiar? She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn that she just heard Anna. Oh, well. She was sure that those two were up to something, but she’d just have to keep looking.

“Ok, just because you beat me at Smash this one time doesn’t mean-”

“You’re just bitter, Anne. But I will give you a chance to redeem yourself in with a bomb shopping cart ride.”

“You’re on. Hey,” Anne looked around. “Did you just see Jane?”

“Was she with anyone else?”

“No” 

“Then it probably wasn’t her.” 

Anne shrugged. “Ok.”

==

Kat ordered first, then Cathy. Kat went over to the other end of the counter to wait for her drink. 

“Cathy, what did you end up ordering?” Kat said excitedly.

“A black coffee.” 

“That’s boring!”

“I thought you’d say that. That’s why I got it with cream AND sugar.” 

Kat shook her head. “Whatever floats your boat, I guess.” She grabbed her grande iced caramel latte with two shots and an extra pump of caramel. “I think I’m going to go look for Catherine to help her with the groceries. Do you want to stay here?”

Cathy looked toward the seat by the window and thought of the new book in her purse. “Yeah, if you’re sure that you’ll be alright by yourself.”

“I will!” Kat walked purposefully towards the grocery section.

==

Catherine had narrowed it down to three bags of granola. They were all nutritious and had equal promises of deliciousness, but now it came down to value. She pulled out her pocket calculator.

==

Jane had given up on finding Anne and Anna. They can’t get into that much trouble, can they? She was currently searching for Catherine, or Kat, or anyone, really. But she wasn’t actually nervous, which was surprising, but she would still rather be with someone. Behind her, a cart races by with Anna in the cart, and Anne pushing at top speed. 

“Hey, was that Jane?”

“Nah.”

==

Kat went toward the health section alone (she figured that’s where Catherine would be), having left Cathy at Starbucks seating area with her book. She had assured, Cathy that she’d be fine, but in reality was more than a little anxious, and maybe that double shot in her coffee hadn’t been a great idea after all. She was almost to the cereal section when she thought she saw Jane out of the corner of her eye. She whipped around, knowing how Jane tended to wander. She went down the aisle that she thought Jane had gone down, and barely saw her blonde hair disappear around the corner. “Jane?”

==

“Anne! Slow down!”

“Slowing down is for the weak! I want a rematch at Smash Bros!”

“FINE! Just slow down, because if we crash, I’m the one who will go flying!”

“Well you know what they say, right?” Anne said slyly. 

Anna had a bad feeling about this. “What?”

Anne sped up. “It do be like that sometimes.”

==

Catherine thought she saw a cart speeding by out of the corner of her eye. She shook her head. What idiots would be dumb enough to race around in a cart when there was a large display of tomato soup right down the next aisle? Anyhow, it didn’t matter, because she had finally decided on a bag of granola. She went to set it down it the cart when she saw it: what could very well possibly be a better deal!

==

Cathy actually couldn’t be more content. She had a hot coffee, a good book, some solitude, and a seat by the window. And it had started to rain! Perfect. She sighed and took a sip of her coffee. Her phone dinged, and she saw that it was the group Snapchat that Kat had made them last month. It was a video from Anna. She opened it to see the front of a cart going faster than a cart was ever made to go (was she in the cart?!). The camera flipped around to show that Anna was indeed in the basket of the cart holding up a peace sign and grinning, with Anne, beads of sweat running down her face, sprinting and pushing the cart. And was that Jane in the background?  

“Oh no.” 

She got up, and started listening for the sounds of absolute chaos.

==

Kat was really starting to get nervous. She kept just losing Jane, and she still hadn’t run into any of the other queens. She gave up on finding Jane by herself and went to look for Catherine to help her. She really didn’t like being by herself.

Catherine dropped the granola into the cart. Confident with her decision, and satisfied her ability to find the best deal. Only twenty-two more items to go! She starts to turn the corner and nearly runs into Kat. The youngest queen looks extremely relieved to see her, and Kat runs over and gives her a tight hug. 

“Kat! Are you alright? What’s wrong? Where’s Cathy and Jane?”

==

Jane was in paradise! Who knew that there was a sewing and craft section in Target? Certainly not her, but she was quickly making up for lost time. Christmas was right around the corner, and Kat had just shown her how to use YouTube for quilting tutorials!

==

The crash that the shopping cart made when it hit the display of soup can was very satisfying. At least it would have been if Anna weren’t also crashing into the display. Fortunately, the rest of the queens (besides Anne) weren’t close enough to hear the crash. Unfortunately, the security guard was.

==

Cathy was lost. Which was actually fairly on-brand for her, not that she would ever admit that to the other queens. She thought she could just walk to the back of the store, put an end to Anne and Anna’s shenanigans, and walk out. Apparently, this was not the case. But it wasn’t like she got lost every time! This was a Super Target, for goodness sakes! She passes a stack of books, and one catches her eye, Birds: Are They Real? Surely she could spare a few minutes.

==

“It’s ok, Kat. Just breathe.” Catherine spoke as soothingly as she could. Kat seemed like she was on the verge of an anxiety attack, and Catherine was really starting to worry. After a few minutes, Kat’s breathing evened out she was able to tell Catherine her predicament. Even though Catherine thought she still looked a little shaky, Kat insisted that she was ready to keep going. 

“So can we please go find Jane?” Kat stands up from where she and Catherine had sat down. “I don’t want her to freak out if she’s lost and I wanted her to try my latte. She’ll probably hate it though.” She gave a small smile. 

Catherine chuckled. “Of course.”

When Kat and Catherine do find Jane (It probably would have gone faster if Kat’s phone wasn’t dead, and if Catherine hadn’t left hers at home) they were pleasantly surprised. Apparently lost didn’t mean helpless, because Jane had not only filled a cart with quilting supplies and patterns, but she had filled another cart full of groceries! 

“Jane!” 

Jane smiled.“Kat, Catherine? I was looking for you guys!” She had barely finished when Kat slammed into her for a hug. 

“I’m so glad we found you! Here, try a sip of my latte.” 

She took a sip. “Thank you! I don’t like it.” 

“I knew you wouldn’t.” Kat grinned. “Now let’s check out and find our other half.”

Catherine, Kat, and Jane didn’t have to look far before found Cathy. They had unintentionally gotten in line behind her, and didn’t notice until she turned around, looking…gleeful?

“Guys, you’ll never guess what I learned!” 

“What?” Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She could have sworn Cathy’s already large grin got even bigger 

“Birds aren’t real!”

==

Anne and Anna had been sitting outside of Target for a good half an hour (thank goodness it had stopped raining) before the rest of the queens came out. 

“Why are you two outside?” Catherine didn’t like the sheepish looks that spread over their faces. 

“Yeah,” Anne started, “We got kicked out.” 

“What-” 

“But it was for a good cause!” Anna finished. 

Kat whispered something into Jane’s ear. “Kat’s right. Catherine, dear, do we really want to know?”  

“Nope!” They answered in unison. 

“Come on everyone, let’s go home.” Kat said. The others muttered their agreement. 

“Besides,” Cathy said eagerly, “When we get in the car, I have the best news to tell you all about birds!”

[lailannajacobs]

Heart to a Gunfight - Chapter Three

Pairing: Bucky x fem!Reader

Summary: You didn’t want to help Bucky Barnes make it through the party by pretending to be his fake girlfriend, after all, you had just met him. You also didn’t plan on the charade lasting as long as it did. 

Warnings: Just a lot of fluff! 

Word Count: 1.5k 

A/N: Finally found inspiration for the rest of this series, hoping the next parts will come quickly! Excited to know what you think! <3 

Previously: 

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he pulled her in close, their bodies lined up from their feet to the top of her shoulder, “You said you don’t care if we win or lose. Well how about we try and give Steve and Peggy a run for their money.”

She tilted her head to look up into his eyes, “That’s never going to happen, but I think we can definitely come in before Kira and Brad.”

Chapter Three

His lips pulled into a small smile that, for the first time all night, didn’t look like it was completely forced. Maybe a little uncertain, but at least slightly more genuine. It wasn’t a bad look on him.

“Steady rhythm.” He affirmed.

“That’s your great plan to win?” You asked with a raised brow. “Steady rhythm?”

He nodded and pulled you closer, “As long as we take our steps in sync, there’s nothing else to this.”

“And you know this because you’ve done a lot of three-legged races or because it’s the most obvious strategy in the world?”

All amusement vanished from his face, “Your sass isn’t going to help”

You almost mentioned that if it was keeping him from thinking about his ex-fiancé then it was helping more than he realized, but you kept your mouth shut. Bringing her up now would only destroy the little progress you had made in getting him forget about her presence. Having to keep Barnes occupied should have annoyed you, but it was a good distraction on an otherwise boring night, so you didn’t mind helping him out. If you were being honest, no one deserved to be stuck with their ex without a wingman to help and that had softened your irritation a little.

“So, what’s your strategy for a steady rhythm, Soldier? A one-two count?”

He opened his mouth and shut it again like you had stolen the words from him. When he stayed silent, you realized you had.

“How original.” You said dryly.

He glared at you, his sour mood returning. You were beginning to think it was his default look. “Do you have any other helpful remarks to add, Speedy?”

“Yeah. Stop calling me Speedy.”

He smirked, “Okay, Doll.”

“That’s no better.” You snarled.

“Deal with it.”

“Everyone ready?” The best man’s shout broke through the air, interrupting your next sarcastic retort.

A few whoops sounded from the other players in the line but the two of you remained silent, steeling yourselves for the child’s game you got roped into because of Bucky’s pride. You were about to remind him of that fact when he spoke up.

“So, on one we move our joint foot and on two we move our free foot. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah.” You nodded with a sharp sigh, “Don’t forget we need to match the length of our strides too.”

He glanced down at you, a funny look on his face. You raised a brow.

“Right.” He mumbled, the arm around your waist pulling you in closer and enveloping you in his warmth.

You looked down the line and noticed Steve and Peggy staring stoically at the finish line, and a laugh bubbled out. You definitely pitied the poor suckers that were stuck those two. Their competitive nature was barely more controlled than a tornado and you didn’t want to be anywhere near them if they got physical.

Barely in your line of vision, you felt Kira’s eyes on you, and your gaze slid over to meet hers. She arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow and you grinned, waggling your fingers at her. Brad, noting the movement, waved back, an excited look on his face. At least one person was excited to be here.

You brought your attention back to Bucky before he began to look for the person you had been waving too, “Ready, Soldier?”

“Doll.” He drew out the word as if you had asked a ridiculous question, “Are you?”

You grit your teeth. “That’s not my name.”

He smirked.

“Not like you know what it actually it.”

The look fell and before he could try to prove you wrong - doubtful - the best man announced the start of the race. Both of you moved the wrong foot at the same time, almost sending each other crashing to the ground. His fingertips pressed into your side, grip tightening as he righted you.

“One” He growled, his voice was a deep command you felt compelled to follow, so you did.

Following the sound of his voice and moving in time with him, you could tell by the pressure on your waist that he had taken the lead and was in full control. Tightening your grip around his wide torso, you looked down at the ground to better match his strides. To your surprise, and despite your rocky start, the two of you moved in perfect rhythm as if you had been doing this since you were kids. You couldn’t help but smile.

When you looked up, you realized Peggy and Steve had already crossed the finish line, but Kira and Brad were only a few feet in front of you. You were about to tell Bucky to pick up the pace, but he must have noticed them at the same time and had quickened his counting. He was counting so fast you were afraid the two of you were going to topple over trying to keep up with his brutal pace, but you weren’t about to be the reason he didn’t beat Kira so you followed suit.

The two of you kept pushing even when your steps no longer felt even, gaining on them until you were neck in neck. The finish line was a few feet away and you kept your eyes on the prize, beginning to think that you were actually about to win. Just as you were about to pass them, you felt your feet go out from under you and you closed your eyes, bracing yourself for the impact of the fall. Only the hard grass never came. Apart from the uncomfortable strain in your left leg, the fall hadn’t hurt at all.

The only thing you could see when you opened your eyes were his blue-green ones, alight with more life than you had seen all evening. You were lost for a moment, mesmerized by the look.

“I think that’s on you” He chuckled.

“Me?” You found yourself laughing despite trying to put on a serious face, “I was just following your lead, Sergeant.”

The corner of his mouth was turned up in a lopsided smirk, “Whoever told you to do that was probably an idiot.”

“Yeah,” you murmured, “He probably was.”

“That’s second place for us.” Kira’s chirpy voice announced.

Bucky cleared his throat, “We should untie ourselves now.”

“Okay,” You nodded, “Help me up?”

He cocked his head, “You don’t seem like the kind of person to ask for help.”

“I’m not,” You whispered, brushing his hair aside as if the two of you were talking about something far more romantic, “But I figured your girlfriend would. And, you know, I’m not usually tied to the person.”

“Excuses, excuses.”

You shook your head at the playful grin on his lips and he rolled you gently off of him, the two of you sitting up. As you were about to untie the bind around your legs his hand found yours.

“I got it.”

Shrugging, you looked up and found Peggy and Steve grinning at the two of you.

“What place did we get?” You asked.

Peggy opened her mouth to answer but Kira interrupted, “last.”

“What? How?”

“Well,” Peggy shot you a weak smile, “You fell just before the line so technically you haven’t finished the race yet.”

Peggy’s words solidified the smug look on Kira’s face as she cuddled in closer to Brad. You wanted to wipe the look off her face, but there was nothing you could do about it now.

“Well, that’s a bummer.” You said as lightheartedly as possible, coming to a stand.

You looked around for Bucky, but he was still sitting on the grass, staring up at you.

“First or last, Speedy, as long as we’re crossing that line together, I don’t care about the rest.”

A collective aww sounded and you realized most of the wedding party had seen your fall and had stayed to watch the rest of the scene afterwards. You smiled, impressed - though you hoped the crowd thought it was love. The spark in his eye seemed to ask you who was pulling the team now.

He tilted his head, “Help me up?”

You laughed and almost rolled your eyes at him, extending your hand, “What would you do without me?”

“God only knows,” He stood so that the two of you were now mere inches apart, and whispered so that only you could hear, “You’ve got some catching up to do, Doll.”

He looped your arm through his and the two of you took the last step together over the line. The crowd erupted into cheers, but the sound didn’t drown out the echo of his taunt, ringing in your ears. Turning to face him, you pressed another quick peck to his lips, that at least this time, didn’t leave him staring at you with confusion written all over his face. Instead, there was only silent challenge.

Looking past him, you noticed Kira standing with her arms crossed, her lips pinched as if having bit into something sour. You snuggled in closer, starting to think that maybe this night wouldn’t be as excruciating as you thought it might be.

[blackmissfrizzle]

The Sacrifice

Summary: Dean finds out the reader is a virgin. Based on 3x12 

Characters: Dean x black!reader

A/N: So, I’m basically doing a series rewrite of my favorite episodes. This is is based on the the reader’s and Dean’s relationship through the years. Its based on A Match Made in Hell Series.  I’m not doing this in a linear order, but I’ll make a separate masterlist for this series and put the fics in order.

When you get the chance, you’re putting a bullet right between that British bitch’s eyes. Bela had managed to steal the colt and get the boys arrested by Agent Henricksen. The only reason that you weren’t in a cell with the boys is, that Henricksen could never physically tie you to the boys except for your Stanford connection with Sam.  So, all he could do was call you to “consult” on the case.

“Where are you going Agent Y/L/N?” Henricksen stopped you on the way to the cell. At the sound of his voice, your body immediately went stiff. Agent Henricksen wouldn’t be too bad if he wasn’t so focus on locking up Sam and Dean, but you also understood from his point of view. With his limited knowledge and evidence, it all points to the boys being devil worshipping, psychopathic killers.

“To talk to an old friend and try to figure out how’s he connected to all this. That’s what you wanted me here for, right?” You cocked your head to the side, annoyance clear on your face.

Henricksen slowly approached you, trying to make himself seem bigger to intimidate you. Too bad for him, nothing scares you anymore, but you won’t let him know that. “Yeah, I brought you here so I can see your face when you see that your best friend and your boyfriend are finally locked up in a maximum-security prison.” He searches your face a reaction, but you didn’t give him one. “It may take me awhile, but one day I’m gonna get the evidence and then it’ll be you sitting in a jail cell.”

Throwing up the peace sign, you sauntered off. “Good luck with that, Henricksen,” you yelled over your shoulder.

—

“And why is that a good thing?” You questioned Dean after hearing him brag to Sam that they got a hit out on them.

“Because we’re awesome, that’s why.” You rolled your eyes at his arrogance. “Hey, why didn’t the demon go after you?”

In a blink of an eye, you flashed your eyes to black. “Oh, I forgot, you’re their precious half demon spawn.”

Ignoring his little snub, you pointed to Dean’s gun shot wound. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Eh, I’ll live. That’s if we don’t get killed first.”

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother before turning to you. “Is there any way you can get us out of here, Y/N/N?”

“No,” you sighed deeply. “Henricksen’s watching me like a hawk. He’s ready to throw me in a cell with you guys.”

“Well, ain’t that just peachy,” Dean muttered to the side.

The sheriff walked in on your discussion. It seemed that he was in a daze as he unlocked the boys’ cell, ordering them to leave. All three you were suspicious, and the boys refused to leave.

Before you could order the sheriff to get out Agent Henricksen came to do the same. However, nothing got settled because Henricksen put a bullet in the sheriff’s head.

Sam wrestled the gun away from him and began performing an exorcism while you and Dean held back the deputy.

Right before Sam sent the demon to hell, he screamed that it was too late and that more were coming.

“I shot the sheriff,” Henricksen confessed.

“But you didn’t shoot the deputy,” Dean joked, which earned him a kick to the back of his knees from you.

—

*Dean’s POV*

My eyes find her while I’m in the office with Henricksen. She’s talking to the secretary with that warm smile on her face that magically seems to calm everyone down despite being in the worst of situations. I’m too damn worried about her to focus on anything else despite the fact she needs no protection and can kick my ass to kingdom come.

“Scratch that. You just don’t have your brother. You got Y/N.” Henricksen interrupted my thoughts.

“We’re not together. Just friends.” I admitted, even though I wanted so much more than that. Its just my luck to fall in love with a girl when I have less than a year to live.

“Okayyyyyy.” Disbelief was soaking in his response. “What’s the deal with her anyway? How does a rich kid like her end up hunting with you two?”

I stopped cleaning my gun and gave him a hard glare. “Not my story to tell but know this: she’s probably our best way out of this situation.”

Henricksen was about to say something when we heard a loud crash outside. Both us plus everyone else ran to see Ruby caught in the Devil’s trap. Raising his gun to her, Henricksen asked how we kill her.

“We don’t. She’s here to help us.” Sam forced Henricksen’s gun down and opened the Devil’s trap. Me and Y/N traded annoyed looks. Neither one of us could stand Ruby. Y/N just kept her annoyance quiet unlike me. It was already hard to trust Ruby, because she was a damn demon, but if sweet Y/N doesn’t like someone then that’s a major red flag.

--

*Reader’s POV*

Great, there’s 30 demons out there ready to kill Sam and Dean. You’re pretty sure you could get through all of them, but you’ll be pretty banged up in the end. You were tuned out of the conversation, figuring out a plan of attack until you heard Lilith’s name.

“Lilith?” you repeated to Ruby.

“Yup. And she really, really wants Sam’s intestines on a stick. ‘Cause she sees him as competition.” Ruby informed us of Sam’s new nemesis.

“You knew about this?” A very pissed off Dean questioned Sam. “Well, gee, Sam, is there anything else I should know?”

Before they could get any further into an argument, you intervened. “Sam, you should’ve told us. Lilith’s no joke.” You weren’t gonna let Sam off the hook, but also you weren’t gonna rail into him like Dean was trying to.

Sam ignored Dean and looked to you with a face full of guilt. “How do you know about Lilith?”

“My dad talked about her all the time. He always told me that me and her could be a force to be reckoned with.” Just the thought of the many talks you had with your father had you bothered. He always tried to make it appealing that you were some kind of demonic second coming. At least this talk you remembered was helpful.

“I thought your parents were dead?” Henricksen asked.

You looked over shoulder and threw out, “My adoptive parents are. My real dad’s a demon and alive.”

Henricksen, Nancy, and the deputy gasped. You forgot that they just learned of the existence of demons and your lineage could be a bit troubling. “Relax. I’m only half and hate demons probably more than anyone else in this room.” The three of them eyed you cautiously, but that calming effect you had on people led them to believe you.

“Well, now that we got that out of the way. Where’s the colt?” If you had tea at that moment, you definitely would’ve been sipping it. Both of the boys tried to avoid Ruby’s gaze and when she looked at you, you furrowed your brows at her for even questioning you for losing it.

“It got stolen.” Ruby just about had a bitch fit when Sam admitted the truth. She was one insult away from you punching her in her gotdamned mouth, when Dean pulled you back and shook his head no.

But, thank the lucky stars, Ruby knew a spell. It would blow the demons out of the bodies, including Ruby, so it didn’t seem too bad; until she said she needed a virgin, specifically a heart of a virgin. And sweet Nancy still wanted to go through with it, but you couldn’t let an innocent sacrifice herself.

“I’ll do it,” you blurted out. All eyes turned to you and everyone was surprised except Sam. He remembered when you confided to him back at Stanford that you said that you were waiting til marriage.

“No way. Come on, you, you watch porn and you tease me all the fucking time.” Dean claimed.

“One, how else am I supposed to get my rocks off? Virgins are horny too. And two, its fun to see you turn red.”

Ruby seemed a little too happy with your decision to sacrifice yourself, but everyone else was heavily against it, except Sam. Dean tried to dissuade him, but you and him knew it was the best option.

“It’s my decision, D,” you told him.

“Damn straight, cherry pie,” Ruby replied with a smirk.

“Stop! Stop! Nobody kill any virgins!” Dean grabbed your hand and pulled you away and ordered Sam into a hallway for a talk. Normally, you made yourself scarce when they had these talks, but you guessed since you were offering yourself up, Dean thought it must’ve been a good idea to include you.

“Tell me you two are not seriously considering this.”

Sam and you both traded solemn looks. It sucked but it was necessary. “And we’re also talking about 30 people out there, Dean, innocent people who are all gonna die, along with everyone in here.” Sam argued back.

“It’s a numbers game, Dean. 1 life vs. 30. If you were in my shoes, you’d do the same.” Hell, Dean already did it. He’d offered up his life for Sam’s. How the hell is this any different?

“It doesn’t mean we throw out the rule book. I’m not gonna let that demon bitch kill the kindest person I know, who I might add hasn’t even been laid!”

“Then what? What do we do, Dean?”

“I got a plan. I’m not saying it’s a good one I’m not even saying that it’ll work. But it sure as hell beats killing our virgin best friend.”

“What’s the plan,” you and Sam asked simultaneously.

“Open the doors, let them all in, and we fight.”

Dean’s plan may be a little crazy, but it could work. Ruby was pissed at the suggestion and left. Her plan would for sure leave everyone alive except me. Offended that we didn’t go with her plan and refusing to watch us lose, Ruby left.

--

It worked. Dean’s plan actually worked. We were able to trap all the demon’s inside the station and played a tape of Sam saying the exorcism. It helped that you could hold 10 demons on your own, so the rest were left to Sam, Dean and Henricksen.

“Coming with?” Dean asked before him and Sam left.

“Nah, I gotta stay. Technically, I came with the FBI now I gotta write a report on how you two died on the helicopter. Yay me!” You hated writing reports and now this one was going to take longer, because you and Henricksen had to get your lies together.

The boys gave you a sympathetic look and made you promise to contact them once you got home before they left.

The remaining of you, began cleaning the station when a little girl came into the station. Your spidey senses started tingling and you moved a bit closer to Nancy. The little girl said she was looking for two brothers: one’s really tall and one’s really cute.

When Nancy asked her, her name, she responded, “Lilith.” You tried to attack the her, but soon you felt two sets of arms around you and you were teleported out of the station. It was your dad and his lackey, Brixton.

“Get off of me!” You yelled, just in time to see the police station overcome with a blinding white light.

Deep in your soul, you knew Henricksen and the rest were dead. What other reason would your dad save you?

“Calm down, princess.” Brixton said, fighting you off.

It wasn’t beneath your father to use dirty moves, so he grabbed you by your curls and threw you to the ground. “Calm your ass down, before I make you tell me where the Winchesters are and kill them myself!”

Quickly, you got up and wiped the dirt off you. “Why’d you save me?”

“Lilith’s orders. And I suggest you get used to the idea of a life without the Winchesters. Dean’s year is about to be up, and Lilith is gonna kill Sam sooner or later. Its just a matter of time.”

“Not if I can help it.” You claimed.

With a sweet kiss to the top of your head that betrayed his demonic nature, your dad whispered, “It’ll happen. Save yourself the heartbreak, baby girl.” And just like that he disappeared.

--

*Dean’s POV*

Sam and I were relaxing when we heard a knock on our motel door. It was Ruby. Damn, will we ever get rid of her? I’m tired of looking at her bitchy face.

As usual, she came in bossing us around. She told us to turn on the news. Supposedly, there was a gas main rupture that led to explosion at the sheriff’s station. The news anchor said everyone died, but one person did survive.

Please let it be Y/N, please let it be Y/N, please let it be Y/N, please let it be Y/N, I thought. It may be shitty, but I couldn’t bare the thought of losing her. Henricksen, the other FBI agents, the deputy, the sheriff, and even the freaking virgin secretary were dead, but I didn’t see Y/N’s face on the screen.

Just as Ruby was railing into us, there was another knock on the door, and I ran to open it. There she was standing there, tears running down her face. Probably feeling guilty that she was alive while the others were dead.

“I couldn’t save them,” Y/N whispered before her knees buckled. I caught her just before her she hit the ground.

Ruby threw us some hex bags that’ll help get Lilith off our trail. But I wanted to throw it back at her, just to get her to stop complaining how our plan sucked ass.

“And now look, your precious little virgin is having a mental breakdown, because even she knows you guys messed up.”

“Leave.” I ordered. I wasn’t gonna let her upset Y/N anymore than she already was. Ruby got one look at my deadly glare and took the hint, that if she didn’t leave right at that moment, she’d be dead. Sam followed her to make sure she leaves and to give me and Y/N some space. Over time, me and Y/N grew closer, especially now that Sam’s all buddy buddy with Ruby. It wasn’t unusual for her or me to go to the other to find comfort after a bad hunt.

This time I had no words for her. As much as I was hurting that we couldn’t save Henricksen and the rest, I think I would be hurting much worse if it was her, we lost instead, but I can’t tell her that. So, instead I just held her until she cried herself to sleep, hoping that in the morning I can find the right words.

Tags: @titty-teetee @cocooned-butterfly @nervouspetsonanime @thefaithfulwriter @meishaabae @dannixchristian @blacknthemix @mml232

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #37)

(cw: alcohol mention, fire) ----------

01/25/88   11:53 PM

Hey.

I wish I could say that I walked away from that heated encounter at therapy with little to no after effects. That I marched on back to my game, got some sleep, and continued on my road to recovery without missing a beat. I wish I could say that.

But that would just be unrealistic. 

When I went back to my game after the whole thing with Worluk, I told my cousin what happened. He reacted just about the same as I’d expected him to. Horrified, relieved I was safe, glad justice was served before she could hurt anyone else. He also told me how proud he was of me for not using violence to solve my problem. The praise felt a little misplaced, given how much I did actually fantasize about ripping her to shreds, and I told him that. But that just made him all the prouder, he said. It was the fact that, unlike so many past instances, I didn’t act on those impulses.

It was a pretty big deal for me. But I still didn’t quite know how to accept his pride. That much hadn’t changed.

I felt pretty sick, so I turned in kind of early, but I didn’t sleep well. Some of the old confusing flashbacks were eating at me again. I’d be nearly asleep, just dipping into dreamspace when phantom memories of fire and explosions and echoing screams would jolt me awake. I hadn’t had visions like those in a while, but I also hadn’t been quite that sober in a while.

The next morning carried on like any other at first, apart from me being quieter than I’d normally be. Fix-it had his breakfast and morning coffee. He yammered at me for a little bit. Some Nicelanders showed up, and then he yammered at them for a little bit. Then, after wishing me a good day, he left with the others, and the arcade opened.

I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. But since painting had been so soothing before, I figured I’d try that. It certainly couldn’t hurt. I hauled out the tarp and Fix-it’s paints and papers. I sat cross-legged by the blank sheet for a while, feeling dry of creativity. But I forced myself to start anyway, trying to let my thoughts and feelings fall freely and paint along to them.

What was I feeling, anyway?

I took a deep breath and tried to meditate on that question as I painted.

Grey. Unsure. Numb. Lukewarm. I wanted to be happy about Worluk being arrested. It should have been closure on her traumatic chapter of my life. But I just wasn’t satisfied. What she had said about her sister’s ‘burning body’ just opened up too much mystery for me to put her out of my mind and move on. It wasn’t really the idea of me jumping over a burning sprite to get to you that was so disturbing. It was just the fact that I couldn’t remember it. I kept trying to brush it off and say that Worluk was just some raving lunatic spouting nonsense. But what if she wasn’t?

White. Blank. Cold. Lost. I couldn’t stand not remembering that day. Not remembering how you died. Not knowing your whole story. Out of anyone, I should have been the one to know. No one was closer to you than me. I was your friend. Best friend. Or something else entirely.

Yellow. Confused. Nauseous. Anxious. 

I paused. Three colors splotched the canvas in aimless, abstract shapes. Part of me almost laughed, but in a really joyless way. This palette I’d been subconsciously putting together out of distress reminded me of something that used to make me happy. It was just missing one color.

Red. Demanding. Arrogant. Bold.

You.

I’d almost painted you by accident. Not in the right shapes, but the right colors were there. Some of them, anyway. Just the surface colors, the ones I could see on your pixels. Just seeing all of them together was enough to put a pang of what I could only describe as ‘miserable affection’ in my chest. It suddenly felt like it had been so long since I even took the time to think about you. I’d been so occupied with counselling, I guess I just didn’t want to give myself the chance to miss you too much and derail things.

But I was taking a break from counselling. I was alone. I had nothing but time to spend remembering you. And whether I thought it was a good idea or not, it was happening. You poured down on my mind like heavy rain.

So, without really thinking about what I was doing, I kept painting with every color you inspired in me. 

Black for your smoky, metallic scent. Red-Violet for your overheated body. Sienna for your voice. Salmon for your genuine, high-pitched laugh. It did not take long for me to run out of space. I didn’t care. I kept painting. I smeared heaping gobs of color until the paper was slathered with glistening, muddy slime that was likely too thick to dry. 

Eventually, I stopped. I could have just gotten another sheet of paper, but I felt too heavy to stand. I just sat there, staring at my gloves that were speckled with tiny flecks of paint. My heart, I finally noticed, had been pounding. I’d been running for so long from how I felt when I remembered you. The hurt. The betrayal. The moments of resentment. Worst of all were the moments when I simply, truly missed you.

This was one of those moments. 

I wish that I could say that by that point, I’d learned to stop running away. That I didn’t have it in me anymore. I’d like to say that I just went limp and sank into the feeling until it inevitably either drowned me or I learned to breathe through it. But I wasn’t ready to believe I could do that. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust reality to remain sound. But you were raining on me whether I chose it or not. I was neck-deep, floundering.

And then the desperation, as it has so often done, turned me a little strange.

The first thing I did was remove my gloves, and then my smock. It felt like all else in the world went quiet as I wet my fingers with a rainbow of paint. Keep it together, I told myself. Deep breaths. It was just color. All feelings, all memories, are just color. And color is choice. I could choose not to hurt over you if I just redirected. If I took every color that you were not, and wore them like armor to protect myself from all thoughts of you.

So I just… painted myself. 

There were too many shades to rightly recall. Teal, bronze, vermillion, lavender, aqua, magenta, seafoam, you name it. But they didn’t keep you out. They just invited you in. For every color, there was some emotion, or some memory, that reminded me of my time with you. I fought to keep it together, but I couldn’t. I spiraled, and I spiraled hard. I grabbed onto my hair, and it clumped together in the paint between my fingers. I told myself that I’d done enough. I had taken a moment to mourn you, but I wouldn’t let it get to me. Not like it had done in the past. I was beyond that. I’d grown past it. I kept repeating: Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him right now.

Don’t think about his smarmy smile. Don’t think about his pointy ears. Don’t think about the lisp he worked so hard to hide. Don’t think about how he constantly bit his tongue. Don’t think about that time he rode an Excitebike and broke his nose. Don’t think about how his hands were rough from mechanic work. Don’t think about the times we spent sending Don’s sailboat models down the Frogger river in flames. Don’t think about the time he fell in an open grave in Ghosts n’ Goblins. Don’t think about pranking him for the first time. Don’t think about your bar fight at Tapper’s after. Don’t think about the trashy music he always played in his garage. Don’t think about how terrible he was at dancing. Don’t think about how tightly he’d hold you when he thought you were asleep. Don’t think about his stupid hair that always had to be a perfect mess. Don’t think about his actually really cool abstract contour line drawings. Don’t think about the time we microwaved six eggs just to watch them explode. Don’t think about the first time he brought you takeout without being asked. Don’t think about the first time you let him touch you. Don’t think about how it sometimes felt like you were the only two sprites in the arcade. Don’t think about how he made you feel like you belonged somewhere.

Don’t think about how you’ve forever lost your chance to tell him that.

That was it. 

That did me in. 

The good ol’ unreality came crashing back -- it couldn’t be true. You couldn’t be gone. It wasn’t real. By extension, nothing was real. Niceland was just a popsicle stick model that would collapse on top of me at any moment. Everyone I’d spoken to for weeks were just holograms. Even I didn’t feel real. I didn’t understand how I could be so numb and still be in so much pain. It was a nightmare. I needed to get away. I needed intervention, some kind of release, anything to chase the horror away.

I stood, feeling like I was in a trance. I had just the faintest control over my body. Everything I’d learned in counselling flashed in my head, but it did not take. I was driven by almost life-or-death urgency, as if I’d ingested poison and desperately needed the antidote. I shambled into the kitchen, marking cabinets with rainbow fingerprints as I looked for absolutely anything alcoholic. But Fix-it’s not a drinker, unsurprisingly. I wish that alone had been enough to stop me, but I carried my search into the bathroom. And there, on the spotless porcelain sink, sat a bottle of blue mouthwash.

Technically alcoholic.

I grabbed it. It seemed like the paint itself was trying to dissuade me, making the bottle so hard to grip. As I struggled to twist the cap off, I was screaming at myself internally to make the right choice. Make any other choice at all. But I needed it, I thought. I was in so much pain and I needed a drink or I’d…

I paused, shaking, the uncapped bottle almost to my lips. I finally saw myself in the mirror, smeared with a rainbow of garish war paint that covered almost all of my exposed skin and stained bits of my clothes. I looked beautiful, honestly. But the bottle of mouthwash in my hand, about to be my one last pathetic attempt at drowning my sorrows? It spoiled the beauty. It was below me. No matter how badly I was hurting, I knew better.

Pain explains, but it does not justify. 

Yeah. Damn it. Damn it all.

That was enough time for the bottle to slip from my fingers and hit the floor with a sloshing thud, spewing its bright blue contents over the floor, and along with it, my last chance to run from the pain. My back hit the wall as I stumbled, a sticky hand clapped over my face. I sank to the floor. It was there that I cried harder and longer than I have in my entire life.

There was just no escape from how much I missed you.

My best friend.

I stayed there for hours in Fix-it’s bathroom after my crying breakdown, crumpled in the corner. I might have fallen asleep a little bit, because I remember sort of waking up as the arcade closed. I heard the rumbling of Wreck-it pounding the building stop for good, and then the parade of little footsteps overhead as Nicelanders descended the stairs and returned to their homes. Which meant Fix-it would not be far behind.

And he’d see me. In my… state.

That couldn’t happen. I couldn’t deal with that, not after such an atrociously messy breakdown. I knew it wasn’t the right move, and I knew he would have only wanted to help, but I sprang to my feet and locked his front door anyway. When that didn’t satisfy me, I grabbed a chair from the kitchen and propped it under the door handle. 

There was something awful driving me. Some deep panic. It felt avoidant, like I just couldn’t face whatever was coming. But it wasn’t just Fix-it, I noticed as I feverishly paced. I couldn’t carry on with things the way they were. I was done. I was sick of it. I was sick of you being gone and me just having to live with that, with no memory of you passing. I couldn’t stand that I had to carry on just convincing myself our story had ended, while it seemed like everyone else had witnessed it first-hand. It wasn’t right. I had no closure. I just had nightmares of explosions, screaming, and fire.

Fire, fire, fire. 

It was always fire. It seemed like no matter what happened, fire would not leave my head. Even the yellow, orange, and red colors of my brush were all fiery, and I knew that wasn’t a coincidence. I’d been so hung up on this stupid mysterious fire for so long. Then there was my odd fear of the fireworks. And the sea of gasoline in that dream, when you told me, “Come find me in the fire…”

I froze. ‘Find me in the fire.’ 

The front door handle jiggled and the door struggled against the chair. I heard Fix-it’s confused grunt. “Mavy?” he called. “Mavy, are you in there?”

I didn’t answer. He was nearly drowned out by the pounding in my ears. 

Whatever happened on August 7th had fallen out of my mind. Well, sort of. It’s not that the memories were gone completely, they were just virtually inaccessible. Bits and pieces had been haunting me since you left. Fire brought vague, horrifying flashbacks of painful memories I didn’t recognize. But what if I wanted to recognize them? What if I didn’t run away when things got painful? Could I bring back the entire memory if I walked up to my fear and stepped inside it?

‘Find me in the fire,’ you had said. ‘Find me in the fire.’

Listen. You know me. By now, you’d probably be able to guess what I was about to do. But in the heat of the moment, even I wasn’t sure. I was going full autopilot, possessed by some stupid idea that probably wasn’t going to work. I think my destructive instincts were relapsing after being peaceful and constructive for too long. In any case, I searched the apartment like a bloodhound for the means to bring my impulsive plan to fruition, and fast.

It didn’t take long. In Fix-it’s utility closet, I found paint thinner. The irony of which sailed clear over my head at the time. The little flame symbol on the label was all I cared about.

I felt completely outside of my body as I poured the foul-smelling stuff all over everything. The floor, the furniture, the walls, even the bathroom. Fix-it was pounding and yelling at the door by then, demanding to know if I was alright. 

“I’m fine,” I told him as I shook out the last drops. 

I heard him sigh. “Mav-- Why is the door locked? Wait--” he paused, and then he spoke with the urgency of a man who has dealt with me his whole life, “-- what’s that smell? What are you doing in there?!”

I stood in the middle of the living room, right next to my muddy painting. All the fumes were starting to give me a headache by that point, so I opted to hurry it up. I took my brush -- my coded, faulty brush -- in my hand, and with the color red, I painted into my palm a fist-sized cherry bomb. Then, painting an orange spark, I lit it.

“Art project,” I called out to him. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, I took just long enough to mentally hold my own hand and tell myself that no matter what I saw or didn’t see, I was gonna be okay. 

You may not have been fireproof. But I am.

I rolled the bomb in the direction of the bathroom. 

“Mavy?!”

Closing my eyes, steeling myself to the imminent blast, I said, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

BANG.

The bomb went off, and I was staggered by a wall of suffocating heat as the apartment roared with flame. I caught myself on the coffee table and, trembling, opened my eyes. They stung immediately, and I blinked hard against the vicious light. The very air seemed stained a dry, sick red. It was just as terrifying as I had hoped, watching arms of hellfire claw across the floor, over the furniture, up the walls, quickly filling the ceiling with a black sea of smog. Squinting through it towards the door, I could see that the blast had knocked a bookshelf onto its side, only barricading the door further. It seemed to shake as Fix-it presumably rammed against it from the other side. If he was still calling out to me, I couldn’t hear him over the ringing in my ears. 

So, what did I do?

I just stood up straight and… stayed there. I didn’t crouch beneath the smoke. I just let the flames crawl up to my feet and creep up my clothes, threatening to melt all my pixels together. The pain was quickly becoming too much to bear, but I focused on that. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to feel the fire eat all the confusing layers away, until I could finally see the truth.

So many horribly familiar sensations snuck up on me. The sickening smell of the burn. The hot ash reaching down my throat and choking me. The painful dryness in my eyes. Reality felt unsteady. I quickly became very dizzy from the suffocating fumes, and I could no longer hold up my own weight. I remember stumbling backwards, and my darkening vision fell on the kitchen just in time to see the oven split apart, erupting in an explosion exponentially bigger than the first.

I was forced back, I lost my footing, and fell into memories so vivid, I may as well have been living them again.

I’m just… going to need a minute before I tell you about it. But you can wait. 

Wherever you are, I’m sure you remember the day you died.

[glapplebloom]

Welcome to the Most Must See Review on GLAB! MIZUARY! This month I will be looking at various episodes starring The Miz and it begins with Fear Factor.

Now I don’t watch a lot of television outside certain things so I was not a reality show watcher. But apparently Joe Rogan was the host of Fear Factor and said the Miz was one of the most fit contestants on the show. So let’s see how the Miz did in Fear Factor.

In 2006, the Miz is teaming up with some lady called Trishelle and they’re representing the Real World reality show that was on MTV. This was before the Miz became the most must see Superstar on the WWE so you’re seeing what Mike Mizanin can really bring.

The first game is basically Demolition Derby where the winning team gets a trip to Kenya. The trick here is that one person drives while the other person shift gears. So apparently Trishelle and Miz dated on the show and this was when the Miz JUST signed with the WWE. He hopes to become a WWE Superstar. I’m pretty sure headlining Wrestlemania and beating John Cena makes you one. Also, his partner doesn’t know Kenya is in Africa.

But while I’m going to focus on the Miz and his partner, let’s talk about who are they facing. Shout out to my fellow Survivor Fan Characters Readers as Survivor’s Johnny Fairplay and Twila Tanner are on one team. From the Amazing Race is Victoria and Johnathan. From American Idol is Carmen and Anthony. And from the Apprentice is Tana and Craig. And after what happened earlier this year, I’m automatically rooting against them.

So it begins with a race to knock down a flag for an additional $5000 but the Miz shows off his smarts by waiting in the back. Likely to let them get damaged trying to race for it. But considering a second person has to be responsible for the gear shift a lot of them are having issues. But once they got the hang of it they kept crashing into each other like they should. And the Miz is destroying the others on commentary and in the Derby. Sadly being the most aggressive also meant they were the most damaged. So they were the third out. The American Idol team won this non-elimination round.

Miz Soundbite of the Game: “Its called Demolition Derby, not Run Derby”

Now there’s something I didn’t expect to see: the winner gets to decide between a Trip to Kenya or taking a pass from the next Stunt, which is an Elimination Round. And whatever they don’t pick goes to another team. Mr. Fairplay suggested to the team that they keep the trip and give him the pass because he’s the weakest player. Now if I was the Idols, that pitch makes me think “you know, why don’t you play”. Of course, they can’t decide until they find out the next stunt.

They got to collect skulls in a swamp. The women have to dive into a well, the men have to dive into a mud pit, and the women have to go into a pit to get the last skull that’s guarded by an alligator. The American Idols decide to keep the trip and give the pass to the Apprentice Team, because they were the second to last team in the last game. The Miz is not confident about having Trishelle pull him out of the mud pit.

While I do plan on skipping anything not Miz related, I will mention that thanks to Johnny Fairplay he got Victoria to quit so the Miz and Trishelle technically don’t have to do the challenge. After Victoria (honestly rightfully) hits Johnny (and not too seriously), it seems Johnathan was going to start a fight with Joe Rogan but Miz had to break it up to prevent Joe from beating Johnathan.

Despite a team quitting and Miz helping out Joe, Team Miz still have to complete it to advance. Makes sense, but they’re gonna crush it. Miz SWAM through the Mud Pit and back, not even relying on Trishelle to pull him, and crushed the time in 8:13.1. Being the fastest team to complete the challenge, they get to pick the order for the next stunt. And this is the end of this first part.

Miz Soundbite of the Game: I felt like Arnold in Predator man, I was like “Screw the Rope, get to the boat, I’m coming!”

The episode begins with everyone noting that Johnny looks like someone who has been partying all night and haven’t gone to bed yet. Johnny, despite actually doing it, is using it to his advantage because that means people are underestimating him. While this may work on Survivor, I don’t think its going to work on Fear Factor.

The next stunt is a water stunt. They got to ride these things to grab items to stop a fire and save a dummy in a houseboat. Then they ride a helicopter, drop into a boat, swim to shore, and bring the dummy to an ambulance. The Miz and Trishelle picks the order and have the Apprentice Team go first. Its like he can predict the future. This is followed by the American Idol Team, then themselves, which means Team Survivor is last. Miz even gives Trishelle advice.

While the Miz got off on time, Trishelle was WAY off in comparison. But thanks to her swimming skills they make it on the same time. But the Miz is having difficulty getting onto the boat. But he makes up for it by busting a wall that was in the way and got on the helicopter in 2:37. And they complete the challenge in 6:07.1, again the fastest time so far. Also, it looks like Team American Idol wants to trade partners with Team Miz. Also, apparently this is not an elimination round, so Johnny and Twila decide to sit it out. This is all Johnny’s plan as everyone thinks Twilia would have loved to try it.

Miz Soundbite of the Game: So you can be good, you can be bad, but there’s nothing like being the Miz.

The next stunt has the ladies being stuck in an airtight box underwater with a whole bunch of bugs. The men have to dive underwater and cut ropes to free the girls. Johnny kept his end of the bargain and did not party all night long. He got home by 11. But they did the stunt in over 8 minutes while the other two teams were above a minute. But now Team Miz is up and they complete the challenge in 38 seconds. So despite Johnny’s plan on resting the day before, it was all for naught.

Miz Soundbite of the Game: All Four in One Shot, DUDE! You’re a f... animal! ~Joe Rogan.

The next stunt has Ladies in a sled having to go through it to a tunnel with Spiders while they have to get a key with their mouth. The men have to turn the crank for them to go through the tunnel and then jump into a big container of ice to find another key to keep it moving. And to make things worse: Johnny Fairplay is going to be the host for the rest of the show. Team Miz did 7:57.4 but in a surprising turn of events, Team Apprentice got 5:26.4 (their first win). Luckily for Team Miz it was not an elimination round and Johnny Fairplay gets eliminated again.

Miz Soundbite of the Game: Trishelle: I’m like GET THE DAMN KEY OUT Miz: I don’t wanna do it.  I don’t wanna do it. Get yourself out.

The final stunt is the following. While in the middle of the air they have to make their way to the back of the car and after 90 seconds they’ll come crashing into the ground. The team that transfers the most balls in 90 seconds will be the winner. Team Miz is first and sadly only got three balls. Team American Idol goes next and despite getting two pretty fast, couldn’t get the third one. And finally Team Apprentice who only got one. Which means Team Miz wins!

Miz Soundbite of the Game: Come on! Is it 57 seconds yet! Come on!

Overall, it was fun to see. You get to see Pre-WWE Miz and see a lot of what would become the WWE’s Miz and the Star of Miz and Mrs. Miz shows impressive physical abilities and showed that he can be tough enough. Winning 4 out of the 6 games is very impressive, especially the cutting wires underwater in a little over half a minute. Next time, let’s see the Miz after he got on the WWE.

[christinaroseandrews]

We’ve reached the end of our journey. Time for a nice summation and some tea.

If you missed the Previous parts they can be found here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Let’s go.

So this book is about a shark researcher and underwater filmmaker who find love while filming a documentary about sharks and an underwater sonar shark detection system.

Not gonna lie, I bought this for the sharks. And I was hoping that this book wouldn’t do what a lot of books do when they feature sharks... turn them into the big scary villains.

And I was to be disappointed.

That’s pretty much the story of this book.

It’s a disappointment.

It felt like I was reading fanfiction, bad fanfiction, you know the kind where the author takes huge chunks of another fandom’s text/plot and plops it into a new fandom but doesn’t manage to file the serial numbers off?

Like if you dropped Edward and Bella into the Hunger Games but kept all of the same plots, beats, and even lines from the Hunger Games.

That’s this book with Sharks.

It’s essentially a Real Person Fanfic featuring Ocean Ramsey as Grace and Andy Casagrande as Alec running into the various shark encounters as seen in such things as the filming of Jaws and pretty much every shark week special ever... Including the gods-awful Megalodon pseudo-documentary.

And the author didn’t even try to dispute this. She out and out states that she lifted the stories from documentary after documentary as well as Instagram stories and other social media influencers. In fact, she listed more social media influencers as her inspiration for her facts than actual renowned scientists.

Sigh...

I hated this book. Even my love for sharks couldn’t overcome the craptacular characterization and plotting. It was basically like... oh we can’t have the leads actually sit and bond we need more shark action.  And by shark action that meant encounters.

Every time the heroine went into the water, or even on the water, she was attacked by a great white shark. EVERY TIME!!! It’s like Jaws but without the redeeming Indianapolis monologue or the adorable kid mimics parent scenes. I feel like this book helps to popularize the myth that sharks are mindless attackers and they aren’t. There are videos after videos of sharks just out there living their lives next to swimmers and surfers. They’re like any apex predator, respect them and stay out of their way and you won’t get hurt.

The story jumped from scene to scene without any real forward motion. The actual villains of the story weren’t dealt with. Plots were dropped all over the place going on for pages and pages and then ending up nowhere. The whole reason why they were out there was hand-waved away with a time skip that came out of nowhere and one of the worst time skips I’ve seen.

And worse... the sex sucked.

Here’s a taste of the book’s scintillating sex scene...

I could write better in my sleep... and this is not hyperbole... ask Rose.

The only real good thing about this book is that technically it was well written. As in the grammar was on point. The writing for the most part flowed. It just seriously needed a sensitivity editor or six, a content editor, and a crash course on how to write smut.

This book just made me angry. And disappointed.

I’m still angry and disappointed.

“The Meg” and “Deep Blue Sea” do a better job of shark rep than this book. I am not joking.

I hate this book

One Star

If you really want to read the horror that is this book, you can get it here.

If you like these kind of honest and ranty reviews, please consider supporting us here!

[the--blackdahlia]

Royals Chapter 2 (Tommy x Nikki)

Title: Royals Chapter 2

Summary:  Tommy’s hiding a secret from the rest of the band. He hoped it would never come out, but somehow, it did.

Warnings: Maybe just some language for this chapter

AN: Thank you guys for all the feedback! Here’s chapter 2! (and my lazy ass will make a masterlist for it soon)

1981

Los Angeles, California

“Hey kid,” Tommy was leaning against the door frame. “When you leaving?”

“Couple hours,” Athena told him, not looking up from her magazine. “But I’ll be back before you know it. Can’t get rid of me for that long.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about you coming back. You’re a pain that won’t go away,” Tommy laughed. Athena flipped him off without looking up from her magazine. “You sure you wanna spend the whole summer with mom?”

“Yeah. It’ll be fun,” She told him. “Just stay out of my closet while I’m gone.”

“But your clothes look so much better on me,” Tommy laughed. Athena lowered her magazine to glare at her brother.

“Did you want something?” She asked. “Or are you just trying to get the last few minutes of annoyance in?”

“Just saying bye and reminding you to bring me back a shot glass,” Tommy shrugged. Athena sighed.

“It’s just the summer, and you have the whole Strip to get in trouble on,” She told him. “You know, mom extended the invitation to both of us?”

“Yeah, and listen to everyone talk about my long hair and my tattoo? No thanks,” Tommy shook his head. “Listen, I’m gonna bail before dad gets here to get you. He asks where I am…”

“I don’t know where you went and when you’re going to be back. I know, I know,” Athena shook her head. “You’re eighteen Tommy. I shouldn’t have to be lying about where you’re going anymore.”

“Yeah but it’s dad,” Tommy sighed. “And technically it's a school night.”

“Everyone knows you haven’t stepped foot into Royal Oak in months now,” Athena told him.

“Yeah, well, dad hasn’t said anything and I want to keep it that way,” Tommy sighed. “Well, I’m out. Have a nice trip…”

“See you next fall,” She smirked at him. Tommy gave her a little wave before grabbing his jacket and drumsticks and heading out into the night, hoping that he could avoid another awkward conversation with his dad.

****

Tommy had gone to a few shows. He had started out at a Rock Candy show, moving next to Vendetta, and finally ending up at London. And fuck, was London so good. Tommy had spent most of the night staring at the bassist, with that large black hair and that smirk that just made Tommy melt. And how cool he looked after he got into a fight with the other band members.

Fucking Nikki Sixx. He was never going to meet the bassist, so why get hung up on someone like that.

Tommy stopped outside a music store down the street from the clubs. Every day for the past six months, he had stood outside this store, staring at that very drumset in that very window. He was sure that if he told his mom he wanted it, she would get it for him, but he wasn’t about to ask. He wanted to get this on his own, without his parents help. His dad had got him his first one, the one he used today, when they first moved into the house that they currently lived in, put he wanted to prove to everyone that he could do things without his parents.

He was so lost in his thoughts as he stared at the drums that he didn’t notice someone coming up by him.

“That’s a beauty,” A voice said, making Tommy jump. He turned to see a mop of thick, black hair, and that was about it. Because the hair was hiding the eyes of the talker. But Tommy knew who it was.

This was Nikki Fucking Sixx.

“Would be hard to smuggle out in a guitar case though,” Nikki continued. Tommy just kept staring at him. “You okay there?”

“Uh, I, uh, I have your poster on my wall!” Tommy blurted out, mentally kicking himself. Nikki chuckled and glanced down at the leopard print pants Tommy was wearing, where he had a pair of sticks sticking out of the waistband.

“You carry those with you everywhere?” Nikki asked. Tommy looked down and pulled out the sticks, twirling one of them briefly.

“Never know when it’s time to rock,” Tommy smiled at him. Nikki stood there a moment, sizing him up, before he nodded.

“Come on,” He nodded for Tommy to follow him as he went to the front door of the store and unlocked it.

“What are you doing?” Tommy asked.

“It’s cool. I stay here a lot,” Nikki told him. “I give the owner his 3 b’s, and he lets me stay here, gives me records, and let’s me try out instruments.”

“The three b’s?” Tommy asked.

“Babes, booze, and blow,” Nikki told him. He stuck a few sheets of paper onto a receipt spike. He headed to an office and left a baggie and a couple bottles from the bag he had on his back. He grabbed a stack of records from the desk and headed back out to where Tommy was still standing in the middle of the room like a deer in the headlights. “So, you got a name? Or am I just going to be giving you nicknames all night?”

“Uh, I’m Tommy,” Tommy told him. “Tommy Lee.”

“Well, since you got my poster on your wall, I’m assuming you know who I am?” Nikki asked, sitting on the sales counter to look through the records he had been left. Some of them he would sale, some he would end up keeping.

“You’re Nikki Sixx!” Tommy all but squealed. Nikki’s lips curled into a smile as he laid the records on the counter and hopped off. He made his way over to Tommy.

“Might wanna take the poster down,” He told him. “London’s dead. At least, with me in it. But I’ve got a plan for a new band.” He smirked at the drummer. “Why don’t you show me what you can do and we’ll talk some more about that?”

“Do?” Tommy asked.

“Drums.” Nikki nodded to the set Tommy had just been admiring.

“Oh, yeah,” Tommy nodded and took a seat behind the kit while Nikki leaned up against the wall. Tommy took a deep breath before beating out a pattern on the drums. He glanced over at Nikki, who just kept watching him. When Nikki didn’t tell him to stop, Tommy started in on some different drum solos and such he had heard, or performed in the past. When he figured that he had done enough, he ended the performance with a loud cymbal crash. He looked over at Nikki, who had his hair pushed back so Tommy could actually see his eyes.

“Well, that was a lot better than what I was expecting,” Nikki chuckled. “How old are you anyway?”

“Eighteen,” Tommy told him. “I’ll be nineteen in a few months.”

“Do anything?” Nikki asked. “I think I’ve seen you around the strip before.”

“My buddy Greg and I were in Suite 19 for awhile. Third guy wanted to go out on his own and Greg and I are trying to find a band,” Tommy explained.

“What’s he do?” Nikki asked.

“Greg’s a singer. And he plays guitar. He’s pretty awesome,” Tommy told him. Nikki loved the way his eyes lit up when he was bragging about his band mates.

“Call him up and bring him here tomorrow night,” Nikki told Tommy. “We need a good front man and an even better guitarist.”

“We?” Tommy asked.

“Well, we’re band mates, aren’t we?” Nikki asked. “Don’t think I just ask every random drummer I see on the streets to give me a private performance, do you?”

“I...uh, that’s cool,” Tommy smiled a bit. “I’ll call Greg and have him be here tomorrow.” Nikki smiled and picked up his bass.

“You know any Kiss?”

****

Tommy quietly snuck into the house early the next morning. He had spent most of the night jamming with Nikki, laughing at his dark sense of humor, and just having the best time he had ever had. As he shut the front door, a voice made him jump.

“Well, there you are,” David Bass said from his chair as he sipped some coffee. “You know, I stopped believing Athena when she would tell me that she didn’t know where you went or when you’d be back about three months ago.”

“Uh, hey dad,” Tommy laughed a little. “You’re up early.”

“There was a good marathon on TV,” He grumbled. “Took her to the airport. Thought you would’ve been home.”

“Yeah, sorry. I got caught up in a thing…” Tommy looked down at his scuffed and worn Converse.

“I’m assuming that thing wasn’t a study group,” David commented. Tommy didn’t answer. “Royal Oak called. Asking if you’re sure about dropping out.”

“Shit,” Tommy grumbled.

“Look, I’m not mad, but your mother will be,” David told him. “I know school isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Trust me. But Tom, this is no way to live your life.”

“We moved here for a second chance, right?” Tommy looked at his dad. “This is my chance. I have the perfect opportunity to separate myself from yours and mom’s shadows. I have a new band. Me, Greg, and Nikki Sixx. We’re going to be awesome dad.” David sighed.

“You know, your mom misses you. Why don’t you go see her? Maybe that would be the perfect chance to start a new life…”

“You couldn’t be there either dad. That’s why we’re here and she’s there.”

“I love your mother. I never stopped loving her. Things just got in the way,” David sighed. “I’m not going to stop you from making your choices Tommy. I just want you to know that once you make them, that’s it. There are no do overs. This isn’t the game of Life. This is just life.”

“I know dad. But I really have faith in this band,” Tommy told him. “Can’t you have faith in me?” David sighed.

“I always do Tommy,” He told his son. “Just get some sleep. Think it over, okay?” Tommy nodded and headed upstairs to his room. He knew Athena’s was empty and would be until she had to go back to school. It just left him and his dad alone in the house. Tommy sighed as he pushed open his bedroom door and headed in. There were flyers covering the walls from different bands he had went to see, including his own.

His eyes fell on the London poster. Black and white with the members and the information for the concert. Part of him wanted to rip the poster down, because Nikki wasn’t with them anymore and he would need a spot for their band’s flyer. But instead, he left it hanging right where it was.

A good reminder of that night as he fell into bed.

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[firesoulstuff]

Airship + “Open your eyes!”

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23956153

A little known secret about Behrad Tarazi: he has no patients.

He’s gotten better with is patients as he’s gotten older, especially since joining the Legends. He’s become calmer, more a voice of reason than an instigator of aggression. Smoking helps, sure, but it’s mostly situational. A lot of the times when he would lose his temper growing up it was because some computer project wasn’t working as it should, or he was losing against a boss in his newest video game for the thousandth time. But now he knows how to take a breath and come back to his projects, and his parents can’t exactly take away his games as a means of punishment anymore, so he always knows he can go back to them. Therefor it’s rare that he loses his patients these days.

Rare, but not unheard of.

His leg is bouncing with anxiety, his blunt nails digging little divots into the palm of his fisted hand, and his lip is nearly bleeding with how much he’s been biting at it.

Three years.

He has spent longer on this project than he ever has on any other, and moreover this is so much more than a mere “project”.

Gideon is still unconscious. It’s been hours since they went ahead with the plan. Three years worth of calculations from himself, Ray, Ava, and Stein. Two years of magical consult from John and Nora, and one very, very big risk.

Gideon.

After he got that hyper fluid in his mouth and spent a day with her in her matrix and learned that she essentially lives like a ghost, walking among them but they can never see her because she isn’t technically real, he vowed to change that. At first he didn’t think it would be possible, but with every day he spends on the Waverider he sees more and more examples of the impossible, and so he kept at it.

Now they’re here.

Gideon has a human body, and in order to get her into it first they had to take her out of the ship. Not her body, her. They had to remove her programming from the Waverider and put it into what two hours ago was an android body. Thanks to Nora and John the body is now human flesh and organs, but that’s the scary part. There are no go-backs at this point. There is no re-uploading her back into the Waverider’s systems. If she doesn’t wake up then that’s it, she’s gone.

If this fails, it means he killed her.

It’s all he can do not to be sick just at the thought.

A knock on the open doorframe grabs his attention. It’s Stein - in all his old man sweatered glory – with a forced smile on his face.

“I came to check her vitals.”

Behrad never has been able to tell if Stein’s excitement with things like this is genuine or if it’s all an act. He knows it starts off genuine, Steins is far too bad of an actor to ever start something dishonestly, but once whatever his genuine emotion is dies down he sometimes starts faking something. In this case it would be enthusiasm, likely to keep Behrad from spiraling further into a ball of nerves.

He watches with his breath held as Stein looks over the various monitors hooked up to Gideon, as well as the I.V. bag of fluids they’d put her on just in case. The monitors haven’t changed since the last time he checked over the readings. Her heart is still beating, her brainwaves are still functioning, her blood is still flowing…

“Well.” Stein says, examining things again. “Everything appears to be functioning just fine, I don’t see any reason for her to not be waking up. “Then why isn’t she?” Behrad asks, his voice icy and slow, not at all how he ever likes to be speaking.

Stein, understandably, looks taken aback by the tone, but he shrugs it off.

“Give it time, Behrad. We’re in uncharted territory here. We created an android which is impressive all on it’s own, but then we turned that android human. The body needs time to adjust, to realize it is alive and wake itself up.”

It’s not just a body, he wants to say, it’s Gideon. She’s in there now. Her body isn’t just a big piece of metal sitting on their workbench anymore. She’s real. This is all real.

But he knows Stein, and he knows he’s just trying to cut to the chase.

“What if she never does?”

Stein looks at him with sympathy, and maybe a touch of fear, but something else too. Some hard look that Behrad doesn’t have a name for, maybe confidence, or hope; something along those lines.

“She will.”

Stein leaves with that. Doesn’t tell him to get up and eat something, or shower. He doesn’t try and get him to leave her side, and Behrad wonders if it’s because he knows it would be a waste of breath.

Once Stein is gone he reaches over and takes Gideon’s hand in his, running his thumb over the bumps of her knuckles and marveling how soft her skin is. How real it is; not the rough metal he’s been welding for months now.

“Open your eyes, Gideon.” He whispers, pressing a light kiss to her fingers. 

“Please open your eyes.”

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

When Gideon wakes it’s dark and she feels groggy. That’s usual; her only question is who shut her down. She isn’t worried; she has no memory of the ship being attacked lately. She stretches as she tries to recall-

She stretches?

There must be a problem with her systems; perhaps that’s why she was shut down. Perhaps a bug-

Memory crashes over her.

No, not a bug. It was Behrad. The body he and some of the others have been working on for her was completed, all they needed to do was upload her into it and then John and Nora would turn it human. She knew the risks, and she let Behrad shut her down fully aware that she may never boot back up. If she did, it wouldn’t be booting up. It would be awaking. Really awaking, from real, human sleep.

She looks around, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.

Eyes. She has eyes.

She’s in the med bay, and it’s dark, probably nighttime. She starts to scoot herself up in the chair but finds one of her hands is caught under something, and distracted by the feeling she whirls her head over to it.

It’s Behrad.

He’s slumped in a low chair; one that looks like it was dragged in here from the galley. He’s asleep, one of his hands outreached and covering her own. It’s a warm, welcome weight that she takes a moment to marvel at. She can feel it. She can feel him.

“Behrad. Behrad wake up.”

He doesn’t so much as flinch and she frowns.

“Behrad!” It’s a loud whisper, “Behrad, open your eyes!”

Still nothing, in fact he gives a soft snore, and she huffs.

She looks around the room some more, and suddenly she has a strange feeling inside her. She couldn’t explain it if asked, it isn’t quite an ache and isn’t quite a churn, but it is unpleasant, and thankfully something in either her body or her mind seems to know what to do about it.

Slowly she slips her hand out from under Behrad’s and pivots herself to the side. Her bare toes flinch when they touch the cold metal of the ground, and for a moment she’s able to push the odd feeling away in order to look down at herself.

She had seen the body before - can’t exactly hide something from an all-seeing computer program - but seeing it now it feels so much more real.

Likely because it is.

While her feet are bare the rest of her is dressed in black. She has soft yoga pants and a comfortable tank top. Her dark hair reaches past her shoulders, landing in a wavy tangle on the hill of her breasts.

The feeling starts nagging her again and so she gets up, holding to the chair and anything else along the way for support. Her balance isn’t good, but she doesn’t crash, and is nearly walking on her own by the time she gets to the bathroom. She forces herself to bypass the mirror as she enters, as she has now figured out what the odd feeling is and she really needs to go. Once she’s relieved herself she allows herself to look in the mirror, pleased to see that the reflection she finds looking back at her is exactly what she’s been picturing herself as since she was first activated. She knew she could trust Behrad to get the details right.

Speaking of Behrad, when she opens the door he is standing there. Not having expected to see him she jumps, her back hitting against the sink, and on already wobbly legs she starts to waver but he reaches out and captures her in a firm hold, steadying her on her feet.

She looks down at his hands where they are locked on her waist, and then to his eyes, which are flicked down at his hands, and then…

And then they’re looking into her eyes, and God, she can feel his warm breath on her face with how close they are.

Or, she can until he leans back.

“Ahh… You… Are you good?”

“Yeah.” She says softly, “I’m… I’m good.”

“Right.”

He takes his hands back, swiping them awkwardly against his pants.

For a moment it’s just that. Just the two of them standing in the door, the ship dark and quiet around them. She’s always enjoyed the quiet of the night, considered it to be “her” time. Alone, no disasters or missions. Ok, that isn’t always the case, but most of the time. She is pleasantly surprised to find that as a human that love is still alive and possibly even stronger, happy to share this moment in a late hour with someone else.

Happy to share it with him.

[jennajayfeather]

Before y’all go “IT’S A HACK” or something let me tell you about the hell I went through to get this baby:

So basically in Pokemon Yellow you had glitches known as “Mew Glitch” which allowed players to catch a Mew.  Now they left these glitches in the virtual console games, and while you can send Pokemon over, you can’t send your glitched Mew.

Why?

It’s technically supposed to be an event from “GF”  (Gamefreak) with a trainer ID of 22796, and because PokeBank checks for those two, Mew can’t be sent over.  So in other words, unless your name is GF & you were lucky enough to get the trainer ID of “22796″ you were out of luck of getting your glitched into SM game--

However, through a series of glitches, it is possible to change your name and Trainer ID to fix up your Mew to be sent into SM.

So here’s my tale of my sufferings (my friends called me a masochist):

First I had to start a new save file & to make my life easier I named myself “GF”(this was the easiest part), and then I took my first steps straight into the hell of Viridian Forest so I can get a level 100 Nidoking Before Brock and breeze through the early parts of the game.

So for those unfamiliar with this glitch, basically you have to find a long range trainer in Viridian Forest, hit the start button before he walks up to you, use the escape rope (THESE STEPS ARE WAY HARDER THAN IT LOOKS, TOOK ME LIKE 5 OR MORE TIMES JUST TO GET THE FEEL OF WHEN TO HIT THE START BUTTON) and be sure to go into Pewter City, then find a level 4 Caterpie in the forest (not level 5. Not level 6.  Level 4)  Then Growl at the Caterpie 6 times.  However, sometimes Caterpie will only let you Growl at them 5 times, so you gotta search for the right Caterpie which can take time--

Anyway once those steps  are done you go back to Pewter,  have the guy blocking you from leaving Pewter take you to the Gym (<-THIS IS IMPORTANT) and then walk back to the forest & a message will pop up and then if it works right, a Level 1 Nidoking.

I say “IF” because if the Caterpie you growl’d at had a high special or w/e  you’ll get a Voltorb.  Anyway I had to repeat this several times just to get the Nidoking.  Once that was done though, things went smooth, then I used the “Underflow Glitch” to get less than 54 EXP to automatically get Nidoking to level 100--

However when I got to Cerulean, I took a detour.  I had misunderstood the Reddit Post I was reading & used the Mew Glitch.  So before I could do the Mew Glitch I had to catch an Abra (THIS WENT WAY EASIER THAN EXPECTED TBH) and then I had to do the long trainer glitch with a specific trainer by Cerulean.  I used Teleport to go back to Cerulean, battled the Slowpoke Kid (GROWLED AT HIM 6 TIMES FOR A LEVEL 1 MEW) and the glitch went right. Caught Mew, used the Underflow Glitch to level it to 100, like Nidoking.  Then I did the same process again against a dude with a Shellder and got ANOTHER level 100 Mew.  I later found out it was pointless, but that’s for another time.

Anway. THen, after that I had to make it to Cinnabar Island.  This took a while since you have to clear a few gyms, get Surf, which is easily like beating half the game. 

ONCE I DID THAT, it was time to do more glitches.  So first, just to make my life a bit easier, the first glitch I had to do was the Missingno Glitch.  To get a “safe” missingno. I needed to place my nuggets into item slot 6, have a pokemon with a stat 181,182, 183 (MY NIDOKING THANKFULLY HAD THIS!!) and then do the long range trainer gltch like with Mew--

But this time I had to go into Cinnabar Mansion, find a Ditto, have it turn into Nidoking and then fly back to Cerulean and encounter Missingno.  This gave me over 100 nuggets, and then I swapped nuggets with rare candy, it gave me over 100 rare candies after I caught missingno.

But that wasn’t the end--

Then I had to sell some nuggets so I could buy 73 revives. I bought them, did the glitch over again and encountered that same missingno. to give me exactly 201 revives. 

THEN after that, I had to do another glitch to get this special item called “W SM.”  This item is magical.  But it also comes with great danger for if you use it wrong, your game corrupts and you’d have to start completely over.

Anyway to get this special item, I had to find another Missingno, but this time with a Pokemon with the stat “194″

Well.  Shit.  I don’t have???? A Pokemon??? With Stat 194????  

I really thought I was screwed here.  But I wasnt, turns out Articuno will have that stat if I use some rare candies--so now I gotta get an articuno.

This would have been easier if I had gotten my Master Ball, but I never did so I’m using Ultra Balls.  Anyway I swim to Articuno, find it in the Seafoam Islands and catch it.

I level it up with Rare Candies praying that I’d get Special stat 194.  I got 195.  So, I had to reset, and try to capture Articuno again. Caught it, leveled it up.  GOT THE STAT 194 HOWEVER--

I forgot my escape rope so I was stuck trying to meander around and get out of the seafoam islands. I was frustrated but I marched on and somehow got out.

Once I got that, I did the Long Range Trainer Glitch w/ Ditto again, this time with an x accuracy (or was it speed? Can’t remember)in like my 8th? Slot, and encountered that Missingno so it could turn my x accuracy into the “W SM.”

This, is not where it ends though.  This was just the beginning really. Then I had to go around getting specific Pokemon.  The first Pokemon had to be a Seel with exactly 233 HP—

So I had to go back to the Seafoam Islands, find a seel, catch the seel, and rare candy it till it got 233 HP.  This was more annoying than it seems because you have to feed rare candies at one at a time and every single time the damn thing kept trying to evolve. Anyway ONCE THAT WAS DONE, I got my first Pokemon in a free box.

Then I had to find as follows:  Parasect, Growlithe, Magikarp, Psyduck, Flareon, Tentacool, FEMALE Nidoran, and then three pokemon of my choice.  Once that was done was where the fun, and paranoia again.

So first I had to buy 43 Burn Heals and 53 Ice Heals.  After that I set up my items as:

1.

ws# #m#

Item to get to 255

Burn heal x 43

Ice heal x 53

Revive x 201

(IF YOU DO NOT SET IT UP THIS WAY, EXACTLY THIS WAY, AND HAVE THE POKEMON BOX WITH THE POKEMON YOU GOT, YOUR GAME  WILL CRASH)

 Which I needed: 89 Lemonade, 12 Repel, 211 Carbos, 88 x Accuracy, 115 Water Stones, TM01.

Once I utilized that glitch to get that, it changed my Trainer ID to be 22796.  

 After that, I needed a Mew with my NEW trainer ID. So I have to repeat that first formula, but this time for

 any item

ws# #m#

Item 3: Repel x21

Item 4: X Speed x14

Item 5: Ultra Ball x64

Item 6: TM05 x89

Lemonade x201

 And successfully got my Mew.

 Then I had to repeat the first formula again, so I could make my Mew shiny.  So I had to have:

Any Item

WS M

Lemonade x170

X Accuracy x134

Carbos x209

Pokeball x119

Fresh Water x201

AND THEN, make sure  I had Mew in the front of my Party, use W SM, toss one X Accuracy, then use WS M again.

ALL THE WHILE, FOR EACH OF THESE CODES IM DOUBLE, TRIPLE, QUADRuPLE CHECKING EVERYTHING SO I’M POSITIVE IM DOING IT RIGHT.

ANYWAY, EVERYTHING WENT SPLENDID, AS YOU CAN SEE

 AND

IM

TIRED.

[doctorocsid]

THE MAKING OF PHOENIX WRIGHT’S SECOND DAY OFF

Or: The Immense Struggle of Trying to Make Decent Content

A good year and a half. That’s how much time passed between me starting Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off and me uploading it to YouTube. What a hell of a load off my back that was. If you couldn’t tell, making this video was a bit of an undertaking, to say the least. And by “undertaking” I mean “an exercise in pure agony”. So, I figured I’d do a bit of a writeup here so I can get across to you the absolute hell of an experience making this video was.

PART 1: THE INITIAL PLANNING STAGES

The original “Phoenix Wright’s Day Off” was released in February 2018 to, though not a lot of views, a generally very positive response. Despite its janky animation, people seemed to enjoy it for its complete ridiculousness, comedic timing, and overly-choreographed fighting. Not to mention literally being the only Ace Attorney-themed Garry’s Mod video ever made that actually uses the Ace Attorney characters. (I’m still the only person to ever do that as of the time of writing. Woohoo.)

Given the positive reception and the fact that I literally ended the video with a “To Be Continued”, I was ready as I could ever be to start work on a sequel. The first one only took me a couple weeks to make, so surely a sequel wouldn’t take much longer, right?

Oh, how wrong I was. Still, I started planning out exactly how things would go. Throwing around ideas in my head. I needed it to be bigger and better than the original, of course. How was I gonna do that? Well, my initial plan was, uh, misguided, to say the least. What I wanted to do at first was create the sequel entirely in Source Filmmaker, along with giving it a darker, more serious tone to contrast the ridiculous slapstick of the first. Not a great idea for a sequel to a video that mainly relied on throwing ragdolls around for comedy.

https://streamable.com/taxrn

The original intro for PW2DO, based off the intro for “Fargo”. A lot less cool-looking than the final intro I made. (Even though I intended the video to be made in SFM, I made the intro in Gmod solely because I could just film myself driving the car instead of having to animate it manually.)

The final intro was done in a not too difficult fashion - the characters were animated in Garry’s Mod on top of greenscreens, which I then imported into Premiere and changed to solid colors. Added some extra video effects I found in places. Set it to an instrumental of Propane Nightmares. I’m proud of how it turned out, mostly. I won’t deny after I introduced the characters I didn’t exactly know what else to do with it, so I just filled it with some random actiony shots I thought might look cool. Incidentally, this was the only part of the final video that was made in Premiere - the rest of it was just edited together in Vegas Pro. Which crashed many times during editing. Fun.

PART 2: THE PAINS OF INDECISION (AND ALSO SOURCE FILMMAKER)

Nonetheless, I got to work, despite not actually knowing how to use Source Filmmaker. “I’ll figure it out as I go along,” I figured. And over time, more or less, I managed to figure it out. Sort of. And by “figure it out” I mean “become subject to the true hell that is SFM”.

Let me give you some quick background here. SFM has two main editors for animation: The “motion editor”, and the “graph editor”. The motion editor uses a relatively easy-to-understand method of animating: you select an object you want to animate (a prop, weapon, ragdoll, etc), select the span of time in which you want the thing to move to its new destination, and then you move it to the new destination. Sounds simplistic, but can be used extensively to create good-looking animation. (I myself used this method for the bar fight in PW2DO.) The graph editor on the other hand, is much more involved, depending on the tried-and-true method of using keyframes for animation. Some people prefer this one because it allows you to directly edit and fine-tune each little animation curve to your liking. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXnpk8xDLg

This unfinished PW2DO prototype was animated entirely with the graph editor in SFM.

Really, you can use either one for animating, whichever suits you best. For me, personally, the graph editor feels like something designed in the seventh circle of hell specifically to torture me. Why does adding a new keyframe screw up all my preexisting animation? Why does adding a new keyframe make the ragdoll’s bones stretch out to infinity? Those are just a couple questions I shouted at my computer screen while trying to figure it out.

Eventually, I just gave up. I came to terms both with the fact that I wasn’t satisfied with what I was making, and with the fact that trying to use SFM’s graph editor to animate was making me want to julienne my keyboard. (I hadn’t figured out, or really even considered the motion editor at the time.) “Screw it,” I said to myself. “I’ll do in Gmod, like the last one.”

PART 3: OH RIGHT, GMOD SUCKS TOO

The first PWDO was relatively simple to make, at least compared to the second one. There were two main tools I used: Stop Motion Helper (a tool for animating stuff within Gmod itself without the need for actual stop motion or whatnot), and the classic technique of “throw stuff around in front of the camera”. I had little to no experience doing 3D animation when making it, but it worked out anyway. It let me practice some camera framing stuff, too. All I was really doing for most of it was animating the characters moving along with the camera. But for the second video, I desperately wanted to up the ante. I wanted it to be cooler. More edgy. More cinematic. Turns out, there’s one main reason that proved difficult for me. And that’s that Garry’s Mod kinda sucks for long-term animation.

Here’s the difference between animating in SFM and animating in GMod. SFM is made for animation. GMod isn’t. So, if you want animating in GMod to be anything less than horrendously tedious, you need some addons to help you. Stop Motion Helper is a neat little addon that lets you animate stuff in Garry’s Mod with the “tweening” type of animation. Simply put, you pose something in point A, make a keyframe, move it to point B, and then make another keyframe. Stop Motion Helper will then automatically animate it moving between the two points. Thus, instead of the stop motion method where you have to pose every individual frame, you technically only have to pose the beginning and end. Not that it looks very good if you only do that. Of course, like any kind of animation, it’s still something that requires a lot of effort if you don’t want it to look cheap and robotic. But it works. Sort of.

Doesn’t work too well with vehicles, though.

There were a multitude of small limitations and annoyances, however, that proved to be annoying to deal with in GMod nonetheless.

FIRST PROBLEM: Because GMod isn’t made specifically for animation, resuming a project within it is kind of a hellish endeavor at times. Unlike Source Filmmaker where you can just open a project file and everything remains the same, Garry’s Mod’s saving tool doesn’t save a lot of the addon-related data when you create a save file of whatever scenario you’ve made. That includes stop motion helper animation. While SMH does have its own support for saving animations, you have to save every single animation as its own separate file. Take the scene in PW2DO, for instance, where Phoenix shoots those cops to get the security footage.

https://streamable.com/2ikd1

There are seven moving parts in this scene - Phoenix, the picture frame, both cops, the gun, the shampoo bottle, and the camera. Note how many of these are moving in each camera shot along with how many shots there are (ignoring after the cop goes out the window, because that’s not done with SMH). That’s ten shots, if you didn’t want to count. If I wanted to save this whole scene for potential later tweaking, I’d have to make a save file for the session along with saving the animation data for all ten shots - that’s ten separate animation files for this one scene - and then I would have to manually reapply the animation to each individual moving element. 

On top of that, not everything can be saved at all just by sheer concept. The muzzle flash, for instance. While the flash graphic over the gun was added in post, the actual light emanating from it was something I had to do in-game, and it’s not something you can animate with SMH. Therefore, I had to play the animation in GMod, and then specifically time me hitting a button on my keyboard to make the flash happen at just the right point. That’s just one workaround in a program that, when animating in it, is like 80% workarounds.

But nothing about Garry’s Mod frustrated me quite as much as the final fight scene.

PART 4: THE BAR FIGHT

The final fight scene of PW2DO was the one thing that kept me from releasing the video sooner. Seriously, out of that year and a half or so, I’d say only a month or so was spent working on the GMod portions of the video. The rest was just that stupid, godforsaken fight scene. (And mostly procrastinating on making it.) Allow me to try and outline to you what I went through doing this.

Now, the fight scene went through three specific incarnations. They were all based around Maya and Athena tracking down Phoenix and beating the crap out of him, it just differed on two basic things: the location, and the fight music. The first idea I had was them fighting Phoenix in an alleyway while ABBA’s “Waterloo” played in the background. (i know that sounds silly but i swear i couldve made it work) That one didn’t get beyond planning stages - I’d kinda choreographed some of it in my head, I know Phoenix was supposed to get a crowbar at some point, but it didn’t get any farther than that.

The second incarnation was much more well-developed. The way I figured it was as such: Phoenix, after retrieving the security footage from his office, would go on the run and get on a bus. However, when he got on the bus, it’d be revealed that Athena was driving it, and Phoenix would fight Maya as they went down the road. (No comment on how Maya and Athena got a bus.) This was gonna be set to “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince, inspired by the opening car chase scene from Kingsman: The Golden Circle. (Meh movie, neat fight scenes.) Eventually they’d crash the bus, all go flying out the window, and then Phoenix would get arrested by the cops as he did in the final video. Sounds neat, right? So, what stopped me from doing this?

jesus christ so many things

Everything wrong with this concept centered around one particular problem. I absolutely could not, for the life of me, figure out how to animate a fight scene in a bus that was moving down the road. In SFM that might’ve been possible, but in Garry’s Mod? Good luck with that one. I practically tore my hair out trying to come up with a single working solution to this. Allow me to present to you the various ideas I had and why they all failed miserably.

IDEA 1: Animate the bus moving and the characters moving in it at the same time

This was the fastest-thrown-out idea because the complexity of something like this was just too much for Gmod and an animation addon. What’s that? You want to be able to stay with the scene as it animates? No, that’s basically impossible to do. It’s not like SFM where you could just attach yourself and a camera to the moving vehicle and animate from there. It just wasn’t feasible.

IDEA 2: Create moving textures and place them outside the windows to give the illusion of movement

This one went out the window too, unfortunately, as rotating the camera to any degree kinda just seriously killed the illusion. I could’ve done the scene without the cool cinematic fighting camera movements, but… is it really Phoenix Wright’s Day Off without those?

IDEA 3: Create a 3d video of going down the street in GMOD and paste it onto a greenscreen outside the bus, and animate it rotating properly in Premiere

I don’t blame you if you don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about. See, miraculously enough, there is actually an addon for GMod that allows you to record 360 degree videos within it - and after a decent amount of finicking around with it, I actually managed to make one that seemed to work fine. It was from this point I actually set out and started making the scene - I got about ten seconds in, mostly comprised of driving shots, a neat easter egg with Homestar Runner (not something i’d do nowadays tbh) and a single shot of Phoenix beating on Maya. I was all set to get going.

And then Premiere just refused to work with the 360 video. Don’t get me wrong, I was able to animate it rotating and stuff, but it wouldn’t let me do this at the same time as the normal 2D video that was meant to be pasted on top of it. It frankly just. Wouldn’t let me. And after a lot of struggling, I just. Gave up. That ten seconds of video, trashed.

https://streamable.com/4omnep

I did manage to re-piece it together from the old files on my drive, though. With mostly missing sound effects.

So, that was scrapped. I wasn’t doing the bus fight. What, then, would work out better than a fight scene based off the first fight scene of Golden Circle? Apparently, my mind decided that would be the last fight scene of Golden Circle. Cool.

Thankfully, things went a lot smoother there, but it wasn’t without hiccups. Now, if you’ve seen Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off - I don’t know why you’re reading this if you haven’t - there’s a chance you might’ve found the music choice for the bar fight scene a bit odd. If you’re not aware, it’s a cover of the 1986 Cameo song “Word Up”, by a German country band called The Bosshoss. This is the song they used in the movie so you’re not allowed to question me on this.

Given how western-y the song sounds, though, I had to at least make the context fit. Despite that, I couldn’t really find any GMod maps that had a good enough bar interior for a while - and I really wanted it to be a bar fight. Bar fights are cool. Thankfully, I did eventually manage to find one. This one, in particular: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806759276&searchtext=

Yes, that’s a My Little Pony based map. I worked with what I had, okay? That was the least of the issues, anyway. By this point I’d had enough of trying to animate with GMod, and as such I’d decided to move back to SFM, but that caused a whole new issue. This map wasn’t made for SFM. And opening it in SFM just. Crashed. I won’t go super into detail of how I fixed this, but essentially I had to download a program called BSPSource so I could decompile the map, re-open it in Hammer, and export it to properly work with SFM.

Still left me with some annoying issues though, as you can see. Not too difficult fixes, though - The first one I just covered up with another corkboard, and the second thing was fixed by typing mat_specular 0 in console. Was a bit annoying that I had to do that every time I reopened SFM, but whatever. It was working, at least. (that’s something you’ll think to yourself a lot if you ever get into using SFM.)

 Anyway, things went pretty okay from this point on. You know, aside from me proceeding to barely ever work on the thing for like a year and a half. I didn’t have many hardships during it other than my own procrastination, so instead take a look at some of the funny tricks I pulled to get this scene to go the way I wanted.

https://gfycat.com/OldfashionedForkedFlatcoatretriever

Engineer telekinetically swooces his shotgun back to himself.

https://gfycat.com/SleepyShadowyLadybird

I had to make Phoenix hover over Engie to let his arms reach him without his legs obscuring the camera.

https://gfycat.com/AptHomelyGoral

The rope was way too short to reach the soldier, so I had to have Phoenix basically throw the rope in order to reach his gun. I also forgot to detach the rope from his hand afterward, so it kinda gets flung around with it off-camera.

https://gfycat.com/AgonizingScrawnyAbalone

Phoenix apparently decided for himself he wanted to go out the window.

Aside from all that, though, things finally went okay. Eventually. I managed to finish up the animation, add some extra ending stuff in GMod, and do a neat credits sequence to David Bowie music. All in all, it went okay.

And that’s it. After all that waiting, I finally managed to put an 8 minute video out from one and a half years of it not being finished. It was quite a load off my mind, for sure, and to this day it stands as my proudest video. It’s silly, has its down moments, but I can at least confidently say it’s the best Ace Attorney gmod video. If only because there is basically no competition.

So, what’s in store next? Not much of anything as far as I feel right now. I could make a third one, one day - I did envision it as a trilogy - but although I do have some ideas for it, I still have zero motivation to actually make it. So who knows. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe Phoenix Wright will escape from prison one day.

So, this was the experience of making Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off. I hope this gave you something of an idea on how agonizing this video was to make, and totally means you should go and share it everywhere to get me more views because I DESERVE it after the hell I went through.

Seriously, though, thanks for reading, and may this post serve as a warning if you ever decide to do Garry’s Mod or SFM videos. Not a warning against it, mind you, you can make some totally cool stuff. Just be prepared to suffer a bit in the process.

[dustedandsocial]

One thing and an Other thing

The One Thing:

After many failures in the world of responsible adulthood, I decided in 2010 that I would go full throttle into music distro and record label management. And for a fleeting moment, things were working out in my favor.

But let me back up. I had been having bizarre sleeping patterns going all the way back into my childhood, that no insomnia or depression diagnosis nor medication could ever fix. I never got an answer from a doctor that explained my sleep problems.

Essentially, my body and brain think that a day is 25 hours long. If you pause on that fact for a second, what becomes clear is that my sleep schedule rotates around the clock in a never-ending cycle. This had been the case for me from the age of 10, but clinical research studies were few and far between for most of my life.

Then in the summer of 2011 I learned for the first time that my vague sleeping issue was in fact a disorder, although I didn’t yet know the full extent of the limitations it imposed. Which is why for years I kept thinking there would be some way for me to keep working, despite being fired every time I tried to do so. I mostly lived on an annuity until I was 20 ($1047 per month), which came from a court decision when I was little (my mother committed suicide in a hospital and a court found them responsible, granting settlements to each of my family members). I kept thinking I could dance around extreme sleep fluctuations and pull myself up from the ground by my bootstraps, but I only ever fell back on my annuity.

When I was 12, the cops would show up at my house, wake me up, and drive me to school (my dad was a welder and made an early exit to work at 4:30am). Those near-truancies — as well as all the successful truancies! — along with my insistence on bringing alcohol in my backpack to school, smoking in the bathroom, getting high before school with friends, and stealing car stereos from the high school parking lot, all led me to multiple arrests, finally getting me the boot form junior public high school. There was also the despair of losing my mother at the age of 9, which was certainly an important aspect to all of this maladjustment, if not the most central factor. 

But without a cop showing up at my house, I’d wake up around 5PM.

At 13, I was placed in an “alternative school” (aka a program for trouble makers and drug dealers). Most students would sail though towards a diploma, being graded on video game scores, pick-up basketball games, and honest-to-god fantasy basketball gambling leagues (that I several times created for school credit!). We had smoke breaks twice a day in school, and I even sold one of my teacher’s pot. I only showed up half the school year, yet somehow graduated a half-year early at the age of 17. Basically, our ”alternative learning program” was a way for the school district to fudge numbers and make it look like they had rehabilitated kids. I managed to graduate High School easily without my disability playing a major factor. It all felt like being home schooled but with no parents or curriculum to help. Hence why five years into a dedicated leftist education, I can still barely understand Marxist arguments around value theory.

It would still be 11 years from my graduation until I learned about my sleep disorder, so the following years would be spent tossing and turning, going to work and class after being up 24 hours, often crashing at hour 40, then sleeping 24 hours straight to make up for massive sleep deprivation. I’d get fired left and right, girlfriends and family members had no idea what to express to me other than their lack of faith that I could ever get my shit together (and I believed as much myself, because what other explanation was there?)

I decided to work online in 2010 as I began 80/81 Records, as well as work part-time in physical space, all just to scrounge up enough money for distro items and record pressings. I started off with some relative success. I was the first in the US to distro Australian titles like Deaf Wish, Woolen Kits, Mad Nanna, Teen Archer, etc (all even before Bruce’s Easter Bilby!). I had a plethora of reissue releases from the Memoire Neuve label, as well that beautiful Les Olivensteins reissue LP. I even sold a sketchy Chosen Few bootleg to True Anon’s own Brace Belden (aka PissPigGrandad). 

By the age of 30, my body started to fall apart.Within a few years, despite a few solid releases on 80/81, I had to give up on a slew of planned record releases and call it quits. All were thankfully rescued by a couple of friendly labels, with masters sent off to a few others. These were: Mosquito Ego’s “Plomb” LP (thanks @ever-never-records), Pustostany’s “2012″ LP (shout out to the great Sweet Rot), Shovels S/T (thanks to Homeless Records), and Expert Alterations 12″ (Slumberland), and the Virvon Vavron EP, later taken care of by Girlsville Records. There was also the Human Hair "My Life As A Beast And Lowly Form” LP, which came in lieu of a 7″ I had planned for them (still streamable on the 80/81 Bandcamp). Sorry to all these fantastic bands! There was no label in the last decade better at not releasing records!

Nearly as long as I’ve been using this tumblr, I’ve been disabled. However, I didn’t realize I was *officially* disabled per the US government until last year, nor did I know that my condition was an incurable neurological disorder. In fact, it’s technicality not a sleep disorder. If earth had the rotational position of Mars, my circadian rhythms would be perfectly in sync. I've never brought it up here, I never wanted it to be a factor in how I presented myself, and I never wanted this to be a personal blog about my plight. But I can't in good conscience hide this aspect of myself any longer, while so many other disabled folks are engaged in fights for all of our rights, including those beyond the disabled community. 

Oh, and the other thing: 

I figured out last month that I am NOT a heterosexual guy. Queer? Omnisexual? How about "not straight”? Why did it take me so long to face up to this? Well, growing up in a poor and violent neighborhood meant that I needed to latch onto anything at a young age in order to keep myself safe. I could under no circumstances continue to endure the abuse that happened when I was very young, that I thought would come back my way if I opted out of a "straight"  “tough” identity. And even with that identity, I felt an inexplicable terror at all times, that seemed like it was seeping through the air, like it was the blood gushing from behind the hotel walls in “The Shining”. In order to avoid the terror, I had to act out in an extreme way so no one would question me. I’d always be the first to tell adults off. I’d always be the one to break into a house. I always be the first to steal, or mouth off to a cop. I did get choked by a cop once, which was also tame compared to the beatings my black and Hispanic friends received. But I also hated fighting, so that style of acting out was mostly a dodge and redirection of attention.

But so many toxic ideas overtook me over the years. While I may not have been outwardly homophobic as an adult, I no doubt policed my own behavior for decades, not allowing myself vulnerability, not allowing myself comfort, robbing myself of joy. And it took me three decades to shake that straight identity loose.

I think this straight identity I adopted though trauma is common for men, even though whose childhoods weren’t as traumatic as mine. That isn't to say that those who adopt it are closeted, but the ideology driving performative straight male expression can cut off naturally heterosexual men from understanding themselves and what it is that they most desire, who they want to connect with, what makes them complete. Heterosexuality as ideology is a giant fucking scam. You get nothing out of it, maybe an early death from a heart attack.

But I’m also happier now than I’ve ever been. When I gave up the straight identity, I completely gave up fear, and in ways far beyond matters of sexuality. That straight identity also policed how I though of women, and since I’ve been free of it, my relation to women has changed significantly. 

And now

I’m fighting month after month to get on disability and food stamps (I’ve been denied for disability seven times in eight years, and food stamps were just cut in RI). When all is sorted I’m going to join radical orgs in Providence. From here to there and beyond, it’s class struggle.

Had our welfare state not been decimated, or had we decommodified health care and housing, I would have never had to jump through so many hoops for ultimately no help. When I lacked diagnosis, I could have lived with dignity while I waited for an explanation of my issues, if only the society had a non-bureaucratic solution to personal crisis. I’m a “lumpen” of a sort, but I’m also now a committed small-c communist and queer. Sorry apolitical people, but the fight will be intense for the remainder of all our lives.