#you actually managed to take not just the scariest guy on the board out of combat but Also set up the ship for an easy crash and burn

[silverskyy]

you ever feel like a parody of yourself? like, people could make a jokey generalization about you to explain your vibe to strangers, but actually no you just straight up act like that in real life?

in totally unrelated news this evening I had to step away from watching an actual play combat episode bc I was too caught up in and frustrated at a poor tactical choice 🫣

[amomentsescape]

Slashers Spend Halloween with Reader

A/N: HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I'm honestly pretty bummed that Halloween season is officially over after tonight, but I hope you all had a great time! Thank you all for your requests and support on my writings this month. Stay spooky, everyone!

Freddy Krueger

Bar Hopping!

Are we surprised?

Freddy loves to have a good time, especially if it involves drinking and dancing with his hot partner

LOVES if your costume is a bit showy

Loves it even more if you both are matching

If he doesn't like the music that's playing, he changes it with the flick of a finger

If there's someone that's getting a little too close to you, he'll make them disappear for the night (and deals with them later)

And what's even better is that all of your food and drinks are free when Freddy is around

With the quirk of his brow, people are at his command, and no one will treat you any less differently either

Is constantly complimented on his costume because of how "real" it looks

But the moment your social battery runs out, he'll whisk you away into dreamland and cozy up next to you

But if you're ready to be out all night like he is, you can expect one killer hangover the next morning

Michael Myers

Horror Movie Binge!

Michael is clearly not one to go out

As much as he likes Halloween, a bunch of screaming kids or equally drunk adults isn't his forte

But he does like horror and gore

So just say the word, cook the popcorn, and grab a blanket because Michael won't refuse

He even lets you cuddle into him if you want since it's a "special" night

Will share some snacks with you

Probably won't use the blanket, but he's fine if you put it on him

Literally doesn't even blink during the scariest parts of the films

Just don't expect him to binge movies with you all night

Michael can get stir crazy easily

And since it's Halloween night, you can expect him to want to go kill even more

There are too many lives that need to be disposed of in his eyes

But he does secretly cherish that time with you beforehand

He promises to watch more films with you later if you're still awake

Just another reason to come home to you

Jason Voorhees

Walking Through the Woods!

Jason knows you still want to celebrate Halloween, even if it's not with a party or some public event

So what's better than a stroll through the woods?

You have to wait until it's dark, of course, and the moon is bright in the sky

He insists on taking his machete too, just incase

But he happily takes your hand and lets you lead wherever your heart wants

Loves to hear you ramble on about any current interests or hyper fixations

Especially loves when you bump into him or give his hand an extra squeeze

Will stop every once in a while to hold you close, trying to keep you warm from the cold night air

Also likes to watch you pick up random items you see on the ground or around the trees as you walk

Your constant curiosity for things makes Jason incredibly happy

If you guys manage to find a stump, he'll have you rest on it while he sits on the ground beside you

As you lean yourself against him, you share stories of what you did for Halloween as a child

Jason just listens in, content

Thomas Hewitt

Game Night!

It's actually his idea to find some spooky games to play for Halloween night!

It's up to you whether you play together or with his family

He kinda likes those traditional board games that change their theme just for Halloween

But he's also happy to try something new with you!

Will snack on random candies and chips you brought along for the night

Also likes to hear you talk about whatever comes to mind

He's honestly pretty good at the games and is able to beat you from time to time

Will play a scary movie in the background

You both don't really pay attention to it, but the sound is nice to have

If you lose, he always reaches over and squeezes your hand as an apology

But as long as you're having fun, that's all he cares about!

If you win, he claps happily and relishes in your laughs

You end the night playing a simple card game, giving you a chance to talk more and share what you love about Halloween

Bubba Sawyer

Carving Pumpkins!

Well, this only makes sense

Bubba and his family have all the perfect tools for carving pumpkins

And he finds the idea of jack-o'-lanterns keeping away spirits interesting

You have a bowl of candy and a couple drinks besides you both as you get to work

He definitely confuses the candy bowl with the pumpkin guts bowl a few different times

But he's honestly super quick with carving

It's all the practice with sharp instruments

He opted for more of a silly face while yours is a little more creepy

You decide to save the seeds later to bake for a snack as well!

Bubba turns on some fun Halloween cartoons while you both work

He even leans over to show you better ways to hold the knives and how to cut more evenly

Helps you light the candles to go inside the pumpkins once you're done carving

They both end up on the patio, lighting up the area with a fun glow

Brahms Heelshire

Reading Scary Stories!

His parents weren't big on such fantasy tales when he was younger, so he never got to read much fiction

But when you showed him some scary story books you still have from being a kid, he was intrigued

He doesn't really like reading, but he loves when you read to him

You both make a whole night out of it

You get some popcorn ready, turn out the lights, and even make a little fort in the living room out of chairs

You managed to find a flashlight to use when reading as well

He lays with his head in your lap, listening to you read the stories

You even managed to jump and grab him a couple of times, causing him to yelp

He actually ends up getting a little paranoid later into the night, making you read some lighthearted stories instead

Once he feels more relaxed, he ends up falling asleep to your reading

You smile as you get up to grab some blankets and pillows, deciding to sleep in the fort for the night

Norman Bates

Spooky Baking!

Norman has always been quite talented in the kitchen

You'd be happy only eating his cooking for the rest of your life if you had to

And since there wasn't much else to do in the middle of nowhere, you were happy to help Norman with his ideas

You start the night off with making some simple cookies

He made the dough and baked them while you got to decorate

You ended up creating little "spider" chocolate chips with a toothpick!

He then wanted your help making cupcakes

These took a bit longer, but neither of you minded

Norman had a record playing in the background, and it was easy to just converse back and forth with one another

While the cakes were in the oven, he took you by the hand and danced around the kitchen with you

Also plants plenty of kisses on your forehead throughout the night

You both took turns icing the cupcakes once they were cooled

Each treat ended up turning out a little different since you both wanted to create unique patterns and colors

And the best part of the night? Eating your creations together while watching an old Halloween film!

Billy Loomis

Halloween Party!

You thought it would be a horror movie binge, didn't you?

Well, lucky for you, Billy was down to try something different this year

Especially since the whole month comprised of watching every scary film known to man

He is obsessed with your costume, unable to keep his hands off of you

He isn't HUGE on parties to be honest, but if he gets to show you off looking like this, then he's happy to come along

He shares a few drinks with you once you're there

He doesn't like getting drunk, especially since he wants to keep an eye on you

But he enjoys holding onto the red solo cup with his arm around your waist

Occasionally whispers dirty things in your ears and plants warm kisses along your neck

He enjoys seeing how much he can push your buttons out in public like this

Will dance with you if you beg

But it's hard for him to say no to you either way

The night is cut short when he gets into a fist fight with a random guy for flirting with you

Don't worry; he plans on paying the man a visit later

Stu Macher

Trick or Treating!

You think you're too old for trick or treating? Think again

Stu finds you both costumes that make you unrecognizable

You don't think this is going to work out though since Stu is so freaking tall

But somehow, the adults don't question it too much

It's easier to not ask questions, it seems

He grabs your hand and drags you from house to house, laughing with you about random things

And once you both have your fair share of candy, he convinces you to play ding-dong-ditch with him

He may have stolen a pumpkin from someone's yard as well for being "cool-looking"

Asks to trade some of his candy for yours

Occasionally pulls you into people's backyards and makes out with you in the dark

And once most of the kids are back at home, he takes you to his place so you can binge on the candy

The night ends with a horror film too, of course!

Eric Draven

People Watching!

Although this may sound boring at first, anything with Eric somehow turns out to be fun

He sets up a little fort on the roof of one of the tallest buildings in the city, the view being in the dead center of everything

He makes sure you're bundled up in plenty of blankets

The candy bowl is full, and he even has some snacks and drinks to share

You both look over the edge and just watch all the people walk by

You take turns pointing out random people and try to come up with stories on who they are, what their costume is, where they're going, etc.

Always ends in shared smiles and laughs

He strums a couple of tunes on his guitar based on your request

Plenty of cuddles and cold kisses as well

You end up staying out a good majority of the night, only going back home when the streets become empty

Your safety will always be his number one priority

So although you didn't do anything super exciting for Halloween, Eric still made the night very enjoyable for you

And at least this way, he knew he could protect you

[arc852]

18. Pirates

Definition: a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.

Summary: Joel is a pirate with a crew of just one, himself. He finds trouble one day when a pirate ship boards his and threatens to kill him. He didn't think he would be saved by another pirate, let alone by one who has a giant mer in his crew.

G/t: Joel and Grian are normal-sized, Gem is a giant

Warnings: Being threatened, off-screen killing (not of our main characters), and mention of a tragic backstory

Word Count: 2313

AO3 Link

This is part 2 to Shipwreck! It takes place quite a few months after. I hope you enjoy!

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 Joel’s crew had abandoned him ages ago.

 Which was fine! If they couldn’t handle how he ran things, then that was on them. He didn’t need them anyway. He was perfectly capable on his own and he knew, eventually, he would get a crew that understood him enough to stick by him. A crew with the same morals as he had.

 Of course, he knew how hard that was. Especially within the ‘pirate’ business. See, Joel wasn’t really what would be considered a ‘normal’ pirate. He didn’t pillage or steal or kill unless it was toward other pirate crews. It was the whole reason he became a pirate after all. To get revenge on them for burning down his village and killing his family.

 Yeah, he knew it was cliche. But at least he was spicing it up a bit by becoming a pirate himself instead of joining the navy. That’s what people usually did if they wanted revenge against pirates anyway.

 Joel had amassed a crew for a short amount of time before he forbade them from pillaging a coastal town. When they realized Joel wouldn’t let them do anything ‘fun’ they left. Which, again, was fine. Joel didn’t want crewmates that acted like that anyway. 

 Having no crew was fine, until it wasn’t.

 Joel had been sailing along the ocean, heading toward another town in the hopes of finding someone to join his crew when he noticed another ship in the distance. At first, Joel wasn’t worried. There were trade ships out and about as he had gone along and they usually steered clear of him when they realized the flag he was waving.

 But as the ship grew closer, Joel realized a similar flag waved on the other ship.

 He did not need pirates coming after him right now. Without a crew, they would make quick work of him. He turned the ship a bit, trying to head down a different path and hoping to put more distance between them and him. If he managed enough, maybe they would give up and leave him alone.

 Of course, these were pirates he was talking about and trying to run only made things worse. It had been miles already and the ship was still following him. The scariest thing though, was that it was actually catching up to him.

 Joel was helpless to do anything as the ship pulled alongside him. He winced as hooks with ropes shot out of their cannons and hooked onto his ship, reeling him closer. He had seen this trick countless times before and he knew there was really no fighting against the pull. Joel backed away as a pirate placed a plank across both ships and, a guy Joel could only assume was the captain, walked across on to his ship.

 “Well, well, well, what have we here?” The captain asked, sneering at Joel. Joel sneered back.

 “I don’t want any trouble.” Joel bit out. Normally, he would love it, but without a crew to back him up, that would not be a smart thing to do.

 “Heh, well with that flag you're waving there, you sure are asking for it.” The captain said, amused. Joel clenched his jaw. He knew he should have taken it down for this journey.

 “Where’s your crew? Hmm? Lost at sea? Cowering in fear below deck?” The captain banged his heavy boot on the ground and laughed. His crewmates, who were still on their own ship, laughed with him.

 “I don’t have one.” Joel said, seeing no reason to lie when a quick search would show how alone he was. 

 “Oh really?” The captain raised a brow at that but his grin didn’t drop. “Shame. For you, that is.” The captain chuckled and unsheathed his sword, stepping closer to Joel with it. Joel backed away in turn, cursing himself for not having his weapon on him. “This is going to be the easiest plundering of my life.”

 “Not so fast!” A voice shouted, causing confusion among Joel and the other pirate crew. They looked around for the source when Joel spotted it. A ship, that seemed to have come out of nowhere, was coming up beside them. A man was aboard, the one who had shouted, with his arms crossed and looking back and forth between the two ships. Although, like Joel, his ship also seemed to be empty otherwise.

 The captain seemed to have spotted him too because he laughed. “Oh this is rich. Another lone pirate.” The captain’s laugh turned to a sneer. “You might want to get out of here laddie. Or else I’ll run my sword through you after I’m done with him.” He motioned toward Joel, who winced.

 The other lone pirate only smirked. “See, that’s where you’re mistaken. I’m not alone.” 

 “Your ship seems pretty empty to me!” A pirate from the other ship shouted.

 “Yeah, small too! Ain’t no way you’re fitting a decent crew on that thing anyway!” Another jabbed and they all laughed.

 The man shrugged. “I tried to warn you.”

 Joel could only briefly wonder what the heck this guy's plan was before the water around them began to shake and wave. He nearly lost his balance as it made his ship bounce around a bit. And then, suddenly, a…head popped out from the water. And then arms. And a torso and…

 Oh. It was a giant mer.

 They were all screwed.

 She was glaring down at them, making Joel feel weak in his knees. The others seemed to be feeling the same. He saw the captain's crew cowering in fear, unable to keep their eyes off the giant mer. The captain, too, also seemed to be at a loss for what to do.

 “Grian?” She spoke, eyes glancing down toward the other lone pirate. Though, Joel was now thinking that wasn’t a good way to refer to him anymore, considering he seemed to be in cahoots with the giant mer.

 Grian simply pointed toward the other pirate ship and that seemed to be all the giant mer needed. She nodded and then reached for the other ship. The crew jolted out of their frozen state and started running around maniacally in fear. It would be funny if Joel didn’t think he was next.

 She lifted the ship out of the water, which Joel could only stare in awe about. And then, more amazingly, she shifted the ship to just one hand and then reached toward Joel’s own ship. Joel’s eyes widened and then he shut them tight, bracing for the feeling of his own ship getting lifted. But instead of that, he heard the sound of the captain screaming. He opened his eyes back up in time to see the mer’s hand lifting the captain up in a pinched grip.

 She lifted him up to her face and for a moment, Joel thought she was going to throw him into her mouth. But instead, she just glared at him and set him back onto his ship. With the whole pirate crew now on the ship, Joel watched as the giant mer wounded back and then threw the ship into the horizon.

 Joel followed it as it flew with wide eyes. But eventually, it launched out of sight. The mer had managed to throw it so far that he hadn’t even been able to see it land. It was lost to the horizon and Joel knew they would not make the landing.

 “Are you okay?” A voice said from right behind him and Joel jumped with a yelp. He turned around only to find that Grian had boarded his ship. And with the giant mer hovering behind him, it created a menacing aura.

 “I-I…” Joel stammered out, backing up a few steps. His eyes shifted between the giant mer and Grian, not knowing what to do. He was pretty trapped here.

 “Don’t worry, we aren’t going to hurt you.” This time, Grian wasn’t the one to speak, but the giant mer. Joel’s gaze went to look at her and he noticed that she was smiling. But not in a creepy malicious way or anything like that. It appeared to be friendly.

 “Then…what about…” Joel trailed off, looking back toward where the giant mer had thrown the ship. When he looked back, she was frowning and Joel tensed.

 “They deserved it. They were ganging up on you, 20 to one. I don’t think that’s very fair.” She huffed and Grian nodded in agreement.

 “What’s your story, by the way?” Grian asked, arm crossed. He looked at him with a slight head tilt. “You’re very clearly a pirate but you’re alone. What happened?”

 “I could ask you the same thing…” Joel muttered to himself, wondering how someone like Grian got a giant mer working for him. He took a deep breath. “My crew left me ages ago. I’m not really the kind of pirate captain they were looking for.”

 Grian raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

 Joel sighed. “Because I only steal from and kill other pirates. I want revenge for them burning down my village and killing my family when I was a kid.” He explained his tragic backstory or whatever, wondering where that was going to get him.

 Grian blinked and looked at him for a moment. Then he smiled and let out a small sigh. “Looks like we made the right choice then.” He turned towards the mer. “Good work Gem!”

 Gem grinned and lowered herself so that only her head was peeking out of the water. She was more eye level with them and the ship now. 

 Joel shook his head, now more confused than anything. “Okay, what on earth is going on?”

 Grian placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry about the scare. I’m Grian and this is Gem. We’re an…unconventional pirate duo, you could say.” He said this with a grin.

 “I would definitely say that, yeah.” Joel said, eyes still darting back and forth between the two. “I’m…I’m Joel.”

 “It’s nice to meet you Joel.” Gem chimed in and Joel startled a bit at her voice. But he nodded at her.

 “So…what. You two help people in need or something?” Joel asked, trying to get a read on this whole situation. Grian waved his hand in a so-so manner.

 “Or something. Really, we keep people out of Gem’s territory.”

 “Our territory.” Gem said and Grian huffed. 

 “Alright, fine. Our territory. And we kill pirates when we can but we also try to save who we can too. That’s my job. I go out and gauge the situation, see if they are good people or not or if they have prisoners. And then Gem comes in and takes care of them.” Grian and explained. Joel blinked.

 “Huh.” That sounded…well, great honestly. It seemed they had a really good thing going here. “It sounds like you’re kinda doing what I am. Or, what I’m trying to do anyway.” Joel hadn’t really been successful yet. What with his lack of crew and all.

 Grian nodded. “Yeah, it does. So don’t worry. Gem isn’t one to eat people even if we don’t like them. And you seem great, so you’re safe here with us.”

 Joel finally let himself relax, believing what they said.

 “Do you need any more help?” Gem asked, her face coming a bit closer when she saw that Joel believed them. Joel was still a bit wary of her size but he tried to keep himself from tensing back up. “I can’t take you all the way to the mainland, but I can take you across our territory.”

 “Or…” Grian started and Gem looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. Joel turned to look at him. Grian smirked. “Maybe…since our goals are so similar anyway…you could join us?”

 Joel blinked. “Uh…” Before he could say anything, a giant hand reached down and scooped Grian out of the boat. Grian and Joel both yelped, Joel scrambling back as he watched Grian get lifted into the sky.

 Gem smiled at him, though it looked a bit more forced. “One second Joel, I gotta talk to Grian real quick.” 

 Joel then watched Gem swim far enough he could only barely make out whispers but not at all what they could be saying. Gem was turned around as well, so he couldn’t see her facial expressions either. He could guess what it was they were talking about though. It probably had something to do with Grian’s sudden invitation to join their little crew. 

 He wasn’t sure if the invitation would still be open when they were done talking but he thought about it anyway. Grian was right, their goals were similar. And Joel did need a crew. He would also be lying if he said he wasn’t curious on how Grian and Gem became a team in the first place. 

 If he joined them, all his questions and problems pretty much disappeared.

 It really was a no-brainer then.

 He just hoped the invitation was still valid.

 Gem swam back, an unreadable expression on her face. She brought her hand back down on the ship, letting Grian off. Grian dusted himself off, not looking all too bothered by having been suddenly picked up and held. Grian smiled at Joel and offered his hand. “Offer is still on the table.”

 Joel’s eyes widened and he looked at Gem. When she saw this, her expression softened a little and she chuckled. “Well, at least you know who's really in charge.” She joked, causing Grian to sputter a bit and Joel to laugh. “It was just sudden but I’m not against it.” She said and then smiled. “I think the three of us could be a really great team actually.”

 “So?” Grian said, still holding his hand out. “What do you say?”

 Joel grinned and took Grian’s hand, shaking it. “I’m in.”

[mrpenguinpants]

Genshin: University AU [V1]

I love modern au. Or any “everything is fine, no one died, it’s just a fever dream” au. Half of me is thinking, damn maybe I should answer this serious- LOL HAHA no. That’s not happening. Time to crack my knuckles and let my brainworms take over again.

Once again, this is 90% crack 10% content. I want to switch up my characters from the last brainworm post but I included Kaeya and Diluc.

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Today’s appreciation post goes to twistedwishes. Hey! I’ve been seeing you pop up a lot lately and thanks for the support 💕💕 I hope things are going better for you and you’re doing alright^^ I feel kinda bad for making appreciation posts on crack fics but hopefully this is somewhat funny haha. 

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Genshin: Holding Hands [V1]

Genshin: When you’re cold [V1]

Genshin: Roommate [V1]

Genshin: Royalty AU [V1]

[Masterlist]

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[taglist]  <- if you want to be added, please read this first.

  @mikeysbike @hanniejji@unionwitch @musekala @twistedsunnshiii @stanzastic @akaasea @xoneaboveallx @adoring-ghost @asheseiler @childelover @dilucsz @dai-tsukki-desu @thicmitten @youaskedfurret @diaxfeliz @wintergreen-aix @dandelily @thegayrubberducky @lovelykittycatmeow @yuunoagivesmelife  @dokidokisama @simpygrimoire @minakohasmanyhusbandos @strwbrry-lia @tigerpriestess @yuu-yuukurotsuki​

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Diluc

Absolute pretty boy who has braincells, but only if Kaeya is not there. In his mind, Kaeya’s presence makes his room loose 40% of their common sense. He can’t prove it just yet but he’s working on it. He majors in accounting but also has a minor in marketing, logistics’ management, fia- he majors everything business related. He’s going to become the next Elon Musk through smarts or by getting the competition drunk. There can be no contest if he’s the only candidate. He’s actually a hard working guy that overworks and stresses way too much. You have daily “Diluc recharge” evenings where he just hangs onto you while you go through your day.

“Don’t fucking talk to me until I’ve had my coffee,” except there is no coffee - he drinks grape juice out of juice boxes and his only energy boost is when he meets up with you - and that’s his constant mood. So he usually only hangs around you and Jean, since she has childhood friend status and is actually an angel. By default, Lisa is added and Diluc doesn’t mind her but if he see’s Kaeya, it’s full on war paint mode. If he's not busy with work or studies, he's usually with you either in your dorm or his apartment.

He has a fanclub and he seriously hates it and tries to do everything in his power to get Ningguang to take it down. Shouldn’t this be against his rights? But she refuses for whatever reason and makes a whole speech about free will. No matter what he does, someone manages to take a picture and it get’s printed in the university’s newspaper. The only bonding time he has with Kaeya is every Monday, where they collect and burn all the universities newspapers before anyone can get their hands on it. You always bring marshmallows to make smores during their arson activities.

“When I graduate I’m going to burn this school down to the ground. That’s not a threat it’s a promise.”

Ningguang

Is secretly the leader of the Diluc fanclub - not that she likes Diluc, she’s in a questionable platonic poly marriage with you and Beidou - but it was the easiest way to gain funds for the student council. Which she is the president of, so rip Diluc the fanclub stays. Ruthless business woman I tell you. But she can run in heels so her danger factor rises by at least 20%.

Majors in social sciences and law but more specifically the political science & government. She saw the Imperial State Crown that the Queen of England wears and says yes, that’s mine now. If she’s not with Beidou and you planning on “how to infiltrate the state government just for lols”, then she’s with Keqing, Ganyu, and Zhongli discussing student council things. Should they or should they not tell the student body that they can see everyone’s search results? Sit back and relax as the school goes into chaos. 

She’s probably the scariest person on campus No, she is the scariest person on campus. She’s the scariest person on campus. But secretly she’s popping 20 aspirins just to make it through a night. She has the digestive system of steel. She still holds the title of "seriously do not try and beat her in a drinking game it's never going to happen" and that's her proudest achievement in life but sadly she can’t put it on her resume. Kaeya is still trying to beat her out of spite but so far it hasn't been working. You’re seriously concerned for her when she get’s challenged but Beidou gives you a way-to-hard slap on the back and cheers her on. If Ninngguang somehow get’s alcohol poisonings she’ll somehow find away to make a profit out of it.

"I'll let him die, I'll get the insurance money."

Kaeya

One day he chugged too much mouth wash, passed out, and somehow woke up in university majoring in law. His idea is that if he is apart of the law, he can therefore stand above it. To be fair, his only goal in life is to say “I am the manager” and he can go live the rest of his life in bliss or as a hermit. He’s secret best friends with you but wouldn't be caught dead beside you. He will stab a bitch if you ever get hurt but will still trip you on the way home. Seriously, you have no idea why people find him attractive. Your guess is it’s the eye patch or the clap of his ass cheeks that keeps alerting everyone.  

He’s apart of the newspaper club and if anyone asks: No, he has no idea who keeps taking all the newspapers and burns them in the back of the campus. Originally, he joined because he was nosy and needed to join some type of club for his resume. He sometimes feels bad for his junior assistant Amber because he keeps tricking her and says that Diluc is secretly a demon that is trying to steal all the jobs and is apart of the lizard government hell bent on eradicating the human race. He even brought out a whiteboard for this joke, he’s dedicated to his job ok? 

The type of guy to try and be humble and say his work is “okay” but will choke a bitch if anyone agrees. He tends to leave everything last minute and says that it’s his drug since actual drugs could land you one year in prison and a maximum penalty of $2,000. You have to awkwardly hold in your concerned mother head shake when you see him speed running his assignment literally right when the professor is walking around to check if students finished. 

“I was taught how to lead not to read.”

Mona

Broke wallet #2. Zhongli is broke wallet #1 but Childe simps for him so is he really a broke wallet at this point? In this essay, I Mona Megistus, will explain why I have the rights to the title “Broke Wallet #1″...

Believes that astrology should be an actual career path but refuses to take astronomy as her major. I can read the stars not a textbook that tells me how to calculate the mass of the sun divided by the fucks I give. Instead she went into Philosophy and cries to Albedo, who is an actual prodigy genius- sir lend some braincells to everyone else please?, that her professor keep turning her paper down because “star reading” is not an academic source.

Fischl wants her to join the occult club because, surprisingly, Mona is very good at telling people’s fates through her crayon sketch ouija board. She thinks first year Fischl is cute but is put off by the cosplay roleplay that she has going on. She would join except that stupid hat wearing gremlin in her lit class would make fun of her if he found out.

You gave her half your lunch one day and bought her a doughnut "because she seemed upset" and "out of the goodness of your heart" whatever the hell that means. She thinks you pensioned it but once that thought comes she takes a bite. Poison from a doughnut is not the worst way to go out, classes are hard enough. She’s waiting for the lord to strike her down anyways. 

“Its not about passing, its about doing better than everyone else.”

Venti

Slept through most of highschool and people question how he got into university. He’s a music major (wow how fucking original is that), and if anyone asks him to serenade someone or just do anything, he’ll do it for the right price. Or if you buy him alcohol because he still keeps getting ID checked. He’s banking on Kaeya actually becoming a lawyer or being on good terms with Diluc so he can finally stop being arrested for looking like a toddler.

Takes one step into classes and quickly nopes out and goes back to bed. Professors have no idea how he hasn't dropped out or failed. He just has some god given talent. He does whine at you to pretty pretty please with a cherry on top tutor him because you're such an angel and would never leave your poor but awesome best friend hanging right? He needs to get this essay down but how he is suppose to explain how the number 10 is symbolic and connects to the universe or the meaning of life. Do you think he can just say it’s apart of his culture and make up some random myth to pretend it looks like he knows what he’s doing? 

He’s honestly going with the flow and put his brain on the back burner all of highschool and only now realizes wait, I actually have to use my brain?

He’s been banned from most club chats since Venti has the no chill card. Someone says “lol I look ugly today.” and he’ll respond "yup, you look like a cow." and he get’s banned. Zhongli keeps a speed run timer on his phone just to document these occasions.

"Sad spelled backwards is das and das how it be sometimes."

Childe

An actual dumbass that somehow does well. He eats sandwiches with the crust off, this heathen. Surprisingly he’s studying to become a physical therapist but most of his experience has come from breaking his own bones. You’re scared how he's going to be if he actually becomes a therapist. If he'll make bets with his patients or try to one up whatever crazy injury they get into. Everything is a challenge to him that sometimes the best way to deal with Childe is to knock him out. 

This man really knows the way to a Zhongli’s woman's heart. Through micro transactions. Mona saw him accidently drop $20 and just shrugged and walked off. She has never been both spiritually and physically offended in her life. She did take the $20 though. As much as you hate leeching on Chile when he’s basically a walking wallet that probably uses bills as tissue paper, you can’t help but give him puppy eyes while planning on how to get into his will. If he even plans on having one, he might honestly write “whoever wins in a gladiator style duel in my funeral’s tournament, they will get my fortune.”. 

Any sport the university offers Childe is probably in it. Which is how he met Zhongli, challenged him to a fight, proceeded to have his ass handed to him, got a backhanded compliment, and screamed to you he was in love and how he found his soulmate. He's secretly very sappy and has cried and watched every Disney and Pixar movie at least 28 times.

"IM NOT TOO SPICY! I’M A TINY BIT ABOVE MILD IF ANYTHING!”

---

God if it isn’t Scaramouche, it’s Childe that ruins the aesthetic. This is why I hate you. Why do you people enable me like this, it isn’t even good. This is pretty much a @ yourself moment and I vibe hard with Venti. This entire post was just to make a joke about the clap of Kaeya’s ass cheeks alerting the guards.

This week might slow down since I have classes and assignments. My reply’s are gonna be late too, sorry;; (oh and thank you to everyone that was so supportive and nice when I mentioned it. All of you. Beautiful 💕💕 )

[purplylinos]

study date ♡ hwang hyunjin

♡  genre; high school au, fluff

♡  pairing(s); gender neutral!reader x hyunjin

♡  word count; 0.9k

♡  description; it definitely was not a mistake at all choosing to sit next to the random, cute boy in math class this year. in fact, it was probably the best decision you’ve ever made yet.

♡  notes; I PROMISE I WRITE FOR MORE GROUPS ;;; skz has just been hitting diff lately and HYUNJIN’S BEANIE WITH THE CARDIGAN/SWEATER THING IN HIS RECENT LIVE i am in love with him. okay yes enjoy!!

math was undoubtedly your worst subject.

cramming for tests at four am and staring at failed homework assignments was definitely something you didn’t enjoy, flushed face hearing that you got the lowest grade of the class each and every single time. you can’t even remember the last time you got an a in a mathematics course.

the beginning of the school year was always the scariest. new faces, new teachers, and loads of “who are you?” or “tell me about yourself” prompts that you were forced to answer. stepping into your math class with a sharp exhale, your grip tightened on your binder as you saw all of the seats filled except for one, a blond boy who sat in the center of the classroom. you gave your teacher an apologetic nod before quickly moving to take your seat, setting your bag next to your foot. the boy raised his head with a soft smile, tilting his head gently. “don’t feel bad about being late,” he whispered, his smile growing as he spoke. “i had no idea where the classroom was either, your first three guesses were more than likely just as good as mine.” even though he was whispering, the boy’s voice was smooth, and his eyes sparkled with curiosity and a sense of mischief. “hyunjin,” he murmured, sticking his hand out.

a grin spread onto your lips, meeting your gaze with his and grabbing his hand with a gentle shake. “y/n. sorry for having to choose this seat, all of the others are clearly taken,” you apologized softly, yanking a notebook out of your bag as soon as you let go of his hand. 

“don’t even worry about it, you’re good,” he responded, flipping his pencil between his fingers. 

hyunjin was chill. he would sneak you his notes when you needed them, partner up with you on all of the projects, slip you quiz answers, anything you needed, he had. 

one day, you greeted him with a grin, setting your water bottle on your desk before setting your bag down. “first question,” he started, sliding his homework towards you with a grin, “do you need this?” you shook your head proudly, reaching into your bag and pulling out a crinkled yet finished homework sheet.

“nope! i actually did it this time,” you replied, placing said sheet onto your desk.

“i’m impressed. anyway, second question,” hyunjin slid his paper back in front of him, “what do you say we meet up at the library after classes are over?” he asked, resting his cheek in the palm of his hand. you raised your eyebrow as you set your notebook on your desk, grabbing a pencil and highlighter. 

“for what?” you questioned, only to hear hyunjin laugh in response.

“to study, silly.”

“oh!” your cheeks flushed a light pink, a shy smile crossing your lips. “i should have guessed that in the first place, my bad. sure, i don’t mind,” you replied, giving a soft nod and busying yourself with the notes that were displayed on the board. 

the rest of the day dragged on painfully slow, all you wanted was to chill out with hyunjin in the library, no more long paragraphs and nagging teachers. by the time the bell for your final class rang, a sense of relief came over you, nearly sprinting out of the classroom and shoving whatever textbooks you had in your arms into your locker. you exhaled sharply before grabbing your math notebook, the homework assignments given for the night, and your pencil case. kicking your locker shut, you began to make your way to the library, and by the time you managed to get there, you saw hyunjin, sitting at a table in the back with the stupidest grin on his face. he waved you over with a quiet laugh that still touched your ears, growing louder as you got closer to him.

“you have a lot of stuff for such a small study session,” he teased, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and pausing the music that was playing.

“oh, shut up. leave me alone,” you retorted playfully, flipping your notebook open with a soft giggle. hyunjin gently nudged your shoulder, offering you one of his earbuds. “what?” you question, furrowing your eyebrows.

“you don’t listen to music when you study?” hyunjin asked, comically widening his eyes.

you tsked quietly before taking the earbud from his hand, placing it into your ear before beginning to reread your extremely messy notes from class today. after about five minutes of nothing coming from the headphones, you turned to look at hyunjin, who was staring at his phone intently. “what are you doing?” you asked, setting your highlighter down with a raised eyebrow. 

“making us a playlist,” he responded, causing a tinge of pink to spread on your cheeks. before you could respond, a familiar melody came trickling through the earbud, your eyes lighting up.

“this is my favorite song,” you murmured, grinning as you gently clasped your hands together, earning the brightest smile from hyunjin.

“really? i love this song,” he responded, tilting his phone towards you and letting you see all of the songs that the app had recommended.

“you guys are cute,” a voice from behind you rang out, making the both of you shift to see a boy with quite prominent freckles. “you should become a thing.”

“screw off, lix. that’s gross,” hyunjin retorted, stealing a small glance at you. you furrowed your brows and gently kicked hyunjin’s leg, earning a small smile from him. “actually?” he started, setting his cell phone down on the table and directing all of his attention to you.

“i take that back.”

[lifeofroos]

Part 65: Nico is doing some research with the gang.

In short: Nico gets therapy from Dionysus. In this chapter, Nico and his friends go to look for his family line. The rest is on AO3 and FanFiction.net! And in Tumblr tags like Pjo, Dionysus, Nico di Angelo, etc. 

This Might Be Crazy: Chapter 65: Grape flavoured Gatorade

Hades had been easy to persuade. He was almost eager to let me go to Italy, as if he wanted to see if there were any di Angelo’s left as well. It meant part of my plan succeeded. Now it was time to do some research. 

There was a centre of genealogy in camp Jupiter, where they obsessively kept track of family lines. Every line was written down in a huge book, which were a metre or so tall and broad. You couldn’t even lay them down on a table, you had to sit on the floor with the book in front of you. So it was the best place to start. 

Will went with me. He was the first I had told about my plans after my last therapy session. Already waiting by the centre was Hazel and furthermore, I had brought Pollux from Camp Half-blood with me. Dionysus already knew about my plan, so it felt safe to get his son on board. 

I sat down in front of my book. ‘Okay. We have a clear goal.’

‘We’re demigods,’ Pollux noticed dryly. ‘We never have clear goals. Or maybe we do, but it’ll become less clear in a minute or so.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘Then we have one minute of serious study. Go. Search for Italy. Search for di Angelo.’

We managed to look through the Italian lines for a whopping five whole minutes before someone got distracted, when Hazel pointed at a name in her book: ‘That’s sounds like the last name of one of the new recruits.’ Will left his own book (Which had a fold-out family tree; they went for extra in camp Jupiter) to go look over her shoulder. ‘We have a new recruit called Gio Colombo. There is a Colombo over here.’

‘From 1876,’ Will thoughtfully said. ‘That could be a possible connection’

‘Maybe.’ Hazel sighed and looked at the branch that came after the aforementioned Colombo. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to find Gio’s name, though. Not like this.’

Will blinked, before smacking his hand against his forehead. ‘We’re idiots, too,’ he mumbled. We all gave him a strange look. ‘What Hazel just said made me think: We should have just started looking for Nico himself, instead of the di Angelo lineage. There might be lots of people with the name Di Angelo. After we found him, we can search for family members.’ 

I blushed a little. ‘Eh, yeah, that sounds like common sense.’

Will sighed. ‘We’ll do that from here on out. Unless! Wait, before we make another mistake, Hazel, are there any maps for these books? As in, is there any way to see in which books which names are?’

‘Eh… yeah, I think so. Let me go take a look, I am sure...’ 

‘Of course we do.’ A girl with a hoarse voice  walked around the corner, with a map in her hands. She laid it out on the floor. ‘Look. Over here, you can see the family name, which are sorted alphabetically, and the books the names are in. Then, you can look it up again, and…’ There followed a whole lot of other instructions, which I kindly ignored. 

When the genealogist walked away, I looked at my friends. ‘Did any of you understand any of that?’

‘There is something, somewhere, and it’ll help us,’ Pollux stated. 

‘Yeah, not. We’ll just have to keep looking until we find… well, me,’ I answered. 

The rest mumbled something, before we all turned back to our books and maps.

After quite a lot of searching, Pollux tapped my shoulder. ‘I found... a di Angelo, from the nineteen-thirties.’ 

I crawled over to him. ‘Where?’

‘Here. Francesca di Angelo,’ Pollux muttered. He had a funny look on his face. 

‘Where did she live?’ I asked.

‘According to this, eh… Rizziconi? Is that how you pronounce it?’

‘Could be. Rizziconi is not Venice, far from it, but Francesca is probably a woman, so…’

‘So what?’

‘It means she probably went to live with her husband. Which means we might be related.’ Will, who was hanging above the book as well now, tapped the picture of the man next to her. ‘Then again, if she has a husband, she probably took his last name…’

‘Not according to this book? Her husband's name is not di Angelo,’ Pollux answered. ‘Oh, I see it now, her married name is right under her maiden name. Her married name is not di Angelo.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, then we should go up, because her parents must be the di Angelo branch. The name probably comes from her father. He had a bunch of kids, anyway, eh, your mother might be around there somewhere, I think…’ 

‘I see no Maria,’ Will breathed into my ear. 

‘No,’ Pollux stroked a strand of hair out of his face. ‘Then we go up a ledge, maybe it is a different di angelo branch. Then we are looking for a man with a daughter named Maria, because at this point she can only have gotten that name from the male line if it is the correct line…’ Pollux almost tore the paper out. My head began to spin. 

‘How do you keep track of this?’ Will asked.

Pollux shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Anyway, I… still see no Maria di Angelo, I think, at which point we should go even further up… and that runs off the map, which means I have to flip a page.’ He sighed.

Will looked over his shoulder. ‘Hazel, did you find anything useful? We might find something here after another hour or so, but…’

Hazel pushed her book closer to ours. ‘I have been looking at Hades’ family line. The map doesn’t show every family member of his children, but I think that if we combine our maps, we can find something.’ She put her book under that of Pollux. 

I looked over her shoulder. I saw my dad and, miracle miracle, my own name, next to Bianca’s and slightly further away from Hazels’. It mentioned my mothers’ name, the names of my grandparents and those of my great-grandparents. ‘Pollux, do you have a… Nicola di Angelo somewhere?’ I inquired. ‘Never knew I was named after my grandfather, but alas, it made sense. Or otherwise a Marco di Angelo? He was my… great grandfather. It doesn’t run further.’ I took a deep breath and put my hand against my forehead. ‘He… I mean Marco… was married to someone named Maria Veronese...’

‘I have a Maria Veronese!’ Pollux exclaimed, while excitedly pointing into his genealogy book. ‘I got a Maria Veronese and praise the gods, she is married to a Marco di Angelo. They have a son, Nicola di Angelo, Who has a daughter, Maria di Angelo, who…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Has a son named Nico di Angelo.’ He pointed into the book, before laying down with an arm over his eyes. His breathing went very quickly for some time, until it slowed down again. ‘Oh, man.’ 

Wil kneeled down next to him. ‘Are you okay?’

He opened his eyes. ‘I am.’ He shrugged, even though he was still on the floor. ‘Information overrun. Dangers of the job.’

‘If you want to see ‘child of Dionysus’ as a job,’ I said, while staring into the book. 

It was told me who of my family members had died. It was strange to see a ‘deceased’ next to Hazel and it hurt to see it next to my mother and sister. For a moment, I doubted whether I was doing the right thing by going to Italy, but I shook that thought off. I could worry about that later. Pollux didn’t almost drive himself insane for me to walk away now. 

‘So. Unsurprisingly, all of my grandparents and their siblings have passed away. My mother had two sisters and a brother. Her brother didn’t have any children... but her sister did. That, sadly, means she changed her last name and then moved to… Toulouse.’ I raised my eyebrows. Sure, France, why not. ‘Okay, but I can’t do anything with that,’ I muttered, a little sad. ‘Alright, then her second sister, she had a daughter and two sons… blah-blah-blah… and...’ I took a deep breath, ‘to make a long story short, her three youngest descendents live in Foggia.’ It felt like a relief. Finally. A place of reference. 

Will produced a notebook from his pocket, with a pencil. ‘I am writing that down. What are their names? Of the last decendants, I mean?’ 

‘Sofia, Elena and Lucia. Their parents are still alive too, eh, Gabriella and Collin. That doesn’t sound all that Italian to me… anyway, them.’ 

‘Cool.’ I looked up at Will, who wrote it all down, before looking back at me. ‘Do you think that's' enough?’

‘What do you think? Actually, Will, how do you feel about me going to Italy?’

‘I am already worried and you haven’t even left yet. However, it’s Italy. I think Dionysus, Hades and Persephone, or, I don’t know, Apollo for that sake, will be there to save you whenever you are almost getting yourself killed, or something.’ He tugged on his shirt. ‘You’ll be fine. It’s Italy, the gods are with you.’ 

I nodded. ‘Thanks,’ I whispered. 

He gave me a tender smile. ‘I hope you’ll get something from it.’ 

‘I hope so too,’ I heard Pollux say in a defeated voice. ‘Otherwise this whole exercise was for nothing and my head hurts.’ 

‘Are you seriously hangover from a book?’

‘Shut up, Nico.’  

Hazel got up and stretched her limbs. ‘Shall we go get something to drink? I’m parched.’ 

‘I feel like getting lunch,’ Will answered.

‘I find these ideas top-notch, if I can be candid,’ Pollux said from the floor. Slowly, he got up. ‘Although I also got a life supply of grape-flavoured Gatorade with me.’

‘That’s called purple,’ Will corrected him. 

‘Grape-flavoured.’

I sighed and stood up as well. ‘Let’s get something to eat. I got my information.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Now I just have to seek out contact with one of them, and then maybe...’ I could actually go. To Italy. Now that it was basically within reach, it felt like the scariest thing ever. 

A/N: More Nico/Dionysus kid interaction! I wanted to add Dakota but then the truth hit me. Honestly that still hurts me to no end, I loved my kool-aid boy.

Does Pollux have a canon last name, actually? I don’t think so. I don’t even think we are ever told about heir second parent is. In the fandom, it ranges  from some mortal woman to some guy to Ariadne herself, I believe. 

[izzy-b-hands]

Quiet

Prompt is B3 from this list: Romantic/Surprise visit at job/school/etc

A shout out and my thanks to @freebooter4ever and @fly-casually for the care and comments on one of my earlier posts tonight. I was about ready to just give up on any writing tonight, but you guys gave me the energy to try and put something out. I appreciate it more than I can say, and I owe you both one, big time!

My love to all who read/like/reblog, especially on this messy thing lol. 

The library was often boring, and that wasn’t a bad thing. It made his job an easy one, sometimes.

This day, however, was worse than usual. 

The children’s programs early in the day had been cancelled due to their children’s director, Mother Goose (aka a twenty something named Lucille who hated the library only slightly more than she hated her father forcing her to get a job, any job at all) showing up ‘sick’. That the puke of hers he had been forced to clean smelled mostly of bourbon, he didn’t mention to anyone. It didn’t matter, and she’d be back, likely with a brand-new hangover, next week. The benefits of a father who donated so much to the library foundation.

In addition, there was a new novelty going on that afternoon in the downtown, in the form of a parade for Easter. Easter was still a week away, and it hadn’t been done before, but everyone was gung-ho for it. 

Except the library board of directors, who had insisted at least one person stay behind to mind the library during the duration of the parade, just in case. Said person could leave early, once the other library workers and librarians were back. 

He didn’t care much for parades anymore, and one of the reference librarians had agreed to stay back as well (Marlys, who was sixty-four and one of the scariest women Eugene had ever met) so it was manageable. He was still getting paid to be there, after all. 

It was, however, mind-numbingly boring. 

“Really fuckin’ quiet in here!” Snafu’s voice shook him out of his trance, his chin nearly hitting the desk as it slipped out of his hand. 

“Jesus, Snaf! You can’t yell in here, you know that!” He wasn’t supposed to leave the desk except for bathroom breaks, but he moved at the speed of light now. 

“Why not? Just you and me in here,” Snafu grinned, striding past the front book displays to meet Eugene halfway, not a care in the world. “Oh, never mind. Hi Marlys!” 

Snafu waved, and Marlys shook her head. “Hooligan!” 

“Aw, I love you too Marlys! You’re a gem of a woman!” 

She shook her head again, and pulled a magazine out from the shelves under the counter of the reference desk. She’d had her fill of them already, apparently.

“Perfect. She ain’t gonna pay us any mind,” Snafu whispered. “C’mon. I know the back lounge is gonna be empty.” 

“Oh Lord...” Eugene sighed. Of course, this was why Snafu was here now. 

For weeks, months, after Eugene had gotten the job at the library, Snafu had reminded him how it was high on his list of ‘places to fuck or be fucked by Eugene at.’ Repeatedly. Whenever he could find a way to mention it, no matter how inappropriate it was to bring it up. 

“No. Just go home,” Eugene continued. “I already told you-” 

“That on a normal day or night, there are too many people around. Too many chances to get caught. Too much of a chance that your job would be at risk. And that’s all fair,” Snafu interrupted. “But tonight, we got the place almost to ourselves. Marlys wants nothin’ to do with us, so she won’t come lookin’ as long as you make up something to her, about looking for a book for me downstairs or something. And that parade is so damn long, it’s gonna be at least two hours before it’s even close to finished. We have the time, we have the privacy, and honestly, I don’t even wanna go all the way, I’d just be happy to make out on the couch in the lounge with you.” 

Eugene looked over to Marlys, then back at Snafu. 

“You know if you don’t wanna, then it’s no big deal. I’ll hang out with you till everyone is back, and then we’ll go home and have our fun. But I wanted to walk you home anyway, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to, y’know,” Snafu shrugged. “Come over early and just ask.”

He was a sweet, pretty picture in front of him. Wearing a light pink button up shirt that Eugene had bought for him, with jeans that were just a step before being too tight to be impolite to wear in public. He’d been growing his hair out some, and the dark curls were the softest-looking (and feeling, he knew from experience) cloud, styled just so in contrast to the shorter sides of Snafu’s haircut. 

And it was only making out. That, he was just as eager as Snafu for. 

“Marlys?”

“What?” she didn’t even look up from her magazine as he approached. 

“I need to look for a book for Snafu, so my desk will be empty, can you-” 

“Kid?” she interrupted, and Eugene gulped. “I took three breaks to smoke outside and get my fresh air already, and you didn’t notice. And nobody came in. And my desk was fine. Go find him his book. Find every damn book in the library. Take inventory with him. I don’t care. But your desk will be fine, whether I watch it or not. Got it?” 

He nodded, and resisted the urge to jog back to Snafu. 

“How can you just...talk to her? She’s so...” 

“She’s just grumpy,” Snafu said. “Ignore her, just like she’s ignoring us.” 

Indeed she was, deep in the depths of her magazine once again. 

Snafu gently took his hand, but instead of pulling him in the direction of the lounge, he took them downstairs. 

“You actually need a book? But you were fini-” 

Snafu interrupted him with a soft kiss. “I am still finishing the one at home. But Marlys, if she should deign to look anywhere for us, would expect me to be defrocking you in the lounge. Now, she might not, and truthfully I don’t think she’ll move an inch from her desk. But I know you don’t like risk, so to mitigate it...we make out down here. Quietly.” 

He had to smile at that. “I love you.” 

“And I love you, even if you worry me with how much you worry, over things you really don’t gotta worry about,” Snafu grinned. “Come here.” 

It wasn’t anything wild, just playful kisses and hickeys, Snafu’s hands roaming but respectful, and Snafu unusually quiet. 

He liked it. More than he thought he would. 

And it wasn’t enough. 

“We could do a little more,” he prompted, and started to undo the buttons on Snafu’s shirt. 

Snafu grinned, his eyes lit up. “Really? You’re sure? I want you to be su-” 

Snafu’s words turned into a gentle moan as Eugene palmed at his cock with one hand, the other moving from Snafu’s buttons to clasp the back of his neck. 

From there, he not only forgot where they were, but didn’t care. Snafu was pliant and panting and happy under his hands, lips on any skin they could reach. Their clothes were still on, but they’d opened enough buttons and clasps to be able to touch nearly anywhere they wanted. 

At this rate, he would happily-

“Fuckin’ rain,” an unknown voice, at the front of the downstairs stacks. “So much for that new tradition. Was a nice parade too.” 

“Might not rain every year,” another voice replied. 

“Just get your books so we can go. I’m wet, and I’m tired, and I’m upset.” 

His keys couldn’t open everything in the library. They could, however, open up the study rooms in the lower level, and he’d never pulled Snafu or unlocked a door so fast in his life. 

Snafu locked the door behind them, and halted Eugene’s hand before he turned on the light. “Let Marlys take care of them.” 

“What if there are more than just those two?” 

“They expected you would be goin’ home anyway as soon as the parade was over, and it apparently is,” Snafu replied in a fierce whisper. “So they probably assume you left already. Just...gotta wait these two out.” 

‘These two’, the unknown voices, were a couple of college kids, the boy trailing after his girlfriend as she piled books into her arms. The small window on the door of the study room meant they could only see them in certain areas however, and it was harder to hear them behind the door. 

Snafu started to button himself up, but Eugene stayed his hand.

“What are you...” 

“Wonder if they could hear you,” Eugene murmured as his hand moved to stroke Snafu through his underwear. “If you came while they were down here.” 

Snafu snickered. “There’s always some wild in you to surprise me, isn’t there? You’re gettin’ off on this almost more than I am.” 

He nodded and blushed, and frowned as Snafu stopped his hand. 

“And as much as I love this idea, I didn’t think it through,” Snafu said meekly. “We have to walk home, remember?” 

“...we have to walk home. Shit.” 

There were certainly occasions and moments where they had no shame, but walking through town with cum stains on their clothing was just a step beyond that limit for both of them. 

“It’s my bad, I should have brought the car, and next time-” 

Eugene wrapped his arm around Snafu, and gave him a kiss. “You’ll bring the car. I know. I didn’t think about it either; you made a good catch.” 

“Gotta calm down before we leave though,” Snafu smirked as he did up his various buttons. “Think you can manage that?” 

“Dunno,” Eugene replied. “All worked up thinkin’ about ‘next time.’ Next week work for you?” 

Snafu raised a brow. “That’s a regular work week. Normal amount of people, coworkers...” 

“And I have keys to let us in down here, early in the morning or after everyone else has left for the night shift,” Eugene finished. “A little of this risk, but just as much fun.” 

Snafu reached over, doing up Eugene’s buttons, and shook his head. 

“What next, fuckin’ on the beach next time we head out there? I love you, you wild thing.” 

“Think they’re gone,” Eugene peeked out through the window. “Let’s go. And yeah, actually, that sounds good. Gives us weekend plans.” 

He grinned at Snafu’s shocked silence as he unlocked the door and headed out, Snafu on his heels, asking him excitedly and desperately how serious he was about those plans. 

He was dead serious. Snafu had his kinks, and Eugene had his. Maybe they hadn’t fully achieved Snafu’s now, but they would next week. 

And the beach would both fulfill his, and be perfect practice for that. 

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

It’s week three of my Global-Pandemic-Induced decision to rewatch all of Supernatural, and so I’m still attempting to make this watch more productive than the last show that I binged.

So I’m on disc two now - that’s episodes 5 - 8 for those of you watching on Netflix. By the time we get to this disc, we know the basic formula for Supernatural as a series - Two Hunks + Fighting Evil to the Power of Acceptable Levels of Gore x Missing Dad = Ratings Gold. Or at the very least, good enough ratings that we’ll give you a season (or fourteen). And then...well...then.

Episode five is “Bloody Mary”, easily the scariest episode of this first season and, based on the nose dive that the formula takes after season 1, probably the entire series. Maybe it’s that the Bloody Mary legend was one that really got me as a kid, maybe it’s just that I don’t do so hot with ghosts, but guys this episode still made me turn on all the lights and avoid all my mirrors. I accidentally turned this episode on at 9pm and regretted it immediately. I walked away at one point to go clean my kitchen to strategically miss some of the spookier points and I walked back in during an even spookier point. I was mad that there were no commercials at the commercial break cut-to-black! The first time I watched this episode, I’m pretty sure I watched it through my fingers. This most recent viewing, I ALSO watched it through my fingers. Guys, THIS EPISODE. 

I will say it a-hecking-gain: This episode scared the SHIT out of me.

AND THEN, THEN! Then this show has the gall to go ahead and drop a major season/character plot point right there in the middle of all this content that I am actively trying not to look at: SURPRISE! Sam has premonition powers and sorta kinda knew that his girlfriend was gonna die a terrible death weeks before she dies. Because sure, why not? 

Ohmiglob the DRAMA.

I’m gonna take a moment to say that, yes, technically this piece of plot gets dropped within our first six episodes, so we can still safely say that, you know, they’re still setting up the story for the rest of the series. It’s not like a sudden twist they drop half way through the season, it’s being laid down as ground work. And I know that this turns out to be a MAJOR issue for the next four seasons at least, but can I just say: Kripke, you’re really throwing a lot at us. I mean, OK. here’s what we’ve got - 

The Winchester’s lost their mom at a young age to some evil thing. Cool, got it.

THEN they have daddy issues with C-minus Single Dad John Winchester. Alright, that seems logical. 

The brothers hunt bad guys looking for the thing that killed their mom. Ok still on board. 

There’s family drama, relatable. 

Dad’s gone missing and we gotta find, ok ok ok. 

Also Sam’s girlfriend dies in a fire, alright, so we’re looking for that thing now too. 

OH! And now Sam has magic powers. 

I mean, it’s a lot, right? We got a lot of layers here. That’s all I’m sayin.

So “Bloody Mary”, right? Big episode, big bad guy, they kinda loophole their way into defeating her but I’m not mad. Big reveal at the end, so kind of an important lore episode. And then...well...then we get the following episodes:

“Skinwalker” - gross-out fx, establishes Dean as a lonely asshole with a lot of APB’s out on him

“The Hook Man” - takes the Urban Legend angle of the show and dials it up to 11

“Bugs” - Does what it says on the tin.

Now to be fair: all three of these episodes have at least ONE shining moment that reveals a little more about the characters we’re working with, and that character development plays out in important ways in the rest of the season/series. But all three of them are arguably---

FILLER EPISODES-ODES-ODES-ODESSssssssss. 

Alright, maybe that’s unkind. Maybe we should call them standalones or self-contained. A Filler is an episode designed to “fill out” your season. It doesn’t necessarily move the overarching story of the season forward, although it may contain some concepts or revelations that are important later. I’d argue that Supernatural has only ever had two kinds of episodes - Series Arc and Filler. Not that that’s a bad thing -  I like a filler episode now and again. Depending on how heavy your season gets (and by all accounts Supernatural gets pretty heavy), they can be a nice breath of fresh air - also known as a Breather Episode. Or they can be just for fun. I’mma reference “Once More with Feeling” again because sure, why not throw in a musical episode in season 6 of a show about vampire slaying, that’s fine. I wanna reference something from Community here too, but honestly anything after season 2 could probably be called filler or self contained, so who even knows. I’ll point at the Voltron episode where they spend a day in the mall to gather some unobtainium for the ship and wacky shenanigans ensue. Point being, they can be times to break the mold and experiment and have fun with what you’re writing. Or they can be ridiculous nonsense. Mileage may vary. 

The crazy thing about these episodes is that they most closely resemble what Kripke intended the show to be in the first place. Kripke wanted a show that revolved around characters investigating American urban legends. What is more quintessentially urban legend than Bloody Mary, the Hook Man and curses from ancient Native American burial grounds? These were stories that I as the viewer was already sort of familiar with because I’d heard of all of them before. What I appreciated, specifically about the Bloody Mary episode, was that they a) acknowledge the fact that these are Urban Legends (capital letters and all) and then b) acknowledge that the legends vary wildly so a part of their job is figuring out what is true and what is rumor. I guess you could also call that a cop out but when I was a kid, I was told that Bloody Mary was the ghost of Queen Mary of England who was sister to Elizabeth I and was also violently anti-protestant. WHERE did I get this story? I have no idea. But I also have no idea where Sam got the “mutilated bride” story from either. 

In an old article I found circa season 2, Kripke actually talks about preferring standalone content to mythology/lore episodes in television. Both as a creator and as a viewer, he wants a show where people can jump in at any time and “join the party” wherever they are. That’s the beauty of procedurals - you don’t need to start from the beginning to enjoy them.

But what really got me personally hooked on the show was the mythology, was the season long arc to find John Winchester and whatever killed their mom. Those mythos episodes were where the meat of the show was for me - it usually involved a lot of feelings and a lot of character development which is still mostly my jam. If I’m obsessively watching a show, it’s because I’m connected to the characters and watching them struggle through the challenges in their path, not because I want to see what monster they kill next. 

And again, I’ll reiterate that each of these episodes contains an important nugget of character. In “Bloody Mary”, easily the least likely to be called Filler, we find out that Sam has weird magic powers that are the real source of his guilt over Jessica’s death. 

In “Skin”, we find out a lot about Dean’s inner landscape from the DopppleDeaner, who reveals that Dean is probably most afraid of people leaving him (be still my 19-year-old heart). 

Wasn’t mad about this bit...

Coulda done without this bit tho...

In “Hookman”...alright, you kinda got me on “Hookman”, but we do get the first appearance of the rocksalt shotgun and Sam talks with a girl about her dad issues which is really Sam talking about his own dad issues in the language of tv shows. Also, he maybe starts to move on from Jessica???? It’s unclear, and also a little weird but I guess he’s only 22 and that’s not that far off from 18/19. 

Really, WB?? Sneaking into sorority houses?

And then in “Bugs”, yes, even in “Bugs”, we get juicy little bit of tension between the brothers as they advise some teen boy about family dynamics. The fight shows a lot about what each character feels about their own experiences growing up the way they did, how they manage the expectations from their own father, and how they believe those family dynamics should exist. I mean I guess you could also argue this is the episode that plants the seed for Wincest, but I don’t really want to go there, let’s not talk about it.

This kid’s like, “This is...not a conversation about me and MY dad, is it?”

So they could be worse. I mean the last two definitely aren’t great, and we’ll see how they measure up to the Monster Truck episode later in the season, but they’re not bad episodes. 

So let’s flash forward to Now again - have we seen the end of Filler Episodes?

As I have mentioned in previous posts and will probably continue mentioning in future posts, the 22 episode season is not the norm anymore. A lot of articles I’ve read point to Breaking Bad as the first American show to really break that mold. Breaking Bad released only 7 episodes in it’s first season in 2007. When you’ve cut your story down that much, there’s no room for filler - you’re basically producing a 7 hour movie. 

Now notice I said American TV show. I’m pretty sure for most of the rest of the world, 22 episodes is way outside the norm, but really I can only speak to UK TV. Seasons in the UK do not last as long as seasons in America. Doctor Who, one of, if not the, longest running show on BBC, aired its first season with 42 episodes, which is mind boggling. But since the series revived in 2005, it hasn’t had more than 13 episodes in a season. Spooks/MI5 never had more than 10 episodes. The IT Crowd only aired 6 episodes per season. Broadchurch had only 8. And because I must complete the Superwholock trifecta, Sherlock seasons were only 3 episodes a piece. These are the shows that spring to mind while I’m writing this, but you get the idea.

So why does American broadcast TV have such long seasons? Well, the answer is: moneymoneymoney.

We live in an age of “prestige” TV. Some throw around “Golden Era”, but there’s been like, a Golden Era of television every 10 years since tv’s became household commodities, so that phrase basically means nothing. TV today is more similar to long-form film making than it was a decade ago. We associate terms like “film” with other terms like “art”, and sometimes we forget that television is, and always was, a business. It’s a business that’s making a lot of money entertaining you for hours on end, but a business nonetheless. I’d argue that it doesn’t mean it’s not art, but I don’t think we can separate the art and entertainment value of tv from its actual monetary value. 

Strategically, the 22-episode season was to get a show to a magical number of total episodes - 100. Once you hit the 100th episode, somewhere around season 5 (thanks math), then you can sell the show in syndicated reruns. This is also referred to as second-run syndication or off-network syndication. When a show is syndicated, that means the production company that produces the show can now sell the right to air episodes to other channels. Think channels like TBS or TNT or even USA Network - they don’t really dabble in producing their own content, they just repackage content from other networks to plug in to empty slots in their programming. And because these channels can air episodes 5 days a week, 365 days a year, that means the production company can actually make more money by selling the show in syndication than when they sold the show to the primary network. The more episodes you have in a season, the faster you get to syndication, and sometimes that means a show that’s on the brink of cancellation due to poor numbers may still get greenlit for another season or two if they’re closer to that magic 100th episode. For a show like Supernatural, that has a very procedural, not-super-heavy-mythos, structure, you can do very well in syndication. Just cuz another network agreed to air your show doesn’t mean they agreed to air it in order, so procedurals work better in syndication than your season-arc shows do. And that’s why we have episodes like Bugs, that have nothing to do with the overarching plot of the season and also phone in some questionable CGI. 

Apparently they DID use real bugs to shoot this scene and everyone got bit to hell but the bugs didn’t show up good and they went with CG anyway?!?

But these days, you don’t have to hit 100 episodes. Sometimes only 80 episodes will do. Sometimes, you run a streaming site and you don’t have to worry about reruns at all because your revenue isn’t generated from air time or even ads, but from subscription prices. Honestly, when you think of it that way, it makes way more sense to greenlight shorter seasons so that you have the budget to buy more and more diverse shows that will appeal to a broader audience of viewers. 

So if Supernatural was produced today, would we get these off-shoot, self-contained episodes that have little to do with the plot of finding Sam and Dean’s dad? It’s hard to say. Knowing what I do about Kripke’s original plans for the show and his thoughts on procedural standalone episodes in general, its possible that he’d still try for a traditional season aired on a traditional TV network. But in that same interview I quoted above, he also mentions that the only way to get into a show with a heavy mythos is to buy the DVDs. We don’t need DVDs anymore - we have Netflix. And Hulu and Prime and any number of other streaming services that pick up any show they can get just to have a larger library of content and attract new viewers. I think a good indicator of what Supernatural would look like if it aired today is Hulu’s Helstrom - a show about two siblings with a childhood marked by strange and terrible happenings, who spend the season trying to defeat an evil demon. This show is a Hulu original that dropped all 10 episodes on October 16, 2020, and damn if that doesn’t sound familiar. I told a friend, “it’s like Supernatural but more emotions.” (Her response was, MORE emotions?!?!?) And before you dive down the rabbit hole, the characters in Helstrom made their debut in a Marvel comic back in the 70’s, so you can just chalk it up to nothing new under the sun. 

Big Mood, guys. Big Mood.

I’ll close this one by reiterating I don’t mind a filler episode. Some fillers can be weird and great and wonderful. I’d say “Tales of Ba Sing Se” (Avatar the Last Air Bender, Season 2)  is a great example - with the possible exception of Appa, the vignettes presented in “Tales” are basically side quests that have nothing to do with the main quest of season 2 and only serve to develop characters. The stories are sweet and touching and also light and fun.

I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying! It’s ok, I’m also crying. 

 And the longer a show runs, the more likely you are to run into these fillers - episodes that take a break from the main action to bring something that’s new and out of the box and possibly/probably writers getting bored with the every-day formula of the show. I think season 1 of Supernatural does a decent job of balancing the two styles of episode so that neither gets boring. In fact, I’m pretty Supernatural was what taught me the difference between the two episode styles in the first place. And the first time around, I was hyped for those season arc episodes, because back in the late 2000’s, I hadn’t seen a lot of TV content like that. Now, 15 years on and mired in a sea of seasons that stick mainly to a season arc story with little to no room for breathing, I think that if all TV became nothing but season arc episodes...well, it’d get pretty boring. 

[its8simplejulesblog]

Did I Ever Tell You About The Time I Got Stranded in An Airport In China?

It’s true. I was utterly alone. I mean in retrospect I wasn’t, there were hundreds of people in that airport. The difference, they spoke native Chinese and I didn’t. My family members have always been avid travelers, to the point where my mom let me, 20 at the time, travel to China alone. Of course, I was meeting up with people when I got there, but the travel part was alllllllll me. So naturally, things had to go wrong. 

So here’s the sitch. Before my brother was born, during the dark ages of minimal internet, my mom joined this online group of moms that were expecting around the same time so they could ask questions and go through the experience of being pregnant for the first time together. My mom really clicked with a woman named Sandie in the group who happened to be from Australia. As we grew up, our families became really close. We would meet up with them in Florida all the time. 

Eventually, we decided we would ship ourselves over to Australia for Christmas/ New Years, but that’s a different story. 

More background information: My dad helped start a robotics team 21 years ago, and has become really well known in that community so he’s friends with everyone. We were contacted while we were in Australia to come meet up with another family who is really involved in robotics internationally so we went to have dinner with their family. They are an INCREDIBLE family. You know the type where they always have a ridiculous story for everything you just can’t believe it’s real? That’s what they were like. Anyway, the mom started talking about how they were opening a robotics lab in China and they take students over to teach the kids about programming and lego league and just to be pen pals; and, if you know my family at all, I immediately invited myself to go. I really was like “oh I should go with you,” out loud, and my mom looked at me and instead of saying no, she looked at this lady and she said “yeah, Julia is learning Chinese, she could go with you.” and the lady just said “yeah! ok” and I was going to China...alone haha. 

Flash forward and I have to take two flights to go to China. The International flight goes sickeningly smooth. I have absolutely 0 issues, and my whole family is extremely relieved, BuT WaIT, there’s more. When I go to take the domestic flight to Fuzhou, the province that we were going to be “touring” I see that the flight is canceled. There’s an announcement over the loud speaker but I’m already panicked and it’s in rapid fire Chinese so I go to the desk instead. The lady at the desk is trying to be patient with me, but I’m clearly already freaking out and her English is broken. She manages to tell me that there was a bad wind storm so they had to postpone a lot of the flights. 

Okay, postpone..that isn’t so bad, right? ALSO WRONG, it’s at this exact moment that my phone’s wifi cuts out entirely, so it’s survival mode now. I’m crying on the floor of the Shanghai airport when I hear actual English for the first time in forever (I’m apparently really good at accidental Frozen references) but I FLY towards whoever is speaking English. The culprit turns out to be these 2 guys from Canada. One of them speaks fluent Chinese and they’re helpful for about 5 minutes before they have to abandon me because their flight was rescheduled. So, we’re back to square one. 

At this point, they announce that the flight is cancelled and I want to die, but the good news is my wifi comes back on. I immediately text my mom and my uncle, who my aunt met when she was in the Peace Corps in China so he starts a call with his entire family that lives in China apparently because I don’t recognize any of these people at all. The only thing they can tell me to do is to talk to a flight attendant so that’s what I do. 

Imagine a group of really cute and young sorority girls hanging out when they’re approached by someone that..is just completely a mess. Yeah that’s what it was like when I went over to them. I got one of the girls to help me and again, her English was about the level of my Chinese at the time, so together we were only slightly above idiot. She tells me that the Chinese airport doesn’t let foreigners stay at the onsite hotel, so I would be able to go with her and her friend once she got off of her shift to go to a hotel. 

SOUNDS SUS doesn’t it, but when you’re desperate, you’re desperate. When the flight attendant gets off of her shift I go with her to the parking garage because she booked a hotel for me. When we finally get there, this 25 year old Chinese Troy Bolton looking man whips his car around and we get in with him (completely safe, how could you not trust Chinese Troy Bolton). We drive about 30 minutes through Shanghai and honestly, it’s beautiful. It was one of those circumstances in life we’re you’re looking at the city lit up at night and you really can’t believe you’re there. It was probably one of the scariest, yet most memorable experiences of my life. 

We pull into the hotel and since I finally had native speakers with me, things were going a lot smoother. The flight attendant was talking with my uncle on the phone about scheduling me a flight for the next day and she talked to the lady in the lobby about my room. At this point, I knew her pretty well because, surprise, she was actually 30 years old and had a daughter and I thought that was SO CUTE. I gave the flight attendant a hug and thanked her friend, and it was just me again. 

Here’s the best part of this entire story. The only hotel they could book me in was, wait for it, a honeymoon suite. A HONEYMOON SUITE. The hallways of the hotel were covered in mirrors and the carpets were covered in flowers. Everything smelled like drugs and smoke and clearly everyone was having the time of their lives. The bathroom in the room, completely see through, the bed had a HUGE mural of Barbie’s face above it and the curtains had minnie mouse on them and I don’t know how that’s romantic at all, but you can’t make this shit up haha. If you think I’m lying, here’s a lil (horrible) photo I took of the curtains. If you want to see video, ask me in person. 

At this point, I am way past delirious. I took a shower and time ceased to exist. I was so jet lagged and confused. I called my mom and after I hung up with her I immediately fell asleep. A solid 2 hours later I woke up and SCREAMED because my body clock was so off, I thought it was the next day and I had missed my next flight. I called my mom crying again, and she told me it had only been two hours so I went back to bed. When I finally woke up at the right time my uncle, god bless this man, got on the phone with me and helped me talk to the people at the desk. They got a cab for me and I trudged back to the airport. 

2nd times the charm, except, I need to get my boarding pass printed out at the help desk, which has a line of about the entirety of the Chinese population. Fun fact about China too, they don’t know what a straight line is. This is just fact, they just cut straight to the front and shove each other out of the way. This took me way too long to realize, and after I stood in this line for about 2 hours, I realized that I was going to have to assimilate. So there I was, a puny stick of a human, elbowing grown Chinese men out of my way to get this pass while my uncle and 300 relatives are on the call with me. 

I get to the the desk and surprise, the person is not helpful at all so I do what any actually insane person would do and I just continued walking my way through security to the gates. I get filtered into bag check of which, I don’t even have a bag so I just walk up to the desk anyway to see if anyone else can help me. 

After the longest 5 minutes of my life my SAVIOR of a 22 year old tiny little man decides to give me his attention. I don’t know HOW. I don’t. Know. How. But he manages to print a boarding pass for me and my soul left my body because at this point I had 30 minutes to get to my flight so I thank him and SPRINT and I mean really book it through security to the plane. I finally made it. 

Granted, the trip was entirely worth that stress. The kids I met in China were incredibly kind. They called me a Disney Princess and wrote me love letters and gave me hugs even though it was clear I didn’t know shit about coding. It was just amazing to be there as a friend and role model for them. I stood in front of them and spoke Chinese and encouraged them to keep learning English and it was the most grounding experience of my life, because it was clear that they didn’t have much. 

We went to five cities while we were there to tell the kids about lego league and cooperation and teamwork. I sat in on meetings with school board professionals and on interviews with students that wished to continue their education abroad in America. I learned so much about the systematic education there and there is nothing I want more than to go back there. The kids have already invited me back to their homes, and I have never met anyone more welcoming and kind. So think twice before you make jokes about the Corona Virus. 

At the end of the day, this trip defines what I want to do. There is nothing like stepping entirely out of your comfort zone to explore. There is nothing like shocking a bunch of Chinese men with your ability to use chopsticks. There is nothing like putting aside biases and language barriers and simply treating people like people. Everywhere I go, I think of that place as a new home to me, and I can’t wait to be home there again.

Also..the next semester when I got back, we learned the airport and travel unit at school in Chinese class, such is life I guess. 

Here are some pictures from China. 

-Julia 

[whirlybirdwhat]

East Sea of Monsters - Chapter 5

Franky starts. to notice some weird shit about his crew.

Read the entire series on Ao3 for better quality and authors notes! Gen, creepy, featuring all of the Straw Hats, multi-chapter story.

“The East Blue has a different nickname to those in the Grand Line, and those who hail it as home have a few… unique traits.”

-----------

Creepy - Franky

Now, Franky had seen some weird stuff. The Franky Family’s weird, Water 7’s weird, hell, he’s weird.

But he has to say, the Straw Hat’s take the cake on how weird, how crazyyou can get.

And he’s not just talking about the way the Captain’s made of rubber, their doctor’s a reindeer, their swordsman wields three katanas (one of them is supposedly cursed), and the latest member of their crew is a talking skeleton.

Nah.

That stuffs pretty SUPER if you ask him, the kind he can roll with.

It’s the other things that get to him.

The creepy things.

-

He first notices these creepythings when he goes into the kitchen to restock his cola and grab a midnight stack after working all night, and finds two pairs of glowing eyes staring at him from a top the counter, accented by a sharp-toothed mouth and far too much glistening red wet stuff for him to handle.

Like a man, he assumes he’s gone far too long without sleep and back tracks out of the room as quickly as he dares before his mind can fool him further.

The eyes follow him every step of the way, and even the thing starts shifting unnaturally to follow him out of the room before Franky gives up on acting SUPER and just sprints away.

The next day he thinks it’s just a nightmare, before realizing he was most definitely awake, his eyes are alwaysperfectly functional, and Luffy just thanked him at breakfast for not ratting his midnight snack out to Sanji.

Hell.

What the fu-

-

Thriller Bark was creepy for a number of reasons, most of them relating to the island itself and its inhabitants – zombies, shadows, ghosts and SUPER talking skeleton dudes – but Franky can handle that.

It’s the othercreepiness that really stands out to Franky, makes him feel like that time before on the ship – the kind that he thinks isn’t real but knows later it most definitely was.

He first notices it as Brook boards the ship. He seems positively delighted to be there, to be among human souls again, but all the same he appears to… lean awayfrom certain members of the crew. Franky would dismiss it if he didn’t know that A) Brook leans towardother members of the crew and B) Luffy, the most welcoming to the skeleton, is the one that makes the skeleton the most nervous.

(Franky is sure that if he asked the man, he would say something along the lines of They make my hair stand on ends – not that I have any hair – Oh wait! I do! Yohohoho!

He doesn’t ask though. He isn’t sure he wants to know what he thinks Brook knows.

But he’s a builder, a shipwright, however. It’s in his nature to poke around for a potential problem.

Not that his crew is a problem, of course.)

The next creepy things he notices are more Zoro related. It’s subtle, wouldn’t really be an eye catcher if Franky hadn’t been looking for it already.

You see – ever since he met the swordsman, he feels as if he isn’t actually seeing all of him at once. There’s always been a haze, sitting about him, as subtle as they come, like a cloud on a misty day.

Seemingly normal, but with a closer look, it’s like it doesn’t match the rest of the world.

So, he keeps recalibrating and recalibrating his eyes, keeps looking for the odd moments when Zoro seems to just – fadefrom existence, like he slips out of sight and just doesn’t come back until one the crew drags him to where he’s supposed to be.

(Franky entertains the thought that maybe this is why he’s always lost but dismisses it almost immediately.)

And here – on Thriller Bark, when life itself is being torn asunder by humans playing devils and gods – that chain tethering him to thisrealm seems to solidify, and the cloud resting about his shoulders fades away…

Leaving Franky to catch glimpses of limbs coated in shiny green scales, and eyes that flicker red from the back of a green head. They wink at him when Franky stares too long, and fade away the next moment, as if there was only ever cropped mossy hair on the man’s head.

The cyborg would think it was Robin’s handiwork if the eye wasn’t distinctly beast like, and Robin concentrating on using a hundred other summoned limbs to defeat an enemy.

The fading veil like thingover Zoro is even pointed out by the monster that has Luffy shadow of all things and that’s when Franky knowsthis stuff isn’t justin his head.

Because if that idiot can say Hey you guys are little demons (meaning it literally, Franky thinks) and why are you so foggy green sword guyand make Robin smile that scary knowing smile of hers, Franky is definitelysane.

He hopes.

However, the creepiest thing by faris Zoro’s smile, toothy, bloody, and with more thirst and death than Franky has ever seen before.

But maybe that’s just Zoro. He can never tell with the guy.

(So yes, Zoro is creepy. And Franky doesn’t like the way when he shouts Three Thousand Worlds!The world seems to split for just a second, as if a man just stepped and sliced through three thousand places at once and still managed to dissect an enemy with three clear strokes of sharp (cursed, haunted) blades.

No - Franky doesn’t like it at all – because, on stormy nights at Water 7, Tom would give in to Franky’s pleas for the scariest stories Tom knew of, as it fit the mood and would be SUPER during the storm, c’mon Tom! and those stories would oft feature tales of a man – a monster – with a dark hole for a heart, and a pitch of tar for a soul.

The man had a penchant for flashing across seas with a single step, havoc in his wake, as if the barrier between realms had no hold on him, as if space bent to his will and not the other way around.

It reminds him of Zoro, sometimes, when he casts a look at the swordsman in battle.)

-

The third incident is, funnily enough, with the third member of the ‘monster trio’, Sanji.

Franky thinks he finally knows why they’re called the monster trio, beyond them being simply ridiculously powerful.

The incident occurs when they are in the New World, after two years of training and a heartbreak so deep it cuts all of them to their soul.

(Franky does not like the rumors of Marineford. They say it was the War of the Best, that only the most powerful walked its bloody path, but Franky has heard that there was more than men fighting there –

And that there was a suspicious plume of fire at Ace’s grave, three days after Luffy rang the bell, a horrific mimicry of the fire that was said to have warred over the dead man’s father’s grave three days after his execution.)

Franky’s finally back in his workshop, with the sound of his crew, his family, surrounding him with a cacophonous yet beautiful noise and a new idea under his hands, and he couldn’t be happier.

But the next bit requires a bit of balancing if he wants to make it work – he has to lift the glass panel into the eye of the ring, but he can only reach it if he uses one hand, leans on his tiptoes, and stretches the other arm out for balance.

In hindsight, he should have added this bit first.

Oh well.

Almost there…. Almost got it – easy, easy alri-

“Franky?”

“AH!”

CRASH!

With a thunderous sound, Franky whacks his had around, turning his head as he does, letting the glass shatter to the floor and nearly hitting the tray of Cola out of Sanji’s hands.

And that wouldn’t normally be odd, Franky can be clumsy especially when he’s focused and someone startles him (he supposes he needs to retrain himself in that regard, before their little… break … Luffy had taken to jumping up on Franky’s shoulders while he was working to see the new creation, and Franky had learned not to startle – Luffy will probably continue to do that again (at least some things stay the same…)) however it’s what happens in that second of chaos that freaks Franky out.

Franky’s hand, big and metal as it is, should have grazed Sanji’s side. But it didn’t – and not because Sanji dodged away either.

Instead, it is as if there was a giant hole in his side, gaping and wide yet perfectly ordinary, so that Franky only touched a black silk suit instead of the skin underneath.

That’s not all – in the flashing second, with as focused as Franky’s eyes were, he could see a wisp of smoke and something sparking flickering from the cook’s pointy mouth, as swirly eyebrows stood out against literal ash-gray skin.

He doesn’t know how to react, doesn’t even know if what he saw was real, only gives a small, high pitched laugh and ‘yeah, what about you? You startled me!’ when Sanji asks if he’s okay.

He sits in a kind of stupor, cold cola held in a metal (shaking) hand as Sanji takes his leave.

What did I just see?

Franky casts a glance at the shattered piece of glass on the ground, and the empty space in the machine it was supposed to go in.

Guess I’ll know soon enough.

-

Thankfully, beyond shadows in the corner of his eyes, weird hazy visions, spooky feelings and flashing eyes in the middle of the night, Franky only has one more major …. freakyevent before he gets the (terrifying) answer he’s looking for.

Nami’s yelling at him for bringing the Watcher (named by Chopper for its big eyepiece after he came down to see if any glass had gotten in his foot after the accident with Sanji) up on deck, as its apparently ‘Too big! I can’t get a proper tan with that in the way!’ and ‘What does it even do’but he doesn’t particularly care.

After all – she’s one of the five reasons he brought the thing up here.

(Brook had been uneasy around her and Usopp too – despite the fact that Usopp was more scared of him, and Nami was a woman (damn bony pervert.)  Both were relatively weak and lacking any freaky power like the Monster Trio had, so it had buggedFranky for ages why Brook was tense around them andthe Monster Trio, but not the cyborg or the talking reindeer.)

He turns the machine on just as a dark cloud passes over the sun.

Suddenly – the world is cold, and dark, and dreary, and Franky knows his eyes look far away as he peers through the lens at his comrades.

Wait, what… what?

They aren’t there – only Robin, sitting on her lawn chair, is.

Instead of the others, Franky views a shapeless form of wind and cloud and bursting yellow eyes, and something crouching in the corner of the deck, feathery, shadowed and whimsical.

It has far too many joints to be human.

Franky pulls away as a smashing, sparking noise emits from his left, and a crashing from his right.

The suns shining on them again, and the chilling song Franky swears he must have heard is already nothing but a distant memory.

Nami’s hand rests on the right side of the machine (is Franky imagining the little claw-like scrapes just before her nails?), denting it gently, while faint smoking (a bullet?– no, it smells far too much like Usopp’s Stars to be that) wisps from the cracks of the mention to his left.

“Franky,” Nami smiles, all knowing and terrifying, as her eyes seem to glow a particular shade of molten gold (weren’t her eyes brown?) “I suggest you stop.”

Usopp looks over and cocks his head like a bird, as if his place hadn’t been filled with feathers a second ago. He doesn’t say anything, and that is somehow scarier than Nami’s words.

“Okay?” She prods.

“Okay,” Franky agrees, and promptly begins to dismantle the machine.

“Good.”

The spare parts find a home in the bowels of the ship where only Luffy treads normally, as Franky can’t stand the sight of them, even if it was good metal (can’t bear to throw them out either, something tells him they’ll cause more trouble in the ocean depths than on the ship).

He feels all cold and empty when he looks at them.

He shouldn’t feel that way on his ship of dreams, surrounding by loving crew members.

-

Robin is the one to finally give him the answer to all the freakiness his crew has going on. He thinks she was amused by it before the Watcher mishap.

(She too avoids the metal when she can. It isn’t like her at all, and it’s the final tipping point in her observation of his interactions with their less… human campanions.)

It’s the day after said mishap and Franky’s still all jittery, feeling like he’s seen something taboo, when Robin glides up to him in the aquarium, where Franky’s relaxing with some Cola Floats (Who knew cola could taste so good with ice cream?).

“Did you know that five of our crew hail from the East Blue? The Going Merry did as well.” She says simply, and hands him an old but cared for book, with pieces of paper – newspaper clippings? And some notes? – sticking out of it. “Read that. Make sure it comes back to me in good condition” She finishes with some grabbing motions, taking Franky back to the time he first joined the crew which results in him nodding vigorously, and the woman disappearing into the hall with a satisfied smile.

The title is East Sea: Devil Waters, and Franky gulps.

Inside, the freakiness is explained, and something in him relaxes with it. At least he knows whythey’re all freaky now, and that all the rumors he’s heard are true.

(His questions are answered and somethings he didn’t even know were strange had an explanation.

He had heard of Klabautermann before, he knew Merry had one, and he knows Sunny does as well. But – this explains the extra presence he felt in Sunny’s hull some days.

He’s glad he created the Mini Merry – who knew ships could have restless ghosts? He’s happy the lamb has a final resting – haunting –place, safe in the cradle of her comrades and out of the ocean’s depths.)

[xelinielx]

Wednesday - A JadeRoxy pirate AU one shot

This story is for my friend @tentiginouslogophile (Jade) whose birthday is today!! I failed at drawing pictures to this so you’ll have to settle for a short story heheh. It’s a bit messy because it’s hard for me to find motivation right now, though I really wanted to give you something today. I hope you’ll like it anyway. Happy birthday again! I love you!! I will probably rewrite this when I get my motivation back so it will be as great as you are 💕

Warning: contains a lot of fluff, the striders being dumbasses and implied smut.

-

Out of all the pirate ships sailing the Sburban sea, two stood out and were renowned as led by the scariest captains by all who saw them - but their crew wouldn’t agree.

Pirate captain Roxy Lalonde on the Mutie was actually one of the most absent-minded people on the planet. If they were born in the 21st century, her crew would have likened her with the pirate captain Jack Sparrow from the pirate movies, and Roxy would find that absolutely hilarious.

She was a good captain though, despite not always acting like one. In battle, she was a scary blur of swordstrokes, and she had gotten the nickname The Cat from her enemies. They all saw her as a terrifying force of nature, but her crew, who had more than once seen her throw up over the edge of the ship and fail to pet their aggressive ship’s cat, didn’t agree in the slightest. There was only one pirate brave enough to fight her.

Captain Jade Harley.

They had been fighting for as long as they could remember, always chasing each other and trying to beat the other. Today was the day they would clash again.

Jade Harley was seen as eccentric by her crew. She was brave, fast and had no hesitation in throwing herself in dangerous situations when needed. Also when not needed. That’s why her crew felt more like babysitters most of the time. “No captain, diving from the top of the mast is not a good idea in this storm.” “Captain, if you try to steer the ship through that gap it will sink.” “JADE FOR FUCKS SAKE DON’T TRY TO SHOOT THE SEAGULL WHILE WEARING A BLINDFOLD!”

Her enemies called her The Witch. She appeared out of practically nowhere with her ship, cannons firing rapidly. In the harbors there were people spreading stories about how she must have contacted Feferi the fabled Sea Witch and sold her soul for power.

The first time Jade heard those stories, she’d laughed so hard that she got the hiccups and couldn’t talk normally for the rest of the day. After that, she of course made sure to scream some long difficult words that sound like a spell to spur the stories even further when she fought the crews who dared oppose her.

-

Jade kicks the door to her quarters open with a well-aimed strike and steps out onto the deck, striking a grin. “Good morning everyone!” she exclaims and puts her captains hat over her unbrushed mess of black hair.

“‘sup Jade!” Dave calls out from atop some barrels where he’s sprawled out, eyepatches over both eyes. He was supposed to be the lookout but he was usually too lazy to do so. He also never wanted anyone to see his eyes, so he looked rather comical with the eyepatches.

“Is it Wednesday again?” Rose, the first mate asks and rolls up the map she was analyzing. Jade saunters over and smacks her hands on the table with a huge grin.

“It sure is! Let’s go to that island we passed last night. I’m sure they’ll be there.” Rose had long since learnt not to question her captain’s directives. Somehow, she always manages to get them to where they are supposed to go — even if it’s the complete wrong way according to Rose’s very accurate maps.

Sometimes she felt like she wanted to believe the sea witch rumors. “John! Prepare the cannons,” Jade shouts down a hatch, jousting the poor boy from his sleep by scaring him so bad that he crashes into the ground.

“Not Wednesday again,” he mutters and goes off to work the cannons while wrapping a blue napkin around his head.

Jade flops down on the deck and starts to pick apart her gun to clean it. It’s an important day after all, and she can’t have it ruined due to poor gun maintenance. What would grandpa say? The fact that she cleaned the gun yesterday doesn’t matter.

Dave groans as he hears the telltale clang of metal objects hitting the wooden deck and Jade humming.

“Is it fucking Wednesday again? Wasn’t it Wednesday like yesterday?” Jade giggles and throws a dirty rag on Dave and takes out a new one. Dave jerks back and almost falls off the ship.

“Shit man don’t scare me like that.” He slips off the barrels (in the right direction) and takes a seat with his back against them. “Like do you want me to die before we even fight? That is so uncool of you. And you call yourself our captain.”

Jade shuts out Dave’s usual rambling and focuses on her gun. When she’s gone over it three times, she’s satisfied and puts it back together.

“There’s a ship to starboard, Captain,” Rose calls out after a while. Jade gives Dave a disapproving look that he doesn’t see.

“And what a good lookout you are then,” she complains before running up to Rose, who is steering the ship.

She could identify that flag anywhere. “It’s them all right,” she says, face turning serious. From the way people start moving on the other ship, Jade knows that they have seen them too.

I mean not that a huge pirate ship is that easy to hide.

“To your stations!” Jade calls and runs over to the side of the ship, tying a rope with a hook securely to the side. “We’re boarding them!”

It doesn’t take long for the ships to close in on each other. Jade scans her opponents with a stern face. There is the black haired guy who wields two small guns and uses weird words to threaten them. What even does “Tally-ho!” mean? Then, there is their cook who doesn’t really like to fight. She holds a kitchen knife in one hand and looks uneasy. She will be easy to take down.

There is the blonde guy who wields an odd sword and looks even dumber than Dave. They seem to have the same mindset about letting people see their eyes- and seeing, apparently. The only difference is that this guy’s eyepatches are cut into triangles. How does that even work?

And then, staring straight at her, a sword and pistol in each hand, blonde hair flying in the wind is no one else but the ship’s captain and Jade’s nemesis.

“Roxy,” she says, and the grip on her gun tightens.

Roxy’s painted lips curl into a smile, and the sun reflects off the small black cat she has dangling from an ear. “Hi there Jadie.” She places the back of a hand against her hip and blows a lock of hair away from her face.

Jade takes a moment to take note of the sleek, fancy pink coat with golden buttons adorning Roxy’s body, the headband she has tied around her head and the white tights ending in knee-high boots.

She can feel Roxy’s eyes scanning her, seeing the loose white shirt, her large captains hat and green pieces of fabric tied around her waist into a loose, comfortable skirt.

Jade can almost feel Dave roll his eyes. “Prepare to be boarded!” Jade suddenly shouts, knocking everyone out of their staring contests. She throws the rope over to the other ship and runs over on the taut line without even swaying. Her crewmates (except for John, who runs down the hatch to the cannons) grab ropes and throw them onto Mutie’s mast, swinging themselves over. They are not going to run over a rope. In just a few moments, swords are clanging and shots are fired.

Dave and Dirk engage in a fierce battle in the front of the ship. Their swords clash together with skill and precision — the fact that neither of them can see doesn’t seem to matter. They attack and block quickly, engaging in a dangerous dance.

On the opposite side of the ship, Rose is using her sword to strike Jake’s pistols rapidly, trying to keep him from shooting. She uses the ship to her advantage, swinging her sword to urge Jake into a more vulnerable position. Jane seems to have disappeared down into the ship again. That’s just as well.

In the middle of the ship, Jade and Roxy cross blades. They whirl around each other, anticipating each other’s moves. Roxy makes a jab with her sword, and Jade slaps it away with the front of her gun, twisting around to pound the back of it into Roxy’s stomach and make her loose her footing for a moment.

But only for a moment. Roxy charges immediately, knocking Jade against the edge of the ship with her shoulder. Jade kicks Roxy’s legs before she can regain her balance, but Roxy slips her gun behind Jade’s back, knocking her to the ground with her.

They tumble around for a moment, Jade knocks the gun from Roxy’s hand with a slap from the flat side of her blade as she struggles to get out on top.

Roxy fights back and straddles Jade, holding her sword at her throat. She feels some metal touch her chin, and her eyes dart down to see Jade smirking with the nozzle of her gun aimed at her. They make eye contact for a second, then two.

Unanimously, they drop their weapons, and Roxy leans down to kiss Jade as Jade leans up to meet her lips. Jade’s hands land on Roxy’s waist, and Roxy places her hands on either side of Jade’s face, gently brushing her hair out of the way.

The rest of the world fades away as the two of them relish in the feeling of each other. The closeness of their bodies, the beating of their hearts, and the taste of the each other’s lips.

Roxy knocks the stupid hat off Jade’s head, grinning against her lips. Jade retaliates by slipping her hands under Roxy’s coat, feeling the soft skin of her stomach.

“Hell no, I’m not watching this.” The two of them part to look at the intruder. Dirk is staring straight up into the sky, triangular eyepatches still over his eyes. Roxy snorts and gives Jade another peck on the lips.

They slip into Roxy’s quarters and shut the door as their crewmates sit down together at the back of the ship. Jane comes up to join them with a few bottles of rum, and John shows up too after a while.

“You’re getting better,” Rose tells Jake after taking a swig of the rum. “Just a few more years and you might beat me.” Dave snorts and almost chokes on the drink.

They chat and joke together until the sun sets. There are several empty bottles of rum between them, and at some point, Jane went away to get them some food to snack on as well.

They hear the giggling before they see Roxy and Jade slip out of the hut. Roxy’s coat is buttoned in the wrong holes, and Jade’s hair is even more of a mess than earlier.

“Clean up after yourselves,” Jane groans and rests her head against the floor, knowing that no one will listen.

Jade and Roxy hold hands, smiling warmly at each other. Jade leans forward to place another kiss on Roxy’s lips. “Same time next Wednesday?” she asks. Roxy can see the sun set in her green eyes.

She places Jade’s hat back on her mess of black hair and kisses her nose with a giggle. “Next Wednesday.”

With those words, Jade’s crew returns to their own ship and Rose sets the course for wherever she likes, as she does every Wednesday.

As the ships part in different directions underneath the night sky, two captains stand at the far back of their ships, staring longingly at each other across the sea that mirrors the stars in the sky until the other ship disappears from view, waiting for the next Wednesday.

[helenarlett-rex]

Goosebumps Review #8

*Grumbles* I guess it’s time for another review. Do I really have to? *Sighs* Okay fine… Moving on with reading all the Goosebumps I never got the chance to read as a kid…

(Spoilers)

Creature Teacher: The Final Exam

Goosebumps Most Wanted #6

Dear god this book sucked. And it’s a real shame because I really loved the original Creature Teacher. But what is the most mind boggling is that this is more or less the exact same story as the first book. It just copied the plot from the first book almost to the letter, and yet despite being the same story, this time it sucked instead of being awesome. So how do you manage to retell the same story but make it bad this time around? Well let’s go through all the problems in the order they appear and I’ll show you.

The first problem is our protagonist, Tommy. He’s bland. There’s not a single thing interesting about him. He has no personality. He doesn’t have any defining characteristics. This kid is just a total blank slate who is uninteresting to read about. Back in the first book, Paul Perez was the class clown. He was always joking to the point where it finally got him in so much trouble that his parents sent him away to boarding school. And even when things got bad he still kept it up because joking about his misfortune was the only way he could deal with it. He had a personality and he was fun to read about. Tommy doesn’t have that. In fact, his parents and sister show more personality in the 2 short chapters they are in than Tommy does the entire book.

And that’s also a problem, because Tommy’s family is the worst family ever. There are a lot of really aggravating characters in this book, but his family are some of the worst. They are all super overachievers who only care about winning and feel the need to compete over everything. And I mean everything. This kid’s parents can’t even sit down to eat breakfast without being like, “I ate the biggest breakfast!” “Oh yeah, well I ate my breakfast the fastest!” They are grown adults acting like annoying five year olds who feel the constant need to show off and be better than everyone else at everything even when it’s things that just don’t matter. Tommy’s sister is the same way and their parents encourage it while shunning Tommy for not acting like a petulant five year old. If this book had ended with Tommy getting a gun and blowing his family’s brains out it would have made for a more enjoyable ending and no one who read it would have been able to say he wasn’t justified in his actions.

Just trying to get through the first 2 chapters of this book was painful and a little hard to do because Tommy’s family aggravated and sickened me that much. But as bad as that was, how else do you take a story as good as Creature Teacher and make it not good? By changing the setting and pretty much merging it with one of the worst Goosebumps ever written. Yeah, the title of this book should have been “Mrs. Maaargh Goes To Camp Jellyjam”.

Okay it doesn’t actually take place at Camp Jellyjam. It takes place at a summer camp called Winner Island. But it may as well be King Jellyjam’s Sports Camp. Winner Island is a summer camp dedicated to making your kids into winners. It’s a sports camp where everyone is totally obsessed with winning all the time and not winning is shunned. (Which is why Tommy’s parents forced him to go there.) Sound familiar? It’s the exact model of Camp Jellyjam. The ideology of this camp is so disgusting to me it would have been hard to read even if I hadn’t already read The Horror at Camp Jellyjam and hated it. There is one part where Uncle Felix, the guy who runs the camp, actually tells Tommy, “Helping others is for losers. A winner doesn’t care about others. A winner takes what he wants for himself.” So now we get to add Uncle Felix and the rest of the camp counselors to the list of highly aggravating characters who need to be shot in the head.

The only improvement Winner Island has over King Jellyjam’s Sports Camp is the fact that the kids all at least have a reason to be so obsessed with winning this time. Because Mrs. Maaargh is one of the camp counselors and whoever is the biggest loser at the end of camp gets eaten.

The setting in the original book was perfect. Having Mrs. Maaargh as the headmistress of her own boarding school out in the middle of nowhere worked. She was able to set the school up like a prison where the kids weren’t able to get out or have contact with the outside world. She was the one in charge of the school so she had final say on how things were set up and how things were run. On top of that she was very clever on how she did things. Only the kids in the school knew she was a monster. The other teachers and staff were kept in the dark about this. Mrs. Maaargh could just say, “I have a medical condition. I’m very sensitive about it but the kids all make fun of me because of it.” Then any kid who tried to tell any adult that she was a monster was scolded for being insensitive. She even worked out a plan where once she had picked out which kid she was going to eat she started contacting his parents and telling them that he as acting up and having problems at school. So when she finally ate him no one would question the story if she told the police that he ran away into the woods surrounding the school.

But with this new setting nothing works. Winner Island may be an actual island where the kids are cut off from the outside world, but she isn’t the one in charge now. Uncle Felix is. That means he had to actually go out of his way to get this camp set up to imprison kids for the express purpose of letting a monster toy with and eat them. And he is doing just that. Mrs. Maaargh isn’t hiding the fact that she is a monster from anyone this time. Uncle Felix and all the camp counselors know she is a monster. They know she will eat one kid at the end of camp. And they are actively helping her and making sure the kids can’t get away. And they have apparently been doing it for years. Other than their warped mentality of what a winner is, the book never gives us any explanation as to why they are working with and helping this monster.

Nor is there ever any explanation given as to how they cover it up when every year one kid doesn’t come home from camp. In the first book they showed us how Mrs. Maaargh was a master at manipulating people and how she handled that, but this time they just don’t seem to worry about it. So I have to wonder how this camp hasn’t become the focus of a full blown police investigation and been shut down yet. One kid goes missing at this camp every year? The FBI would be all over that place. And they would be sure to notice that the whole island was wired with the surveillance cameras Uncle Felix uses to make sure none of the kids escape and demand to have those tapes handed over. And between Mrs. Maaargh constantly bragging to the kids about how she is going to eat one of them, and the camp counselors forcing the kids to play dangerous games like Dodge The Javelin, 90% of the footage would have to be edited out before handing it over and that would just tip off any investigation even more.

Changing the setting from “The Caring Academy” to a summer camp was one of the worst decisions R.L. Stine could have made with this book. Not just that, but it doesn’t even fit! The book is called Creature Teacher, not Creature Camp Counselor…

But I’m ranting too much about this one aspect. Let’s move on to the next problem with this book. The first book created a psychological aspect of horror. Mrs. Maaargh manipulated and toyed with these kids. They were always trying to please her but no one ever knew if whatever they were working on would make her happy or not. It was all up to her whims. Any given project could be just a likely to put them at the bottom of the chart as it could the top of the chart. This created an atmosphere of paranoia that became the true horror of the book. That’s gone in this book. With the sports camp setting it’s all a matter of how you preform in events. There is no aspect of uncertainty. You either win and she approves, or you don’t win and she doesn’t approve. Even Mrs. Maaargh’s son is gone. In the first book her son was always lurking around, spying on the characters, adding even more to the paranoia as you were never quite sure what he was up to… if he was trying to help them or trying to hinder them? But he’s been cut out of this book entirely. Stine took the scariest aspect of the first book and just removed it.

I’m not going to even bother going into any detail about what happens in the story because as I said it was just a retelling of the first book. So if you already read that one you already know what happens in this one. It’s like he just went down a check list checking off all the plot points from the original. Protagonist is enrolled late, putting him far behind all the other kids? Check. He makes two friends, a boy and a girl, who are both secretly sabotaging him to make sure they stay above him on the food chain? Check. He tries to escape but his escape is cut short because of bad weather? Check. The story was interesting in the first book but now we’ve already seen it done before so it just becomes boring.

Even the twist ending is so underwhelming it’s sad. After Tommy defeats Mrs. Maaargh with a Chekhov’s gun we saw coming a mile away, the whole camp decides to spend the last few days of camp celebrating. Campers and camp counselors alike. Everyone except Uncle Felix who locks himself in his office and then comes out two days later to introduce everyone to the new monster he got to take Mrs. Maaargh’s position. And the new monster is… No, it’s not Mrs. Maaargh’s son. That would have been a call back to the first book that would have made the ending of this book actually enjoyable. It’s just some random two headed monster who announces that at the end of camp he is going to be eating two kids. Which happens to be in two days…

So instead of finishing the book by saying, “Wow. I did not see that coming.” I instead finish the book by saying, “Huh… Uncle Felix is a dick for no good reason…”

I really hated this book.

[agentmarymargaretskitz]

Roommates AU: It was a Mash

The belated Halloween fic for the Roommates verse that @incendiaglacies and I have which she has been so patient with me about.

AO3

              Gideon blinked a few times as the contact lens slipped into place. Felicity had made sure she knew how to this a week ago with personal instruction instead of relying on a YouTube tutorial. Despite having practiced a few times, it still felt strange to be putting something right on her eye. Glancing up in the mirror, she shuddered a little at the bright green irises of her reflection. Creepy as it was, the contacts were what she needed to sell her Halloween costume.

“Wow.”

Gideon turned around to see Felicity, already decked out as Daenerys Targaryen, standing in the hallway. “You like it?”

“Yeah,” her friend nodded. “I knew what you were going for, but it’s a little freaky.”

“I’m sorry to frighten you,” Gideon replied, tilting her head as robotically as she could.

Felicity shuddered. “Now it’s freakier.”

“Perfect.”

              The two walked out to the living room where the others were waiting for them. Caitlin was sitting on the couch, Schrodinger purring and stretched across her lap. Cisco was perched on the other end of the couch, trying not to look at Lily. Gideon didn’t blame him for that. This year, her friend had decided to dress up as Medusa and looked about as terrifying as the mythological woman herself.

“You’re definitely going to scare someone with that,” Gideon told her as she walked past her.

“This is not the scariest thing someone could see tonight.”

“It’s up there though,” Felicity told her. “You actually look scarier than Gideon.”

Caitlin shook her head. “Gideon doesn’t look very scary. It’s just the contacts that are unnerving.”

“They are,” Lily agreed.

“I just appreciate that Caitlin, Felicity, and myself are not out to terrify the children tonight,” Cisco chimed in, crossing his hands over his puffy vest.

“Halloween is allowed to be spooky,” Lily defended. “I might have gone sweet last year, but this year I will not let you guilt me about being scary.”

“I already got my scary in last year,” Caitlin shuddered, smoothing out the blue gingham material of her dress. “I thought I was going to have to walk around with white hair until it grew out. Plus, I can bring Schrodinger with me.”

“You can’t bring animals to the museum,” Gideon told her. “Sorry, Caitlin. I already told Felicity she couldn’t put him in the dragon costume.”

Caitlin’s face fell. Schrodinger batted a paw at the basket next to Caitlin as Felicity patted her shoulder. “Dorothy had a dog anyways, not a cat. And he was all black, not black and white.”

“Well, this Dorothy will have a cat until she has to leave,” Caitlin cooed, lifting the cat up to place in her basket. “How long until Rip and Jonas come over?”

A knock on the door answered her question, and Gideon got up to answer it. “Come in.”

“Hi, Gideon,” Jonas chirped as he bounded in wearing red and gold plastic armor, followed by Rip wearing a suit.

“Hey, Iron Man,” Gideon smiled down at him as Jonas lifted the mask. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Yeah. Oh, and thanks for letting us come to the museum tonight!”

Rip smiled. “He’s excited. It’s all he’s talked about this week.”

“Well, everyone’s happy to be putting it on,” Gideon replied. “And what are you supposed to be?”

“The secret agent accompanying Iron Man,” Rip told her. “How about you? And what did you do to your eyes?”

“A Synth, and they’re just contacts.”

“She went on a binge watch of Humans a while ago,” Felicity told him.

“It was a rewatch, Felicity.”

“I haven’t watched that in a while,” Rip remarked.

“Well, I bet Gideon wouldn’t mind watching it with you-hey!” Cisco winced as Caitlin stood up and stepped on his foot.

“And the rest of you��” Rip looked at the other occupants of the apartment. “Dorothy, Marty McFly, the one lady with the dragons, and…Medusa.”

“Daenerys Targaryen,” Felicity corrected as she stood up. “Are we ready to head out? Ray and Oliver are going to be meeting us there.”

“Great,” Caitlin let Schrodinger out of the basket. “We’ll be home too, kitty.”

Schrodinger meowed and made a beeline for Felicity’s room as the girls, Cisco, Rip, and Jonas left the apartment. The museum Gideon worked at was having a Halloween event on the weekend open to the public. Gideon had to work a few shifts and managed to talk the others into going. There would be kids’ activities for Jonas to do and things that would keep the adults interested. Plus, the entry fees were going to help fund a new exhibit angled around STEM for kids, so it would be worth it.

              On the way down in the elevator, they stopped at the floor beneath theirs. The doors opened to reveal a mother and her son, who was dressed as Spider-Man. He looked nervously at Gideon but let out a scream when he saw Lily’s snake-filled hair and makeup. The mother pushed him behind her back, sending a murderous look at Lily. Felicity quickly shot out her hand and pressed the button to close the doors.

“Well, you’re definitely scary,” Cisco remarked to her as they kept going down.

“Thanks,” Lily nodded slowly, but looked less happy than she had a moment before the doors had opened.

~

              When they all arrived at the museum, Ray and Oliver were waiting outside the front entrance for them. Ray was wearing a sort of toga, a necklace of shells, and had a trident in his hand. Felicity smiled happily when she saw Lily relax, glad that she had told Ray about her costume a few days ago and suggested he find away to coordinate. Then her eyes turned to her boyfriend, who was dressed in a suit and bow tie. He looked extremely dapper and more like he was going to the red carpet than a museum event.

Felicity lifted the hem of her dress a little to hurry up the last set of stairs to him. “Hey, you.”

“Hey,” Oliver grinned and kissed her. “You look amazing, Mother of Dragons.”

Felicity smiled, glad the plush dragon she’d attached to her shoulder was staying in place. “Thanks. You do too as…”

“Bond, James Bond,” Oliver replied in a British accent. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“No problem. You’re part of the friend circle now that you’re dating me.”

“Hey, Oliver,” Cisco waved from beside Caitlin. “Nice to see you again.”

“Indeed,” Gideon nodded as they all walked together inside. “I have to go and work the trivia booth, but I’ll try to meet up with the rest of you later. Have fun, guys.”

She took off in another direction as the group admired the museum. All of them had been in there at least once before, but not during Halloween. Huge spiderwebs were strung up in the corners and high up in pillars. Orange pumpkin-shaped lights were positioned all over. A fog machine was spilling out smoke that created a spooky vibe in the place. It was spooky, but not spooky enough to scare any of the little kids too badly.

“Wow,” Ray exhaled as they all took maps of the booths offered for the Halloween event. “This is awesome.”

“Daddy, look! I can put a skeleton together!”

With that, Jonas was running off with Rip on his heels. Cisco slipped off towards a table about the history of Halloween films while Caitlin headed to the bathroom. Ray and Lily ended up following Rip, curious to get a good look of what else the event had to offer. Felicity and Oliver were the last two left, both still unsure of where to go first.

“Want to just walk around and see what’s fun?” she asked him after they’d been standing there for a few moments.

“Sure,” Oliver smiled down at her as they started walking. “This is a lot different from last year’s Halloween.”

“Well, we are still having a party for Cisco after work on his birthday,” Felicity told him. “And you’re welcome to come along. After all, you’re officially part of the friend group.”

“And to think last year I’d only met you a few times,” Oliver said.

“Now we’re dating,” Felicity stepped around a boy wearing a horse head. “Did you expect that when we first met when I came into Verdant to get Caitlin’s earrings back?”

“I wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” Oliver admitted. “Caitlin was already pretty mortified by the time Rip brought her home. I figured she’d never go back again and you’d stick with her on that.”

Felicity chuckled. “That was a bad night for them. They decided to take all those years they didn’t party in college and put it as much of it into that night. Caitlin wanted to distract Lily from ever finding out I had been set up on a date with Ray, which neither of us really wanted to go on but coworkers happened.”

Oliver looked relieved. “Well, if it wasn’t for her, then I would never have met and fallen in love with my girlfriend.”

She stopped in front of a station with a dartboard covered in balloons. Felicity had to replay the conversation over in her head twice. She and Oliver had been going out for a while, but he hadn’t used the ‘l’ word yet. For a while, Felicity knew she loved Oliver, but she wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it.

“Did you just say you loved me?” she asked as they each picked up three darts handed to them by the lady working the booth.

“I did.” He threw one of the darts at the board. A balloon in the dead center of the board popped.

“You love me?”

Another dart popped the balloon next to the first. “I do.”

Felicity smiled. “I love you too, Oliver.”

Oliver’s final dart hit a third balloon right below the second. Felicity set her darts down and kissed him as long as she could.

“Happy Halloween, Oliver.”

“Happy Halloween, Felicity.”

~

Nate was smirking at her again, and Gideon had finally had it. “What’s so funny?”

“You seem eager to get out of this,” he told her.

“No, I’m not,” she denied as she passed the pint-sized Peter Pan his prize for completing the trivia game she was monitoring. “I’m just seeing how much time I’ve been here for.”

“Uh huh,” Nate nodded. “Gideon, I know that look. You want to go see someone.”

Gideon flashed him a glare. “That’s preposterous, Nathaniel.”

“Now you’re getting extra British. Definitely a sign that you brought a date.”

“You all are so certain that I’m British,” she said in an Australian accent. “And it’s not a date. I just came here with my friends and my neighbor and his kid.”

“That kid who you once brought in because you were watching him and his dad was busy, right? Not a lot of people would do that. Is he the one you like?”

Gideon didn’t say anything.

“It is, isn’t it?” Nate sounded overjoyed. “Aw, Gideon, that’s great. Look, how about you take off early? You’ve only got three more minutes anyway. That’s nothing.”

“No, Nathaniel, it’s fine,” Gideon tried to assure him. “You don’t-”

“Nope,” Nate shook his head. “You work hard enough the rest of the year. Now go have some Halloween fun. I can finish up the shift. Go find that guy, Gideon.”

As annoying as Nate could be, he could have his moments of pure kindness. Gideon grinned at him and walked out from behind the trivia booth. “Thank you, Nathaniel. I’ll see you later.”

              It took a little while to track down Rip in the throng of parents and children in the museum. She ran into Oliver and Felicity, thankful she wasn’t interrupting a moment, and managed to find out where Rip and Jonas had last been seen. Finally, she found them in the main atrium of the museum where Jonas was being unwrapped from toilet paper by a little Moana under the watchful eye of Rip and one of Gideon’s coworkers. Ray and Lily were nearby, chatting away about plans for Cisco’s birthday party in a few days.

Rip was the first one to notice her. “Gideon, you’re off work?”

“Three minutes early,” Gideon shrugged. “Nate convinced me to take off early to enjoy some time with the people I brought here.”

Lily overheard that and winked at her. Gideon decided to ignore her as Jonas came over, now free of toilet paper.

“Gideon, you’re back!” he cheered, hugging her legs. “We didn’t get to see your booth.”

“Well, I’m sure your dad will still take you to the trivia booth,” Gideon told him. “I’m glad to see that you’re having fun here.”

“It’s all fantastic,” Rip told her. “You’ve helped create something for the people who live in the city and are promoting the museum at the same time.”

Gideon grinned. Ever since the custody battle over Jonas had ended, both father and son had seemed much happier. “I’ll have to tell everyone else that. This has been such a success that I’m hoping we have a repeat next year.”

Over to the Latin America wing, there was a stand with colored lighting shining up at the ceiling and a DJ working music. A few adults were dancing together in the space of the atrium. There were also some other children dancing or weaving through the adults. Gideon found herself starting to sway back and forth to the music a little. She didn’t notice Rip start smiling at her.

“Daddy?” Jonas asked. “Are you going to dance with Gideon?”

Gideon jolted in place a little as Rip looked down at his son. “Jonas?”

“Gideon’s dancing alone,” Jonas pointed out. “I’m too short to dance with her. She’s closer to your height than mine.”

“Well, you might be her height in a few years,” Rip teased.

Gideon rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know I’m short. But that just means I’m more down to earth.”

Lily laughed while Ray cracked a big smile. “Hey, you two can go dance for a little while. We can watch Jonas for you.”

Rip looked over at Gideon. “Well, if Gideon wants to…”

“I mean, if you want to.”

“Oh, just go,” Lily scooted Gideon closer to Rip. “At least for one song.”

Rip looked over at Gideon and extended a hand. She smiled and took it, letting him lead the both of them out to the middle of atrium.

“I haven’t done a lot of dancing before,” Gideon told him. The last time she’d ever done this was a ballroom dance class offered in college, which had been miserable with a six-foot three partner who had two left feet.

“It’s been a while for me,” Rip admitted. “But I can still remember the steps enough. Just follow my lead.”

“Yes, sir, Agent Hunter,” Gideon smirked as she mirrored him.

Rip shook his head. “Last year, it was Captain Hunter. This year, it’s Agent Hunter. Are you going to have a title for me very Halloween, Gideon?”

“Perhaps,” Gideon shrugged before he spun her around. “It all depends on what you’re wearing next year.”

She was going to have to find a way to thank Jonas for this. If he ever wanted a birthday party here, she could pull the strings to make it happen.

~

“Daddy and Gideon are good at dancing,” Jonas said when he looked up from the pumpkin he was painting. “Maybe he can teach me how to dance.”

“I’m sure he could,” Lily said. “And Cisco knows some really good dance moves too. You’d be the hit of the party with them.”

“Yeah, I want to know how to dance with Sara,” Jonas sighed.

“Sara Lance?” Ray frowned, twirling his foam trident. “I think she’s a little old for you, buddy.”

“No, Sara Diggle,” Jonas smiled before picking up another paintbrush. “We can’t go to school dances until middle school, but when we get there, I want to ask her to a dance. Sara’s the fastest girl in my class. She’s really smart and funny and she sits next to me at lunch.”

Lily put her hands over her heart. “That’s so sweet, Jonas! She sounds really great.”

“Thanks, Lily!”

Ray smiled at her before a round of shrieks came from behind them. She and Lily whirled around to see a cluster of children shielding their eyes.

“It’s Medusa!” a princess cried out. “Don’t look at her!”

“You’ll turn to stone!” an astronaut added.

“Run away!”

The kids took off in another direction. Lily’s shoulders sunk down and she stared at her sandals. This costume has been a horrible idea. All night long, kids had been covering their eyes to avoid looking at her and running off screaming. She’d had at least three mothers approach her and tell her off for choosing such a horrible costume. It had brought her spirit down quite a bit.

“Don’t listen to them, Lily,” Ray told her. “It’s not like you’re actually Medusa.”

“I might as well be with the way I’m scaring all the children,” she sighed. “I just wanted to do something scary for once, and I went too far. I’m terrifying people.”

Ray shook his head. “You haven’t terrified me.”

“Well, you actually know me, Ray. But even the rest of the girls were freaked out at first.”

“That didn’t change how they thought of you though. They still see you as Lily, their brilliant and creative roommate.”

Lily’s lips turned upwards a little bit. “Thanks, Ray. And despite all the crappy things Poseidon did in Greek mythology, I’m glad we’re kind of a matching set again.”

“Yeah, about that…” Ray scratched the back of his head. “This is the first time I purposefully coordinated with you.”

“What?”

“Felicity talked with me a few days ago and might have told me who you were going as. She also decided to mention that I try to find a way to match with you in the event of your costume not getting well received.”

“Okay,” Lily nodded. “So this is the one year you matched with me and meant to do it? Every other year-”

“Pure serendipity,” Ray told her. “But I’ve always been happy to come over and see that we coordinated with each other somehow.”

“Same,” Lily looked back at Rip and Gideon dancing. “They look happy out there.”

“Yeah,” Ray murmured, following her gaze. “They really do.”

Lily straightened back up. “So, have you gotten Cisco’s present finished yet?”

“Almost. Can you meet me tomorrow at Palmer Tech to help work out the last few bugs?”

“Absolutely. And I’ll bring Jitters.”

~

              Caitlin had lost track of Cisco for a while after they arrived at the museum. All of them in their group had splintered off at various points during the night. However, she’d spotted Felicity and Oliver sticking close together for most of the night. Not to mention that she’d caught Rip and Gideon dancing together while Lily and Ray kept an eye on Jonas. Only now did Caitlin realize she hadn’t seen Cisco in a while and began to look for him.

It took some time before Caitlin was finally able to pick out his orange puffy vest on the second floor. She made her way over to him and leaned on the banister beside him. For a while, they watched the crowd below, picking out Rip dancing with Gideon.

“Everything okay?” she asked as Cisco turned towards her.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

“I’m great,” Caitlin smiled. “I lost track of you for a while.”

“We all branched off. Don’t worry about it.”

He might have been fine about everyone separating over the course off the night, but there was still something wrong with Cisco. Caitlin knew all too well about hiding things that were bothering her. It had started after her father died and peaked when she was with Hunter. Right now, Cisco needed to know that she was someone he could trust with whatever was bothering him, and that she would take the appropriate steps to deal with the information. That was what Lily had told her that night when Caitlin hadn’t been able to get on her jacket soon enough.

“Something’s bothering you,” she said. “Cisco, you can tell me anything, no matter what. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “But it’s going to sound really stupid.”

“Then we’ll go somewhere private,” Caitlin told him, taking him by the hand and leading him around the corner where no guests were milling about.

“You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“I swear not to,” Caitlin vowed. “Now, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing wrong,” Cisco explained, pushing his hair back. “You know that puzzle box that I got from the renaissance faire a while ago?”

“You got as a stress relief thing,” Caitlin smiled at the memory.

He nodded. “It’s been sitting next to the television lately with the Stargate model lately. A few days ago, I got home from work and decided to mess around with the box while waiting for Barry to come home. So I decided to solve it and then put it back together. But when I finished the last step to open it, a ring fell out.”

Caitlin’s jaw dropped. “Like an engagement ring?”

“Exactly. And then I remembered that Barry was fiddling with it the other day. Only one of us is dating someone seriously right now, and based on the evidence, it can only mean one thing.”

“Barry’s going to propose to Iris soon,” Caitlin smiled happily. “Good for him.”

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed, but he still looked sad. “I’m happy for him. Except it means that I’m going to lose a roommate and I’ll be on my own. Which is fine, I can make rent and everything. But I always hoped I’d have found someone like that by now.”

“Oh, Cisco,” Caitlin put her arm around his shoulder and hugged him sideways for a moment. “You’ll find someone.”

“What if I don’t? Look down there! Felicity’s found Oliver. Sooner or later, Gideon and Lily will realize they’ve met their soulmates. And me? I don’t know if I’ll ever find someone like that.”

“I know you will.”

“And if I don’t.”

“Well, I think you will,” Caitlin twisted a braid. “Tell you what, if ten years pass and both of us are still single, how about you and I give it a shot?”

Cisco looked at her. “Are you for real?”

Caitlin nodded. “You’re not the only single person in doubt they’ll find love. Besides, ten years is plenty of time to still have hope for both of us.”

“Yeah,” Cisco chuckled. “I mean, ten years. Oliver and Felicity will definitely have tied the knot by then.”

“Not to mention Ray and Lily.”

“And of course, Rip and Gideon. Leaving us.”

“Yup,” Caitlin nodded. “But if we don’t find anyone else, if in ten years we don’t find our soulmates, then I’d be happy to spend my life with you.”

Cisco’s smile spread slowly across his face and gave Caitlin a warm feeling. “I would too. Shall we shake on it?”

Caitlin pulled her arm off his shoulder so she could shake his hand. “Ten years.”

“Ten years,” he repeated. “Thanks for listening to me, Caitlin.”

“You’re my friend, Cisco. I’m always going to be there for you.”

Cisco shrugged his shoulders, as if pushing off the weight of knowing his roommate would be moving out soon. “Want to go rejoin the crowd? There’s a contest to see how many lollipops are in a jar that I think I might be able to win.”

“Not if I win it,” Caitlin teased as they walked back to the festivities. “But if I do, then I promise to share.”

~

              Half an hour later, the nine were making their way out of the museum. Oliver had his arm around Felicity’s shoulder as she asked where he’d gotten so good at darts. Ray was twirling his trident as Lily walked next to him and set a reminder on her phone to meet Ray to finish Cisco’s gift. Rip was staying back with Jonas, the little boy tired from all the fun he’d had tonight. Gideon stuck with them, talking to Jonas to make sure he remained awake. Cisco and Caitlin each had a lollipop in their mouth, ones that Jonas had given them after winning the lollipop contest.

“So is the museum going to do this next year?” Ray asked Gideon as they approached their cars.

Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Maybe we’ll go next year if things work out.”

“I wouldn’t mind going back,” Felicity told her. “It was a good night.”

“Yeah,” Caitlin agreed as she looked over at Cisco. “It really was.”

[sunriseskog]

Steel PT3- Auston Matthews

Warnings: Angst, Cursing

Word Count: 1703

Part 1 Part 2 Requests are OPEN

It had officially been a year since you left. Auston kept a countdown on the lock screen of his phone. Anytime he would start smiling or joking around like he used to he would look at his phone and immediately return to the shell that Mitch had come to know. He knew it was Auston’s fucked up way of punishing himself for messing up so bad, and Mitch was the first to admit that he had messed up bad. But Mitch also knew that nobody deserved this, nobody should feel like they have to rip happiness away from themselves every minute of every day. But Auston did and at this point, Mitch didn’t think he was ever going to get his best friend back.

It didn’t take anyone long to notice the effect that your absence had on Auston, especially on the ice. He was playing, and he was playing well, but of course he was— he was Auston fucking Matthews. The thing was, he wasn’t playing safely. Hearing Auston say that he had nothing left to live for was one of the scariest moments of Mitch’s life, second only to actually seeing Auston play like he had nothing left to live for. Auston had missed more than a few games from either injury or suspension and the games that he did play resulted in him in the penalty box at least once. Honestly, people were starting to get worried, yes, of course, he was scoring and racking up assists like no player any team had seen before, but he was quickly approaching the point where he became more of a liability than an asset for the team.

It was around Bye Week that Mitch decided that something had to give. Auston had to all his head out of your ass and put it back on his shoulders, and Mitch was going to make sure it happened if he had to do it his damn self. So upon hearing that Auston planned on staying in Toronto and working out for the entirety of what little break they had, Mitch promptly added an additional ticket and an extra room to his and Steph’s reservations in Hawaii.

“You’re going and I truly, honestly, and really do not give a single flying fuck whether you want to or not,” Mitch said firmly before Auston could begin protesting, flaming the door behind himself for emphasis.

“You deserve this and you know it. Besides, I already talked to your boss and she gave you the time off so you’re pretty much stuck going with me,” your roommate insisted, turning you around and pushing you towards your closet so you could begin packing. You paused in the doorway and thought to yourself for a few seconds, upon realizing that there really was no way out of this, you shrugged and began enthusiastically picking out outfits for the trip; if there wasn’t anything you could do to stop it then you might as well have a good ass time. Your life had become completely, totally, and entirely consumed with work since the moment you arrived in Pittsburg and it had done wonders for your career. The only issue with that was that you had never really sat down and processed what had happened, in the moment it was easier to just shut everything off to deal with later, but then outside of the moment that was a hell of a lot easier as well, so you just… kept everything turned off. There was no sense in starting to feel shit again, especially with how well things were going with your job. Anytime you got a second the breathe or you felt any remnants of emotion sneak up on you, you just took on another project to keep yourself distracted. You were pretty sure you could do the same on this vacation, you’d just have to hide it from your roommate and fill any extra spare time with some resort-affiliated eye candy.

You were leaving the next morning, and while you appreciated the lack of time to mull and obsess over the work you were going to miss, you weren’t excited about only having a few hours to pack before heading to bed. You threw in a majority the casual clothes that you owned, given the move and your obsession with work, it wasn’t like there were very many. You made sure to throw in a variety of swimsuits and coverups, knowing you, you’d probably be spending a majority of your time tanning and laying out in the sand.

“Claire, i love you with all of my heart but why the literal fuck did you have to make our flight inside of the ass crack of dawn. I don’t even feel alive right now.” You groaned, leaning your head on your roommate's shoulder as the two of you made your way towards the boarding gate.

“Because this way, we get there right at dinner time, eat some fish and drink as many cocktails as our bodies can tolerate by the beach, watch the sunset, and then go back to our rooms and pass the fuck out for 12 hours,” she said with a cheer, wrapping her arm around your shoulder.

“…ya okay, that's fair,” you admitted with a shrug. “but I want the aisle.” You smirked, quickly running ahead of her to have your boarding pass scanned.

“goddamn it,” you heard her mutter, out of breath as she came up behind you at the airplane doors. “you know I cant run that fast! I buy you a whole ass vacation and this is the treatment I get?” She exclaimed, jokingly slapping you on the arm.

“Hey, I didn’t make you buy me this vacation, that was all you, b” you quipped back, placing your bag in the overhead compartment. You stood to the side with a smirk as you watched Claire reluctantly climb into the window seat. She had splurged for first class, so it wasn’t like the seats were bad, it had just been a running joke with the two of you since a work flight to Indianapolis almost ruined your entire friendship. After settling in and becoming accustomed to the altitude, you grabbed your laptop and began editing the proposal you boss had sent you that morning. Knowing Claire was already preparing some snarky comment.

“We’re not technically on vacation yet, and even when we are there really isn’t anything you can do to stop me,” you smirked, without taking your eyes off of the computer screen. She huffed under her breath but kept any comments to herself so you hummed gratefully and plugged in your headphones so you could begin working.

A few hours later, you had finished the entire assignment and managed to nap for a couple hours by the time the flight attendant came over the intercom to announce that you were beginning your descent.

“We’ve got like… less than a half hour layover and then we’re just jumping on a flight that stopped here to refuel, but there aren’t very many people boarding from here so we gotta hurry, dude,” Mitch emphasized, pushing both Auston and his suitcase so that the three of them didn’t lose all hope of making their flight.

“Planes can do that?” Auston questioned, shaking Mitch’s hands off of his shoulders and picking up speed slightly.

“well I’d fucking hope so, or we’re pretty screwed, aren’t we?” Steph sassed, pushing through the boys to walk in front of hem as she placed her sunglasses on the top of her head to try and find their boarding gate. Auston whistled at her attitude, giving Mitch a wink out of the corner of his eye. It was moments like this that Mitch had come to cherish more than was manly to admit. These glimpses of who his best friend used to be what allowed him to hold onto hope that he was still in there somewhere. Mitch’s sense of relief retreated quickly as he watched Auston look down at his phone. Mitch knew what was coming next, Auston’s shoulders would drop and his breath would shudder and his eyes would blink a couple times to keep himself from crying and then he’d retreat back within himself. Anyone who was around Auston enough to notice was familiar enough with his routine, but it didn’t change the fact that it broke their hearts nonetheless.

“no fucking way,” Claire sat up in her seat quickly. Jostled from the daydream she was forming while staring outside of the window. “(Y/N)… don’t hate me and don’t freak out,” she spoke slowly as if she were talking to a child.

“What?” You questioned with an eye roll, taking your headphone out to turn towards her.

“Umm… aren’t those Toronto Maple Leafs suitcases?” She hesitantly questioned, pointing out the window and turning her body so you could see as well.

“…no fucking way,” you breathed, feeling your heart drop in your chest.

“Okay, listen, it's probably nothing,” she rushed out quickly, attempting at some form of damage control. “the likelihood that its actually Au-“

“Dont,” you interrupted through clenched teeth. “Don’t… don’t say his name. Please.” You whispered, eyes still focused on where the suitcases were moving slowly up towards the plane.

“We’re technically in economy plus, but to answer your question, no we are not in first class, Auston,” Mitch repeated, getting frustrated with his best friend. “You go in front of us, we wanna sit together.” He pushed Auston in front of himself and Steph, wrapping his arms around her and leaning down to press a kiss on the top of her head. Preoccupied with themselves, the couple failed to notice that Auston had stopped dead in his tracks upon entering the plane. Crashing into the back of his best friend, Mitch almost missed the shocked gasp he had let out.

“(Y/N)…?” Auston choked out. Your head snapped up and you let out the breath you had unconsciously been holding since Claire had pointed out the unmistakable suitcases less than 20 minutes ago. ‘Shit,’ you thought, unable to tear your eyes away from him. ‘shit. fuck. what the fuck. what the literal fucking fuck.’

Notes: part 4 will be up by friday! As always, let me know what you guys think or if you have any requests :)

[aj-draws]

Future Sanders Sides Teacher AU Fic Ideas (Pt 1)

Just a little something I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time now??

 These are just ideas!! I might make oneshots here and there, but I want to try and make this into an actual story on Wattpad or something during summer vacation.

[[Thank you so very much for getting me to post this @royallyanxious you’re amazing :) Oh and btw I was that anon that said they liked your Logicality FBI agent AU fanfic. I’m super anxious but I hope you like this anyway!]]

[[Tag list: @izzynuggets, @diadrip]] 

Summary: The sides are teachers in a highschool that Thomas and his friends go to. 

-It’s also sort of a human AU as well. The sides will naturally have different last names, which I have not entirely decided yet. (+Afterschool they all have part time jobs across the street from each other but there’ll be more about that in a part two or three I’ll try getting to in the future)

[[Characters]]

Logan:

-Science teacher (Living Environment honors and/or Chemistry)  

-Part time job as a librarian

-Wants to keep being a teacher

-Speaks fluently in salty

-His choice of wear is a mix between casual and formal. Slicked back hair (with hair gel), tightly fitted polo shirts, leather belts, jeans and his signature blue and black tie 

-Definitely wears different ties with a theme fitted for each and every holiday 

-Can accurately quote books off the top of his head

-When he's too tired to do anything, he just binges Doctor Who and Sherlock with his classes

-(Based on this one Logan skit on Thomas’ insta I think y’all know what I’m talking about) He brought an entire toaster that he keeps in his classroom just so he could eat toast with Crofter’s 24/7.

-He eats Crofter’s with everything he eats and it scares everyone sometimes. Like he’ll just be casually teaching as he spreads the jam onto a slice of pizza and everyone’s a little concerned 

-Once during a test he sees one of his students struggling and suddenly their stomach rumbles loudly and as everyone laughs he just makes them a sandwich and tells them that they could take the test tomorrow

-Whenever a student doodles on one of their assignments, he finishes the picture with a crayon and he loves it when they see it and smile it makes his day

-He’s that teacher that you’re terrified of at first but then you realize they’re awesome (He has a resting bitchface that scares the heck out of everyone on the first day of school)

-Him being a sort of psychologist toward his students and they come to him (and Patton) with problems and mental breakdowns. He’s terrible at the comforting part of what to do when a person’s crying, but he’s excellent at figuring out the students’ problem or problems at helping them change their schedule/bad habits to fix it

-Him reassuring his students that-no matter what society says-just because they aren't good at math or science doesn't mean that they're useless and stupid+grades are not everything

-His students adoring him for being so realistic and understanding that school can be stressful sometimes

-His students calling him mom

-Him being so sleep deprived one day that as he was writing something on the board, he used incorrect grammar and once he got corrected, he just slowly walks over to his desk and sits under it for a solid minute 

-He hardly ever loses his cool. Ever. He handles those few immature kids in his class with ease, threatening them firmly or just completely roasting them so that they’re too busy laughing/being stunned to disrupt class. 

-But once he just gave up. He silently turns around and s n a p s. 

-He lets out this unholy screech that echoes throughout the school and shakes the nearby classrooms and scares away the birds perched on a tree outside and the chalk in his hand breaks in half the students are terrified they’ve never heard a sound of that volume from Logan’s mouth and they’re wondering if this is is what they’ll hear when the pits of hell breaks open at their feet-

-And then Logan just pauses. He takes a long drink from the water bottle on his desk, sets it down, adjusts his tie, clears his throat, then continues on with the lesson like nothing happened. Everyone agrees that that’s the scariest thing they’ve ever seen and heard in their lives. 

Patton:

-Art and home economics teacher (He has one homeroom art class in the morning, then a home ec class after lunch where he teaches stuff like cooking/baking, time management, money management, food, etc...)

-Part time job as a barista

-Wants to own his own bakery (or just be a stay at home dad)

-Speaks fluently in puns

-Whenever he has a student that he thinks is in a bad mood, he personally tapes some sort of dessert he baked to their locker on a plate with a nice post-it note taped to it

-His students call him dad

-During a rainy day, he sees some kid waiting for their late parent to pick them up outside at dismissal and he walks up to them and covers their head with his cardigan and invites them inside his classroom instead of waiting in the rain

-He frequently gets into pun/prank wars with his students

-Depending on how he’s feeling, when he sees a student sleeping in class, he’ll either blast an airhorn into their ear or lay a blanket on their back there’s no in between

-Once his class was so loud and rambunctious and he got so stressed out because he didn’t know how to deal with it that he just started crying and his students had to comfort him and no one dared to make him cry ever again

-He once forgot where he lost his glasses while he was cooking something and he asked his students to help him find them and they looked for them the entire period and no one could find it

-No one told him his glasses were right atop his head.

Roman:

-Drama teacher (Sometimes subs for the Chorus teacher, who is always absent because she's very sickly)  

-Part time job as a florist/works at a flower shop

-Wants to be a future actor on broadway

-Speaks fluently in Disney songs/musical references

-The most fashionable out of the four. He has a bunch of different outfits depending on the season. For winter and fall, he wears lots of sweaters, leather jackets, dress pants, scarves and sometimes flannel around the waist. For summer and spring, he’ll be wearing button downs, sunglasses, loose t-shirts, and jeans/shorts. 

-During play rehearsal, he puts on a red sash (and his Princey clothing basically) because he claims he needs to get ‘in the play spirit’ (when in reality he just likes wearing his old prince costume from a play he was in in the past)

-Not all of his students like him (he can be vv loud and extravagant), but his theater kids honestly adore him. They love his passion for singing, acting and musicals.

-They cheer Roman on and completely support his dream of performing on broadway one day. They secretly (and shamelessly) support him every chance they can get on social media.

-That teacher that, when he sees an artsy student, will catch them drawing during class and instead of telling them to pay attention will fanboy over their art and tell them how amazing it looks so usually art students also love him

-Knows the latest gossip about a lot of the students in the school

-Purposely casts the two students he knows has a crush on each other as the two main characters that have to stage kiss 

-One of his students gave him a Burger King crown and he cried and wore it for the rest of the week and attacked any other teacher that tried to take it off his head (*cough cough* Virgil *cough*)

Virgil:

-English teacher

-Part time job as a tattoo artist/works at a tattoo shop

-Wants to be a YouTuber/blogger (and write stories online)

-Speaks fluently in sarcasm/memes

-On the first day of school he wears normal teacher like clothing, but then the rest of the year he wears hoodies and casual t-shirts and sweatpants that he hides under a long jacket (he’s technically supposed to be all formal and whatever, but he ain’t got time for that)

-He dreams to get this original story he's been working on for years published one day. This story is basically a fantasy AU involving characters based off him, Logan, Patton and Roman.

-When he reads excerpts from books, his kids go wild because he can do Thomas' narrator/storyteller voice (the one where his voice drops a million octaves) 

-Whenever a woman/girl speaks, his voice jumps up a million octaves and he purposely squeaks/sounds like someone on helium and it gets his classes cracking up

-The kind of guy that uses the dankest of memes on worksheets/in presentations

-A lot of students really love him. The ones who like ELA are in love with his writing and storytelling. The one who don't even like ELA still like his class because he's good at keeping them engaged.

-Just like Logan, he has a natural talent for mercilessly roasting those immature kids that fool around in his class

-He'll randomly ramble away and sink into a hole of existential crisis but his students still like that side of him because it's just relatable.

-He's incredibly flexible and he can be found sitting/lying on places that probably shouldn't be sat/laid on. Once he was just casually reading a book sitting in one of those pretzels on his desk and a student screeched.

-He constantly gets compared to a cat. He hisses at Roman when he's frustrated with him, the students find him on top of furniture that isn't meant to be sat on, he says perfect as 'purrfect' and his noise twitches a lot. He used to be like nahh whatcha talking about until Roman gifted him with a cat plushie one day and he finally admitted that cats were his favorite animal (Bonus-His students joke about him being a furry a lot)

-His artsy students draw him fanart all the time and he loves it sooo much. (Bonus-Someone drew him, Pat, Roman and Lo as cats and he almost cried)

((There’s part one! Part two will either be about their part time jobs, or their interactions with each other as teachers. Feedback is greatly appreciated, thank you!!))

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Truth or Dare

Have you seen the trailer for Truth or Dare? You know, it’s the one where the girl is on Spring Break with her friends in Mexico, and this cute guy starts hitting on her, so they end up all hanging out together in this abandoned mission, and everyone is drinking and playing truth or dare - and then it turns out the game is real and if you don’t tell the truth, you die, if you don’t do the dare, you die, and if you refuse to play, you die. The trailer shows a bunch of quick cuts of a guy jamming a pen in his eye, and a girl wobbling while walking on the edge of a roof, and a girl screaming out in the middle of the library “Markie is constantly cheating on Lucas!” and then a guy is scratching at his arm where the words “truth or dare” are burned into his skin, and another guy is standing on a pool table and slips on the 8 ball and falls and breaks his neck. Oh and then there’s the part in the trailer where two girls are arguing and one of them convinces the other to use a hammer and break her hand, and a different girl is talking to her own creepy reflection in the mirror, and another girl is having sex with a guy but she grabs him by the throat and says “truth or dare” and they all have these dumb CGI’d/creepy/mostly dopey smiles on their faces? That trailer. If you have, then you’re probably wondering whether I dare you to go see this film in theaters or not. Well...

Congratulations, you already have! If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen every part of this movie that’s even a little bit relevant. I know we all know this is a problem, but this was NEXT LEVEL. Every person’s turn in this demonic game has already been telegraphed in the trailer to the point that all tension has been robbed out of every scene. I was all in for a silly, campy horror movie, but the movie manages to accomplish none of the above.

Some thoughts:

Whoever was in charge of the character design of “Evil Trickster Demon = Barbie doll left in the microwave” needs to be fired. The smiles are not frightening, they’re laughable - and they’re meant to be the scariest part of this “scary” movie.

The plot itself is actually not so bad. I mean, if you’re willing to buy into a normal demon possession plot, this one is no more farfetched than any of the others. And the subplots between the friends - a standard love triangle, a gay guy who’s afraid to come out to his dad, a girl grieving the death of her father - are at least decently compelling! The problem is that there’s a wiiiiiiiide gap between the strength of the plot and the strength of the dialogue. I’m not joking. At one point, a character literally says the words, “Ever since my father took his own life, you’re the only one that I trust.” Have you ever heard an actual living person speak the words “took his own life”? No, you fucking haven’t. 

The one other point of credit I will give this movie is that unlike most PG-13 horror fare, the last 15 seconds didn’t wreck the entire thing. If we’re looking at the logical predicament they’re in, the action that our protagonist, Olivia, takes is pretty much the only one that makes sense. So if you’ve suspended your disbelief this far, you can at least stay on board for the ending. It’s like watching a 4-year-old stick the landing at a gymnastics competition. This isn’t the Olympics, but still, good job!

So the whole thing with the game is that it waits until you’re at your most vulnerable point to ask you Truth or Dare, right? And there’s this whole sequence where the remaining survivors are trying to get back to Mexico where everything started in order to shut it all down. These kids live in LA and they drive to Mexico like 3 or 4 times - at one point, a character says “Tijauana is only a 3-hour drive from here.” Here’s my question for you: why couldn’t the demon just dare someone to run the car off the road? Kill em all in one fell swoop? I guess if you’re a demon that’s been locked up for 50 years, you want to stretch your legs, have some fun. But if that’s the case, why kill all the people playing your game? Why not maim them? Drive them crazy? I’m just saying this is really short-sighted. Play the long game, demon.

I would like to give the movie credit for some pointed social commentary, but I don’t think it’s that smart. There is a character of color who is dared to draw a policeman’s gun and point it at him. He points the gun but makes it clear he’s not going to shoot - and then the policeman’s partner shows up and shoots him in the back with no warning, no cry of “drop the weapon,” nothing. In any other horror movie, I might think, “Wow, that’s a really blatant portrayal of the way our criminal justice system treats POC - shoot first, ask questions later.” In this horror movie, I think the writers were just upping the body count.

The truth is, this movie is not daring enough to be that interesting. (See what I did there? I’m sorry, puns are part of the movie reviewing game, I don’t make the rules.) I was entertained, sure, and if you have a group of friends that enjoys silly horror fare like this, you should have a great time watching this on Redbox or Netflix. Otherwise, I dare you to steer clear.