#can i use cartoon characters on t-shirts

[munsonhoneybaby]

Too Much in Common | Eddie Munson X F!Henderson!Reader

Summary: After Dustin brings Eddie home for a D&D campaign, you find yourself enjoying his company more frequently than expected.

Word Count: 5.2k

Warnings: 18+ mdni, drug use (marijuana), smut, kinda automatic dubcon since they're both fried?, fingering, a lil praise, eddie’s just a lil obsessed

A/N: it hasn’t been explicitly stated yet but reader is adopted. hopefully i actually post a part two in a timely manner.

part two | finale | tmic masterlist

The rumbling of Eddie’s van ceased in the Hendersons’ driveway as he turned the key back in the ignition. He was surprised, however, when the metal thrum of a guitar continued despite his radio now being off. Opening his door, he recognized “N.I.B.” by Black Sabbath and realized it was coming from inside, making his eyebrows furrow in confusion. 

He made his way to the front door, not bothering to knock beforehand since Dustin was expecting him and the kid’s mom wasn’t home. “Since when did you get a taste in music, Henderson?” He called over the music blaring from the sound system in the living room. A door around the corner slammed open much more forcefully than necessary and the aforementioned freshman barreled out of his bedroom. 

“It’s my sister!” He shouted back. “She said I could have you guys over while Mom is gone if I didn’t bitch while she was in charge, but APPARENTLY THAT MEANS MAKING ME GO DEAF!” 

Eddie could just barely make out your muttered “oh please” as you entered from the kitchen. You turned down the volume until the sound could be considered background noise. “If anyone here is gonna go deaf, it’s me from your constant shrieking.” Distressed jeans hugged the curve of your waist perfectly and the Poison t-shirt you had on looked soft from numerous wears. He tried not to stare, but he was sure he looked like a cartoon character– bugging, heart-shaped eyes and jaw hitting the floor. He almost missed it when you acknowledged him. “Munson. I heard you were still running Hellfire. Didn’t realize you’d be coming today.”

Oh fuck. You knew him. You knew him? How did you know him? Of course, you had gone to the same school, everybody in Hawkins did, but he would remember meeting a girl like you. Would you be upset with him for not knowing who you are? God, already embarrassing himself and he hasn’t even started talk–

“Relax,” You snorted. “I was a grade under you at Hawkins and I was homeschooled my senior year. We never talked, I wouldn’t expect you to remember me. I’m pretty sure everybody knows about you, though.” And this is when you tell him to get out of your house and stay away from your kid brother because he’s a drug-dealing, Satan-worshipping freak. “It’s nice you’re still running the D&D club, sounds like everything else there gets worse every year.” 

Some of the tension in his muscles slipped away and he realized he’d been subtly bracing himself. “Oh–” The doorbell rang and Dustin ran to get it, welcoming in Mike and Lucas who were already amicably bickering louder than necessary. Behind them trailed the two others they had ridden with, Jeff and Gareth if you remembered correctly. They seemed a little uncomfortable holding a session in a new house, but relaxed drastically when they set eyes on Eddie. “Uh– you guys can go ahead down to the basement with the freshmeat. I’ll be down in a sec, alright?” They nodded, waving politely to you before following the boys.

When they were gone, you and Eddie locked eyes again. “Seriously, I’m glad Dusty has someone watching out for him. He takes more shit than he deserves. Just try to be a good role model, alright? If I find out you give that kid Special K or some shit, it’s fucking over for you. Got it?”

“I would never let anything bad happen to those kids when they’re with me,” He spoke earnestly. “I’m gonna look out for them. If I’m ever gonna do anything right, it’s that.”

“I believe you, Munson.” You gave him a small smile and nodded towards the basement door. “You should probably get going. They can’t start the game without their dungeon master, right?”

An embarrassed flush fought its way up his neck to his cheeks as you turned towards the hall where your bedroom was. Before you could get more than a couple of steps though, he gently grasped your wrist. “Hey uh, by the way– I just wanted you to know that I don’t really– I don’t do any hard stuff anymore. Haven’t in a while. I hardly even sell it anymore and I stopped selling to first-timers.”

“I’m sorry, Eddie, I didn’t mean to–”

“No, don’t worry about it. I totally get it, I just wanted to let you know; for your peace of mind, I guess. You deserve to know who your baby brother’s hanging around with, I don’t want you to think I’m too bad an influence.”

“I don’t think you’re too bad, Munson. Just a healthy amount.” You gave his own wrist a small squeeze as you slipped your hand from his and finally went back to your own room. He gazed after you momentarily, even after your door had closed. If the guys were still present, they would definitely be giving him shit.

As if on cue, he heard Dustin’s muffled shout from the basement. “Eddie, hurry the hell up!”

You were sitting on the front porch swing lighting a joint when his beat-up van pulled up two nights later. “Seek & Destroy” poured from his cracked-open windows until his door opened and he set foot on your driveway once again. “He’s not here, y’know,” You called to him.

“That’s alright, I actually just needed to–” Eddie was halfway between you and his van when he caught a whiff of a particularly familiar scent. A shocked, teasing grin slowly spread across his face. “Henderson, are you smoking marijuana right now?” 

In spite of yourself, you let out a laugh, coughing around a lungful of smoke in the process. “Say it a little louder, Munson, I don’t think the deafening Metallica got the neighbors’ attention.” 

Laughing, he dropped into the space next to you on the swing. “I didn’t peg you for the smoking type.”

“Oh, you mean from the three minutes we interacted?” You squinted playfully but held the joint out to him. “Just weed, I don’t fuck with anything else personally.”

He took you up on the offer, calloused fingertips brushing your skin as he took the joint from you. Examining it for a moment, he smirked as he took a hit. “Fuckin’ with it pretty hard, apparently,” He breathed out. “You roll almost as good as I do.”

“Good, then you can roll the next one.” It passes between you as you speak, though Eddie tries to keep his turns short out of courtesy. “Which brings us back to the topic of why you’re here mooching my shit. You said you needed to do something?”

“Right, I uh- I forgot my lucky dice here the other night. I figured I’d pick ‘em up on my way home from The Hideout.” 

“Oh yeah, you’re in a band or something, right?” 

“Since middle school,” He nodded, “Just me and a few guys from school, s’called Corroded Coffin.”

“Sounds metal.”

“We try to,” He chuckled.

“You like Black Sabbath and Metallica, you’d better,” You teased. You didn’t notice the way his eyes followed your every move as you smoked. The way your cheeks hollowed ever so slightly as you sucked in a hit, how your breath hitched and your eyes fell closed as you held it in. The corners of his lips curled up in amusement watching you blow Os while conversation lulled for a moment. Offering him one last hit first, you stub out the roach on the ground and stand from your seat. “C’mon in, you can go get your dice.”

“Thanks,” He hummed, grabbing the door as soon as it was open to hold it for you. 

“Have you eaten?” You ask, heading into the kitchen as he made his way toward the basement door. “I haven’t, I was gonna make a sandwich or something. You want one?”

“That’d be great, actually, thank you.” The dice weren’t hard to find seeing as he’d left them there on purpose. So maybe it was a little weird, definitely a little desperate, but he wanted to make sure he had another opportunity to see you– get his foot in the door, so to speak– and he really hadn’t expected all this. He’d hoped you’d be the one to answer the door and he’d get to make small talk for a few minutes, point out your shared taste in music maybe, but this? Catching you alone, sharing a joint, getting invited in for something to eat? This was going better than he could’ve possibly expected.

“Find ‘em?” You called down.

“Yup!” He jogged back up the stairs, waving the small velvet bag as he joined you in the kitchen. “All good.”

“What a relief. Can’t have the dungeon master thrown off his game, that would be a travesty.” You glanced up at him mischievously as you finished making the first sandwich, scooting the plate across the counter to him.

Eddie suppressed a smile, shaking his head as he picked up the sandwich. “You just love teasin’ me with that, don’t you?” He asked before he took what was probably an unattractively large bite.

“Depends on what kind of teasing we’re talking about, Munson.” You drawled casually in return, turning to continue making your own. Meanwhile, it was an effort just for him to keep his food in his mouth without choking on it. You were flirting with him.

Weren’t you? Maybe you weren’t. Maybe you’d meant it the other way around– that you’d only tease him in a joking way and that you’d never want to–

“Eddie, I can see the smoke coming out of your ears,” You snorted. “Stop thinking so hard, you’re gonna hurt yourself.” You took a big bite before grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge. “Want one?” His answer was going to be yes, but you were grabbing him one before he had responded anyway. There was a brief and fairly comfortable silence as you cleaned up the rest of your small mess and he took a few long swigs of his water. “Wanna finish these in my room? We could smoke another joint maybe…just chill out, I don’t know…”

“Yeah, totally,” He agreed, maybe a little too eagerly.

“You’re rolling though,” You remind him over your shoulder as he begins to follow you to your bedroom.

The door creaked as you opened it, waiting for him to enter after you so you could close it. As you opened the window wide and lit a stick of incense, he took in his surroundings. Your room wasn’t like the average teenage girl’s– not that Eddie had seen very many of those– not pastel-colored, or frilly, or covered in heartthrob posters, though a few stuffed animals were perched tenderly on your bed. Actually, it was almost more like his, albeit much more organized. There were posters of horror movies and rock bands filling a decent amount of the empty space on your walls, the Dio flag pinned to the ceiling drawing his attention. “Oh, that is so sick!”

“I thought you might like some ‘a this stuff,” You laughed softly. Nodding towards the stereo in the corner, you continued, “You can put something on if you want.” He squatted down to look through your cassettes, hearing your voice move through the room as you got out your bud, tray, and paper. “Try to keep it understated though, alright? Nothing too hard or fast right now.”

“Really tryin’ to mellow out tonight, huh?” He began playfully, but looked back at you as his tone softened a little. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, I’m alright,” You reassure. With the cassette in place, he made sure the volume was low before it began playing softly as you spoke. “I just get a little too pent up sometimes, you know? Everything’s just been kind of a lot lately, ‘s why I was already smoking when you showed up.”

“Hey, I can beat it if you want. I didn’t mean to show up outta the blue at a bad time and I definitely don’t have to stick around if you don’t want me here. I can totally get it if you want the time to yourself–”

“Please stay,” You quietly interrupted, then seemed a little embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t– I’d appreciate the company if you wanna stay a little while.”

Eddie gave you a comforting smile before taking a seat at your vanity to roll the joint, trying to lighten the mood. “Careful what you wish for, Henderson. I mean, you’ve got good music, good weed, made me dinner; I might be hangin’ around here more often with this kinda treatment. You’ve got me livin’ the life, babe.”

Laying down on your bed to watch him, your voice was more serious than he expected when you replied. “You’re welcome any time, you know. Mom likes when the house is busy and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Dustin practically worships the ground you walk on.” His rings glinted in the lamplight as he carefully sprinkled the bud onto the paper.

“Yeah? And what’s your review, hm?” You didn’t mean to stare at the way his lips wrapped around the joint or how his tongue traced the seam of the paper to seal it.

You hummed vaguely as he finished up, gently plucking it from between his fingers when he was done. Dramatically inspecting it much longer than he had yours, you finally say, “You roll clean joints.”

He shakes his head and laughs. Your lips close around the paper, feeling the seam still damp with his spit, and you jut your chin toward his lighter on the vanity. Grabbing it without a word, he leans forward to give you a light. Your gaze catches on his rings once more before lifting to his face again. A reflection of the flame makes the brown of his eyes warmer as they lock with yours, looking up from where you still lay on the bed on your stomach. You take a long pull as he draws the lighter away again and the spell is broken.

Sitting up to breathe the smoke in deeper, you tuck your knees under you. Eddie joins you on your bed, but not before he kicks off his shoes by the bedroom door. He sits cross-legged just in front of your pillows so you shuffle around to face him. “So, how was your concert?”

He snorted, “Concert might be a bit heavy. Gig is a little more accurate. Show maybe.”

You roll your eyes, but keep your tone light and pass the joint. “You’re a loser, you know that? You knew exactly what I was talking about, answer the question.”

“It was pretty good I guess,” He shrugged and took a long hit. “I think there may have been a whole seven people this time. And one of them was even sober!”

You smiled sympathetically, “You’re just in the wrong town. Don’t worry, I’ll come watch you play. I don’t know if that’d be a good atmosphere for the boys, but I could probably force Steve, Nancy, and Robin to come.

He twisted one of his rings around his finger for a moment. “That’s really nice, sweetheart.”

With each toke you both took, the joint burned slightly shorter until it was almost completely gone. “You want the last hit?” you asked. “I finished the last one. And you rolled this one anyway.”

“No, that’s alright. It’s your weed; I’m literally a drug dealer, I’ve got plenty at home.”

“Here,” You took one last long drag and he raised an eyebrow in confusion, but he understood when you sat up further on your knees and leaned toward him. A sense of giddy excitement overtook him for a second, nerves probably heightened from the weed, but he kept his composure. When your lips slotted over his, he took a deep breath in. His hand slid into your hair to keep your head steady as you sighed the smoke into his mouth. Your lips grazed over his afterward, very obviously lingering long after it was necessary. You giggled as you slumped down into a laying position, letting your head fall back into his lap.

“Seems like someone’s a lot more relaxed now,” He cooed playfully.

“Sorry, I can get off ‘f you–” He notices how your voice is slightly rougher after smoking so much.

“Hey, no–” His hands settle warmly over your shoulders, not holding you down so much as they were encouraging you to stay put. “It’s alright, baby. You can get comfy, you’re not bothering me.”

His hands soothed up and down your arms as you settled back in. “That feels really nice.” You hummed quietly and it drew out into another giggle, “Everything feels really nice.”

He laughs a little airily himself, “It does, doesn’t it?” Your skin felt so soft and warm beneath his fingertips, tracing imaginary shapes along the bare flesh of your arms. “‘M feelin’ pretty good, myself.” Your eyes couldn’t help but wander to his pretty pink lips again. They’d felt so soft against yours and you wanted more– to really feel him this time. His thumb brushes your chin, dragging down in a way that had your mouth opening slightly. “What’re you thinkin’ so hard about, sweet thing?”

Blinking up at him with glassy eyes, you raised an arm to brush your fingers over his flushed cheek. “Eddie, c’n you kiss me? Please?”

“Yeah?” He moved his thumb a bit higher to tug your lower lip down a bit, face dipping down a bit closer to yours. “That what you want?” You were nodding before he even finished his sentence, making him chuckle quietly. 

He allowed his lips to graze teasingly over yours, just barely touching, before finally kissing you. His nose brushed your chin and you could feel the small smile adorning his face before your lower lip was sucked softly between his. Fingers winding into his mess of frizzy curls, you moaned quietly into his mouth and pulled him closer. After another moment though, he slowly drew back, lips separating from yours with a soft smack that made you unreasonably desperate for more.

An ache had sparked in his lower back while loading the amps into the van after their show earlier that evening, deepening as he proceeded to help load the rest of the equipment afterward. Now the deep curve he had molded it to in order to keep his mouth on yours had the pain radiating up his entire back. “As much as I’m enjoying this– and believe me, babe, I’m seriously enjoying it– my back is kinda killin’ me and hunching over you like this…” 95% of his brain was screaming at him to shut the fuck up, to ignore it and just keep kissing you breathless anyway, but the other 5% was crying out to lay down and he had to listen.

“Oh, sorry,” There was a slight pant in your voice as you released your grasp on his hair. He sat up slowly as if a movement too fast would shatter the calm in the air. You sat up yourself, watching as he eased himself back onto your pillows. “S’that better?”

“Way better,” He confirmed. “We can uh- we could keep kissing if you want.”

Openly cringing at how awkward that sounded, he opened his mouth to say something else before you interrupted him with a still-sluggish giggle. “I’d like that, Eddie.”  

“Okay,” He nodded rapidly. 

Leaning forward onto your hands and knees, you crawled into his lap. His hands instantly settled on your thighs, running up and down the material of your pajama pants. His eyes flickered wildly over your body a few times before gazing up at you in awe. You didn’t waste any time in kissing him again, which was much easier now that he wasn’t upside down. As you moaned into his mouth, his hands molded to your hips, squeezing and pulling you as tight to him as he could get you. His tongue slipped between your lips, making them open further as your hands found his hair once again. 

He didn’t mean to start moving, slowly grinding into you in an attempt to relieve the tightness in his jeans that definitely wasn’t a problem before he came over— but then you were rocking down on him yourself, clothed cunt rubbing against him in a desperate search for friction. Hips rutting up into yours, he braced a palm against your lower back. You could feel his hardness pressing into you through the layers of clothing between you. Pulling back for air, you panted into his mouth, still subtly grinding against him. “Fuck,” He grunted quietly. The soft whimper of his name that you gave him in return made his head fall back against the wall with a thud. “Got me so fuckin’ hard, sweet thing. Please, don’t stop.”

“Don’t wanna stop,” You whined back quietly. “Feels so good.” 

“Good,” He cooed. “Don’t worry, ‘m gonna keep makin’ you feel good.” Hot, open-mouthed kisses moved down your neck and you let out a moan. His fingers wormed their way past the hem of your shirt, tracing the cup of your bra. “This okay?” He mumbled against your skin. Nodding, you cupped his hand and guided it higher until he pushed your bra out of the way. The pad of his thumb brushed firmly over your nipple, making your hips jerk against his. “Mmm, so sensitive. Is that jus’ the weed or are you always like this?”

“Both,” You breathed out. “‘N you’re good at all this.”

“Aw you don’t have to butter me up, baby,” He grinned. “I’m gonna make you cum either way.” Free hand dipping past the waistband of your pajama pants, Eddie continued playfully, “But, go on. Keep tellin’ me how much I turn you on.”

“Eddie,” You pleaded, “C’mon.” 

Fingers stroking the damp fabric of your underwear, he asked, “This okay? Really want me to touch you?” Your desperate nods made his lips curl, pressing more firmly against you and drawing out a moan that you tried to stifle. “No, no, no, you gotta tell me how it feels, sweet thing. We’re all alone, you can make those pretty noises, it’s okay.”

Your head slumped into the crook of his neck, mouthing lazily at his skin. Nudging your underwear to the side, he sank his middle finger knuckle-deep into you. Grasping tightly at the worn material of his t-shirt, your breath hitched. “Mmm, fuck– yes, Eddie, thank you.”

“Look at you, usin’ your manners ‘n everything. Of course, you would. Such a good girl.” Your moans only grew louder, making his hips jerk in search of friction. “So warm and wet, bet you’d feel so good around my cock.” Lifting your head to kiss him again, your hand found the shape of his length in his jeans. He rolled his thumb over your clit in circles as his hips rocked against your palm. Mouths open against each other’s, you exchanged panting breaths and muffled moans. Confined by your pants, his hand didn’t have much room for movement, leaving your hips stuttering frustratedly. “Lemme get these off’a you, babe. Can make you feel so much better than this.”

Suddenly, his hand was curled under your thigh and you let out a small squeal as you were flipped onto your back beneath him. Your pants and underwear were yanked down your legs feverishly, Eddie parting them to slip two fingers into you this time. “Shit, Eds!”

“Fuck, I’m sorry, was that too much?” Immediately, he tried to withdraw his hand, but you gripped his wrist to stop him. 

“Don’t stop, Eddie. Please, don’t stop,” You rushed.

“Alright, sweetheart, ‘m right here. Don’t worry.” Your hands laced into his hair for stability as his fingers crooked into a spot that almost made your eyes cross. Already dripping onto your bedspread, you pulled him even closer to you. Smirk spreading across his face, he said, “Oh yeah. That’s the spot, huh, baby?”

“Fuck, Eddie, you’re gonna make me come,” You whined.

“Good, want you to soak my fingers.” His hips rocked forward, clothed cock grinding into the back of your thigh. “Wanna feel you come for me.” The way his thumb rubbed so firmly against your clit had heat shooting all the way to your toes. Desperately tugging him down for another kiss, your thighs trembled as they squeezed closed around his hand. “There it is,” He murmured lowly against your lips. “Mmm, you’d feel so fuckin’ good coming around my cock, sweet thing.” The deep cadence of his voice had you shaking.

Grasping at the back of his shirt, you buried your face in the crook of his neck. He held you in silence for a long moment until your head eventually dropped back against the bed. A smile slowly grew on your face as you looked up at him and you let out a small giggle, making him grin down at you. He laughed softly too as he pressed his forehead against yours. 

Eyes darting shortly to the alarm clock on your nightstand, you did a double-take when you noticed how late it was. “Son of a bitch, my mom’s gonna be home any minute!” You grabbed your discarded underwear and pajama pants from the foot of the bed as soon as Eddie had peeled himself off of you. “Uh– fuck, I’m really sorry. I promise I didn’t mean to invite you in just for this, I just didn’t realize how late it got. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging, but–”

“Are you kidding?” He was already leaning against the wall by your door, slipping on his beat-up air forces. “I had a blast, babe. We should do this again sometime,” He winked teasingly.

You rolled your eyes half-heartedly, feeling your body warm. When the two of you reached the front door, you rubbed your arm and met his eyes only a bit awkwardly. “I’m sorry again about not…returning the favor.”

He chuckled, giving you a small smirk. “Don’t worry about me, sweet thing. After tonight, I’ll have no trouble taking care of it myself.” Taking a step closer to you, he leaned down for a kiss that was much slower and softer than the last few you’d shared. “I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“Night, Eddie. Thanks for keeping me company tonight.”

“Anytime.”

You waited at the door until he’d gotten in his van and driven away before finally heading back to your room. As soon as you closed your bedroom door and flopped down on your bed, you heard your mom’s car pull into the driveway. Meanwhile, Eddie drove home, foot a little heavy on the gas pedal as he itched to get back to his own room.

He didn’t see you again for two weeks. He knew the Hendersons’ phone number, but there was no way he could ask for you if Dustin or your mom picked up. So he waited, very impatiently mind you, and hoped he hadn’t ruined things by going so far with you so fast. 

When he did finally see you, it was at Hawkins High School. You’d come to pick Dustin up from that week’s Hellfire club meeting. You knocked on the door before entering, knowing that– despite the session being scheduled to end ten minutes ago– they often ran over their allotted time. Sure enough, you heard Eddie’s booming voice as you cracked open the door and slipped inside.

“And as the chimera flew closer–” When he noticed you he immediately straightened from his position looming over the table, clearing his throat and clasping his hands together behind his back. He didn’t want to scare you off with all this yet. “Okay gentlemen, that’s all for today.” The collective groan they let out had you feeling a bit guilty, they’d obviously been enjoying themselves, and now you were being the annoying big sister; you should’ve just waited in the car. But Eddie was quick to speak again. “Oh, cut the moaning. We’re almost fifteen minutes over and you all need more time to prepare for battle anyway. Amateurs.”

As the others all packed up their things, he approached you and you greeted him with a smile. “Sorry for interrupting, seemed pretty intense, I hope it wasn’t too important.”

“No, no, it’s good you came in. We would’ve been all caught up until someone else came in to stop us in a much less forgiving manner.” You both laughed and it went quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat again. “So uh, I’ve been hoping I’d see you around.”

“Yeah, me too… Smoking alone isn’t as fun anymore.”

His lips quirked up into a smirk and he nodded playfully. “Yeah, ‘ve been thinking the same. You should start buying from me, you know. I’ll give you a discount.”

“Oh, so I have to pay you to smoke with you again? You know, we used my shit last time,” You teased.

“You’ll never pay for anything you smoke when you’re with me, sweetheart. I’m a gentleman after all. Here, hang on.” He dashed back to the table, hunching over to write something down before tearing off the small scrap of paper and coming back to you. “Now you can get a hold ‘a me, come smoke all my weed anytime.”

“Oh, I’ll be taking you up on that.”

Your comfortable conversation was interrupted when Dustin shouted your name. “What’re you doing? Let’s go!”

“I’ll see you around, Munson.”

“Sure thing, Henderson.” 

As you drove Dustin home, you couldn’t help but wonder if it was a bad idea to get involved with Eddie. He was one of Dustin’s best friends now, a mentor for him, one of the only male role models he’s had aside from Steve since he lost his father. The last thing you wanted was to make Dustin feel like you were taking that away from him. God forbid something should happen between you and Eddie and he doesn’t feel comfortable coming around anymore. You couldn’t do that to him. 

Still, you found yourself hunkered over the phone in the living room that night. You tried to hold out, you really did, but you only managed to hold yourself back until almost midnight after your family had gone to bed. Coiling the cord around your finger, you waited impatiently as the phone rang three times.

When he finally picked up, you could hear the smirk in his tone. “Hi, sweet thing. Just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

“Well, I figured I was running low on bud anyway,” You drawled quietly. 

“You’re awful quiet,” He teased. “Don’t want Mommy to catch you up on the phone so late?”

“Fuck off,” You scoffed playfully. “If you’re having so much trouble hearing me over the phone, why don’t you come over?”

“Oh, so she minds a phone call, but it’s okay if we have a sleepover?” He snorted. 

“No, but if you’re quiet you can sneak in and back out before she wakes up to get ready for work. I’ve got twenty bucks calling your name,” You cooed enticingly.

“Seriously?”

"Come on, Munson, you've never climbed through a girl's window before? I'm disappointed."

He simply replied, "I'll be there in fifteen, make sure it's unlocked."

part two | finale | tmic masterlist

<3

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#too much in common #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader smut #eddie munson x henderson!reader #eddie munson x henderson!reader smut #18+ mdni #eddie munson x f!reader smut #eddie munson x f!reader #stoner!reader #eddie munson x stoner!reader

[luveline]

𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬 | 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐨’𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚

you and miguel accidentally move in together when the girls in the spider society dorms are mean to you —a ficlet featuring a reluctantly infatuated miguel and a carefree, ditzy spider-girl. pre across the spider-verse but contains spoilers. requested here. fem!reader, 1.5k

cw mature themes. mdni

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

You're laying in Miguel's bed when he gets back to his dorm room. Or, just his room. He'll be living here for the foreseeable future. It took him some time to calibrate to seeing you among his things, in his bed, but worst of all without your suit —it's like seeing you naked. It catches him off guard every time. 

You look oddly quiet, though you aren't asleep. He knows that doesn't make any sense, that quiet isn't something you can see, but without your suit it's like stripping back a layer of chaos. In a pyjama pack from some Nueva York department store, you've little cartoon characters on your shorts, and a bigger one across your chest, the lilac purple background pretty against your skin. Your hand is tucked under your face, your phone in the other. You're swiping through a match three game with a small panda mascot that cheers, "Wā sāi!" every time you clear a line. 

You smile and click another button. Miguel bites back his own, letting the door close with a metallic shushing. 

"Hey," you say, without looking up. "Are you okay?" 

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"I thought asking that would get me a better answer than, 'how are you?'" 

"I'm fine." 

You laugh under your breath as he makes a beeline for his closet. "See," you say, like it's very funny, "what a useless question."

"How are you?" he asks.

He turns off his suit. Abruptly naked, Miguel is past caring if you see him. He wasn't shy to begin with, and it's nothing you haven't seen now. 

Finding you a room to stay in away from the mean girls in your dormitory turned to letting you stay with him until he had a chance to find one, which then turned to you sleeping in his bed because you'd already kissed, so what use was having you on a futon? Which turned to kissing in bed, which turned to other things. Peace, for once. Sweaty hours spent with his armed wrapped around your shoulders, your front, his face pressed into your neck. The hours after, your hands in his hair, your lilting murmuring against the shell of his ear. 

He didn't mean for it to happen.

He can't say he regrets it, either. Though it scares him. 

"Cariño?" he prompts, stepping into a pair of sweatpants.

"Sorry, what did you say?" you ask, setting your phone down on the bedside table. 

He can't be mad at the phone for distracting you. That's the whole reason he got it for you, purple and shiny and foldable, something he knew would draw and keep your attention when he's not around. You're having a hard time making friends, and there's not always stuff for you to do within the Society. It was a gift for himself as well as you, he wanted to know you weren't sitting alone in your room (his room) with nothing to do. 

"How are you?"

"I made you a charm for you phone," you say. 

You insisted he have a phone too so you could text him. He groaned, complained, grumbled, but it is the very best part of his day when he gets to turn on his stupid pink phone and see you've texted him a photo of the bedroom floor, one of your crafts in front of you, a socked foot and naked ankle in the corner of the picture. 

"That's not how you are," he says after he's pulled on a t-shirt. Miguel treks back into the main part of the room and sits at the bottom of the bed. He pulls your feet into his lap because nobody can tell him not to, quick to press a thumb into the arch of your foot. You're wearing fuzzy socks. "That's what you did. How are you? You didn't come and see me today, what's with that?" 

"Sorry, I made such a huge mess earlier I had to clean and it took hours and by the time I was done I thought I better shower." Your smile is magnetic. 

"It doesn't have to be spotless." 

"It's not my room. I'm not an asshole." 

Miguel's not used to this… anymore. And things are different with you than they'd been before: you know him for who he is, this version of him, the mean, short-tempered, spiky him, where Gabri and her mother had known someone else. Still him, still real, but different. His head aches whenever he remembers —and he remembers all of the time— but being with you helps that. You're not her, and you don't have to be. 

You know Miguel at his worst, and you like him anyway. It has to count for something. 

"It's not not your room," he says carefully, hand running up your leg to your knee. He strokes back down, a lazy back and forth. 

"I know I've overstayed," you say, "but that's your fault."

"That's my fault." 

Miguel pulls your legs down enough to make your head flop off of his pillow, hoping for a disgruntled grunt or a whined, "Miguel." You stay flopped on your back and don't say anything, to his displeasure. He sighs and pulls you bodily into his lap, scooping you up with little energy expelled. 

"I forget how strong you are," you say, in his lap like a princess carry, eyelashes kissing the skin under your brows as you look up at him. 

"How can you forget?" 

"I don't know, especially when you toss me around like a half full sack of flour. I think I have a bruise from your hand last night," you say, pulling your leg up across the other, knee away from him where you're in his lap to show him the underside of your thigh. Miguel tries not to blush at the memory, but the ghost of a dork at his core knows how salacious it is to have your girlfriend in your lap with her shorts pushed down, showcasing skin you bruised during a particularly rough moment. "Can you see? It feels sore." 

A mottling of wine-stain contusion in the shape of his hand indeed takes station at the base of your thigh. It's not bad. If you had better enhancements you'd have healed by now, but your particular spider wasn't anything special.

"Perdóname," he says under his breath, brushing over it lightly with his thumb. 

"It doesn't matter, don't be sorry, I was just wondering if it was really real." You let your leg drop heavily on top of his. Nothing but adoring shines in your eyes as you smile. "I don't care, Miguel."

"I didn't mean to–" 

"I know." 

He lifts his chin as you sit up in his lap. You kiss his neck, his jaw, and the skin below his ear, your smile audible as you murmur, "I liked it. I kind of like having the bruise, too. Don't feel bad." 

He'd felt the opposite of bad in the moment. "You're sure I didn't hurt you?" he asks quietly. 

He doesn't look down, can't, not until he knows. You comb your fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. "I'm sure," you say. "As if you could." 

"Oh, is that how it is?" he asks, trying hard not to laugh. 

"That's so how it is." 

He finally faces you again, pretending like he might gear up for a fight. He holds your gaze, brows set, eyes severe. "Show me the charm you made me," he demands. 

You laugh through your nose and climb out of his lap. "You're gonna love it. It looks like a jellyfish." 

He can't imagine how having a jellyfish charm hanging from his phone will go down with the girls, but he finds he doesn't mind. Having something you made with your own two hands is too special to pass up. 

“I made one for myself, too,” you say, digging through your box of beads to find the charms you made. You turn around holding both to your chest, your pride endearing.

“Yours isn't on your phone.”

You flicker with an uncharacteristic bashfulness. “Well, I only wanted to have them if we both had them, and I don't know if you’re okay with having one. It’s sort of loud.”

“If loud bothered me, you’d know by now,” he teases. He holds out his hand, gesturing when you don’t take it. “Come on, come back. Show me how to put it on my phone case.”

All his added sweetness is worth it to feel your smile as you clamber back into the space between his thighs and duck your face into his neck, hugging him quickly, arms thrown around his neck. “You’re the best,” you say quietly. 

He really doesn’t feel like it, but hearing you say it is a load off. He relaxes under your weight, thinking your shared cohabitation might be one of the best accidents he's ever had. 

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

thank you for reading! i hope you enjoyed!! if you did and you have the time, please think about reblogging <3

#miguel and spidergirl reader #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o’hara x you #miguel o’hara x y/n #miguel o’hara x fem!reader #miguel o’hara #miguel o’hara fanfiction #miguel o’hara fanfic #miguel o’hara fic #miguel o’hara drabble #miguel o’hara scenario #miguel o’hara blurb #miguel o’hara oneshot #spider-man: across the spider-verse #spider-man: across the spider-verse spoilers #spider-man: across the spider-verse fanfiction #across the spider-verse spoilers #across the spider verse spoilers #across the spiderverse spoilers #spiderman across the spider-verse spoilers #miguel ohara x reader #miguel ohara x you #miguel ohara x y/n #miguel ohara x fem!reader #miguel ohara #miguel ohara fanfiction #miguel ohara fanfic #miguel ohara fic #miguel ohara drabble #miguel ohara scenario

[wannaeatramyeon]

Young!Samuel Seo with Young!Reader: Leave him be

G/N. Dinner Guest. Sorta expansion on Food.

Your mom and dad have forbidden you from wandering on your own.

It's too dangerous, you might get run over, you might get snatched. You're too young. When you're older. Blah blah blah.

Everything needs to wait until you're older. Ugh.

So how come he (and you stare accusingly at the oblivious kid) gets to wander around on his own? Entering your family's store without an adult. He even looks younger than you!

You scrunch up your face at the unfairness of it all.

.

.

Shaking, nervous fingers swipe a candy bar from a shelf before being hastily shoved into a pocket.

He glances around, peering left and right. Shifty and obvious as hell.

You open your mouth, about to yell, when you feel your father's firm grip on your arm. His lips, usually smiling and joyful, are pulled into a thin line. He shakes his head no.

"Leave him be," he murmurs.

The boy scurries out and you think life is more unfair than ever.

.

.

"Leave him be," is repeated at you each time as the adults hold you back.

What is it about the strange boy, with the unkempt hair and dirty shoes that lets him get away with so much?

The unkempt hair and dirty shoes-

And grubby oversized clothes. Same shorts and t-shirt everyday.

And coat worn thin at the elbows. Too thin for this weather, and you think about your own that your mom fusses over and wraps you in everyday.

And hands fisted by his stomach. Trying to mute his own hunger pang and rumbles.

And, today, a bruise and swelling on his right cheek. Finger prints marked into his wrist when he reaches out for the candy bar and his coat sleeve rides up.

Even as a child yourself, you finally get it - what the adults mean when they tell you to 'leave him be'.

.

.

He lingers.

Used to scurry away like an unwanted pest, not meeting your eyes on the way in or out.

Now the minutes stretch on. Elongates into double digits. Is it because the weather has turned bitter and harsh? Has your family convenience store, with tight aisles full of colourful snacks, food packaged in plastic and cartoon characters, now become a safe space?

You're playing by the back shelves, full of household odd items that never seem to shift and feel a pair of eyes watching you.

You turn and he's there. Staring.

"What are you doing?" The boy asks. It's the first time you've heard him speak.

"Playing," You shrug, and his eyebrows knit at the concept. "Wanna play? I can be the customer and you can be the owner."

He shuffles, shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back again, and you think he might bolt and that's the end of that. You'll never see him again.

But-

He looks at you with his big brown eyes, more calculating and shrewd than bears thinking about for a child his age, the bruise on his cheek now mottled green and purple and says-

"Ok."

.

.

It's a small and quiet 'ok' but he doesn't bolt. Your dad brings back drinks and snacks. All your favourites and more, and you think it's something to do with the presence of this boy-

"Samuel," he tells you, then eyes widening as if he let a secret slip.

"Y/N," you respond, not registering his reaction and only focusing on the game at hand.

"Y/N," he says quietly to himself. Trying out the sounds and syllables in his mouth.

You both play until the street lights flicker, turning on and covering the world in a warm orange hue.

"What time is it?" his head whips around nervously, reality crashing down on both your make-believe world.

"Six," your dad calls out, taking a break from stocking the ramen, "Did you want to stay for dinner?"

“Six!” Samuel exclaims, and you wonder if that is his curfew or something. Your eyes are drawn to his bruise again. "I have to go," 

He rushes towards the exit, nearly tripping over clumsy feet in his haste to leave. Trying to tug on his coat and button it, a small resistance against the unforgiving and cutting wind chill.

"Come play next time!" you shout at his retreating back.

Samuel's hand stills on the door. He turns, smiling, yearning and wistful before the cold, dark street claims him.

"Next time." 

#lookism #lookism webtoon #lookism manhwa #lookism x reader #lookism fic #samuel seo x reader #samuel seo #seo seongeun x reader #seo seongeun #wannaeatramyeon

[powderblueblood]

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR EDDIE

— the 411 on the loser playboy of the midwestern world

Tagged by @jo-harrington & @deathbecomesthem who got this stunning prompt on the road, love this love youse

let’s talk MUNSON!

What story is he from? What kind of story is it (Fix-it fic, Older!Eddie, Rockstar!Eddie etc)? The Eddie darling that takes up prime real estate in my brain is of course Hellfire & Ice Eddie, which is a teen romantic-dramadey with sprinkles of crime capers on top. We meet him at 18 years of age, drug dealin’, Dungeon wheelin’, at the absolute top of his bottom of the food chain game. He’s all raw nerve and engine sputter, our consummate not ready for prime time player. He is brassy, ballsy, funny, terrified.

What inspired you to write this Eddie? Flight of Icarus, actually! It reignited my initial love for him by basically confirming what I had already known to be true—he’s a little bitch that’ll take any opportunity to be struck down lovesick and he’s doomed by his bloodline.

What are your favorite headcanons about him/share something you never shared in your story? Eddie runs on a full tank of defiance, just burning rubber against what’s expected of kids his age—but to zoom in? Eddie sometimes wonders what it would be like if he was different. Tried harder. Cut his hair, joined the basketball team, really pulled himself up by his bootstraps and divorced himself from his stain of a last name. Folded in and blended, made all the right moves. Why couldn’t I do that? he thinks, Just pretend. I’m good at making shit up. But that’s selling out. And Eddie Munson is no sell out—rap sheet or no, his life is his own.

What does he wear on a casual day? On a dressier day? What does he wear to bed? Casual day, it’s your cartoon character stock costume of insert band t-shirt here, ripped jeans there, doubled up battle vest and leather cut to top it all off. There might be a variant in jean shade but that’s it. He likes to stick to a look. The dressiest he’ll go (he does not own dressy clothes) is a black cable knit sweater, very old, with the thumb holes worried through the cuffs. To bed, preferably nothing, but boxers of absolutely necessary and a very old, ratty pair of flannel PJ bottoms and an old t-shirt or a faded sweatshirt of Wayne’s if it’s freezing.

Favorite foods? This FUCK loves a pizza with the most fuckass toppings. Anchovy, black olive, pepperoni, sweetcorn (for the vitamins!), pineapple (for the jizz thing!) all on the one pie. But he can cook, to an extent, and we unfortunately have to hand this to ex-line cook Al who taught him how to grill a cheese and make a bitchin’ spaghetti with honeyed tomato gravy and lots of oregano. Eddie also loves a snack he can gesticulate with, see: Twizzler, corn dog, ice pop. Bordering on phallic foods.

Tell Us About His Family/Friends: Immediately in the gene pool—Al, the absent and up-to-no-good father who somehow still has a knife in Eddie’s side and will twist it with the simple words, “C’mon, that’s my boy!” Wayne, uncle and father figure, silent but loving and the only real pillar Eddie could ever lean against, and he feels like such a burden for it sometimes. Elizabeth, mommy dearest and dead, canonised like a saint in Eddie’s mind, and might have been but also might not have been. The root of his love of music and his need to tell stories to survive. The found-by-the-hand-of fate family— Ronnie Ecker, the Stalter to his Waldorf, the Bonham to his Page, the only person he’d ever follow into battle because you wouldn’t think it but Ronnie, who is secretly rage akimbo, would accidentally lead that charge. He loves her like a sister, she loves him like a dog. Just kidding. Maybe. He wants to be Ronnie Ecker when he grows up. Granny Ecker comes as part of this deal, one of the people credited with whooping Eddie into shape. We don’t quite know what shape yet, it’s Picassoan in nature. Then, the extension again that is the great Corroded Coffin/Hellfire crossover event—Jeff, Cyrus, Dougie and Gareth. He’s not quite as close with the boys, but they’re good boys. They love and fear him, except for Cyrus who is a true enigma which pisses Eddie off because he’s supposed to be the fucking enigma here, dammit.

Yeah Yeah, he's a Metalhead. Tell Us MORE About His Taste in Music in your story: We are working off Flight of Icarus rules so he’s got a taste in the mouth for Howlin’ Wolf style blues, real down and dirty Detroit shit. He also loves a sleazeball, so enter Tom Waits and when he’s feeling REALLY sentimental, Leonard Cohen. Eddie loves to bite a thumb so he has some punk spinning too—Richard Hell, MC5, The Cramps, and reluctantly Iggy and the Stooges. They’re Al’s favourite so kind of tainted. Last but not least, I think that Johnny Cash’s Live From Folsom Prison album gets a lot of play. Particularly Cocaine Blues and Dark in the Dungeon, which he’s definitely incorporated into some campaign. He does NOT listen to CHICK MUSIC because he’s a loser boy (Wayne has a Linda Ronstadt record that makes him cry).

What are his views on romance? On sex? Eddie Munson falls in love fourteen times a day because at the be all and end all, he’s an artist and he’s sensitive as shit. Let’s get one thing straight—he can flirt to beat the band, once anyone gives him the time of day. Which they don’t. But in his mind? He’s a silver tongued Casanova. It’s just easier to use on people he hates. Once he has a crush, he has an obsession, even if he’s oftentimes too chickenshit to act on it. Cue pulling pigtails in the playground routine. He wants so badly to worship someone and be worshipped in return, okay, it’s reciprocal worshipping—give him mutual pathological obsession or give him DEATH. He wants to build a shrine, and will, to the right person. He’ll preoccupy his mind with every detail about them to the point where, yeah, it is borderline kind of stalkery but he’s still 18 years old. Speaking of, sex? Yeah, he’s done it. Badly. He’s like to do it again, goodly. He’d like to do it with someone that wasn’t treating it like an experiment, someone who’d let him slobber all over them and rut and keen and whine like the hound in heat he fucking feels like. He has no goddamn control! He experiences pleasure in a total headrush, never been able to stay cool and sexy and commanding a day in his life. He just wants, wants, wants and he burns so hot. Eddie wants so clumsily that it comes out at the most inappropriate times, like the nurse’s office after he gets his fist busted. He’s not some sex god, just some dick with an overeager cock. But he sure is willing to put in the work.

Is he optimistic or pessimistic? Pessimistic on the surface, the life is shit and then you die so might as well do some whippits poster boy but so so secretly, Eddie holds the tiniest flame of hope that someday, somehow, things will get better. At the very least easier. That he’ll grow into his bones somehow, or someone will help soothe him into them. That he’ll feel some kind of belonging. Because he does want that, really. Some soft place to land.

Where or with whom is he most comfortable? Those pockets of alchemy at Hellfire Club when he’s got a rapt audience. With Ronnie, sitting on the sagging couch outside his trailer. Playing chauffeur to a certain princess across-the-way.

What are his views of his future? What are his hopes/dreams? Pie in the sky? Cover of Circus with his cheeks out, duh. A Grammy or two, his own metal club, a published fantasy author, shit. He’s not askin’ for the world, here! But honestly, Eddie’s view of his future is 18 year old misanthropist bleak. He hasn’t even considered college as an option, not that he’d get there with his grades. He figures he might just start selling full time for Rick once (if) he graduates then hopefully have the good enough sense to take his money and split to Chicago or someplace. Might hit it lucky when he’s played in a couple more iterations of Corroded Coffin and con someone into letting him be a session guitarist—which wouldn’t be the cover of Circus, but would still be a huge deal! But as much as an ego game as he likes to talk, he’s got this terrible, looming feeling that he’ll never leave Hawkins alive.

What do you imagine his future looks like? (If your story is incomplete or if this would be a spoiler you're not willing to share, you can skip this question.) I’ll give you a couple details, because I am writing a sequel about this. Picture a brief stint in Indianapolis. Meaner, grizzlier, bartender-ier, going on a decade of heartbreak, performing at his sexual best but nearing burnout and about to turn 30 with some side dealings at home that are edging out of the side and into the forefront. Heavy is the hand that wears the ring. You look so much like your father!

Anything else you'd like us to know about your Eddie/your story? He is so full of love and piss and vinegar. He is going to end up cherished. Like, violently so.

Optional Vulnerable Question: Why do you write fics for Eddie Munson? I love a tragedy touched smartass who folds at the first sign of affection. I want to nourish him and eat him up like the witch from Hansel and Gretel. Or have Lacy do it for me, whatever.

tagging: YOU. READING THIS. Not KIDDING IF YOURE READING THIS GET TO WORK

#YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYY #you can tell I came up through rp by reading this #wrote on mobile so if you see typos NO U DIDNT! #e. munson by powder #hai brainrot

[noobsomeexagerjunk]

Personal QSMP design hcs and interpretations (PART 1)

1. q!Quackity

ducktaur. predominantly golden yellow feathers and bright orange duck legs

partial heterochromia (dark brown with bits of bluish-grey)

his wear is different depending on which language he is maining at the moment

Eng!Q has an eyebrow scar, calloused hands, and some browning feathers. Wears religious jewelry and warm-colored clothes.

ESP!Q has ear piercings and blue-dyed feathers. Always has a clip-on tie and cool colored clothes.

Post-Tilin death, he either has their ribbon as a necktie (ESP) or belt (ENG)

has a pin of the QSMP logo always on his person

Brushes his feathers before teaching class

2. q!Jaiden

she is the cartoon character reflected by the mc skin, though is nonetheless perceived as human

she magical girl transforms into the vtuber fit whenever she wants to. Most of the time, it's to fight or to protect Bobby

she transforms using a magical brooch that resembles the emblem on her vtuber fit. she can add stuff on the brooch to alter her transformed appearance (like changing the bird wings to butterfly ones, or having a shiny rainbow mode)

she made a smaller, less powerful replica of her brooch for Bobby so he can get into armor much faster

she "draws" things out of her inventory with her fingers in the air (think the spellcasting of the witches in The Owl House, but with different symbols)

When Bobby died, her transformed look takes on a more dark and brooding appearance

3. q!Roier

he's not a spider hybrid but like, an actual Spiderman—literally got bit by a radioactive spider and everything

alternates between his superhero suit and a civilian fit. like jaiden, he transforms between fits superhero style

can fire webs from his hands, has slight spider sense, and also venomous saliva (so i beg of you, do not get head from this man)

wears natural makeup bc he likes to. he darkens it a little when he feels particularly vengeful (this is canon but yk)

the spiderman traits also apply to Melissa, whose dyed lingerie is literally weaved from spider webs

Post-Bobby death, he wears more blacks (both in civilian and superhero fits) and a lot more eyeliner

4. q!Bad

humanoid looking demon. resembles a void-like shadow in extreme emotional states

distinctly has a glowing halo. it has long horns growing out of it + a shadowy demon tail

has his mc skin's hoodie but sleeveless. collared shirts of any color is usually under that + beige khakis, white socks and various sneakers!

His hoodie has a small embroidered symbol of the Order Theoritas, hidden near the collar of the hood

his hair is long and usually tied loosely. wears glasses as well

sharp canines make him look a bit catty

his reaper get-up is well-sewn cursed cloth. wearing the fit makes his halo and tail larger, darker, and more shadowy

there's a block of diamond + an image of skeppy always on his person

He lets Dapper wear the ghost chat bell as a tail accessory

5. q!Spreen

werebear. He turns into a human during sunny daytimes, and is otherwise an anthromorphic bear-man.

black bear, like the mc skin

fashion sense however matches the CC; generally street-looking even with the bulk of armor

canines and claws glow when he's fighting someone in bear mode. he grows them out fighting during his human state

smells like cigarettes

6. q!Slime

a player equivalent to minecraft slime

prefers taking on a humanoid appearance, and has taken it long enough to master recolorization of said state. feels uncomfortable taking any other form as well

experiences pain when shifting (i mean that's also canon but yk)

behaves like a magma cube in extreme negative emotional states. will resemble one if you piss him off enough

he has no actual clothes, he shapeshifts the appearance of clothing. (q!Mariana has noticed, and he doesn't like to think too hard about it) his most external layer is armor and glasses.

he and q!Mariana have each a piece of Juanaflippa's shell on their person

7. q!Cellbit

human. well, not completely according to genetics but is more or less perceived as one.

The CC but wearing the blockman-cubito's fits

wears eyeliner to hide the eyebags. This doesnt work and only makes his eyes more expressive

a shadow looms the upper half of his face whenever he's being super weird and mysterious. It darkens when he's consciously about to do something really bad in a dramatic anime way; this is much more emphasized if he puts on his goggles

he paints his nails and the paint always trails. these glow sailor moon style when he comes into contact with the blood of any living creature

has a caffeine addiction

The chainsaw scars are deep enough that Cellbit doesn't like looking at himself when changing; he forces it though to remember why he's doing anything at all

Taught Richas how to draw the symbol for the Ordo Theoritas. He also has the symbol pressed into the leather of his gloves

8. q!Wilbur

humanoid man of unidentified species. perceived as human.

really is human looking, minus the pointy ears and prismatic irises

wears clear glasses. yellow sweater + sleeveless brown longcoat + grey jeans + black boots

has a black scarf and red beanie both made of wool and embroidered with gold threaded flowers.

always has a guitar on his person. since tallulah entered his life, he's let her put stickers and draw all over it.

They jam together when they can

may or may not have an enchanted singing voice

part 2

#qsmp #qsmp headcanons

[wouldntyou-liketoknow]

Just Another Night at Sparky's

(Disclaimer: Ness/WaiterPat and Jack/Cabbie!Cory are not my creations. I gave Jack his name because he wasn't given one in the movie. Now, one of the characters you'll be seeing here technically belongs to me, but I don't really consider him a full fanego.)

(I was already planning to write for Ness and Jack, but after I learned how Mark was originally intended to play the role of that first security guard who died, I decided to adopt that abandoned character. Go here for headcanons and a more thorough explanation.)

(Certain plot-points in this story were inspired by @flawlessstriker and @insane4fandoms! These two are very talented artists, and I'm not sure I would've thought of such clever/funny easter eggs if I hadn't seen some of their own work, so please go check out their blogs and show them some love!)

(Trigger Warnings: food and drink, eating/drinking, implied trauma, mentions of past violence, mentions of blood, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.) 

In Ness’ personal experience, the people who dined at Sparky’s could be divided into three sections on a metaphorical pie chart. 

Twenty-four percent of customers were. . .just a little off. Not like that was necessarily a bad thing, mind you. Working in the restaurant business meant having to interact with lots of people each and every day. At some point, you’d learn to pick up on certain things that were odd in the way you couldn’t quite put your finger on (or, perhaps you just knew deep down that you didn’t want to). 

Ness strolled out of the kitchen and into the seating area, expertly balancing a tray on one hand. He approached a couple of bespectacled young women in one corner of the diner. 

Their visits to Sparky’s were a bit sporadic, but they never failed to claim that one booth in the corner that no-one else ever sat at no matter how crowded the joint was. The backpacks they always hauled along were positioned further up the booth’s seat cushions, half-open and nearly overspilling with various books. 

They always used indoor voices, but he could still pick up bits and pieces of their conversation whenever he was near. 

Tonight was no different:

“—he’ll be hungrier than usual,” murmured the one on the left, who boasted short, wavy hair that had been dyed a dark shade of violet. It complimented her shirt, which read ADOPT A FAMILIAR at the top. Pictures of creepy-looking critters were displayed beneath the message, orange-eyed and outlined by blue against the black fabric. “And he’ll need a live one this time.”

“Ooh,” replied the one on the right, who sported a yellow shirt with the screen-printed likeness of some obscure, spikey-haired cartoon character near the collar. A blonde ponytail spilled out from the back of her ball cap. “Who’s it gonna be? The lady whose eyes were found in that jar last month?”

“Nah, she’ll be in some psych ward. Too far-gone to keep on the playing board, y’know?” A sly grin etched its way across Urban Fantasy Nerd’s features. “I was actually wondering if you’d like to choose. Your guy is making the delivery, after all.”

“Ah, that’s right!” Cartoon-Fan snickered in a way that was just a teensy bit unhinged. “I can already see him slipping on some of the blood."

“Third time’s a charm?” Ness asked as he halted, carefully setting this duo’s Usual on the table. 

(Two milkshakes: one chocolate, the other strawberry. Yeah, it was kind of basic, but he wasn’t too much of a judgemental guy. Besides, Sparky’s shakes were a much safer option than the lilac-colored drinks that chicken shack around the corner had started selling. And Ness didn’t just carry that opinion because of his employment. During one of his typical night-walks, he’d passed an alley just in time to see said purple beverage oozing through said chicken shack’s windows. The strong, sugary smell wafting off it had reminded him of prion disease.)

The girls both paused. Though they smiled up at him and offered quiet “Thank-yous,” as they moved their respective, sticker-covered laptops out of the way, visible confusion mixed itself into their gratitude. 

“For the university’s creative writing contest, I mean,” Ness elaborated. “There were articles in the paper about the last two, and I saw your pictures in the list of winners. Congratulations, by the way.”

“. . .Oh,” Urban Fantasy Nerd answered, exchanging careful glances with her friend. “Yeah. Writing. Let’s go with that.”

“If anyone asks, we were also writing here two months ago,” Cartoon-Fan added with a conspiratory wink. “On Friday, between five-thirty and nine o’clock.” 

Ness chuckled, raising one hand to pull an invisible zipper over his lips. “You’ve got it. Enjoy.”

As he retraced his steps to organize some stuff behind the coffee counter, a little voice in the back of his theater-trained head wondered if the girls’ tones had been joking enough. Unlike many times before, he pushed that voice aside.

On one hand, missing person cases did always seem to pop up on the news channels a few days after the two students stopped by to enjoy milkshakes while typing away and occasionally turning the screens of their laptops toward one another. 

On the other hand. . .well, those cases were always located states and states away, typically near more seaside areas. None of them had been anywhere close to Utah. (Not yet, at least.)

Besides, even if those girls were somehow connected to more sinister things than their coursework, they were still very nice. Good tippers, too. Nowhere near the worst patrons Ness had served in his time.

The strange customers almost always seemed to come in pairs.

Like the duo of twenty-somethings from last week. One sported ginger hair and a She/They button pinned to their  jacket. The soot-stains on said jacket had been very obvious, as were the burn scars on their palms, but she’d still been a delight to make smalltalk with.

The other, a pale young man, had been much more quiet, but still friendly. He’d kept peering through the window at (what was presumably) his or his friend’s car, shakily fidgeting with the headphones around his neck, so it’d taken some time for Ness to realize that his eyes were just as reflective as mirrors.

(For the duration of their stay, the jukebox over by the counter had spat out songs that most certainly weren’t on its index cards. Fine, that might’ve caught Ness a bit off-guard at first, but he still knew to appreciate variety.)

Or the two men who’d come in a few months ago, wearing battered navy-blue bomber jackets and thousand-yard-stares. The one with a dyed-red fauxhawk had screamed and practically leapt out of his skin when Ness came over with menus and his usual greeting, but he’d apologized soon enough. After giving Ness a thorough look-over, that is.

His companion, a similarly dark-eyed man with a larynx that could only be found on seasoned musicians, had muttered, “Don’t mind him. We’ve just. . .had a bit of a rough trip.” His voice hadn’t been unkind, but he’d kept glancing at Ness whenever he thought he wasn’t looking. 

Well, perhaps that particular pair had broken the trend a bit. Because a few hours after they’d paid for their food and left, a lone traveler had come in.

His bloodshot eyes—which Ness could’ve sworn were orange instead of brown—had never stopped bulging, never stopped darting this way and that above his rictus of a smile. When he wasn’t speaking, he’d hum or murmur things with a shakiness that was typically found in rabid dogs.

He’d asked for way more coffee refills than could ever be considered healthy, as well as if Ness had seen anyone fitting the descriptions of Red-Haired-Screamer and Wary-Possible-Musician. Ness, following his instincts, had said no, to which the loner started simply shaking his head and grinning with a mouthful of teeth that looked a smidge too sharp.

Or the scruffy man who'd started coming in for breakfast every other week with his young sister in tow. He was living proof that you could recognize someone without officially knowing them. After all, it was pretty damn easy for Ness to remember almost making eye-contact with him, barely moving out of reach of his flashlight’s beam in time, and then having the seconds feel like hours as he watched him shake his head and mutter to himself about seeing things. 

It wasn’t like that’d been Ness’ first little midnight rendezvous around Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzaria. Just like how that particular man wasn’t the first security guard who’d gotten dangerously close to spotting him during his unofficial, self-driven investigations.

For the record, Ness knew that said investigations weren’t legal—especially not if you counted some of the things he’d. . .borrowed from the old animatronic jamboree restaurant—but he’d made his peace with that.

He hadn’t been sneaking around there to deal drugs or partake in any himself.

He wasn’t exactly chasing the adrenaline that always came with an evening full of ducking around corners and trying to ignore how loud his shoes sounded against linoleum floors when he rushed to find anything he could feasibly hide behind, underneath, or inside of.

He never meant any harm when it came to snooping.

It was just a simple case of having a little too much curiosity.

Thankfully, Security Guard #13 still had yet to show up at Ness’ place with some accompanying cops, so it seemed he didn’t recognize Ness as anything other than a humble waiter. (Or, if he did actually recognize Ness from that night, then he was miraculously chill enough to not bring it up and get him in trouble.)

The very first time they’d paid Sparky’s a visit, it would’ve been impossible to ignore the distinct smell that had been wafting off of Security Guard #13. It’d had a bite to it; like machine oil mixed with something much more. . .organic.

From that bleak look Ness had seen in his eyes, Security Guard #13 was most certainly NOT what anyone could call unbothered, but he was still polite. Plus, Kid Sister was the type who just deserved all the crayons in the world, what with the little masterpieces she’d decorated the paper menus with.

So, yeah. There was a genuine difference between oddball customers and customers that made you lose some of your faith in humanity. 

People who asked for trout to be blended into their yogurt parfait or for their donuts to be topped with slices of pickles that had gathered fuzz from their mysterious journeys at the back of the refrigerator were still easier to handle than people who threw temper tantrums because they didn’t get a refill in under thirty seconds. 

Back to the pie-chart—another forty-six percent of customers were perfectly decent and standard.

Plenty of the locals had a soft spot for this joint; Ness had lost count of all the times he’d been told that the pancakes served here were some of the best on planet Earth. Yeah, praise like that technically wasn’t directed at him, but the cooks were great people to work with, so it still made him happy to relay said praise to them. 

He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t awkward for someone to confusedly ask if they’d already seen him working at the bar on the other side of town. Even so, that once-a-month occurrence always left him amused rather than annoyed. If anything, it attested to that particular customer’s observation skills. 

Sure, he and Sans were identical twins—the fact that their uncle had mixed them up on several different occasions when they were little was still a running joke in the family. But it’d been years since Sans had decided to remedy that via a skeleton face-mask and a dark blue leather jacket, and he’d made a habit to don both aforementioned garments each day ever since then. (Ness was still in partial disbelief that the manager at Grillby’s was cool enough to let Sans wear them over his uniform.)

Just as many of Sans’ customers apparently ended up mistaking him for Ness. Sans got a nice little kick out of that, of course. He hadn’t just been born with a comedic heart—it truly seemed every bone in his body was a funny one. Some people would argue that he just delivered puns upon more puns upon even more puns, but Ness knew his brother better than that. 

After all, Sans had been the one to train him to deal with the last category of customers: the thirty percent of entitled neanderthals who thought treating staff as less than human would somehow magically make their miserable lives more interesting. 

“Food work is all about balance,” Sans had explained sometime after he and Ness had grown tall enough to take plates and cups from a counter without having to stand on their tip-toes. “You’ve gotta be nice and still let people know that you won’t take their crap. If they’re civil, then you’re helpful. But if they’re rude. . .” Sans had paused, a mischievous glint in his eyes, “. . .then you have a little fun.” 

Ness had always been a pretty fast learner. It’d taken a week or so of practice, yeah, but with his twin’s help, he’d developed a tongue sharp enough to rival any butcher knife in the kitchen.

“You use a lot of big words for a waiter,” snorted a wannabe business bigshot with a wrinkled clip-on tie and a way, waaaaaay over-gelled hairdo that spoke volumes of desperation. 

Ness, who’d been explaining the differences between certain ingredients and flavor-enhancing chemicals because Hair Gel’s girlfriend had asked a fair question about the smoothies on the menu, barely batted an eyelid when he came back with, “And you smell a lot like hotdog water for someone who apparently doesn’t work with food.”

“This was the WORST thing I’ve ever put in my mouth!” Exclaimed a woman with an unidentifiable crust caked around the corners of her eyes and an ill-fitting shirt that was advertising some essential oil brand.

“I highly doubt that,” Ness mentioned, raising an eyebrow as he took the plate (which was suspiciously much emptier than when he’d first brought it out) from her table, “but whatever you say. . .”

“Oh! Thank you!” A tiny boy who couldn’t have been older than seven chirped, bouncing in his seat when Ness placed a sundae down in front of him.

Ness had been about to reply, but the boy’s mother—a lady who was trying very hard to look posh (but not succeeding very well due her asymmetrical haircut, as well as all the little green marks around the jewelry she was practically drowning in)—cut him off. 

“You don’t need to thank him, sweetheart,” she’d instructed, reaching across the table to corral her son. “That’s his job.”

That one had, admittedly, forced Ness to take a deep breath and appeal to his higher self for a few seconds.  Despite this, he’d still made sure to look that Karen dead in the eyes when he observed, “I’m not sure what your problem is, ma’am. But it must be hard for you to pronounce.”

(At least the boy didn’t seem to be too influenced; his bright eyes were nothing but apologetic when Ness came back with the check.)

The relative silence was shattered by the jingling call of that little bell suspended over the front entrance. Ness blinked, his train of thought screeching to a halt. He glanced over in the door’s direction, grinning at a familiar sight. 

Another regular; one that Ness got to have actual conversations with on nights like tonight. 

Mason glanced around at all the empty tables, brushing back his nearly shoulder-length raven hair and quickly getting the hint that he could just seat himself.

A golden retriever trotted beside him, connected to a leash in his hand via a pink vest that’d been fastened around her shoulders and belly. It was adorned by black velcro straps that read THERAPY DOG in a bold white font. The forest-green sherpa hoodie Mason always seemed to wear was only about half as fluffy as her fur.

Ness ducked into the kitchen. No more than three seconds had passed before the last cook on duty for tonight—a lanky blonde guy who was perhaps the most unapologetically flamboyant foodie you could ever have the honor of knowing—called, “Order Up! Your buddies’ Usuals, fresh from that babbling kiddie pool of oil.”

Dylan set a triad of dishes onto a waiting platter: the first held a stack of waffles (much like Sparky’s pancakes, their recipe was a secret that his very own grandmother had entrusted him with) and fried chicken tenders. The second supported a small mound of bacon. The third was adorned by a couple club sandwiches with a side of mozzarella sticks.  

“Thanks, man. Right on time,” Ness called back as he hefted the platter up, balancing it on the anterior region of his forearm like he'd been taught so long ago, and traipsed back out. The door swung to and fro behind him as he headed over to Booth Five. 

Though she wasn’t actually in the booth, Checkers was still right by her owner’s side, sitting in a way that could almost remind you of those lion statues guarding the entrance to a Chinese temple. She spotted Ness before Mason did. Her ears perked up, tail starting to wag. Her tongue lapped in and out of her mouth like a party favor as she smiled in that way only dogs could.

Mason, who’d been gazing through the window and fidgeting with his hoodie’s drawstrings, ever-so-slightly flinched as Ness began setting the plates down on the table with a chorus of small clunks. He blinked at the food, as if suddenly remembering the weekly tradition he’d made here.

“How do you always do that?” Mason asked as he turned his head toward Ness, a small smile etching its way across his features. 

“Magic,” Ness answered. “Careful, it’s hot.”

He carried the now empty tray back over to the counter. There, his hands became a blur as he snatched up the coffee pot and produced a trio of mugs. After stirring memorized amounts of cream and sugar into the fresh brew, he returned to the table, setting two of the beverages beside the plates.

Ness hovered, his own cup of smoldering caffeine in hand, and glanced around the restaurant. Aside from Mason and those two writers in the corner (who, as Ness had learned, took generous amounts of time with the shakes they always ordered), Sparky’s was empty tonight. 

With that in mind, Ness dragged a chair away from one of the other tables, positioning it at the end of the booth. Yeah, he could’ve just sat on the opposite side of Mason, but that part of the booth was typically reserved for another one of his friends.

Subtle relief washed over Ness’ knees as he took a seat; he’d been standing and walking pretty much all day.

Mason plucked a strip of bacon from one of the plates, checking to make sure that it was nice and warm without threatening to burn the palette. He then lightly tossed it over to Checkers, who snapped it out of the air almost like a frog catching flies. She lowered her head as the treat crunched between her teeth.

“How’ve things been?” Ness inquired, taking a sip of his coffee. “The theater’s gotten busy, yeah?”

Mason nodded as he took a fork and knife into his hands, cutting a piece off of one of the waffles and dipping it into the complimentary cup of syrup. “Yeah, it really has. Feels like whenever one movie runs its course and is taken off our roster, two more pop up in its place. Especially now that Scream 3 is finally on the market."

“. . .Oh, that’s right! It is!” Ness ever-so-slightly jumped in his seat. After enjoying the first two movies, he’d been meaning to give the latest installment a look. But so far, whether it was Sparky’s being slammed on the more favorable days or Royal Edgar’s Cinema being too crowded for his liking, things had just kept getting in the way.

Acting on instinct, Ness fished a pencil from one of his waist-apron’s pockets. At first, said pencil might not have seemed like anything special. But then you saw Fabio: a priceless treasure shaped like a rubber chicken’s head covering up the eraser. Ness started spinning the pencil between his fingers, causing Fabio to wiggle as though it was alive.

“Have you seen it already? Is it good? I have so many ideas about where the story could pick up from—”

“Hey, hey. Slow down," Mason remarked with some clear exasperation. “I haven't, but I am scheduled to project its last showing sometime next week. . .” He took a bite out of one of the chicken tenders, humming thoughtfully as he chewed. He must’ve seen the glint in Ness’ eyes, because he offered a sly smirk and lowered his voice as he continued.

“Tell you what: I’ll find a way to sneak you into the projection booth. That way, we can check it out together when the day comes.” 

“Really? You’d do that for me?” Ness asked, jokingly clutching his mug in both hands and bringing it close to his heart. 

“Sure. It’s really not too different from the customers smuggling their own snacks past the ticket desk,” Mason shrugged, though his mischievous demeanor briefly turned deadpan. “So long as you don’t play detective the entire time. My boss would rip me a new one if I just paused the movie every five minutes to let you brainstorm and talk.”

Ness scoffed, rolling his eyes. “It wouldn’t be every five minutes.”

Mason raised an eyebrow. “You’re right; it’d probably be every two minutes.” He forked up another bite of the waffles, firmly ignoring the offended waiter noises. 

“Oh, and don’t try to guilt-trip me out of my food, either. I’ve already got one moocher to deal with.” Mason scratched Checkers’ ears, to which she responded via tilting her head to the side, an undeniable trace of smugness in the warmth of her amber eyes.

“You drive a hard bargain,” Ness pronounced, his voice dripping with much more sarcasm than usual, “but fine. I can work with that.” 

“Uh-huh. You’d better,” Mason snorted, reaching over to shake hands with his friend as though the two of them were lawyers who’d just settled on some sleazy business arrangement. 

Mason was a complex person. Everyone had issues, and he was no exception to that. Not like he was at all open about said issues, but once you got to know him, you’d start to see them. (Plus, that just seemed a lot nicer than describing him as a swarm of issues shaped like a man.) He was the type to constantly shift in his seat, to give most people the side-eye, to get lost in his thoughts and grimace at nothing until he snapped himself out of it. 

At least he seemed content working at the theater. Even with the spark of horror that never seemed to leave his eyes, Mason was clearly a creative bastard. Sometimes he’d bring notebooks in and take breaks from his meal to fill their pages with paragraphs or sketches. He really did seem to have the potential for acting, maybe even directing. If his critiques and commentary on the movies he had to watch from the projection booth were anything to go by, then the projects he could possibly work on would be nothing short of awesome. 

He’d actually been one of Freddy’s past security guards. Ironically enough, he and Ness hadn’t met there. Not that Ness minded, since A. if that’d been the case, there probably would’ve been way more confused screaming than there usually was at Sparky’s, and B. considering the fact that Mason’s employment had apparently lasted a whopping one singular night. . . 

Ness still didn’t know the full story, and he could tell pressing Mason for info wouldn’t end well. But with the few snippets Jack had carefully enlightened him with. . .well—

Speak of the devil. 

The front door’s bell only had about half a second to chime yet again, almost drowned out by rapid footsteps.

“You’re late,” Ness jokingly chastised as he caught dark brown skin and black hair in his peripheral vision. He shifted in his chair, moving his legs to make some room under the table as another one of his regular-friends hurried over to claim Booth Five’s empty seat. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sue me,” Jack retorted, instantly propping his elbows on the table to knead at his forehead. It took a few long seconds for him to notice how one of his favorite dishes had apparently been waiting for him. He squinted at the food, then at Ness. “. . .I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to make it tonight?”

“And yet, here you are,” Ness replied, the definition of coy with how his shoulders popped up and down again. 

Jack might’ve wanted to ask more questions, but Mason cut him off. “Look, I don’t get it either. He doesn’t know, but he just knows.”

Jack considered this, then tilted his head to convey the type of acceptance that only came when you couldn’t really question things that probably should be questioned because you already had too many things to focus on. 

“Thanks, dude,” he murmured, nodding to Ness as he plucked one of the mozzarella sticks from his plate.

Ness nodded back, taking a few more gulps of coffee. “No problem.”

Jack paused mid-bite, eyes darting over to the brew that’d been poured for him. He scrutinized it, then raised the mug up and started chugging like a champ. 

The display made Ness glad that he’d taken the time to experiment with coffee so long ago. There was no doubting how he could now calculate exactly how much time it took for coffee to go cold. Yeah, this particular serving had been fresh out of the pot a few minutes ago, but by now it had to be at optimal temperature. Neither scalding nor tepid: just nice and warm. 

After about a moment, Jack pulled the now empty mug away from his face, taking a deep breath as he set it back down on the table.

“Rough day?” Ness inquired, specific parts of his brain starting to tick. 

Something seemed off. 

It wasn’t like he had any room to talk about slight bean juice addictions. And he certainly couldn’t blame Jack for a dependency (especially since he’d even shown some undeniable intrigue at Ness’ argument that coffee was a type of soup). Sure, Jack wasn’t narcoleptic, but when a day-and-night operating cabbie didn’t have access to some perks, things just wouldn’t go well for him or his passengers. 

But whenever Jack popped in for a bite and a chat, it was easy to assume that he’d be heading home and going to bed right after his meal. Right now, however, his demeanor was anything but tired. His shoulders were rigid. His eyes were more or less threatening to pop right out of their sockets. In fact, he almost seemed to be weighing the options of never sleeping again. 

Jack chewed his lip as he glanced in the waiter’s direction. He slowly nodded. “. . .You could say that.”

Ness exchanged glances with Mason, who had obviously seen the signs for himself. As did Checkers, since she quietly maneuvered around Ness’ chair to rest her head on Jack’s lap, peering up at him with an almost human-like air of understanding. Jack didn’t hesitate to pet the shiny fur along the dog’s neck, to which her tail started wagging but she otherwise remained still.

“What happened?” Mason asked, sitting up a little straighter. “If the vibes you’re giving off got her attention, then it must be something serious.”

Jack grimaced, closing his eyes with what seemed to be more force than necessary, taking a few long seconds to rub at their lids. 

“Did you see any rabbit-shaped things out by the dumpster? I think they only come around once a month or so, but I always feel strange if I look at them.” The words glided out of Ness’ mouth and into the air before he could think. 

Self-induced humiliation wrapped its awful, clammy hands around his ribcage as two confused glances were aimed in his direction.

“. . .What?” Jack and Mason blurted in near-perfect unison.

“What?” Ness echoed, blinking as his voice instantaneously grew a smidge louder than before. He rushed to plaster his typical, happy-go-lucky demeanor back onto his face, hoping that pretending he hadn’t spoken at all would convince his friends that he actually hadn’t. 

Not only did his latest sentence sound weird as all hell, but it’d also been downplayed as all hell. Because when Ness had said strange, what he’d really meant was the pounding, churning, pummeling agony that should only ever be present in your stomach after you’ve accidentally swallowed a few dozen live rats that just so happen to be whacked out on cocaine for whatever godforsaken reason. 

And while he wasn’t a perfect angel, Ness would never wish that particular pain on anyone else. So, the fewer people who knew about the floppy-eared cryptids (which Ness could’ve sworn looked like they’d been covered in mucus) that were apparently engrossed in  gang warfare with the local raccoons, the better. 

“Ah, did you get a bad passenger today?” Ness coughed. Jack had to deal with as many entitled idiots as Ness, if not even more. Hell, taking turns venting about that stuff was something they’d initially bonded over.

He peered through the window next to the booth—Jack’s cab was parked close enough to see that there wasn’t anything to indicate an accident. Not a life-threateningly serious one, at least. 

“Not exactly,” Jack replied, following his gaze. Where Ness’ eyes were curious, Jack’s were currently anxious and mistrusting. That was another red flag: Jack may not have treated his taxi like it was his baby, but he still took pretty good care of it. “Just a few more weirdos.” 

Mason hummed, tilting his head. “How weird specifically?” He’d heard plenty of Jack’s tales from the road; as he called on Jack for rides somewhat often, he’d even ended up being part of those tales. 

Jack knitted his brows, fidgeted in place. “You don't want to know."

“. . .Then why did you make it sound so damn vague?” Mason retorted, now dripping with incredulousness. “The less specific details are, then the more they’re gonna nag at someone’s brain.”

“He’s got a point,” Ness agreed, lightly tapping Fabio’s pencil against his mug. 

“Like that’s my fault,” Jack snorted. “Most people wouldn’t believe me if I told them.”

Ness offered an encouraging smile. “Good thing we’re not most people, then.”

Mason nodded. “Damn right. C’mon, Jack; are you really saying something could top the crackhead I had to share the backseat with last month?” 

“Yes, I am,” Jack whisper-shouted through gritted teeth, “because it was a bear!” 

Silence (save for the soft click-clack of keyboards from the corner of the diner, that is).

Jack pursed his lips, looking equal parts exasperated and worried. He sighed yet again, reaching up to press his fingers against his temples.

“. . .What kind of bear was it?” Ness eventually tried. 

Mason, who’d previously been squinting while his mouth opened and closed with no words coming out, turned his head to face Ness with such speed and force that he might’ve actually given himself whiplash. “That’s the first thing you focus on?!”

Ness made a shaky lame gesture. “It’s a fair question! What’re you focusing on?” (He wasn’t wrong. There was a lot of variety among bears, after all. And a bear that lived in the woods and had huge claws and could outeat, outrun, outswim, and probably even outdrink the average person would be a lot more to handle than one of the bears that had attended the latest local Pride parade.) 

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you,” Mason declared, returning his attention to Jack, “look significantly less mauled than most people who get close to bears! Seriously, how is your face still connected to your skull?!” 

“I didn’t mea—!” Jack was about to go on the defensive, but stopped short. “What, were you expecting me to get ripped to shreds tonight? So damn sorry if I didn’t get the memo!”

“No! Of course not!” Mason contended. “Look, you can’t just say you had a run-in with a bear and leave it at that!”

Jack threw his hands up. “Well, I told you you didn’t want to know!”

“How the hell can we not NEED to know now?” Ness pointed out. Though he was growing just as confused as Mason, he tried to keep his voice even.

Jack gave him an exhausted look before craning his neck to rest his head against the booth’s seat, staring at the ceiling. 

“It was a huge robot,” he finally clarified. “Looked like it’d been at the bottom of a scrap heap for years; I’d guess it was older than my dad. But its eye glowed blue like the machines inside it were still working. It made the car shake—I’m honestly surprised the back tires never gave out. And God damn, the smell. . .rust and blood and mucus, I swear!”

Now it was Mason’s turn to go rigid. A tidal wave of emotion seemed to sweep through his features; first surprise, then recognition, and then dread. He placed a hand on the nearest corner of the table as if to steady himself. 

“It was wearing a black top hat and bowtie, wasn’t it?” He murmured. It sounded much more like a statement than a question, and the way his tone had become so hollow didn’t help.

Jack lowered his head, clearly unsure whether or not to make eye-contact as he nodded. 

“Sounds like the way Freddy was designed. . .” Ness mused without quite meaning to. 

Memories of the huge sign that had been built to loom over the old pizzeria’s front entrance flooded into his head. The blinking lights that bordered the establishment’s title and seemed to chase each other around and around and around. The life-sized cutout of the one and only Freddy Fazbear himself, using one paw to adjust his bowtie and the other to wave, seemingly beckoning customers to wander inside. 

Those memories dissolved as Ness winced and glanced back at Mason, who was now reaching up with a shaking hand to grasp at his hoodie’s collar, tugging it to cover up the top of an old, deep scar that dragged along the skin of his neck. Ness shuffled in his seat, trying not to stare at how quickly the color drained from his friend’s face. 

Checkers was back by Mason’s side in an instant, bracing her paws against the seat as she licked at his face. Mason blinked, a huge shudder rippling through his chest as he hugged his pet.

A few minutes dragged by, feeling like an hour apiece and jeering at the trio as they went.

“So.” Mason finally announced, still keeping his gentle-yet-obviously-desperate hold on Checkers. “Let me get this straight: that. . .that thing got into your cab like it paid rent just a few hours ago?” 

Jack pursed his lips, nodding again. “There was a kid with it, too. A little girl. She didn’t even seem scared at all. The whole ride, she was smiling and hugging the bear’s arm—”

“Wait, you actually drove it somewhere?!” Mason demanded.

Jack sputtered. “What other choice did I have?!”

“I mean, that’s kind of literally his job,” Ness mentioned. 

True, he was grappling with the fact that he and his friends had apparently been transported into some cheap bizzarofiction novel. And yet, somehow, this wasn’t even the craziest story that’d been relayed to him from a customer. He peered down at Fabio as though it was about to start contributing to this conversation. “Where did you take them?”

Jack raised an eyebrow at Ness (which he guessed couldn’t be helped. Ness already had an idea, but it was rude to just assume, wasn’t it?). “Where else? That old pizza joint you’ve been trying to write an encyclopedia on.”

Mason was about to say something else, but stopped short in favor of turning his shock toward Ness.

Ness raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “Look, I know you don’t like that place, but just remember that I don’t question what you do with your free-time.”

“That’s right. And even if you did, you wouldn’t have to, because I don’t spend my free-time poking around the fourth Circle of Hell!” Mason snarked. 

“I won’t lie and say it’s not creepy,” Ness admitted, unable to stop a chill from racing down his spine at the memory of the restaurant’s grimy wall posters, the draft that always seemed to be in the air over there, the disturbingly sour tang of what he’d hoped was just ancient pizza sauce, “but that still seems pretty harsh.”

Mason gawked, fragments of words leaking through his teeth.

“If we’re looking at the bigger picture,” Jack coughed, probably attempting to steer Mason away from a potential stroke, “then nothing really happened tonight. The bear didn’t even make a peep the whole time. I didn’t get hurt, and that girl didn’t get hurt. She even left a handful of change when we got to the restaurant.”

Ness squinted and tilted his head at that. As far as he knew, the rules Jack applied to his cab were pretty lax and basic, but he’d always been firm on never taking money from lone child passengers.

Then again, if the child passenger in question was traveling with a huge robotic animal that apparently had enough sentience to use a taxi in the first place, it was probably best to just go along with whatever happened and leave the sanity-questioning session for later.

Jack fiddled with the zipper on his jacket. “. . .That actually wasn’t even the worst part of tonight’s shift.”

Mason leaned back against the leather seat, looking very much lightheaded. His eyes bulged from their sockets as he furiously motioned for his friend to elaborate. 

Jack hesitated before explaining, “Well, once the girl and the bear were out, I decided to just call it a day. After I got far enough away from the pizzeria, I parked by one of the downtown curbs and switched the car’s sign to Off Duty. I was trying to get a catnap in—”

“It’s a miracle you could even try to sleep after that damn bear basically held you hostage,” Mason interjected.

“—when someone knocked on the window. I told ‘em to read the sign and come find me later, but they opened up the door and got in anyway. So, I was about to kick them out and. . .” Jack trailed off, shaking his shoulders as though a few dozen cockroaches had spontaneously taken up nest in his jacket.  

“And. . .?” Ness echoed, the curiosity-concern cocktail in his mind getting stronger.

“And there was some tiny doll in my passenger seat,” Jack concluded. “Looked creepy as hell.”

Ness hummed in consideration. “Sounds like it could just be a weird prank? The teens in that area are always following strange trends.”

Jack nervously shook his head. “I couldn’t see anyone outside the cab. It only took a few seconds for me to look; there’s no way anyone could move fast enough to hide after they put the doll in.”

“A tiny doll. . ?” Mason’s brow furrowed in thought for a couple seconds, then promptly returned to its collision course for Mars. He leaned over the table. “Did it have bug-eyes and buck teeth? Was it wearing one of those stupid propeller hats and holding a red-and-yellow striped balloon?”

Jack’s face contorted in confusion as he nodded. “. . .That pretty much sums it up.”

Though his expression was still grim, Mason’s fear quickly metamorphosed into some good ol’ fashioned aggravation. “That’s the bastard,” he seethed, knuckles turning white. 

Jack blinked, perplexity slowly overtaking his latest case of heebie-jeebies. “Wait, you’ve seen that thing before?”

“I have, unfortunately.” Mason grimaced. An odd type of adrenaline etched its way across his face. “Is it still in the cab?”

Jack nodded again. “I didn’t want to risk touching it.”The words were barely out of his mouth when Mason rose from the booth and stalked outside through Sparky’s front entrance. Checkers trotted after him, the tiredness of an actual nurse flickering in her eyes.

Ness and Jack basically had frontrow seats to observe their friend approaching Jack’s cab, ripping the passenger-side door open and fishing something out before slamming it closed again.

With that, Mason raced to the edge of the parking lot and proceeded to dropkick what had to be the mysterious balloon-toting doll out of sight.

Despite his shock, part of Ness still felt relieved that Mason hadn’t simply deposited it into the dumpster. Just in case those awful rabbit-looking things happened to be paying a visit tonight. . .

@sammys-magical-au @that-bat @th3w00ds @bee-the-matpat-simp @touyubesposts @crazy-obsessed-enby @i-used-to-wear-the-fedora @holyawesomestitches @s-e-v-e-n-24 @sotogalmo @ciphershadow @deethedustyassdumbass @theechoingmadness @its-a-goddamn-ass-race @zam-witch @box-goat @redd-byrd @icantmakeupagoodname @pleasedontmind-the-emerald @transparentghosty @vegaslvrr @itzqueers-blog @wannabeavocaloidmystery @shivr0ygf @ciara-clycone @not-made-of-actual-rye @m0on-shro0m @imafruitbowl @azure-trash @il0v3mus1cals @v1r-x @kafkaisnotdead @junaslagoon @alicethemenace @ilovenikkisixx @m00nlight-mexican @w0rd3855 @head-without-a-fucking-brain. @unkn0wn-nys @not-made-of-actual-rye @101k-t101 @theonlykala @dividel @riff-is-on-a-fucking-crisis @roselily2006 @max-afton @abe-the-detective-blog @floating-above-sea-level @madhare051

#my writing #my stories #fnaf movie #fnaf movie spoilers #ness the waiter #waiterpat/ness #matpat #egopats #matthew patrick #jack the cabbie #cabbie!cory/jack #coryxkenshin #kenshinegos #cory williams #mason kingsley/nightguard!mark #mark's abandoned-nightguard-cameo-character #markiplier #mark fischbach #tw food/drink #tw eating/drinking #tw implied trauma #tw mentions of blood #tw mentions of past violence

[kazoosandfannypacks]

summary: when an apollo camper falls for an aphrodite camper, heart-shaped cough drops and haikus written with glitter gel pens aren't too far behind. word count: 6815 words a/n: it started as a simple headcanon. apollo's kid falling for aphrodite's. i told a few friends on discord about it, and they ate the idea up so much, i knew i had to write something about them. this story is about two ocs, but you'll see a few familiar faces in here too, and if you're paying close enough attention to context clues, you can figure out where eva and kodi's story fits in within the pjo timeline. taglist: @poptart-cat-78 @fynn-arcana @babsbabbles @laughingphoenixleader {if you’d like to be added to my halfblood 5&1 taglist/pjo taglist, let me know!}

also on ao3!

five times it paid to know an apollo boy (and one time being an aphrodite girl paid off too)

~eva's first summer~

 Eva wasn't surprised that, in a camp with archery, flying pegasi, and lava in the dish pit as well as on the climbing wall, she'd gotten herself hurt within her first week at Camp Half-Blood. 

 But, although she hadn't sat down and considered all the possible injuries available to her at Camp, if she had, getting a papercut while opening a chocolate bar for s'mores wouldn't've exactly made the list.

 And yet, even in the dim lighting of the camp's bonfire, she could see very clearly the scratch on her thumb.

 "That kind of injury takes some serious skill," someone said.

 She couldn't see his face in the low lighting by the bonfire, but she saw him hold something out to her.

 "Need a band-aid?"

 "Thanks," Eva said. She took it from him and unwrapped it.

 By the time the bandage was around her thumb, the stranger had disappeared into the crowd, and she shoved the wrapping into her pocket.

 She'd almost forgotten that moment had happened by the time she got back to her cabin. But now that she looked at it in the light, she saw that the band-aid was a shade of hot pink— her favorite color, and the same color as the accessories she'd worn with her Camp Half-Blood t-shirt that day.

~eva's first summer~

 When Eva was a little girl, she always looked forward to Valentine's Day. It made more sense now, looking back on it after her demigod diagnosis, why her decorated shoebox mailbox was always filled to the brim with heart-shaped lollipops, tiny treasures, and cards with cartoon character puns on them. Of course Aphrodite's daughter would attract a lot of attention from her classmates.

 Not long after she settled into camp, she realized Cabin 10 was one giant Valentine's shoebox.  Eva was used to coming back to the cabin each evening and seeing her sisters' bunks surrounded by flowers and chocolates and her brothers' bunks cluttered with assorted candies and letters that smelled like perfume. As long as there were Aphrodite kids who treasured cheap attempts to buy their affection, there would be kids from the other cabins more than willing to oblige them.

 But Eva didn't get gifts like that, at least, not as much as her siblings. She spent a lot of that first summer reminding herself that she was still the youngest in the cabin, and that her time to shine would come soon enough.

 In the meantime, though, she'd just have to get used to all the flowers. She had just the luck of having a bunk next to Silena— kind-hearted, beautiful Silena, who could scarcely glance in a boy's direction without him falling for her. Eva soon found out that where there were boys falling for you, there were flowers, and where there were flowers, there were allergies, and she figured the best way to dispel the issue quietly was to stop by Cabin 7.

 A normal camp would have a camp nurse, maybe a nurse's assistant on staff, and wouldn't be much more than a phone call away from the nearest hospital. Camp Half-Blood's medical treatments pretty much amounted to "tell someone at Cabin 7 what's wrong, and if they can't patch you up, well, there's not much a mortal doctor could do for you anyways."

~💘~

 As Eva approached the cabin, she noticed there were several chains by the door, each one with a different label underneath.

 "PULL FOR URGENT EMERGENCY"

 "PULL FOR IMPALEMENT"

 "PULL FOR PRANK-RELATED INJURY"

 "PULL FOR WALK-IN CONSULTATION"

 That last one sounded the most like what she needed, so she pulled that chain and heard a chime go off in the cabin.

 "I'll be out in a second," a voice said, and a moment later the door opened to a blonde boy, not much older than Eva, whose eyes widened when he saw her.

 "Oh my gosh, are you alright?" he asked, with so much concern on his face she might as well have been actively on fire.

 "Yeah," Eva wrinkled her nose, "just a slight problem I was hoping someone could help me with."

 "Oh, good," he said, "I, uh, what can I do for you?"

 She hesitated a moment, not sure what would happen if word got out that Aphrodite's new daughter was allergic to flowers.

 "Can you keep a secret?"

 "Anything for you," he said, then coughed so hard Eva thought that he might need a doctor, "I mean, uh, of course."

 "I found out I'm allergic to flowers," Eva whispered, "and Drew said that if I wake her up with my coughing one more time, I'm gonna be the one who needs beauty sleep."

 "That's perfect!" the boy said.

 "My allergy is perfect?" Eva asked.

 "No, no," he said, "I have just the thing. Don't go away!"

 He scurried back into the cabin, and about a minute later he came back with a bottle and a cloth pouch.

 "These will help the allergy," he handed her the bottle, "take one each night before bed, and you should be cough free. But, just in case!' 

 He handed her the pouch as well and she opened it to see several heart shaped lollipops.

 "What are these?"

 "Newest breakthrough in Cabin 7 medicine," he said, "making your own blend of cough drops is almost a rite of passage, but I've turned the science into an art form."

 Eva held one up and sniffed it. "You made cough drops into lollipops?"

 "Yeah," he said.

 "Why?"

 "Why not?"

 They stood in silence for an awkward moment.

 "I gotta go," Eva said, "but thanks for everything."

 "You're welcome," he said.

 She walked away, slightly confused and highly appreciative, though the whole of the moment was soon lost in the hubbub of demigod adventures.

~eva's second summer~

 The biggest problem with being a child of Aphrodite is that your skill set usually boils down to "distraction." Another unfortunate truth is that sometimes "distraction" boils down to "do the hard part and run through the woods so that someone else can get the glory for your actions."

 Unfortunately for Eva, this was one of those times.

 All of Red Team had been hopeful for their own chance to shine when Clarisse announced that she wouldn't be going directly for the flag this time. She claimed it was a solid strategy for her and a couple of her siblings to divert the enemy's attention, so she volunteered to take patrol up along the lake instead of in the woods as usual.

 However, this shuffling of the troops meant that Eva and a couple of the other Aphrodite campers were on a new mission: distract the enemy while the remaining Ares campers rush the Blue Team's flag.

 Things had gone pretty much according to plan there. A few of the Apollo kids had been guarding the flag, and more than half of them had abandoned their post to chase down the Red Team's distraction.

 But although the chase was part of the plan, Eva hoped the boy running after her would just give up already. She wasn't sure how much more of it she could take right now.

 As the forest passed by around her, she glanced over her shoulder— just long enough to see her pursuer's determined smile— then looked back ahead of her, in just enough time to notice the tree root in front of her, but without enough time to avoid tripping on it.

 She landed with her hands in front of her, the wind knocked out of her for a moment.

 "Oh my gosh, I am so sorry," his voice behind her said, "are you okay?"

 Eva pushed herself up a little and turned her head to see the boy who'd been chasing her, now with a concerned look on his face.

 She wanted to make a clever remark and then run past her enemy and make her escape, but as she tried to push herself up further, she realized the pain in her knees and chin, and especially her hands.

 "I'm alright," she huffed, sitting up and looking at her hands, both of them brushburned and dirt stained, and one having a decent sized cut.

 "No you're not," he said, and knelt down in front of her, "you're bleeding in five different places."

 "I'll be fine," Eva said.

 "At least let me take a look at it. Apollo's my father, I…."

 "I know," Eva said, "and you'll take me back to Blue Team's jail as a wounded prisoner."

 A drop of blood fell onto Eva's shirt, and it took her a few seconds to realize where it had come from. She touched a sticky spot on her chin, then looked at her fingers to see a streak of red and brown.

 "Capture the Flag isn't my concern right now," he said, taking off his helmet to reveal a familiar face, with a mop of fair blonde hair that would've looked even lighter if it wasn't so sweaty, paired the warmest brown eyes Eva'd ever seen— the boy who'd given her the cough drops and allergy pills last summer, "let me patch you up, and I'll give you a fifteen second head start."

 "I guess that sounds like a deal," Eva said. She was supposed to be the distraction anyways, and this camper wouldn't be after her teammates if he was occupied with her instead.

 "Good," he said. He'd already taken off his chestplate as well, and he pulled a knife out of a holster at his side.

 "What are you doing?" Eva asked.

 "Emergency bandages," he said, cutting a strip off the bottom of his shirt, "maybe this'll convince Annabeth to let us bring more first aid supplies next time. She says they only slow us down," he cut another chunk of the fabric off his shirt, "but this would go a lot faster if I didn't have to tear apart my wardrobe to do it."

 "You don't have to."

 "Nonsense," he said, pouring some water from his canteen onto one of the cloths, "you wouldn't've tripped if I hadn't been chasing you. May I?"

 She nodded as he took her right hand and dabbed her open palm with the wet cloth. She tried not to wince too much.

 "Sorry," he said, "I wish I had something better to clean this out with."

 "No need to apologize."

 Once her hand was clean, he wrapped a strip of the fabric around it, and tied it tightly.

 "Here," he said, handing her the wet cloth, "wipe up that cut on your chin, then apply pressure to stop the bleeding."

 She followed his instructions as best she could as he cut off another chunk of his shirt and wet it.

 "You know a lot about first aid," Eva said.

 He smiled a little as he took her other hand and dappled off the dirt.

 "I'm not the best of my siblings," he said, "but I do what I can."

 Eva knew all about struggling to be the best, having consigned herself at this point to the fact that she wouldn't even be third best among her siblings for a very long time.

 "I'm Eva," she said.

 "Evangeline Blythe," he nodded, "I know. This is your second summer, right?"

 "That's what it says on my necklace," Eva said, glancing at the single clay bead on the string around her neck.

 He held up his own necklace with two beads on it. "Then I guess this is my third. I'm Kodi Archer."

 "I remember you from last summer," Eva said.

 "You do?" Kodi asked.

 "You gave me something for my allergies," she said.

 "Glad to make an impression," he said, cleaning the spots of dirt off her scratched-but-not-actively-bleeding knees, "that's also not the first time we met."

 "It's not?"

 "I'm just sorry I didn't have any hot pink bandages on me this time."

 "That was you?" Eva asked, recalling the bonfire and the perfectly accessorized band-aid.

 "Yeah," he said.

 Kodi looked back up at her, a smile on his face as their eyes met for half a moment. His eyes then shifted, however, to the cloth she had pressed against her chin.

 "Let's see what I can do for that chin," he said, his hand brushing against hers as he took the cloth from her.

 She hardly noticed the sting of the wet cloth on her cut as he tilted her chin up with his other hand, giving her a better view of his face in the golden lighting of the sun, warming his eyes to an even richer hue. He hadn't been this nice to look at last summer, but he'd apparently grown into his nose, and his height, and some confidence had no-doubt come with it, all of which paid off nicely together.

 Her gaze was drawn away when she heard a sound in the distance: the blaring of a horn, signifying the end of the game. Kodi stopped a moment as well, looking up as though trying to see where it came from.

 "That's a relief," he smiled.

 "Who do you think won?" 

 "Doesn't matter," Kodi said, "I'm just glad I didn't have to explain to Luke and Annabeth why I was stopping to help you and would've given you a head start instead of taking you prisoner."

 "At least you don't have to report to Clarisse," Eva offered.

 "I don't envy you on that one," Kodi said, dabbing away the last of the blood on her chin, "now, keep applying pressure, and stop by Cabin 7 to get it looked at once you get back by the main camp, okay?"

 Eva rolled her eyes.

 "At least grab yourself a couple real bandages?"

 "Do they have hot pink ones?" Eva smiled

 "If you tell them I sent you," Kodi smiled back, resheathing his knife. "Now, do you think you can walk with your knees all scraped up?"

 "I think so," she said, trying to stand up off the ground.

 "Here," Kodi jumped to his feet, then held a hand out to Eva, who gladly took it and let him help stand her up.

 "Thanks for everything." Eva said, taking a couple steps with minimum difficulty.

 "All in a day's work," he said.

 In the distance, they heard quite a ruckus.

 "What's that?" Eva asked.

 "Sounds like some commotion over at canoe lake," Kodi said, "probably nothing important."

~eva's third summer~

 Eva had no idea where the haikus were coming from.

 It started one day at dinner, when she got up to make her offering to Aphrodite, and came back to find a three-by-five index card on her napkin. One one side was her name— Evangeline, not Eva— written with a smudged pink glitter gel pen. The other side had three lines written on it.

 She stayed at the table after most of the other campers had left, when it was a little quieter and easier to focus on the words scribbled on the notecard:

 "if the sun should rise

 and see the way your face shines

 it would be ashamed"

 That was it. The only other thing on the card was a heart, near her name, a classic Valentine's heart with an arrow through it, and a scribbled line near the top corner that looked like something you'd do to get the ink in a pen flowing.

 By now, Eva was used to this kind of stuff. Toward the end of last summer, a couple of the Demeter boys started competing to win her affection, and she found her bunk surrounded each day with fresh flowers (which, of course, led to frequent trips to Cabin 7 for allergy medication and a weekly supply of heart-shaped "cough-pops," as Kodi had branded them.) It wasn't uncommon for the Hermes kids to slip candy bars into her pockets and backpacks for her to find later. One of the Ares kids had dedicated an arm-wrestling victory to her, and one of Mr. D's boys had just about run out of elaborate pickup lines to use on her.

 Being well-acquainted with this kind of stuff by now, Eva slipped the poem into her backpack and went on with her evening.

~💘~

 That night before bed, she pulled the notecard out of her backpack, only to discover a second notecard with it. Her name was written on this one as well, with the same arrow-struck heart next to it, but there were two marks in the corner, and the glittering ink on the other side read:

 "your smile is like the

 dripping of nectar, like a

 lump of ambrosia"

 It was a pity that whoever wrote the poem wasn't there to see her read it, because they would've seen another one of her smiles as she read it.

 She stacked both notes together neatly, and was about to set them on her nightstand, when she realized there was a third notecard already there. The unlined side, once again, bore her name and and the same kind of heart, this time with three marks in the corner, and a haiku that read:

 "your laugh is a song

 that i've always known without

 knowing all the words"

 Eva couldn't help but laugh just a little as she read it, then stacked all three notes on her nightstand and went to bed.

~💘~

 As they tidied up the cabin the next morning, Eva smiled with a newfound confidence. There's always something special about having an admirer, but even more deliciously romantic about a secret admirer, one who writes you poems and tells you the sun doesn't hold a candle to you.

 "Is there an Evangeline in this cabin?"Aurora, one of the first-year campers, asked.

 "Yeah, that would be me." Eva sighed. Her dad had always said he gave her the name because it was a beautiful name, and she was his beautiful daughter, but she'd never been a fan of the impromptu Disney karaoke sessions she'd see whenever she introduced herself by it. "Eva" suited her much better.

 "Someone left you a note," Aurora said, holding up a three-by-five card.

 "Where?" Eva asked, walking over to her.

 "Tacked onto the door," the girl said, "I found it while I was sweeping."

 Before Eva could get to her, one of their older brothers, Mitchell, grabbed the note and read it out loud.

 "'You are a poem, and I am just the reader,'' he read, slowly, his tone slightly mocking, "'I've mem'rized your words.' What a piece of…."

 "None of your business," Eva snapped, taking the note from him and looking it over carefully, noting the lines in the corner and familiar handwriting. A favorite pastime of the Aphrodite kids was making fun of the horrible attempts at poetry the other kids would write for them, but for some reason the mockery of this one seemed out of place.

 "Relax, Eva," Drew said, "tell me, who's this new beau, Evangeline?"

 "I don't know," Eva said, calming down a little in spite of her anger.

 "Someone from Apollo's cabin," another guy said, looking over Eva's shoulder.

 "You don't know that," Eva shrugged. Several Apollo campers came to mind.

 "Well, it is a poorly written haiku," Mitchell said.

 "And there's that arrow through the heart," he said.

 "Who do you think it is?" Aurora asked.

 "I don't know," Eva shrugged, "but it's not the first one, either."

 Now that the whole cabin was invested in this story, she showed her siblings the other three notecards and told them where she found them, as they laughed at the words comparing her to ambrosia and singalongs.

 "Those are some hard-to-get-to places to sneak a poem into undetected," Mitchell said.

 "Could be a Hermes kid, then," Lacy suggested.

 That didn't seem right, but Eva couldn't say why.

 "Could be anyone," Silena said, "but for now, let's finish getting the cleaned up and head to breakfast. Just because those Posiedon boys are gonna lose at cabin clean up again doesn't mean we shouldn't try to win."

 And with that, the campers got back to work.

~💘~

 Within a week, Eva had found five more notes in various pockets of her backpack, one at her seat at almost every meal, one on her nightstand each night and her cabin door in the morning, and three in her shorts' pockets (and how they got there without her noticing, she didn't want to know.) Each of them came with her name and a heart pierced with an arrow, a series of strikes up in the corner (which she soon realized were tally marks, the highest one up to twenty-nine so far, though a few in between were missing,) and a haiku, likening her to arrows, celestial bodies, anything beautiful you could think of (except, strangely enough, flowers,) and an assortment of diseases and ailments. Any time she found one, her nearby brothers and sisters would gather around and giggle and gawk over the attempts at romance.

 Eva, however, treasured every one of these notes in her heart. With each note she found, her secret admirer became even more of a point of interest. At the end of that week, her curiosity got the better of her, and she hatched a plan involving a stakeout out front of her cabin. Whoever was hiding these notes came every night to leave them on the door, and tonight she'd catch the cupid culprit in the act.

~💘~

 It was nearly midnight, and her tiredness had almost caught up with her as she crouched behind a flowering shrub outside the cabin.

 Suddenly, she heard the sound of someone coming, and perked up to watch. This part required the most secrecy. If they heard her, no doubt they'd come up with some alibi that didn't involve haikus and thumb tacks. She'd have to catch them in the act. Quietly as she could, she watched as a figure approached the door, stuck something to it, and started to walk away.

 Quickly, Eva shone her flashlight at the note, just to check that it was indeed another three-by-five with her glittering name on it, then turned the light on the intruder.

 "Going somewhere?" she asked.

 He looked like he was gonna jump out of his skin, but instead turned back around to face her. She recognized him as one of the Stoll brothers from Hermes' cabin, but even in better lighting she wouldn't be able to tell you which one.

 "You've been writing me haikus?" Eva asked.

 "Oh no," he said, his hands over his head in a way that made Eva feel like she was some kind of cop. "I'm just the delivery boy."

 "You're running errands?" Eva asked.

 "Half-Blood's gotta make a living," he said, "and I'm just using the skills dad gave me."

 Hermes was a master of sneakery and delivery, and there was a reason the Stoll brothers were the heads of his children. Every demigod knew that if you want something done sneaky and you want it done right, you turn to the Stoll brothers.

 Every camper also knew that they could both be easily bought.

 "Who put you up to this?" Eva asked.

 "My 'client' paid a high price for my silence," he said.

 "Oh?" Eva asked, "and how high a price would I have to pay for the opposite?" 

 "I'm not a sellout," Stoll said, "even among thieves and pickpockets, there is honor."

 "Such a shame," Eva smiled, smugly, knowing she had a bargaining chip worth much more than money, "because that means I won't have to tell my lovely sisters that you were part of this 'secret admirer' plot."

 "Why should that matter?" he asked.

 "They haven't been able to stop talking about it," Eva said, "someone being so clever and sneaky in the name of love. They always go crazy for guys in touch with their romantic side."

 "Really?"

 "Oh, sure," Eva said, "If they found out you were involved with this, oh, they'd be all over you."

 "They would?" he asked, his voice weak.

 "And of course," Eva said, knowing exactly how to seal the deal, "the best thing about attracting my sisters' attention? Being a child of Aphrodite pretty much guarantees more candy than you'll ever be able to eat, more than enough to share with such a daring romantic soul as your own.."

 "Any peanut m&ms?" he asked.

 Though they were a favorite slip-into-your-pocket candy from the Hermes kids, the Aphrodite kids seldom appreciated them. However, there was no one at camp who loved them more than Connor Stoll, who'd burn a pack of them for his father on the regular, and that gave Eva a pretty good hunch who she was talking to.

 "Too many to eat," she said, "it's a shame, really."

 "What's a shame?"

 "Oh, you know," Eva said, "the fact that you'd rather keep your silence than attract the interests of a dozen beautiful girls with a lifetime supply of chocolate."

 Eva turned, with a smile on her face, knowing she'd made an offer he couldn't refuse.

 "Do you promise you won't tell him I told you?" Stoll asked.

 She turned back to him.

 "The only person who'll know about this conversation is my siblings, who will get to hear about how wonderfully romantic the great Connor Stoll is."

 He smiled, so Eva assumed she had guessed properly as to which brother it was.

 "I don't know," he said, with a wink, "Kodi paid a good price to tell me not to tell you."

 "Kodi?" Eva asked, "Kodi Archer?"

 Aside from her trips to Cabin 7 for allergy pills, cough-pops, and brightly colored band-aids, she hadn't spoken much to Kodi since the Capture the Flag game at the start of last summer. She'd attracted the attention of a lot of guys last year, and even more this year, so a lot of her attention-seekers fell through the cracks. She couldn't keep up with every boy who went out of his way to do something for her.

 "I don't want any trouble between myself and the guy who makes my medicine," Connor winked again, and nodded in confirmation, "but don't tell anyone besides your sisters."

 "You got it," Eva smiled, "now, you should get outta here before the harpies catch you."

 "That's not a concern when you know what you're doing," he laughed. He pulled something out of his pocket and threw it into the distance, and Eva watched something in the sky chase it into a far-off tree.

 "How did you…" Eva asked, but when she looked back at him, he was already gone.

 Since she didn't have any magical harpy-escape-plan, she decided it best to head back to the cabin.

 But she stopped a moment at the cabin door, running her fingers along the index card. Had she been paying attention, she could've figured it out without Connor's help. No one at camp called her "Evangeline," except Kodi. He'd written it in what he clearly knew was her favorite shade of pink. The arrow piercing the hearts doodled on the notes represented Cabin 7, and also the boy whose last name just-so-happened to be Archer. There were metaphors to sunshine and medicine and archery all throughout the poorly written poems, and while any other poet would've likened her to beautiful, fragrant flowers, only Kodi knew of her allergy. Not everyone on campus would trust the word of one of the Stoll brothers, but the facts lined up in this one.

 She sighed, and decided not to bring the notecard back to the cabin with her. It would be better to leave it there for her siblings to gawk over in the morning.

~💘~

 The next morning, Eva regaled the tale of her stakeout to her cabin mates, a captive audience, especially for her version of the story, in which Connor had taken the task of leaving the haikus solely "for the sake of romance" and "keeping the delicate flower of young love alive" and a few other poetic turns of phrase that made him into the kind of guy that at least a few of her siblings would fall for by the end of the story.

 The other big change in this version of the story was that when she recounted it, Connor was not so easily bought, and claimed to "honor the romanticism of mystery," meaning he disappeared into the night before telling Eva who her secret admirer was.

 In Cabin 10, names were thrown around often. Eva could list off the top of her head at least a dozen demigods who'd tried gestures like this to win her siblings' affections. Gossip was more juicy when you had names and faces to go with the story.

 But for some reason, Eva didn't want this to be juicy gossip, though, quite frankly, she couldn't quite put her finger on why. So, she kept Kodi's name out of the discussion, suggesting to her clamoring sisters that maybe the best way to get that information was from Connor, either through sweet-talk, or just sweets in general

~eva's third summer~

 It was Eva's turn to help Silena in the stables. It always fascinated Eva, how comfortably Silena got on with the pegasi, and vice versa, especially because Eva was terrified of them. It wasn't just pegasi; she was afraid of horses too, and though she'd never seen a unicorn, she was sure she wouldn't want to. No matter how much Silena would tell her it was safe, that the pegasi wouldn't hurt her— and even having a satyr and that Percy kid translate the pegasi's whinnies for her multiple times— this was something Eva couldn't shake.

 And yet, that afternoon she found herself in the stables with Silena.

 "I wish I could talk with them," Silena said, brushing a winged palomino.

 "Why?" Eva asked, polishing a saddle as far from the pegasi as she could be.

 "I think they know more than they let on," she smiled, "kind of like you."

 "What?" Eva's nose wrinkled.

 "I heard you talking to Connor outside the cabin last night," Silena said.

 "You what?"

 "I knew you were gonna stay up and get to the bottom of the secret poet mystery," Silena said, "so, I waited up to listen in. Kodi likes you?"

 "Not so loud!" Eva said.

 "The only ones around to hear us are the pegasi," Silena said.

 "And they know a lot more than they let on." Eva rolled her eyes, then looked back down at the saddle in front of her and buffed up a stain.

 If Silena had anything further to say, she didn't say it. Instead, she rubbed her wrist, anxiously, then bit her lip, with a far-off look in her eyes.

 "I'll be right back," she said, before Eva had time to question her or protest at being left alone with the flying death horses.

 "May as well get this over with," Eva muttered. She picked up the horse-brush Silena had been using and decided to try to face her fears head-on.

 Everyone had always told her these kinds of creatures were more afraid of her than she was of them, which seemed stupid because they weighed at least ten times more than her and had a mouth bigger than her entire face.

 But whoever had said it was apparently right, because the pegasus she approached seemed startled by her mere presence, and the last thing Eva remembered before hitting the floor was the pegasi standing in front of her, reared up to a terrifying height on his hind legs.

~💘~

 Eva knew stable floors to be notoriously hard and dirty, and yet when she came to, she felt like she was lying on fresh bedsheets on a mattress. Instead of being surrounded by hay and the smell of a stable, she saw tulle around her, and smelled something delightfully clean.

 "I know this room," she thought, "I'm in the Big House."

 Usually, campers only stayed in the Big House for medical emergencies. As her consciousness regained itself, a pain in her head did too, and she realized why she qualified.

 Trying not to move her head too much, she looked around the room. Out the window was total darkness, like the middle of the night. Flowers were gathered, not near her bed, but on the other side of the room. The only light in the room was a lamp, which sat next to a chair that was next to the bed, and in that chair sat someone Eva knew well: a dimly lit Kodi.

 He didn't look like he'd intended to fall asleep. Instead of a blanket, his lap was covered in notecards, and he hadn't returned the cap on the pink gel pen in his hand.

 She turned over, just a little, and felt something out of place on her pillow: a notecard, her name written in familiar handwriting, with an arrow-pierced heart, and more tally marks than she wanted to count. The other side contained three simple lines.

 "evangeline, please,

 you've got to wake up because

 i kind of love you."

 The rest of the kids in Cabin 10 would've laughed their heads off at the words "kind of," but she was focused on the word after them: love. It was one thing to say you like someone, or have a crush on someone, or you think someone's cute. But to say you love someone, even just "kind of?" In the last three summers at Camp Half-Blood, and all those years of grade-school Valentine's and getting hounded for her phone number, not one of those guys had ever said they love her. And now, Kodi had.

 But Kodi hadn't just said that he loved her, he'd shown it. Maybe the hot pink bandages weren't a coincidence. Maybe the heart-shaped cough pops were made with her in mind. Maybe there was a reason he'd helped his Capture the Flag enemy. Maybe he hadn't left her side since he heard about her pegasus incident, and wanted her to see a friendly face when she came to.

 Even if none of that was true, there was no denying he'd gone out of his way to pour his heart out for her. Given the lengths he went to to get his poems to her and the price he paid for Connor's silence, it was clear that he wasn't doing this to get something in return. He just wanted her to know that she was special, and she was loved. That was all he'd been telling her from the beginning, wasn't it?

~kodi's fourth summer~

 From the first time he met Evangeline Blythe, Kodi had known one thing: she was special, and she deserved to be loved like it.

 Of course, his friends and siblings tried to dissuade him. Demigods and mortals alike throughout history had grown a sudden belief in "love at first sight" after meeting Aphrodite kids, and it never worked out as planned.

 Kodi, however, was great at working out plans. He saw the way she accessorized each day, and sent for some colored bandages to meet that need. Every time he saw her felt like Valentine's Day, so when her coughing fits started, it'd only made sense to make heart shaped "cough-pops" to capture that essence. And when he realized that helping her with her injuries in capture the flag wasn't enough to compete with all the other boys who sought her attention, he started his most ambitious project yet, which took a long while (and several pink gel pens) to execute, but the payoff was well worth it.

 He was a worried mess when Silena called him to the stables, and even more of a wreck when he saw Evangaline's lifeless form, and the blood dripping from her forehead. He was thankful he always kept a bit of ambrosia on hand. Had his shirt been able to voice an opinion it would've been ungrateful, though, that Kodi had thought ahead to keep hot pink bandages and a knife on hand, but didn't keep any cloths on hand. A chunk of his shirt was cut off without a second thought as he wiped the blood off her forehead and prayed a million prayers to his father.

 He'd gotten her to a more stable condition— no pun intended— though still unconscious, and brought her back to the Big House as safely as he could on the back of a pegasus.

 Kodi had insisted on staying by her bedside until she woke up, and Chiron said that would be fine, as long as they weren't alone together. Silena volunteered to stay with them, feeling excessive guilt over not being in the stable to stop the problem before it happened.

 Around midnight, after an unexpected heart-to-heart with Silena about his feelings for Evangeline, he'd told her to get some sleep, and that he'd wake her up when Evangeline did.

 In the meantime, Kodi had plenty of time to write some more haikus, and had just slipped the best of them on her pillow when his exhaustion from the day's events finally kicked in.

~💘~

 Kodi woke with a start when he felt something touching him, and looked down to see a hand on top of his. The hand was slender, nails well-manicured in a shade of pink that perfectly complemented the bracelets around the wrist.

 His eyes followed the arm to Evangeline's face, her eyes open and her lips smiling at him as she lay on the bed next to his seat.

 "Good morning, sleepyhead," she whispered, despite the fact that the sun hadn't even risen yet.

 "You're awake," he whispered back in surprise, "and you're… holding my hand?"

 He wasn't sure how this had happened, but he tried to move his hand away from hers, just in case, but instead her hand chased after his, and caught it.

 "I am," she smiled.

 "Why?" he asked, and when she looked disappointed, he followed up, "not that I'm upset, just a little confused. Did I miss something? Maybe you're delirious? I should wake Silena, or maybe get Will…."

 "Not yet," Evangeline said, "I'm thinking clearly. I'm actually thinking a lot more clearly about a lot of things than I have been in a long time."

 "What kind of things?"

 "I never asked to be Aphrodite's kid," she said, "we don't get to come up with strategies or fight epic battles or tend to the wounded with great expertise," and she smiled and squeezed his hand, "but we do have it lucky."

 "How?" Kodi asked.

 "When your mom is the goddess of love," she smiled, that pure smile that somehow had a way of healing his soul every time he saw it, "the most confusing thing anyone can ever go through suddenly makes a lot more sense."

 "What's that?"

 "This," Evangeline said, holding up the note he'd left on her pillow, "'I kind of love you' too," she said.

 "You do?" He asked, and he hoped she liked his smiles as much as he liked hers, because there was no stopping the one that now spread across his face. All that planning and working at getting her attention had actually worked.

 Instead of responding, she squeezed his hand three times, and he'd listened to the modern poets enough to know it meant "I love you."

 He responded the same way, but after the third squeeze, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, the world stopping a moment as he looked up and saw the blush creeping along her cheeks, that perfect shade of pink she'd taught him to see everywhere.

 "You said you needed to wake Silena?" Evangeline asked.

 "Yeah," he said.

 "Can it wait ten seconds?"

 "Why ten seconds?" Kodi asked.

 "Because," Evangeline said, leaning closer toward him off the edge of the bed, "that gives me just enough time to do this."

  Then, she kissed him, and if it had lasted ten seconds or ten hours, he wouldn't've known the difference, and he wouldn't've cared. It still would've been overwhelming. He still would've thought it ended too soon. It still would've taken him a few hazy minutes to recover. Even after passing out in a stable and spending a day in a hospital room, her lips still tasted like chocolate and strawberries, and they pressed against his as gently as a feather, pulling away just as softly.

 "Wow," he whispered, between deep breaths, "I think I kind of love you more than I thought I did."

 She giggled a little, and said "me too," and it was the capstone of the greatest moment of his entire life.

 The sun was just beginning to rise out the infirmary window, and as perfect as it would be to say they held hands and watched the sunrise together while Apollo painted the skies in glorious hues, no one could honestly say that's what happened that morning— because Kodi was much more interested in watching Evangeline than in anything the sunrise had to offer.

#percy jackon and the olympians #kazzy's ocs #evangeline blythe #kodi archer #5 and 1 #kazzy writes #fanfiction #silena beauregard #drew tanaka #percy jackson book spoilers #kazzy borrows uncle rick's sweater #kazzy writes fanfic #camp half blood #tw blood #connor stoll

[ratsandfashion]

reading R.ushdie rambling, no need to read if ur not interested I love how R.ushdie knows exactly how meme culture works. The television lady love interest, Salma, plays the CIA chief on a show, serving a "fictional" president who is clearly meant as Trump (emphasized by every time a Trump-like trait is mentioned, the president is stated as "fictitious" reminding us he's clearly NOT) and at one point the database is being attacked and threatening the country and democracy as we know it and she explains that the cyber-invasive process can be compared to how the mimic octopus can imitate coral so perfectly that humans can't tell the difference and bc not-Trump is an idiot who was designed to lambaste Trump, he replies to her "We have hostile fucking octopuses infiltrating our system?!" and she quietly replies "Octopi" Memes of her face with a speech bubble saying "Octopi" spread like wildfire on social media and t-shirts. Women used it as code for men's idiocy and sexism. "Liberals of both genders and all genders in between" use it to lambaste the right. And finally, a cartoon of Salma astride a giant octopus crushing the White House in its tentacles becomes the most popular cover of the New Yorker that year. Yeah, that is...exactly what would happen tbh. Speaking of "all genders in-between" there's zero ambiguity on where R.ushdie stands on trans folks. In-character, Salma is mentioned as experiencing the lives of her fans through their letters to her, and "congratulated them on their successful gender reassignment surgeries and exam results" is listed as casually as "caressed their pets" and "ate their cuisine" There's another character whose husband isn't trans or a drag queen, but just dresses up in "women's" designer clothing for special occasions, like a celebratory dinner where he wanted to "look his best" for her and thus wore a Vivienne Westwood gown, heels, and pearls, and almost no one cares. The one person who does make a series of "transphobic remarks" (actual quote) is painted in an unflattering light overall. Out of character on a meta level, the author prefaces the novel by saying the title, Q.uichotte, is best pronounced "for reasons that will become clear" with the French pronunciation, but that "to each his/her/their own articulation of the universal Don" And speaking of that @fossilizeddumbass this bit reminded me of Eerie: "By the time you've been through that you no longer think of yourself as alive [. . . ] You no longer think of yourself as having a gender or sexuality. You think of yourself as an undead thing that is unaccountably continuing to live."

[ponett]

here's another slarpg Q&A roundup from my retrospring! this contains light spoilers for the game

in the past you've gone over how tall each of the main party are, so lemme ask you this instead: How tall are Beverly and Faith?

faith is 6'6". she is very tall. beverly's sprite is probably larger, but that's more a matter of NPC sprites generally being big rather than an indication of her actual height. i'd say she's only supposed to be around 6', give or take

What cartoons does pepper like

bartholomew only lets her watch ones that will be a bad influence on her like invader zim

We know Claire drinks, what about the rest of the Novas?

jodie and allison will drink some at social gatherings. melody tends not to, though, so if they're out together allison will usually limit herself so melody doesn't feel out of place

How do you feel about fanworks of slarpg? Specifically, which mediums would you be okay with fanworks existing in, and how do you feel about people using assets from the game?

fanworks of basically all kinds are encouraged! there's already a (very small) fangame about melody's cat in the works and i think that rules. considering my own roots as a fanartist and fangame creator i think it would be lame of me to discourage that

that being said, a few simple stipulations:

1) i ask people hold off on any sort of mass-produced merch like t-shirts or pins. custom items, commissioning someone to draw the cast, a small run of prints sold at a con table, etc. are fine by me, but i may end up making merch myself and bee and i need to make a living off of this game. when we're an operation this small, putting up a bunch of slarpg designs on redbubble could be a problem for me

2) please do not use visual assets from slarpg (including edits of my sprites) in a commercial product. using them in a mod or a freeware fangame is fine, though

3) if you do make a fangame or mod or whatever, please make sure it's clearly stated that it's unofficial, and also please don't just publicly distribute the entire game for free (modded or otherwise)

Between the 3 types of paladin Melody can become what one is the one that you pick for her?

i do a different one every playthrough >:)

From a story perspective, not a mechanical one: was polyamory ever a consideration for the party members in SLARPG? Can you see any polyamorous relationships working well between main-cast members, even if only for a little while?

i would be lying if i said this was a thing i had never considered, at least a little. it was never a serious plan for the game, but as the story and the character dynamics beyond the main couples evolved there were definitely scenes where i looked at what i'd written and went "oh people are gonna ship this, huh." i definitely see it in my own writing, believe me

the main thing is just that i don't entirely know how i would go about writing poly relationships in a satisfying way. for one i've never been part of a poly relationship, so i can't write from my own experiences there. but also i feel my strongest writing tends to focus on pairs of characters (hence all the one-on-one scenes in slarpg), so it becomes trickier when, for example, a character has two partners. i'd worry about making one more important than the other in terms of narrative focus just because of how i write. i could easily see a version of events where certain characters start dating certain other characters on top of their canon partners, though. i just don't know if it's something that i'd ever really explore myself

but i guess that's what fanfic is for

what's your favorite joke in SLARPG that got left on the cutting room floor?

i really wanted to find a way to make "irony poisoning" a status ailment but could never figure out a good way to do so

how long has claire been on hrt?

i actually couldn't say if claire is on hormones. if she is it hasn't been for as long as melody (who's been on hrt for several years by the start of the game)

I noticed your game seems very deliberate on exactly how it approaches the topic of sex and suggestive content. Obviously it wanted to avoid being "horny furry bait game." But, it also avoided being aggressively chaste as well. It struck a careful balance, where it gives the impression that it's something characters do and think about, but isn't the focus of the story so it stays incidental. Was there ever much consideration on the exact tone in this regard? Or did you just do what felt like a good fit?

this was absolutely something i thought about a LOT. perhaps more than people realize!

i mean for one, yes, the problem of people assuming the game was just furry porn based on the title was always an issue. (not that there's anything wrong with furry porn games, this just isn't one.) the game's origins as a successor to an old fangame also presented an issue, because i was worried that people who knew about the old project but hadn't actually played it might, like, assume that it was extremely horny if i pushed things in slarpg too far? which could, in turn, color peoples' perception of slarpg. they're very distinct projects to me, but i'll never escape the reductive perception of them being Literally The Same Game

at the same time, i started work on the game at age 21 and finished it almost age 29, and in that period my feelings about what i wanted to make and also the attitudes in the wider queer community shifted a lot. there's been pushback against the idea that queer media always needs to be "wholesome" and "pure," with conflicting attitudes about the "wholesome games" marketing label in the indie scene mixing with very valid fears about puritanism growing in the queer community online - stuff like the perpetual "kink at pride" fearmongering. and i didn't want to be seen as being part of some push to erase the sex from sexuality or whatever. even beyond that, i've always kind of rankled at the "cute aesthetic = wholesome" thing. i worried about the idea that the game was "wholesome" and all fluff leading to people getting upset at the more intense parts of the story. and also, just, you know. the characters are all in their 20s. i think it would be weird if they didn't know what sex or alcohol or swear words or whatever were. i think they'd become less relatable and real if it was too sanitized

but of course the flipside is that it's a 16-bit jrpg throwback game and i was absolutely overthinking how much people expected adult themes to be touched upon, queer subject matter or no. i think i struck a good balance in the end where it's lightly acknowledged without disrupting the expected tone of the genre. i'm glad it's speaking to people

(why yes i struggle with RSD how can you tell)

How seriously does Allison take caring for her sword(s)? As an unabashed ADHD sword lesbian myself I gotta say it's a not insignificant amount of (very fulfilling) work.

i think her natural inclination would be to be a little careless with them, but countless lectures from jodie have instilled a sense of responsibility in her when it comes to taking proper care of her weapons

I ask this with no weird intentions - characters like Melody and Jodie have no paw pads on their hands, but do they have them on their feet?

you know what? sure. why not

how did faith get such a big job at 24? did she know someone... is there nepotism in this world. I demand accountability.

faith was always an overachiever and was basically training throughout her teens and early 20s to become guardian. when she put herself out there as a candidate she was already generally popular with the community for her skill with magic and her work ethic, so it wasn't hard for her to win the election in a small town like greenridge

Were there any plans during development for Allison or the other two to meet or confront Harmony in the Astral Plane? Or was she always just meant to be exclusive to Melody's character arc?

the entirety of what was planned for harmony is there in the game

is the city shown in the intro supposed to be brightport?

not necessarily! the identity of the city in the intro is unspecified, although brightport definitely looks something like that

Jodie’s theme from when she was gonna be a dog (apparently?) has a very different feel to it. Was her puppysona a very different character than the danger kitten? Or was her intro in the story simply different?

i was still just figuring out jodie as a character at the time - both her design AND her personality - so bee didn't have the most complete information to work off of when trying to write the fourth character theme

i think initially she was going to perhaps be somewhat more brash, being the one Actually Qualified Adventurer on the team who's surprised that her friends made it so far without her, and she would've been exasperated with claire's shenanigans instead of enabling them. she was also intended to be more of a foil to melody, seeming to be (from melody's perspective) the person everyone compares her to. which might be why i thought to make her a canid? this juxtaposition between the two is still an element in the game, but it's more subtle and i rarely draw direct attention to it. and she was intended to be much more bullheaded, with her arc revolving around her running off and picking a fight that really didn't need to be picked off-screen to set up a side quest that was completely cut

obviously a lot of this doesn't sound very much like jodie at all! she was the character i struggled to nail down the most. if she was too brash and critical of claire's decisions then she'd have way too much overlap with allison, so instead she became claire's best friend who's supportive and trusting to a fault, and who's also the most earnest and straightforward member of the team

#ask #slarpg #slarpg asks

[txfeline720]

Title: Merch woes

Summary: In which Prowl has to deal with abhorrent (in his opinion) merch of himself. Among other things.

Characters: Prowl, Jazz

Warnings: None.

Note: Thought I post one of my fics here. You can find also find it on my Archive of our own and Fanfiction accounts.

---

If there had ever been a time Prowl wished he had laser vision, now would have been great. Perhaps if he glared hard enough, he'd develop the ability through sheer force of will and disintegrate the object that sat ever so innocently on his desk. He hopes so. Logic can go hang itself.

"Not gonna lie," Jazz said, gazing curiously at the thing that managed to earn Prowl's full ire. "I'm kind of surprised they even thought you were marketable. Out of all the mechs here, Bumblebee seems to be the most fit for it." He then smiled. "They got the doorwings right. I'll give them that."

"That is beside the point," Prowl growled. Jazz raised a brow in surprise. Even at his angriest, Prowl wore a mask of restraint, allowing only slivers of his emotions to show in the twitch of his doorwings or the glow of his optics. This was a new development.

"It is completely undignifying and frankly exploitive." He made a vague motion towards it in digest. "I have not, in any shape or form, consented for this...thing, to wear my face."

To describe the said thing, it was ball-shaped and covered in a soft, fluffy white material that resembled a cotton ball having a bad hair day. It was what was attached to it that riled Prowl up. On the front was a head molded to his likeness. Red-horned and scowling. In the back were familiar black and white doorwings, and on the bottom were black flat pads that were supposed to be feet, keeping the fluffy nightmare upright.

"They definitely got the expression down," Jazz laughed.

Cold optics slowly turned to glare at him, hoping to freeze him with their stare alone.

Jazz held up his hands in defense. "I'm just making an observation," he said smoothly.

With a huff, the optics turned their sights back to the accursed pom-pom.

"So, how did you get a hold of one?" Jazz asked.

"I didn't. I opened my door to leave, and there it was, standing there with a note that said, 'They got the look right.' I was then I looked it up and found that some human companies came up with the idea to make stuff with our image, mostly Bumblebee's for some reason." 'Mostly' was an understatement. Mugs, t-shirts, toys for human sparklings, and, for some reason, pillows that were long in length with Bumblebee printed on them in various laying positions. Try as he might, Prowl could not figure out the last one.

Jazz knew. But he wasn't going to say anything, thank you.

"You know," Jazz said. "This could benefit us if you happen to think about it."

In spite of himself, Prowl looked at him with curiosity gleaming through the rock-hard ice in his optics. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you said no one asked you, or to your knowledge, any Autobot to be merchandised, right?"

Prowl nodded in affirmation.

"So, we sue them. But we don't demand that they stop production; we demand a share of the profits that they get. You catch my drift?"

Prowl did catch it, rather reluctantly. "Gain some currency for our use. Financial independence." He sighed, doorwings sagging in defeat. Curse logic. "Fair point. But I am going to firmly insist that all merchandise with my image cease all productions." With that, he started scheduling a meeting with Optimus and the other high rankings to discuss the matter further while simultaneously looking up the best lawyers to hire for the upcoming court battles.

"Great. See you around then," Jazz said, walking towards the door. "Let me know when the meeting is."

"Alright," Prowl said. He had turned away from his desk for a minute, but when he looked back, the scowling puff ball was gone.

"Jazz."

Jazz quickened his pace.

"Jazz!"

"Oh my, would you look at the time? Gotta go." Through the power of cartoon physics, Jazz became a streak of black and white and bolted out of the office, away from the red-horned bull bellowing colorful threats as he charged after Jazz through the halls.

Did Jazz have a death wish? Maybe. But he was going to be scraped before he gave up Little Poofy Prowler anytime soon.

---

Note: The design of the toy was inspired by the drawings of @mattinthehat

#transformers #transformers g1 #prowl #jazz #transformers fanfiction #transformers fanfic

[arliedraws]

Hiii I really love your art! I'm always impressed how ppl like you are able to simplify drawings like this and still get the emotion across! I'd like to ask how long you've been drawing/how long you've been drawing cartoons and how you learned designing your own characters/style and drawing all those face expressions?

🙏🏼🧡

Hi! Thank you so much!!!

Lately, I've been really frustrated with my art and style and technical abilities, so honestly, thank you for giving me a minute to reflect on where I've been! I'm annoyed at the obvious mistakes I am noticing in the things I've posted over the last few weeks but I realized during this that it's always a process and growth is forever.

This got longer than I intended, so I'll put the rest under the cut.

I've been drawing for a very long time, probably for most of my life. And for most of it, I have not been very "good" at it. I had friends who were very serious about drawing in middle school and high school, and in college, I used drawing and fandom to deal with depression and anxiety. Then I started dating late in college which took up all of my spare time for drawing, and then I had a really nasty breakup with my first (emotionally manipulative) partner. I was really depressed (not because of being single but because I didn't know who I was anymore), so I didn't draw or write for yearssssss (I did somewhat but not seriously and loathed everything I was creating).

Then Covid hit and I felt like drawing again.

This was four years ago that I made this comparison of my art. I genuinely like what I was doing in 2012 more than what I put out in 2020. So it's not a matter of how long you've been drawing but consistency and a willingness to take risks (and learn from failures).

You can see I wasn't thinking as 3-dimensionally in 2020 when I started to draw again. The character's expression is really bland and you can see I was focused more on aesthetics than character. I think I even recognized it at the time, and I was really pissed about it.

I guess it's been four years since Covid started, and four years since I really jumped back into drawing regularly. I won't pretend that I know a lot--I very much do not, but here's what has helped me in the last few years.

Think in terms of volume and shape. I always warm up with perspective exercises. I often use posemaniacs' 30 second drawing practice for about 10-15 minutes, or I draw a ton of 3D boxes and spheres and triangles. I like to draw stacked boxes at various angles just so I can get my brain to wake up and see 3-dimensionally.

Know what you want to draw and draw with intention. This sounds obvious, but sometimes, I pick up my pen and just. Draw. Like I'll draw a face or a body but it's just completely soulless and boring because I don't know what I want. Draw with emotion, and have a purpose. Otherwise, your drawing will be lifeless and boring.

Ditch "aesthetics." Seriously. Focus on character. Draw that person ugly. If it's a sexy character and you're focusing on their emotions rather than how attractive they are, it will turn out sexy regardless. For example:

This was supposed to be scary, but people got horny for it anyway.

Anyway.

Your character will determine "aesthetics." Your character wears ripped tights because THEY think it's cool (or they trip a lot and scrape their knees), not because YOU like ripped tights. This is not a hard and fast rule, it's just what works for me.

For example, I don't draw Sirius wearing band t-shirts because I don't think he'd care about Muggle bands (at least, I don't think he'd care enough to advertise that he did). Consider why YOU wear band t-shirts. My partner wears his death metal shirts because he wants to support small bands and talk to strangers who like the same, obscure music (I hate those fucking shirts but he needs to live his truth lol. Some are ok and have beautiful art, but others are gross and weird).

Point is, focus on character.

Side note: If you want to draw a hot character (or if you want to BE a sexy real person honestly lol), you need to internalize this: Sexiness is a state of mind. If you are a sexy, confident person, it doesn't really matter what you look like--people will want to be you or fuck you. This applies to characters as much as it does to real people. It's about being you, focusing on your strengths, recognizing your own worth, keeping boundaries, and giving people your full attention when they speak to you. Seriously. That's basically it. Ask me how I know.

4. Make faces while you draw. I use photo references to understand how the face works, but what helps me the most is when I physically make the same face while I'm drawing. That way, I can feel which muscles are moving in my own face. Plus, I love acting and playing pretend, so I get to "be" that character while I'm drawing. I'm a naturally expressive person and communicate with my eyebrows way too much, and I think you can see that in my drawings.

5. Study other artists. Do this all the time. I particularly love to watch process videos and observe sketches. Here are some videos, books, and artists that I regularly visit or study:

TBChoi -- this person is my favorite artist stylistically. Just search their name + expressions and study. They just understand the way muscles work in the face so well.

Aaron Blaise -- okay, full disclaimer, I've heard some weird things about this artist, so I don't purchase their materials. However, I have practiced with his videos for years and found them exceptionally helpful.

Artists on Instagram I tend to look at: sleepy_kc, krosrios, starbite, rhiwynter

And artists who have influenced me since I was a kid are Tealin, Rufftoon, Shoomlah, Makani, and so many more.

6. Oh. And also, draw things other than people. Draw animals, draw landscapes, draw that weird building. Play with shape and perspective.

And look, I'm not a professional. I am an underpaid English teacher with ADHD, an Intuos Pro, and a horniness for a particular fictional character. Take this with a grain of salt and just do what works for you.

#asks #art process #and a small bit of advice for becoming sexy #lol i am not a professional artist so don't take me too seriously

[fayes-fics]

Tattoo

Pairing: benedict bridgerton x fem!reader, Modern AU

Summary: Modern AU, Benedict goes for his first tattoo.

Warnings: 18+ smut, minors DNI, vaginal sex. Mentions of tattooing, needles but detail is intentionally vague.

Word Count: 4.8k (oops…)

Authors Note: This is for @amillcitygirl who sent the image above as a fic idea. Enjoy lady! <3 Thanks as ever to @makaylan for a beta read. Full disclosure - I don’t have any tattoos. I did a little research into rules/licensing for tattoos in UK and chatted briefly to a friend who is heavily inked, to gather info. But still l don’t claim accuracy about the process - she was also tattooed in France, which may be different to UK/US. Please forgive any inaccuracies and the latitude as, well, this is just a silly fic.

It’s another warm summer afternoon in Brighton, and if you have to turn away one more giggling teenager tumbling into your shop and asking for some hideous cartoon character, you might scream. You sit listlessly in front of a fan, and as you hear the bell signalling the door opening, you almost wish you were closed for the day.

“How can I help you?” Your words almost die in your mouth at the man before you. He’s beautiful. 

“I’m umm looking to get a tattoo,” he frowns, realising he’s stating the obvious.

“Well, you’re in the right place,” you chime with a smile. His responding grin does strange things to your insides. “Do you have an idea of what you might like? We have books of designs and on the walls,” you gesture.

“I was hoping for something more original, actually,” he admits and reaches into his pocket, unfolding a piece of paper and placing it on the glass counter between you.

You look at the design and are captured by the beautiful sweeping lines. It’s abstract art but also looks like an ancient language symbol.

“This is stunning,” you confess, “where did you find this?”

“Umm, it’s an original; I drew it,” he answers bashful.

You look up at him, surprised, “You’re an artist?”

“I… dabble,” he demures.

Oh, he’s just lovely.

You smile at him. “I’m sure this is possible; it might take a couple of hours. Are you around for a little while?”

“I can be,” he smiles.

“Then when do you want to start? I can fit you in now, or you can come back when convenient?”

“You? I thought you might just be the….”

“Receptionist?” You supply with a pointed eyebrow raise.

“I’m so sorry. It wasn’t meant as an insult; I’m just surprised. I’ve never seen a tattoo artist without tattoos themselves,” he rushes out as an apology; it’s sincere and sweet. 

You can’t help but smile. “That’s okay; it’s an honest mistake. And you’re wrong.”

He furrows his brow with a slight head tilt, questioning.

“I am inked. Just not anywhere you can see,” your voice unintentionally husky.

You watch as his gaze slips over your body briefly as if trying to guess where then back to your face. Oh, that was hot. The temptation to rejoinder with ‘would you like to see it?’ burns on your tongue. Dear god, what is it about this man?

“Will this be your first tattoo, or do you have others?” You ask, trying to focus.

“My first,” he admits, “will… will it hurt?”

“Difficult to say. It all depends on location and your pain threshold; it’s different for everyone. Where are you thinking of for this?”

He pulls aside the neckline of his t-shirt slightly. “Sort of here,” he gestures at his upper pectoral muscle, “with the sweeping point going up my neck slightly.”

“That area could be slightly painful, but I’m sure you are brave,” you have no idea why, but you wink. Momentarily horrified by your lack of professionalism, you go to apologise until you see his reaction.

He bites his lip, looks down briefly, and then looks up at you between his lashes with a shy smile. “I’m sure I can take it. From you.”

Something slides down your spine, and your mind flashes an image of you riding him as he lays in your tattoo chair, his fingers tracing the lines of your private inkwork. 

Fucking hell. 

“Uh. You’ll need to sign this consent form before I can start,” you say, shaking your head lightly to rid yourself of that image and handing him the form and pen.

He doesn’t even bother to read; he just signs quickly and slides it back to you, looking expectant.

“Ok... Please come through,” you gesture towards the door to your tattoo studio, wanting desperately to tamp down your errant thoughts. 

He rounds the counter and follows you.

“Please take a seat,” you gesture to the tattoo chair, closing the door as he sits down.

“I will leave the room while you remove your t-shirt”, you offer as you wash your hands. There are towels over there should you wish to cover up anywhere that isn’t the tattoo site,” you gesture.

“No need,” he breezes and whips off his t-shirt before you’ve had the chance to turn away.

You’ve tattooed plenty of fit bodies in your time without blinking an eye, but somehow, this one undoes you. From your vantage point above his head, you can see down the plains of his lean and sculpted body, and your fingers twitch, wanting so bad to trace the defined lines of his musculature. He is very much your type of thing. 

“All ok?” He asks, tilting his head back slightly to look at you. There’s a little smirk on his face.

“Yes, sorry,” you shake your head and open the paper design.

“Is this the actual size you want or just a representation?” You query, grabbing a pair of gloves and a marker to start outlining.

“Actual size,” he confirms as you wheel your stool over. 

“Do you mind if I…?” You rest the piece of paper on his chest as a reference.

“Not at all,” he says genially as you draw closer, your knees under the chair and hunching over his shoulder. 

He closes his eyes and breathes gently as you start to draw freehand lines to match his work. It takes a few moments, but you enter your zen space where the rest of the world melts away. As you go to draw the section that traces up his neck, you watch his Adam's apple bob slightly as he moves his jaw away from you. He has beautiful lines; you want to nuzzle his neck and trace over his cheek and nose.

Dear god, get it together, woman.

“I never asked your name,” you say quietly, realising you didn’t even glance at the form he signed, “I should probably add your information into our system before you leave today. Phone number, name etc., so we can trace you if any follow-up is needed.”

His eyes open, and you are struck by the hazy colour - they are captivating up close. 

“I'm Ben,” he replies, “and if you tell me your number, I can text you mine right now.” He says, fishing his phone out of his jeans pocket without looking. The tone is not particularly flirtatious, more friendly than anything, but you’re still taken aback.

“I'm not in the habit of giving my personal mobile to people,” you respond cautiously, “the shop has a number you can call”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. Most people seem to do business via their mobiles these days, so I just…. It was presumptuous of me, my apologies,” he mumbles and places his phone on his bare stomach. 

You find yourself staring at his phone briefly and chewing your lip before you go back to tracing the shape onto his skin. 

You lean over to concentrate on one particular intricate section, and now you can smell his skin. He's not wearing cologne, but it's a clean soap smell and, well, just a human male scent you haven't been around for ages. Your tongue swells in your mouth, and you have to fight the urge to lean a few more inches over and just lick a line across his collarbone.

You hear him inhale slightly, then turn his head towards you. “Why do I smell mangoes?” he asks, almost absent-minded.

“Sorry, that's my hair conditioner,” you brush a strand behind your ear and move away slightly on instinct.

“I wasn't complaining,” he murmurs. 

Your eyes meet for a moment, and you stop tracing. You feel your pulse on your lips; it's an odd sensation, so you have to break the eye contact.

“If you don't mind me asking, how many tattoos do you have?” he asks after a pause as you go back to work.

“One. But it wraps around my body,” you answer honestly.

“Oh wow,” he exhales, “where?”

“Around my hips and goes down my thigh,” you respond, not thinking much about it until he inhales at your description. 

“That sounds…. unique,” he opines quietly, but it's not a judgement, more curiosity.

“It is. It's a vine. It's for my family. We own a vineyard in France. I grew up tending the vines, and I miss it so much when I'm not there. I wanted a physical reminder on my body where I come from, my literal roots. So it doesn't matter where I am in the world; I am always home.” You have no idea why you are suddenly confessing this to a stranger. 

He is staring at you now, close up, his face moved, so it's almost under yours. “May I see it?” he requests, his voice soft.

For some reason, you want to show him. So wordlessly, you wheel back your stool and stand up near the middle of the chair, unbuttoning the top of your jeans so you can pull down the waistband and show a section over your hipbone. 

“That is beautiful,” he whispers, and suddenly light fingertips are tracing over your skin. It's a tingling fire that shoots straight down into your underwear. The sensation makes you lose grip on the marker pen, and the clatter of it hitting the floor breaks the spell. “Oh gosh, I am so sorry,” he mumbles and withdraws his hand suddenly, his cheeks colouring.

You pick up the marker, rebutton your jeans and sit down, wheeling back into place. “I'm not sure why I did that,” you mutter, as much to yourself as him.

“I'm sorry if I overstepped; it's just that it was wonderfully drawn,” he apologises.

“I drew it,” you admit quietly “my friend then tattooed it.” 

“You are an artist?” his face lights up with enthusiasm.

“I dabble….” you respond with a skewed pout, echoing his words back to him.

He huffs a laugh, and you find yourself giggling back. 

“I umm think I'm done recreating the design. Would you like to check it?” you reach for a wheeled mirror and angle it so he can see the design. “You can check here or..” You wordlessly point at the ceiling. 

“Oh wow,” he huffs a laugh looking straight up, “I didn't notice you had a mirror on the ceiling.”

“Not my idea,” you rush to assert. “The owner seems to like the idea that clients can watch the work as it's happening,” you shrug.

“It's certainly novel,” he laughs. Then his focus falls to the markings you have made over his skin. “Oh wow, that's... Better than I thought it would be,” he admits.

“It's just the outline,” you offer, “so I know where to needle. The final design will be much closer to yours.”

“What do you think?” he asks, suddenly apprehensive.

“I think it looks amazing,” you disclose, “it suits you.”

He blushes again, and you watch with fascination as it creeps down his neck a little. “Thank you.” 

“So are we doing this?” you request, leaning in to double-check the lines.

“What?” he questions suddenly, his face jerking over and your cheekbones brush.

“The tattoo,” you whisper slowly but not moving your face. “Are you sure you want it? There's no going back after this.” Somehow it feels like your words have a double meaning—a subtext of burning tension.

“I want it”, he breathes, the gust moving the tendrils of hair around your ear. 

You swallow hard.

You pull over the tray with the inking and gun supplies, methodically prepping. Then you wipe down his skin with alcoholic wipes, ensuring the area is completely sanitised. The whir of the machine firing up surprises him a little, so you place a calming pressure on his shoulder.

“Tell me if you need me to stop; we can go as slow as you want,” you say close to his ear so he can hear you clearly.

He just nods; you see his tendons in his neck standing up in relief.

“Relax,” you instruct, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze, “it will hurt less if you don't tense.”

You watch as he takes a breath and loosens up. 

Then you begin. When the needle touches his skin, he flinches slightly but not excessively.

“Is that okay?” you check

“It feels strange,” he admits. 

“Do you want me to stop?” 

“No,” he closes his eyes and moves his head to look away from you.

Time seems to speed up as you trace the outlines of the design. He is still, just the gentle rise and fall of his breathing. Again you are into your zone where this could be anyone anytime; it's about the effort and the artistry of the work. Thoughts of your strong attraction to him melt away as your focus is purely on the task at hand.  It's probably been about a half hour when he clears his throat, so you stop and look at him expectantly.

“Still okay?” you check-in.

“Yep, just a tickle in my throat,” he responds, a little dry.

“How about a drink? We can take a break here, actually,” you put down the gun and peel off the gloves you are wearing.

“Yes, please” 

“Water? Coke?” you offer

“You don't have anything stronger, do you?” he asks cheekily.

You laugh. “I do, but it's not supposed to be for customers.”

“I won't tell if you won't,” he says with a wink.

You roll your eyes a little, “Wait here,” and leave for the supply cupboard outside, where you keep the birthday whiskey your boss gave you. You grab two glasses and some ice from the kitchenette.

“Whisky on the rocks?” you announce as you reenter the room.

He’s sitting up now, taking what appears to be a selfie with his phone.

“Not vain honest,” he says sheepish, “just sending to my brother. He never believed I'd have the courage to do this. Yes, please to whiskey.”

You put down the glasses and hand him the whiskey bottle. “Here you do the honours. I will take a photo for you if you like. So you can send it?”

“Deal,” he grins, unlocking his phone and handing it to you. He cracks open the bottle seal as you snap a few shots that best show the design so far. Then you flick to another screen, type in a number and your name, and then hit send. You quickly lock the phone and hand it back.

In your pocket, your phone buzzes. 

“Did you just give me your number?” he queries, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he hands you a glass with a very generous pour. Oh, that smile is dangerous.

“Maybe…” you shoot back, hiding yours behind the glass as you raise it to your lips.

“Wait, we have to toast,” he frowns playfully as you go to take a sip.

“What to?”

“To beautiful art, whatever the canvas may be,” he says, his voice somehow more silky than before, as he clinks his glass against yours.

“That's an interesting one,” you murmur before you take a sizeable fortifying sip, enjoying the burn of the amber liquid. “You know I can’t in all good conscience continue tattooing you now I've had a drink,” you confess.

“Oh,” his face sinks slightly, “I hadn't thought about that.”

“We can continue tomorrow if you have time,” you suggest, “I can book you in.”

“Tomorrow works,” he nods, “what time do you open?”

“Usually 11am, but I can open earlier if you wish,” you offer, taking another swig of drink.

“That's very generous, but no 11am is fine. How much longer will it take?” he asks.

“Hmm, probably another hour,” you speculate. “Give or take,” as you drain your glass.

“So by lunchtime tomorrow, I will have my first finished tattoo?” he raises his eyebrows. 

“Indeed,” you smile.

“Thank you,” he says, suddenly quite earnest. “I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to go through with this if it wasn't for you,” it's a quiet confession, and he looks down, then up again through his eyelashes. 

It makes you want to pick up his chin and kiss the crap out of him.

“You are welcome,” you reply quietly, hugging your empty glass curled against your shoulder, enjoying its coolness seeping against your heated skin, unsure what else to say.

“You need a refill,” he states, gesturing for you to hand your glass over. The brush of fingers as you do so makes you want to gasp. There is silence as you watch him refill both glasses.

“No music?” he asks idly, “probably a stereotype, but I figured a tattoo parlour would have loud rock music playing all day.”

“Haha,” you deadpan, “I prefer classical or jazz when working. More zen. I can put some on if you’d like?”

“Sure, jazz sounds nice,” he says as you flick the remote and the music starts. You forget that it also programs the lights dimmer; he doesn't comment, so you let it pass.

“Ahh, Miles Davis,” he smiles, instantly recognising the track.

“Well done,” you nod, impressed and lean against the arm of the tattoo chair, enjoying the music, and the softer light in the room. 

“Can I ask you a question?” It's so quiet you almost don't hear him as he puts down his drink.

You turn slightly to face him. “Sure,” you whisper back, placing yours aside too.

“Would you have any objections if I kissed you right now?” he closes his eyes, almost pained that he is asking. 

It's the most adorable proposition you've ever received. So instead of answering, you just lean forward and press your lips to his before he even opens his eyes again.

His response is instant and surprising. For a demure proposal, the kiss that follows is anything but—a hand snakes around your waist and pulls you against his warm naked torso, his lips hungry, his tongue snaking into your mouth and stealing your breathe as he teases yours. He kisses hungry, passionate, sensual. 

God, I want to push you down and climb on top of you right now; your mind cries at him.

“Yes, please,” he gasps as you belatedly realise you spoke the words into his mouth. Out loud.

Before you can be embarrassed, he twists and starts to recline in the chair, his arm around you, pulling you over him. So you hop up and straddle him instantly, lowering yourself over him as your lips meet again.

You know, without a doubt, you will be fucking him right in this chair. A hot slide of feeling inside, heat and moisture pooling between your legs. 

As you come up for air, you reach into your pocket and unlock your phone, quickly opening an app and tapping in a code.

“That bad, huh?” he jests, a little brittle.

“Oh god, no,” you murmur, “I'm locking the fucking shop door.”

“Oh…” he smiles, “wow, it's hot when you swear.”

“Oh really,” you tilt your head and run a finger over his lips, “then I’ll say what I thought the minute you walked into my shop.” You toss your phone aside.

“What?” it’s a little breathless.

“I hope he fucks me in my tattoo chair,” you confess.

He growls and pulls your hips down against him, surging up so you feel him rigid and insistent between your legs. You are desperate for this right now; it's been what feels like hours of tension and teasing, and you are beyond ready.

“Can we just fuck?” you suggest, “I know it's like a first, but please, I just want to go fast and hard.” You've never confessed that to anyone, even when you have felt it in the past.

“Oh god, yes,” he affirms and paws at your clothing. You rip off your top, and he helps you unhook your bra, his hands instantly grabbing your breasts as soon as they are free. 

You hum approvingly as you grind against him, unfastening your jeans and his at the same time, one hand on each.

“Wow, that's efficient,” he breathes, impressed.

“Yeah, I have talents,” you laugh, pushing his jeans down his thighs.

“I can tell,” he agrees, as you hop off him, strip off your jeans and underwear to the floor and are back on him in a flash. He stutters as you grind your naked, soaked cunt against his grey boxer briefs, the moisture seeping through the cotton. “Fast and hard, you mean it?”

“Yes, I do,” it's your turn to growl.

His expression melts into something else entirely, and he surges up and forces you down on top of him. Strong arms lock you against his body as he kisses you with a ferocity you didn't think him capable of. You feel a hand next to your leg tugging down his underwear; then, he grabs himself and, without warning, surges his cock into your body.

“Oh FUCK” you scream against his lips, eyes rolling from the sheer invasion.

“You asked for it,” he gloats.

“Yes, yes, I did,” you stutter and pant as he just holds there, allowing you to adjust to the sensation.

“Is that what you wanted?” he whispers darkly. 

“Oh god, yes,” you reply and tilt downwards so his pelvis is flat on the chair. You rise, careful not to put your hand anywhere near the fresh tattoo as you place your hands on his body and start gyrating in little circles, dragging his cock against all your walls, stretching yourself out, revelling in the feeling of being so viscerally filled and violated. “Damn, you feel good,” you moan.

“So do you,” he groans, “please, please fuck me.” 

You've never had a man beg like that before, and god, it does so many things to you. You want to pull his hair and push him down, licking a hot stripe up his neck, biting his chin. Realising there’s nothing to stop you, you do it - his responding noise is music to your ears. You pull up and slam down onto him, stuttering a yes through clenched teeth. Knowing you will do this for hours until your thighs are trembling if he’ll let you. 

His hands grab your hips as you begin a steady rhythm. “Your tattoo is the sexiest thing I have ever seen,” he asserts, his fingertips trailing the vines just as you'd fantasised. Little fires of heat follow wherever he touches, bringing goosebumps to your thighs and arms. It makes you ride keener, sitting up, back arched, using just your thighs as leverage. As he reaches the vine that twists and wraps around your thigh, you moan, his knuckles brushing the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. “I want to trace it with my tongue,” he declares.

“Yessss,” you hiss, “ I want that.” He feels divine sliding in and out of your cunt, just the right dimension to make it invasive as you push down, the kind of slight ache you chase from every new sexual partner but rarely receive. You keep a steady pace, lingering on the downstroke, revelling in the stretch, then a snap up. You throw your head back and close your eyes, enjoying the intoxicating moment.

“Open your eyes,” he murmurs, his voice deep, “watch yourself”. 

You do so and see your reflection in the ceiling mirror—it's an arresting sight. He looks gorgeous laid out beneath you, and you look close to a goddess as you rise and fall onto him. 

You make eye contact with him in the reflection, which charges the atmosphere. This is so wrong, but so right - fucking this stranger in your place of work.  Hypnotised by the tableau you see above you, you grab his hands from your thighs and push them onto your breasts, leaning forward into his hold and changing the angle of your hips. You shudder as his cock nudges just right, deep inside. 

“Oh, there it is,” he smirks and tweaks your nipples as you start to pant open-mouthed and fuck yourself roughly, using him, “that's it, how does that feel?” his voice velvety.

“So… fucking… good,” you groan a word with each stroke, tearing your eyes away from the ceiling to look down at him, the chair starting to squeak a little in protest as you go faster. Plunging without thought for anything but chasing the spiralling feeling coiled tight in your belly.

“I- I can’t last like this,” he warns at your onslaught, moving his hands to grasp your hipbones, his thumbs pushing into the flesh of your belly like a band over your tattoo.

“Just hold on, please; I just need a little more. Fuck, your cock feels so good,” you babble through gritted teeth, mindlessly close to something amazing.

“What you need is this,” he growls and flicks a fingernail at your distended clit as you rise. You scream at the sensation, and your cunt clenches forcefully onto him. “Fucking hell,” he cries at the pressure.

“Do that again,” you order through gritted teeth, and he obeys, a whole pulse running up your spine this time, causing you to buck hard against him. 

You lean over and kiss him hungrily, moaning into his mouth, running your hands over his face, into his hair. As you go to pull away, he grabs your jaw and holds you in place, kissing over and over until your lips feel sore and your lungs burn for more air. All the while, you push insistently down onto him, unable to stop yourself from chasing the feeling so hard.

“Cum with me,” you whisper against his lips, looking down at him as you push yourself closer and closer.

“In-inside you?” he stumbles, his pupils blown wide, surprise written across his features as if it never occurred to him that you would allow it. 

“Yes, give it to me,” you respond gustily. You belatedly realise in your mindless haste that you are riskily bareback fucking a stranger; it’s just not like you. “I'm protected,” you shorthand.

“Okay,” he whispers, a touch reverential. 

You rise back to a sitting position, and then his finger slips against your clit, circling with the necessary pressure, and you feel hurtling straight towards oblivion, wound so tight. 

“Don't stop,” you chant, closing your eyes as you ride so fiercely the chair rocks on its moorings. He groans loudly now and is surging up strongly into you, meeting you on your downward thrust, fucking himself so deep you know you will feel it tomorrow. Opening your eyes, you see him staring up at you desperately, a bead of sweat forming on his brow that you ache to lick off. “Ben,” you cry as you snap.

You know he is groaning and calling your name and a litany of other things as you convulse around him, sunk deep, your thighs trembling, but it sounds far away as blood rushes in your ears—the vibrations coursing through your body from a tingle in your scalp to spasms in your hands. Then he sinks his fingers into the flesh of your thighs, cumming deep inside you, the warmth coating your walls.

You slump on top of him, uncaring of how inelegant it may be, the bone-deep satisfaction causing your muscles to feel languid and weak. You pant against his neck from the exertion, glad you collapsed on the side away from his tattoo.

“That was….” he begins but pauses to exhale heavily, “fuck, that was amazing,” he concludes, his hands running up and down your back in soothing, swirling patterns. “I… just… fuck, I honestly can't talk,” he gusts, embarrassed.

You giggle and lift your head to look at him. “It was wonderful,” you opine and run a finger over his lips. He busses against it, and a lazy breathtaking smile breaks across his face.

“So umm, may I see you again?” he asks, the sweet bashful man back again.

“Yes, 11am tomorrow bright and early,” you say pointedly with a smile.

“Oh fuck, I almost forgot,” he gusts a laugh attempting a glance at his shoulder.

“But umm, if you want to hang out after that, I'm amenable,” you offer with what you hope is a nonchalant tone; inside, you are yelling, please, please.

“How about before then?” he asks, “What are you doing this evening? And overnight? And in the morning?” his voice teasing and sweet.

Oh.

“I can be available,” you respond lightly, a smile tugging at your lips.

“Good,” he sighs, “because I’m probably going to need help tending this tattoo” he tilts towards his fresh ink. “And I’m definitely going to need time to tend to this tattoo,” his voice suddenly husky as he traces his fingers lightly over your vines.

Well, that's an offer you are not going to refuse.

Benedict taglist: @makaylan @foreverlonginguniverse @iboopedyournose @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @margofiore @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enchantedbytomandhenry

#benedict bridgerton fanfiction #benedict bridgerton smut #benedict bridgerton x reader #benedict bridgerton x female reader #benedict bridgerton x you #benedict bridgerton x y/n #benedict bridgerton imagine #benedict bridgerton #bridgerton fanfiction #bridgerton imagine #bridgerton

[smartycvnt]

Annoying

Title: Annoying Pairing: Jamie Hayter x Reader Prompt: 9. "I could kill you." "Or you could always just kiss me." R WC: 765

"Ugh, it's so sunny out here. Why did we have to go today?" Jamie complained as Y/n dragged her across the lake shore. It wasn't often that they both had time away from their respective jobs, and Y/n wanted to show Jamie a good time. Jamie had been so upset since losing her title that Y/n had to do something. There was only so much of Jamie's angry training and crying showers that Y/n could take.

"Because you got back yesterday and I leave tomorrow. We haven't been out for weeks Jamie, please let me have this," Y/n pouted and pleaded with Jamie. Jamie swore under her breath as she let Y/n lead her closer to the water. Swimming was fun, but Jamie hadn't been in the mood for fun lately. She wanted to get back in the ring to take back her title, but Y/n seemingly had other plans. She let Jamie set up their chairs and umbrellas in a shaded area. Jamie laid right down in one of the lounge chairs while Y/n stripped off her shorts and t-shirt. "What are you doing?"

"Taking a nap. Go on, do whatever you were planning on," Jamie said as she covered her face with a sunhat. Y/n sighed and ran off to play in the water. It wasn't nearly as much fun as she remembered, but then again, Jamie had been happy and in a good mood then. Y/n knew Jamie could be a bit of a sourpuss, but this was taking it to a new height. Y/n gave Jamie a good hour to keep acting all moody before she started to actively get Jamie in the water or down to play in the same with her.

The first attempt had been brushed off as Y/n laid her very wet body next to Jamie's and cuddled her. Jamie simply turned over and ignored Y/n until the woman sulked off to form a new plan. Y/n felt almost like a cartoon character with all the ridiculous things she was attempting to get Jamie off of that stupid chair. None of them were working. Jamie simply threw her now-wet shirt at Y/n whenever Y/n had kicked sand towards her and told her to get up. The children that Y/n paid to go bother Jamie had been scared off whenever the Brit yelled at them. Nothing was working, and Y/n was on the verge of giving up when she accidentally tripped and fell onto Jamie's legs.

"Oh my fucking god, you are so annoying! I didn't want to come to the beach with you today, but I went anyways. Can you please leave me alone for five minutes before I fucking kill you?" Jamie shouted as she shoved Y/n off of the chair. Y/n looked away and tried to blink away the tears from being yelled at, but it was no use.

"I just wanted us to spend some time together," Y/n murmured. Jamie softened a little at how small and quiet Y/n's voice had gotten. They'd been fighting so much lately that Jamie had expected to be met with the same level of aggression. It was clear now that Y/n had been struggling just as much as Jamie had, but unlike Jamie, Y/n tried to do something nice and fun for the two of them.

"Hey I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you, it's just that I've been having a hard time lately. I don't know how to handle my loss, and I took it out on you. I shouldn't have done that," Jamie said softly as she sat down next to Y/n in the sand.

"I could kill you for making me cry in public," Y/n muttered angrily. Jamie nudged Y/n with her forehead and pressed a small kiss to Y/n's cheek.

"Or you could always just kiss me. I like that idea much better," Jamie said hopefully. She would know how badly she had fucked up based on whether or not Y/n kissed her. Jamie held her breath as she waited for Y/n to make a move. Just when Jamie was about to give up and call it a day, Y/n pressed a kiss to the corner of Jamie's mouth. It wasn't a direct kiss, which meant Jamie wasn't completely forgiven, but it was a start. "Why don't we go for a swim? It's pretty hot up here and I could cool off."

#my writing #jamie hayter x reader #jamie hayter #aew x reader #aew

[lifmera]

hi hi!! hope your doing well! i’d like to ask for a romantic hazbin hotel match up! i’m gender-fluid masculine presenting and i use all pronouns, and i don’t have a gender preference! 

My MBTI is ISTP but most people perceive me as a ENTP. i am quite tall, around six feet. i have a strong sense of right and wrong and justice, and i care deeply for others, but i often act reckless and loud because i don’t want to be taken advantage of for my kindness.

i really like being around people, and i like helping others in any way i can, i can be quite selfless at times but i know when to be stern to protect myself.  i am quite social but i suffer from some mental illness, specifaclly bipolar and schizophrenia so it can make it quite hard to understand and connect with others and the world around me.

i am autistic and i often stim a lot by flapping my hands and moving my arms around. i have a lot of different interests, i really like silly things like clowns i think they are awesome and i really like fictional media, i also like collecting toys like my little pony, it makes me feel really happy!

i have a couple hobbies, i really like shopping a lot, i find it to be super fun, i also like writing and drawing, and i’m getting into software engineering! i also like listening to music, i listen to a wide range of genres but my favorites are breakcore, indie folk, glitch core and basically anything that is loud tbh 😭 

i am often disconnected mentally from the world around me, so i sometimes have psychosis and hallucinations, i take medication for it and it works well but i still have episodes sometimes, it really helps having someone to ground me back into reality.

i really like bonding over interests with others and getting people into the stuff i like, i also love listening to others talk about things they like. i have really bad memory so i often forget important things but i try my best.

best way to describe my style i guess would be older brother core 😭??? idk but basically i wear comfy oversized clothes like silly t- shirts with cats on them and pj pants with cartoon characters on them and silly character beanies. 

i really like being shown love by getting gifts and people doing actions of service for me, i kind of have trust issues so it’s hard to believe someone when it’s just words and not actions.

i am super chaotic i love saying unhinged things and just being very loud it’s very fun for me, i like jokingly threatening to eat people  😭 i also often type in all caps.

i am in a lot of obscure fandoms and i LOVE nerding out about my interests! 

sorry if this is a lot 😭 but thank you so much!!

AHHH THE ONE I HAD DELETED 🥲

Hi hun!! This is completely fine!!

I’ve paired you with…. ANGEL DUST!!

When angel first met you, he definitely thought you were super attractive, and decided to hit on you!

But when he got closer to you, he really realized that he was starting to develop feelings 🩷

At first he was super drawn in by your reckless personality, but when you showed your true kind self- he fell in love.

With your sense of Justice especially… when he saw how you treated Valentino… and GENUINELY truly cared about him? It broke down his walls and let you into his heart.

He definitely introduced you to Cherri and you all became BESTIES. They would totally drag you around to parties and such and socialize ! You guys are the LIVES of the party.

If you confided in him about the mental illness and autism, he definitely would ask a BUNCH of questions to understand you more, and also try not to offend you.

He’d also try to help you through your episodes. He knows he isn’t the best comforter, but he tries. :(

If you told him your special interests he’d bolt out the door with you to do those things! Like clowns? LULU LAND!

Collectors Items? THE STORE!!!!

Angel would love to do some of your hobbies with you. Shopping? You guys are staying out ALL DAY. Writing? You better read whatever it is to him. Listening to music? SINGING YOUR HEARTS OUT!

Honestly, he’d probably judge your outfit choice, until he decided to steal your outfit one day, and realized how comfortable it is??

He totally steals ur clothes at night.

Angel would agree with you !! Actions speak louder than words, kinda why he’s at the hotel! Although he’s always pretty sexual, I think he’d be a sweetheart.

The chaotic nature is what brought him in! You guys are always having fun.

He would also LOVE TO listen to you rant 24/7. Even if he cant get into your interests, he’d try. And he’d always listen. It helps him get away from the world.

~~~

I HOPE THIS WAS OKAY?!!

#hazbin lilith #hazbin cherri bomb #hazbin nifty #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin vaggie #hazbin charlie #hazbin angel dust #hazbin alastor #hazbin husk #hazbin hotel #hazbin lucifer #hazbin vox #hazbin velvette #hazbin adam #hazbin sera #hazbin emily #hazbin lute #hazbin carmilla #hazbin zestial #hazbin rosie

[would-holden-caulfield-like-nge]

The Bully Artstyle

Am I the only one who really appreciates the official Bully artstyle?

Though, calling it one style is technically wrong, since the images are made out of one front image and the comic background, both of which are made by different artists.

If you are wondering, the guy who did the main illustrations is Anthony Macbain.

If you look around his website, you will not only see his Bully art, but also that he also did some work for the GTA series.

The person who did the background illustrations is Stephen Bliss, who... also did art for GTA, believe it or not. I guess Rockstar only has that many artists that focus on semi-realism.

Obviously, since GTA is like, the most famous thing ever, his website does not focus on Bully that much. But if you scroll all the way in the Rockstar Games portion of his website, you will find the art that was used for the backgrounds! And it seems like he designed the logo too!

Now that we know who did it, I'll try to to a bit of art analysis.

Similar to the GTA style, the style of Bully is somewhat realistic. Kind of stiff looking, to be honest. But the background illustrations kind of make up for that.

The lines are mostly the same unchanging width (except for some smaller lines for details). They do not taper much. The lines are also colored - their color is more dulled out than the colors they are containing.

The colors are also kind of dull in general (though this may only be because of my monitor.) Probably because the art is going for that realistic look. Of course, we could also look at it a bit more artistically and say that the colors are dull to fit the miserable atmosphere of Bullworth. You might also notice that there are no real whites - the shirts are either tinted yellow, or whatever color is around it. I think this is pretty neat. White fabric often tends to reflect the colors around it in real life.

The lineart is just a bit too chunky to convey true realism, so it is stylized in a cool kinda blocky way. The shadows are also quite blocky in general. They often tend to be interesting shapes by themselves. Look at those eyebags and the shadow under the mouth!

Besides the hard shadows, the art also uses some airbrush-like effects. Look at how it conveys the shininess of Pinky's belt and the softer shadow on her thigh. It is also used in Gary's hair to show the soft color transition.

The opposite of shadows, the hair highlights, are these cool zigzag shapes. I like it when artists make the hair highlight a bold shape like that. Speaking of the hair highlights, notice how they often have a similar color to the background. Like, look at this - these ones are actually a pretty bold purple, probably to mimic the way real hair can, just like fabric, reflect the color of its environment.

Now, let's look at the blush. A lot of the characters in these illustrations have this strong blush on their cheeks and nose. This is probably used to make them look a bit more alive. I wanted to say every character, but then I looked at the art again and found out that was just not true.

Look at these two, for example. Edna sort of has the blush, but it is single colored and blocky, making her look kinda sick, rather than more alive. The boy next to her also doesn't have the blush, probably because the brighter pink wouldn't work as well on darker skin.

Mr Burton here also does not have the blush, because... I don't know, to be honest. Random stylistic choice, I guess.

Overall, I cannot quite name why I like the style of the main illustrations so much. It's just not the kind of thing that would usually appeal to me. I guess it's something about the realism combined with the cartoon stylisation and the slight blockiness of it all.

I have much less to say about the background illustrations. Don't get me wrong, I love them. It's just that they are only black and white, so we really cannot dissect the stylistic choices here. But also...

God, I just love the style of these. Just look at them. The caricature-ish style done with some bold inks is so cool. These have so much character, shame we never got a real comic in this style. And since they are black and white, they are as contrasting as a picture can be. Which means they are perfect for the backgrounds. And since the style is so exaggerated, it looks good even when the pictures are pretty small.

I wonder, were these done digitally, or with real ink? Both are possible, I think.

And that's about it for this post. If you have any other observations about these styles, I would love to read it. I just really like these illustrations!

#bully cce #canis canem edit #thoughts #Sorry if this is clumsily written I only wrote this in about an hour and a half

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

Pirate stripe tee? I can only think of using it for a Phineas Cosplay but nothing else :/

Not that Cosplaying any characters from Dan Povenmire’s cartoons is bad

Striped T-shirts are pretty flexible. It's just an ordinary shirt, after all. That said I associate striped t-shirts with berets, for some reason, so I went with the Annaki Beret & Glasses, as that's definitively the best one, in my opinion. For the shoes, I thought the outfit had a kinda summery vibe? And with that in mind I grabbed the Annaki Strappy Sandals.

This is a kind of person I could imagine seeing having breakfast at a local coffee shop on a summer morning.

#outfit request