#lisa frank flannel

[roboticchibitan]

My gf helped me buy this flannel

And I was like "that's some Lisa Frank ass flannel right there. I simply MUST make a flannel shirt out of it" even tho it's not shirting and is only dyed on one side. My girlfriend, who is now asking "what have I done," suggested I embroider one of the Lisa Frank animals on the back. So I am gonna embroider this leopard

On the back of it with these colors

I spent several hours today making a shirt pattern by tracing around an existing flannel shirt on muslin. I haven't sewn the muslin together yet, but it's on my list of things to do tomorrow! And then I will have a pattern that's durable so I can continue making ridiculous shirts for myself.

#I hyperfocused and forgot to pace myself so now I am very sore #but it'll be worth it #lisa frank flannel #embroidery #v's fiber arts tag #sewing

[beansprean]

Lil comic from chapter 1 of Alethophobia by @jay-auris! Character designs by the incredible @pejntboks!

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1a. Distant shot from behind a white van parked on a patch of gravel and dirt with its rear doors wide open, pine trees in the distance against a darkening sky. Human Nandor is rummaging around in the equipment in the back of the van, muttering angrily to himself. He is wearing a green flannel with rolled sleeves over a white tee shirt tucked into cut off blue jean shorts, white knee socks, and hiking boots. The side of Guillermo's face appears in closeup in the foreground, looking at him. 1b. Shot from inside the van as Guillermo comes up behind Nandor, both now facing the viewer. Nandor has his graying hair down and hanging messily in his face as he scowls, sweat beading on his forehead. He wears a silver medallion around his neck, orange tasbih prayer beads around his right wrist, has two orbital piercings with silver hoops and a silver conch stud in his left ear, and silver vertical studs on his right eyebrow. He continues glaring at the equipment and shuffling it around with his left hand as he thrusts a camera bag out behind him with his right, snapping, "Leave Laszlo to pack everything like an overgrown child. Here, pull out the extra batteries so I can put them in the actual fucking battery cases we own." Guillermo looks down at the bag in surprise as it is thrust towards him, hands coming up automatically to take it. He is wearing a black tee shirt with a gray symbol on the chest under a sleeveless unzipped dark blue hoodie with red trim, black leggings, red sneakers, a black fidget ring on his right middle finger, and a silver cross around his neck, tucked into the shirt. 1c. Close up of Guillermo as takes the bag and removes the batteries, aiming a concerned look at Nandor as he does so. He asks, "Are you okay?" 1d. Waist up of Nandor from Guillermo's POV as he straightens up and wrestles his hair back into a messy bun with quick, angry motions. Still glaring down at the equipment, he snarls, "I dislike long car rides; I dislike being out of the city;" 1e. Reverse shot, close up of the back of Nandor's head with its painful looking bun in the foreground as he continues, "I dislike laszlo's laissez-faire attitude towards the security of our expensive equipment..." In the background, Guillermo frowns as he observes Nandor's hair.

2a. Repeat. Guillermo interrupts Nandor's venting by pointing toward his hair and asking, "Can I fix that?" Nandor's head in the foreground turns toward him, asking, "Huh?" 2b. Wide shot facing the rear of the van as Guillermo says, "Your hair, just- c'mere." Guillermo takes Nandor by the shoulders, turns him around, and pushes him down to sit on the bumper with a small, unassuming smile. Nandor looks shocked and not a little flustered, shoulders tense under Guillermo's hands. 2c. Close up on Nandor as Guillermo pulls the rubber band from his hair and lets it loose around his shoulders, covering his eyes. Guillermo combs his fingers through the strands and Nandor stills, expression hidden but cheeks going red. 2d. Close up of Nandor's face from the nose down in profile as Guillermo's hands gather his hair behind his shoulders. 2e. Close up of the back of Nandor's head from Guillermo's POV as he pulls all of Nandor's hair together neatly at his crown.

3a. Close up on Nandor's side, elbow to hip, as Guillermo's right hand leaves his head to tap two fingers on Nandor's jeans pocket. Nandor pulls his elbow away in surprise. 3b. Repeat. Nandor's other hand obliges, pulling a second rubber band from his pocket and offering it to Guillermo, who hooks it onto his finger. 3c. Waist up of Guillermo as he steps back with a hesitant grin, hands clasped together at his sternum. He says, "There. Better?" 3d. Close up of Nandor's right hand as it lifts his phone and unlocks it with a thumb. His phone case is a Lisa-Frank-esque close up of a white horse with purple, blue, and pink spots on a backdrop of a blue sky with clouds and a rainbow.

4a. Bust of Nandor as he raises his phone up to take a look at himself in the camera, expression now softened from his earlier frustration. His hair is now twisted up into a neat, round bun at the crown of his head, one stubborn strand loose at his temple. He raises his eyebrows, liking what he sees, and says "Huh. That's very good. How did you do that?" 4b. Zoom out to knees up, Nandor still perched on the bumper of the van. Guillermo stuffs his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and leans back against one of the van doors, flushed and grinning as he aims his gaze elsewhere. With a humble shrug, he replies, "Sister taught me. She said that if I wanted to impress a girl one day, I should learn how to do basic styles." Nandor lowers his phone and drapes that arm over his raised knee, left hand palming the other to balance himself as he turns his torso towards Guillermo with a grin. He says, "Well, color this girl impressed." /end ID

#wwdits #nandermo #mlm #alethophobia #fic rec #fic comic #what we do in the shadows #what we do in the shadows fx #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless #human nandor #my art #fanart #fan comic #image described

[marmolita]

I keep seeing posts about what the "real" aesthetic of the 90s was and it bugs me because there were multiple aesthetics in the 90s! This is missing many things (including all of men's fashion lol) but my personal experience of them involved at least the following:

(None of these pics are mine, I found them on image search and looked for stuff that looked pretty public, but if one is yours and you want an attribution lmk!)

Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper aesthetic: bright neon colors, geometric patterns, save the whales! Hypercolor t-shirts, hot pink everything, my personal tween fashion of oversized colorful t-shirts paired with plain black leggings. Popular in the early 90s, tapered off around idk 1994?

Grunge aesthetic: just-rolled-out-of-bed I don't give a shit feel, ripped jeans, band t-shirts with a flannel on top, messy hair, everything sucks and the world is shit so whatever!! Wallet in your pocket connected with a chain to your belt loop and a pair of Doc Marten boots, my sister's teenage look. Most popular in the mid-90s, like 92-97?

Delia's Catalog aesthetic: that cute look with spaghetti strap tops paired with wide leg cargo pants, lots of hair clips, maybe some platform sneakers and a pretty pink lace choker? Pens with puffballs on the back, designs of cute animals in little rows making borders, butterfly clips. Cap sleeve babydoll tees and babydoll dresses! This was the hot stuff in the mid-late 90s, like idk 95-99?

Take a spin on this one by turning everything black instead of pink and you get the Hot Topic mall goth look:

Everything black!! All the time!! Put some black fishnets under your cutoff denim shorts and slap a pentagram on your pencil box. Similar era I think iirc?

I can't find a good picture to illustrate the spin I'm thinking of as the last aesthetic I recall from the 90s but it's an aggressive sporty style that involves low rise sweats, crop tops, and facial and belly button piercings. White tanks and chains for guys with their jeans slung low. I feel like this started around 98ish and carried through to the 00s? I guess I would also put in this bucket the look of a crop top under a pair of overalls with dark lip liner and drawn on eyebrows, it feels similar.

Anyway all of that to say the 90s was not a monolith and had multiple fashion and graphic design trends over the course of the decade, so it's not really wrong to call any of them a 90s aesthetic but it's also not right to call any single one THE 90s aesthetic.

#the 90s #I am not an expert on any of this just a girl who was 8-18 during that decade

[senkovi]

Brennan, how does it feel running for a group with all women?

[ID: video from the dimension 20′s adventuring party for the first episode of the seven. (transcript edited for clarity)

brennan: i saw this as an improv teacher, specifically in like, in classes that that were less diverse and didn’t reflect real diversity, people would be nervous to share culture and share identity. and in this one it’s like, we all got fans, we fucking love lisa frank, what do you want? like, come at me.

rekha: to highlight that, even when erika just said that danielle is asian, i was like… (offscreen reaction)

sephie: i have big regrets not saying that sam was black in the episode.

rekha: oh my god, episode two baby!

brennan: this is canon now!

aabria: there’s plenty of time! episode two is gonna be all about protective hairstyles.

becca: i forgot to describe my physicality at all, except for “small.”

rekha: crispy-ass shirts, let’s go! but even just hearing that (gestures to erika), made me feel like, oh my god, i can reveal that katja, despite that not being any type of asian name, is asian.

erika: yeah!

sephie: i mean, russia’s kinda in asia. 

rekha: and listen, anybody can be anything and you know what, whatever, like, it’s beautiful. it was just, i was just like wow, like, she’s half-orc, but she’s indian! is there india in this game? i don’t know, but there’s asia so…

aabria: it feels so good, right? brennan, you said “box braids” and i lost my fucking mind inside my head, i was like (pretends to cry).

sephie: the dreadlocked bun… 

aabria: yeah! the mom with the bun!

sephie: i was like… mwah. (to brennan) good on you for knowing those protective hairstyles by the way.

aabria: yeah, thank you!

brennan: oh, shucks. well that’s the thing, it’s very-

erika: the flannel and then the boots for danielle’s mom-

rekha: and when you said “matcha” too, i was like (starts fanning herself)

(crosstalk)

brennan: but that’s the fun thing is like, following all of those leads down and fleshing those things out. it feels so fun and rewarding to be able to do that. but again, to answer the question, it is like celebrating the specific energy of like, these are high school girls, best friends, on the thread, in the car, going to school… this is the unique energy. the energy is feminine. we’re celebrating that. but also, what’s fun is, as a dm, i haven’t been serving neutral energy. i’ve often been serving masculine energy. and so it’s this weird thing of looking at it and being like, all those times you were doing very bro-y storytelling with your dude friends when you were a little teenager learning to play d&d, that wasn’t default either. that wasn’t neutral. there’s no such thing as neutral, right? and you’re always serving an energy. and the reason i say it’s simultaneously so fun and intoxicating—there is an intoxicating part of it, it feels so cool—but also feels seamless because if you are dungeon mastering correctly, what you are doing is following the energy of your players at the table and you feel invited into their world and their story and you’re like, great, all i’m doing is being the chorus line to the person in the spotlight hitting the solo, right? and it’s so wonderful. it’s a marvelous feeling.

end ID]

#videos #the seven #adventuring party #dimension 20 #long post

[partypacking]

YDKJ fashion headcanon post.

Cookie’s fashion sense is kind of all over the place. He generally dresses pretty masc and plain, but he’ll pair skirts with just about anything, and wears pants and skirts in equal amounts. He has a VERY strong affection for gaudy 60’s and 70’s patterns and aesthetics, though, and that reflects in certain outfits of his. He also wears sports bras pretty regularly, for comfort reasons.

Joel has a goth/punk/metalhead/techwear thing going on. He wears a LOT of black and a LOT of green (because he thinks his new eyes are “cool as fuck”), and a lot of black with neon in general. The choker is a staple for every outfit of his; Cookie had it custom made for him, and Joel loves it.

Schmitty dresses like your dad. Polos, Hawaiian shirts, tacky t-shirts, you name it, he’s got an Extremely Dad aesthetic. He hates pants, but he still wears them in public, because he has to. He has custom Quiplash polos in different colors matching the little Quiplash heads.

Nate dresses fem and gender-neutrally in the sense of “something you’d see someone rich in the fashion industry wear”. He loves giant faux fur coats, leopard prints, jewel-tone colors, and elaborate necklaces/rings/jewelry as a whole. He owns a lot of platform shoes and heels, too, and he’s SO good at walking in them. He owns a lot of lingerie tailored for himself and his body.

Guy dresses like a guy. Like a jock, predictably. He’s got a fondness for scrunchies and hairbands, because ponytail/manbun. He makes sweats look good. He owns several varsity-style jackets, too. Sometimes he’ll wear shorts cut a little too short and wonder why people are staring at him.

Buzz dresses like your dad, but in the sense of how trans men dress like your dad. He’s got SOME t-boy swag. He and Schmitty have an alarmingly similar fashion sense, except Buzz lives more in flannel and cargo shorts/pants than Schmitty does.

Bob dresses like a box of crayons exploded. He dresses like a Lisa Frank picture came to life and decided it needed to look terrible. He wears clashing patterns, and nothing he owns matches. If he wears a matching outfit, assume the worst is about to come. He owns an alarming amount of leggings.

#txt #headworld

[emcon-imagines]

Comfort tag game!

What's your comfort weather?

What's your comfort/favourite song?

What's your comfort movie?

What's your favourite feature about your home/room?

What's your favourite snack?

What's your favourite compliment to receive?

How does your favourite outfit look like?

Which five songs give you strength?

What are your top five comfort quotes?

Which gesture gives you ultimate comfort?

Tag your ten most comforting blogs!

What's your comfort weather?

oh definitely a super stormy day, lots of rain with rumbles of thunder. something I can fall asleep to.

What's your comfort/favourite song?

anything by Sleeping at Last's Atlas or Astronomy project, which I compiled here on a playlist ages ago

What's your comfort movie?

Mamma Mia and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

What's your favourite feature about your home/room?

Probably my bed right next to the window and my little orange Himalayan salt lamp

What's your favourite snack?

Wheat thins

What's your favourite compliment to receive?

Literally anytime someone compliments something I've worked hard on: writing, a project, etc. My favorite compliments are like the super-specific ones, especially if it's my writing because it means that people read it and paid attention to the little details I loved so much!

How does your favourite outfit look like?

It's probably my green jumper with my Mona Lisa socks and black converse with a pair of matching sunglasses

Which five songs give you strength?

Praying - Kesha

I'm Still Here - Sia

Silk - Wolf Alice

Touch - Daft Punk

What's Up? - 4 Non Blondes

What are your top five comfort quotes?

“Never say no to adventures. Always say yes, otherwise you'll lead a very dull life.” ~ Ian Fleming

"In the dark times / Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times" ~ from "Motto" by Bertolt Brecht

"Look for me, Father, on the roof / of the red brick building / at the foot of Green Street— / that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor. / I’m the boy in the white flannel gown / sprawled on this coarse gravel bed / searching the starry sky, / waiting for the world to end." ~ from "Halley’s Comet” by Stanley Kunitz

"Watchman, tell us of the night, for the morning seems to dawn. Traveler, shadows take their flight; doubt and terror are withdrawn." ~ from Watchman, Tell Us of the Night by John Bowring

"Well, I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm gonna get real weird with it." ~ Frank Reynolds, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Which gesture gives you ultimate comfort?

I thought about this for a long time but I legit don't know but maybe when someone is like "this reminded me of you" or "I was thinking about you"

#hajdshfkjdshfjksf today is about comfort tings i guess #etalks

[nightwingshero]

1, 7, and 19 for Wren?

Thank you for the ask, hun!!! Sorry it took so long!

1. Why did you pick their name?

I wanted something that was unisex, because Wren was going to be born to a father who wanted a son (and eventually loses her mother), so the options were at first: Quinn, Harper, Peyton, and Blake. But I stumbled across Wren, and I loved the way it sounded, and I loved the meaning behind it (songbird and such). It fit well for my character “getting free”, so I saw it as a bird in a cage parallel. I ran with it, chose Blake as her last name because I loved it so much, and then named one of my security captains Quinn, and Wren’s daughter Harper. I almost lost it when I noticed that bird cages hang in the church, which is a tattoo she has, so I guess it was meant to be in a way. 

7. Their 2020s AU quarantine craft of choice?

Yikes, bottles of wine and bourbon, tons of learning how to make cheesecake (and cooking in general--she thanks Whit, Quinn, and Randy), video games, and music! She might practice drawing, but that could go either way. Honestly, she would probably do weird ass piano covers (or parodies) of songs and send them to her friends, or stream them. Jane tells her to fuck off, Rowan watches and might reply “lol” from time to time with a smiley face (sometimes with a light joke, Whitney doesn’t say anything but she loves to listen as she cooks for support, Randy is making comments throughout, Quinn is laughing and suggesting other songs, Grayson is quiet and rolls his eyes and eventually hopes off after he’s watched for the right amount of time to not piss her off, Mel is trying to sing along...in the chat, and Ivy opens it for like 5 minutes and enjoys when it’s more Wren being serious but is always a bit taken aback when things get weird. 

19. What cute thing were they into as a tween that they cringe about now? (Let them know I love it!)

She totally did the scrunchy thing with baggy jeans and oversized flannel. She also did the butterfly clips and would tie a scarf over her hip like Britney Spears. She was also a loyal fan of the Backstreet Boys, but that didn’t really go away. Wren is still a fan. She also was super into Lisa Frank stuff for awhile there, and Ed Hardy. She tried to as Iconic as the late 90′s and early 00′s would allow. She cringes at most of it. 

#oc: wren blake #my ocs #asks #far cry 5

[feyleviathan]

On the North Wall

The Brooklyn skyline peeks from under a curtained window. A 1997 flip calendar is set to August, each day leading up to the current date—the twenty-first—ironically adorned with a single Lisa Frank sticker. Pale white walls serve as a tapestry for iridescent band and movie posters, long-forgotten relics of a nonextant Golden Age. The same evergreen plaid pattern splays across the curtains, the bed fabric, and the countless flannel shirts collecting dust on the pinewood floor. The north wall is noticeably blank, pale white but for several conspicuously light rectangles. A neon trashbin near the door contains a high stack of rolled-up posters and played-out 45s, all from the same band: The Honeyfuckles.

Reposing on a beanbag chair opposite the north wall is a seventeen-year-old boy with puffy eyes and a reddened complexion. A heap of newly wet tissues lay on the floor beside him, a shoddy mockery of his furniture choice. A red cord, winding from a MacBook Pro, ends in the Dr Dre headphones that rest on his ears, blaring Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell loud enough to scarcely reach the next room. The laptop, sprinkled with fresh tears, shakes from anxious legs as the boy viciously deletes all traces of The Honeyfuckles’ discography from his laptop. The year is evidently not 1997, as the calendar indicates, but some millennial year of which this boy denies the existence, as surely as he has begun to deny the existence of The Honeyfuckles.

Their affair began in a deep recess of the Internet when he was just starting to develop his musical tastes. He had requested bands similar to another favourite of his (which, oddly enough, he only listened to for ironic value), and received a single recommendation for The Honeyfuckles.

He fell in love instantly. After listening to them online, he went to his favourite record shop and custom ordered The Honeyfuckles’ entire discography on vinyl. The boy soon became sure that he was one of the only people in the world who listened to the band, as even the record shop owner—usually familiar with such obscure bands—gave him a questioning look when the boy made his order. A smile developed on the boy’s face, widening as the realisation became clearer: he was The Honeyfuckles’ sole audience.

He felt closer to them knowing he was one of the esoteric few Honeyfuckles fans. Each lyric, each melody, spoke to him privately. It was as if every track were recorded for him personally, rather than for a world of potential listeners. The Honeyfuckles seduced his ears from their musical virginity, showed him shades of melody never before experienced. They were the first band he didn’t have to listen to ironically.

They became his daydreams and his lullabies. He covered his walls with their posters; lived, breathed, and worshipped The Honeyfuckles. His bedroom, wardrobe, and electronics—indeed, his existence—became a shrine to the band. He decorated the north wall with as many posters and images of the band he could find, though there were so few that he had to fill in the gaps with self-made fan-art and handwritten lyrics. A single backstage ticket for the band’s upcoming tour sat framed on his desk, an idol to his passion. Having never seen them perform, he anticipated the gig like none other—that is, until yesterday, when he had received the vinyl of their tenth studio record, From the Ground Up.

As with all their other work, the boy had excitedly pre-ordered a vinyl copy of From the Ground Up months in advance. The shipping was late by several days, and given the band’s obscurity, he couldn’t listen online yet—his experience of the album was limited by the arrival of the 45s.

When the record finally appeared at his doorstep, clothed in bubble-wrap and a cardboard sheath, he anticipated a record comparable to all the others. He wanted his ears to be seduced again by his familiar, yet fresh, lover. He delicately eased the side A 45 out of its cover and placed it on his gramophone.

Instead of The Honeyfuckles, however, his ears were met with a strange, confounding sound—synthetic, superficial, contemporary. It was undeniably their work, but there was an eeriness about it, as if it lurked in the musical equivalent of uncanny valley. The boy found himself denying this dissonance, and listened to half of the album until he began to go mad from the cacophony. He snatched the record from the gramophone and repeatedly perused the label to ensure that the work was genuinely from The Honeyfuckles. The trademark, insignia, and production labels were all there—it had to be theirs.

He began to hyperventilate in indecision, curling up in his bed. In hopes of curing his disillusion, he stuck an earlier album of theirs onto the gramophone, but his efforts were counterproductive. He could now identify the style and tones of the new record in all their old work. With increasingly irregular breaths, he replaced the records on the gramophone, one by one, but all became indistinguishable from the newest record. They were the same album.

Horrified, he rushed out the door and rode his Dutch bicycle to the nearest Starbucks. Sipping on a tall mocha, he heard the DJ of the café’s radio station proclaim that the next tune would be from the newest up-and-coming band in America, a hit chosen by a local record shop owner. The voice was followed by a familiar tune: the first track from The Honeyfuckles’ new record. Abandoning his drink, the boy fled to his bicycle, pedalling home in wide-eyed, aching exasperation.

Once he reached his room, he began tearfully ripping down poster after poster of The Honeyfuckles. The north wall became more and more stripped until it was finally naked, left only with shadowy remnants of the torn posters. Lastly, the boy reached for the framed Honeyfuckles ticket. After a wild movement of the arms and a crash, he snatched the ticket from the broken glass, nicking himself as he did so. His hands, now bleeding, tore the ticket repeatedly until it became a shower of flakes. Exhausted, he fell to the floor and drifted into dreamless sleep. The next evening, he was sitting in his beanbag chair, blaring Bat Out of Hell, choking back tears and furiously deleting all things Honeyfuckle from his MacBook.

By winter, From the Ground Up had become the number one album in America. The Honeyfuckles’ fanbase was no longer just the boy and a few random Internet users from around the globe—its fanbase was the world. He could no longer enter Starbucks, for they’d inevitably be playing or otherwise promoting The Honeyfuckles. His other haunts, the underground record shop and radio station, had become renowned as starting points for The Honeyfuckles’ fame. They, too, had become overtaken by the band.

The Honeyfuckles were the object of every musical discussion; their discography was praised in retroactive Pitchfork reviews, they’d been on the cover and centrefold of Rolling Stone, and they even had a multi-section Wikipedia article, all signs of mainstream popularity they never had before. Whereas the members were previously anonymous, the boy now saw their faces everywhere. They viscerally repulsed him, and yet there was a curious quality to them all that the boy recognised in himself. Every image he saw of them was like gazing at a photograph of himself as a child: familiar, yet remarkably distant.

Now the boy spends his every day caged in his room, futilely searching for a band whose music can provoke the feelings once inspired in him by The Honeyfuckles. He maintains a backup disc on which he shamefully stores their discography, keeping it under the excuse that he’s too lazy to delete the songs. And yet, on lonely days, in bouts of tired sadness, he will sometimes slide the disc into his laptop and listen to a few songs until embarrassment brings him to delete the contents of the disc—which yearning emptiness causes him to resurrect just minutes later.

After one such episode, the boy decides to venture about the city in hopes of finding a lieu free from The Honeyfuckles’ fame. Boarding his Dutch bicycle yet again, he pedals until, in a previously unnoticed corner of an otherwise empty block, he sees a sign bearing the symbol of a record. He rides towards it, hope in his heart, and enters the shop nervously. Though small, he gasps in delight at detecting no signs of Honeyfuckle influence and begins to sift through the shop’s selection. He spots a tattered cassette tape from a band he’d never heard of before, The Rustic Eels, and brings it to the shop’s counter. As soon as the sallow-faced owner appears, the station changes to a song from The Honeyfuckles’ very first album.

The boy’s expression freezes as his hands drop his find onto the counter. All the feelings of the past few months flood into his mind as the song plays at an achingly slow pace, magnified by the shock of his experiences. He recalls his distraught rage of that night when the radio station first revealed his possession to the world. As images of the tattered ticket and the disposed records and the freshly bare walls pass through his memory, he becomes increasingly aware of the gap in his heart from where The Honeyfuckles were torn in those tragic few moments. Zombie-like, he pays for the Rustic Eels tape; by the time the transaction is complete, the emptiness has overtaken his soul.

Rushing out of the store, he haphazardly slips the cassette from its sheath and shoves it into his boombox, turning the volume up to eleven. He jumps on his bike and rides all through the streets, playing The Rustic Eels for everyone to hear. He needs the distraction, but the new band is so painful to listen to that it only forces his mind towards The Honeyfuckles. Tears mottle the street as he contemplates the end of their music, relegated among the masses to forgotten iTunes purchases and middle-school romance mixtapes. For all the countless mp3 players The Honeyfuckles are featured on now, for all the current magazine coverage and contemporary fame, it will all disappear in a month when they fall out of favour. The current fans will all go on to cherish another unsuspecting band until they throw it, too, into the graveyard of discarded musicians, all deflowered into fame.

The boy sobs even louder, overlaying The Rustic Eels with his tears. The Honeyfuckles were not just a placeholder on some transient pop playlist of his. They were not just another hit to him, or even another band to listen to ironically and pretentiously brag about to imagined music connoisseurs. They were an intimate part of his soul, a fundamental part of his identity. And now? Now they had been taken away from him, stripped of their value by ignorant conformists. It was as if the secret grounding his soul were presented to the universe, and now he was nothing, nothing but another consumer who had taken part in the short-lived Honeyfuckle fad.

Disillusioned a second time, the boy pedals home in a passionate frenzy. In his room, he pants wildly, filled with rage and anguish. Although he has the instinct to tear down posters and rip up his ticket—to relive that fervent ecstasy of destruction yet again—none of these artifacts are to be found. Nothing is left for him to destroy but that last CD, which he listens to only in his most desperate times. He rushes to his MacBook and ejects it, and, gripping it tightly, flings his arm towards the ground... yet he cannot let go of the CD. His hand is locked in its position, as if the CD had welded itself to it. He screams and tries releasing his grip, yet his fingers do not move from the disc. He is interlocked with this relic of his tastes, with the culture of the masses and the music of the world.

Hoping that gravity might separate him from the monstrous thing, he wildly heaves his arm every which way. Yet the more he struggles, the stronger the CD’s fusion with his skin. After much fruitless effort, he settles down, breathing heavily, and looks to his hand as he momentarily glimpses a shard of opalescence dissolving into his skin. Before he can register the illusion, however, it is gone.

Sitting on his beanbag chair, he tries moving his fingers and is finally successful. Exhaling in relief, he decides that he must have released the CD somewhere into the depths of his room. For a moment he contemplates searching for it, but then decides that it’s perhaps just as well if he lost it. Either way, he’ll never encounter The Honeyfuckles again—at least, not in the privacy of his bedroom.

And yet, strangely, he does see The Honeyfuckles again. Not a day after his curious brush with the disc, he has the urge to go to his favourite old record shop—the one overtaken by The Honeyfuckles—and re-purchase all their albums, perhaps on vinyl, and even a poster or two. Stranger still, while he does precisely this at the record shop, he also feels the desire to purchase products from other contemporary musicians. A song playing on the shop’s radio catches his attention, and he ends up purchasing that band’s entire discography too, as well as a few posters.

* * *

Springtime. The bedroom is recognizable, and yet different from how it used to be. While the same tartan fabric still enshrouds the fabrics, the walls have been coated with pop poster after pop poster. Due to the temporary nature of each band’s popularity, the posters have been plastered over so that images of the latest musicians overlay the discarded ones. Such is this cycle of popularity and decay that the posters now form an inch-thick film over the boy’s walls which slowly closes in on him. The north wall, once barren, is a renewed shrine to The Honeyfuckles’ extended period of popularity due to the success of an album following From the Ground Up.

A day ago, a song had leaked from the newly developing Honeyfuckles album. The world over agreed that it was simply not equivalent to their previous work, and journalists unanimously predicted that The Honeyfuckles’ fame was to end with the release of this next album. The boy, too, had listened to the song, and shared the public consensus: The Honeyfuckles were on their way out. In response, he had bought some posters of a new band that, according to these same journalists, was gaining wild popularity.

Today, he is reworking his Honeyfuckles shrine to support the likeness of this new band. With a deft hand and copious tape and glue, he mechanically covers up each outdated Honeyfuckles poster, symbolically denying their existence—current as well as past—in the musical world.

In a few minutes, he is finished. Satisfied with his piece, he backs up to view the north wall in full, covered with image after image of The Rustic Eels.

#fiction #hipsterism #irony #postmodern #surreal #2014

[quasieli]

[Image Description: A screenshot from the Halloween episode of Critical Role. Travis is dressed with a cowboy hat, flannel shirt and bright orange M&M character gloves, Marisha is dressed as Lisa Frank Castle and Liam is dressed as Kylo Ren. Liam is saying, in a Mickey Mouse voice, "Ha ha. I'm Kylo Ren. Ha ha." End description.]

D&D is a totally serious game.

#Critical Role #CR #CR 2 #Liam O'Brien #Marisha Ray #Travis Willingham #Image Described #i cried laughing when that happened

[cometcrystal]

lesbitchin replied to your photo “lovecore flannel, pineapple backpack, new fidget spinnor, and fudge...”

that flannel is so cute i love it

thank u i knew i had to have it the second i saw it. lisa frank butch is my aes

[roboticchibitan]

Cut out the back and started the embroidery. It's gonna be huge I'm gonna need so much floss. Biggest thing I've ever embroidered. And I'm hiding my ends instead of just leaving loose knots with tails. Hoping I didn't bite off more than my ADHD brain can chew but since we're going blast from the past style, YOLO lmao

#lisa frank flannel #I accidentally drew it huge so HERE WE GO #v's fiber arts tag #embroidery #sewing

[majorluz]

i can be ur angle (flannel shirt and white tank top on jeans w/ sneakers) or ur devil (lisa frank 3/4 sleeve top w/ black leggings and black mary janes n bobby socks)

#👾 #functional and fashionable vs avant garde and tacky #i'm gay i can get away with both dw

[multitudeofsxns]

Your Highness

It was father daughter day and of course he had to get delayed coming off his graveyard for it. Yeah he was exhausted and the five hour energy he chased with a Rockstar--the organic kind, it was better for you--would probably last him long enough to get him through this even then home. He prayed. He would be there for his baby though. He walked through the door and regretted not changing out of his uniform first. Not that there was anything he was ashamed of, he just didn’t like the stares. At least he had his utility belt locked up in his locker at work. 

He walked until he heard her. “Daddy!”

Frank grinned as he watched the ponytail come bounding at him. “Princess!” He knelt and scooped her up, wishing he could cradle her against flannel instead of issued polyester. It was softer under her little rosy cheek. 

“You’re late!”

“I know bab--”

“You smell like smoke.” Her tone was accusatory as she picked herself upright in his arms to stare at him. She hated smoking. 

“There was an apartment fire, it’s why I was late.” He answered honestly, staring at Maria’s big blue eyes in his daughter’s face. His heart clenched with how proud she would be of her daughter. Giving her father hell when her mama couldn’t. 

“Are you okay?” A serious expression on a face too young to hold it. Guilt speared through him. 

“I am. But there were babies involved and I had to make sure they were okay before I came over to see my baby.” 

“Are they okay?” 

“Yes, sweetheart, the babies are perfectly okay now. No one was hurt.” It was a miracle too. Him and his partner Russo tore through that apartment and kicked down doors and evacuated everyone as fast as they could. Fuckin meth house in this fuckin derelict apartment. Idiots. 

“Good. Now I want you to meet Miss Liza!” She wriggled to get down and he was reluctant to put her down. 

“You can see better from up here, why don’t you point me to her?” He offered and she stopped squirming and turned to point at a small woman towards the front of the room. “Is that her? Your teacher?” 

“Yes, that’s Miss Liza, Daddy. I was telling people all week that you were going to be here and I was so excited to make a tie with you.” 

“Are we too late to make ties?” He asked and she shook her head and beamed. “What did I miss, Princess?” 

“Just the boring stuff. Good stuff is now.” She wriggled again as he paused in front of the teacher and she huffed when he huffed as he had to put her down. His ribs were bruised though. Breaking up a fight early in his shift. “Miss Liza!” Lisa took her daddy by the hand and pulled him towards the woman. 

“Miss Liza!” Lisa repeated, impatient sounding. 

“Lisa, be patient, remember? You need to wait your turn.” Frank reminded her gently. He obliged as she held her hands up for him to pick her up again. He easily lifted her up and settled her on his forearm and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m happy I’m here, princess.” 

“Me too, daddy.” She cuddled her head onto his shoulder and sighed. “I thought you were in the hosi-pital.” 

“No, Lisa, that was just once. I don’t make a habit of it.” He felt guilt go through him again and pressed a kiss to her hair. “Miss Liza, I’m Frank Castle, nice to meet you,” he offered his free hand to his daughter’s teacher. “I’m sorry I’m late. Got held up at work.” 

#(verse) Protect and Serve #(muse) Frank #agcntwells #Your Highness

[beautyofsorrow]

apples, bees, favorites, flowers, hobby, ocean, travel :D

Apples - favorite fruit?

knee-jerk answer: strawberries. thoughtful answer: mangoes and cherries. chaotic answer: tomatoes.

Bees - what’s your go to spring outfit?

the same as my go-to fall outfit, jeans n flannel, or if it's too warm for flannel and i don't have to work, sports bra and overalls. will also rock linen pants and a drapey sheer tank top tho

Favorites - what’s your favorite show, movie, and book?

show: cycles thru various star treks n fringe, movie: mona lisa smile, book: long live the tribe of fatherless girls by t kira madden

Flowers - what’s the nicest thing someone has surprised you with?

was havin' a really shitty time in february on account of car wreck and getting dumped so for valentine's my friend tracked down all these cool art cards featuring all my favorite star trek women despite never having seen a single episode and gave them to me and i think about that daily

Hobby - what hobbies do you have or want to get into?

i make those beaded lizard keychains that were huge in the 90s lmaooooo. also enjoy puzzles n yoga sometimes when i have good brain juice and remember to roll out my mat. would love to learn how to draw but am scared i'd just be bad(tm)

Ocean - what’s your favorite sea creature?

mermaids :) but also octopi. love those fuckers & relate to them on a spiritual level. manta rays are an unparalleled visual stim.

Travel - if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

anne frank house in amsterdam, sorry lads but i've been Concerningly That Bitch since age 5

#zannolin #answered asks #thank u for giving me a break from editing smut lmao

[icefeels]

girl gang: 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16,17, 18 (if this is too many questions or too many people feel free to just do the ones you want)

For this I’m gonna do Kip, Jo, and Tina, as they are in The Harvest/Trickster Parlor, since, uh, they exist the most! Although Tina’s answers are gonna be spoilers for that one novel I’m never gonna get published lol

3: their greatest achievement

- Kip: DEFINITELY the fact that she has raised Sam as well as she has.

- Jo: Honestly…. probably the fact that she was able to organize the band’s finances and contracts to the point that she could take care of Kip, Sam, and herself even after everyone in the band tragically perished.

- Tina: The only thing better than murdering Kip’s hideous babydaddy is doing it twice.

4: their insecurities

- Kip : is probably always going to worry that her mental illnesses are going to hold back not only herself, but the people she loves most

- Jo : never really doubts her place with the rest of the girls in the band, but boy does she really feel like she should have somehow been able to prevent what happened to them

- Tina : death has a way of stripping away all the petty self-deceptions that made living fraught with insecurity. in death, she worries more that she hobbled her loved ones emotionally and spiritually, and death has been an anxious period of utter inaction compared to her commanding life as a natural leader. that being said, there’s a reason why she spent most of her childhood and adulthood watching escapist shoujo anime

5: their shortcomings

- Kip: is probably not going to get over her mental illness or years of abuse because she’s trying so hard to pretend that she is too normal to be unqualified for the life she’s living. one of these days this woman will have to learn how to process grief. has somehow managed to avoid telling her best friend/soulmate/platonic partner that she murdered her scummy babydaddy 12 years ago, in a flurry of avoidant guilt.

- Jo: nobody in this family knows how to process grief. she needs to shelf the added guilt she feels for not grieving in a way that can support/protect kip. she needs to stop feeling responsible when other people hurt or kill her loved ones. has somehow managed to avoid telling her best friend/soulmate/platonic partner that she murdered kip’s scummy babydaddy 12 years ago, in a flurry of avoidant guilt.

- Tina: the problem is that she and kip got far too comfortable with the fact that kip and jo depended way too much on tina for structure and a sense of self before she died, and dying revealed just how badly they needed her. sort of a perverse, backwards survivors guilt: the people her death left behind were so fucked up that she can’t help but feel erroneously responsible for the shambles of their lives. probably should have told kip and jo that she’s the one who murdered kip’s scummy babydaddy, but she’s dead now and didn’t really think they’d both uh, assume for over a decade that they were the ones responsible, but also that they wouldn’t tell each other this info.

8: what they like to eat

Kip: Trademark favorite food in the book: Liverwurst Sandwiches, ALSO SWEETS

Jo: Trademark favorite drink in the book: almond latte/amaretto sours

Tina: Tina is a giant anime nerd and drinks ramune and eats pocky unironically.

10: their fashion sense

Kip: as a younger woman, kip dressed like a Lisa Frank 90s Punky Goth. Nowadays she has described herself in-text as Punk’s Grandma. Just A Very Tired Rock Mom.

Jo: Used to dress like if Posh Spice and Cher Horowitz had a beloved child. Now there’s a LOT OF YOGA PANTS

Tina: PASTEL VAMPIRE CUTE GHOUL ANIME DWEEB

16: their dreams

Kip: used to be her dream to be SO FAMOUS that it would somehow vindicate her to the people who hadn’t cared about or believed in her. now it’s mostly her dream to spend all day every day volunteering at the dog shelter, and watch Sam blossom.

Jo: GOSH this one makes me sad because for WAY TOO LONG Jo had buried any personal dreams of her own for the sake of the band, and then because she felt so personally guilty + personally responsible for taking care of Kip and Sam, but she actually gets to exercise a newer thing she likes now (yoga and teaching!) with her older skills (business! management!) and is living the “her own yoga studio” dream

Tina: we actually get to see Tina’s tragically impossible dream. the band is all together. Liz is 5 years sober. Kip and Sam live with Tina. Kip is in therapy and on medication. Tina’s band is made up of a bunch of functional adults.

17: their ambitions

- see above. nobody has a really truly strong grasp on the idea of having a future, or, uh, making longterm plans for themselves. at least tina has an excuse.

18: how they sleep

kip: wedged into a comfy cocoon. flannel fox kigu. with a large dog and/or jo.

jo: anywhere quiet. expensive adult sleepwear + comfy sweats. with her own large dog and/or kip.

tina: dead people don’t sleep BUT WHEN SHE DID, lots of pillows, cute ruffly femme PJs. with a girl if/when kip’s not available.

#girl gang #kip and jo #and tina! #trickster parlor au #hey kids you wanna talk about grief

[clonecaptains]

You are my Sunshine

ao3 link 

“Well?” Maria looks to Frank when he hangs up the phone.

“Power’s out all over the neighborhood. Should be back in a couple hours.”

Frank Jr groans, “a couple hours? Dad it’s freezing!”

Maria smiles and claps her hands together. “Ok everybody, go put on some cozy clothes. Frank, hon would you get us some logs outside?”

Frank Jr trudges up the stairs, Lisa follows but with a bounce in her step.

“What are you up to huh?” Frank smiles as he tugs on his jacket. Standing in front of him, Maria places Frank’s hat on his head, pulling it down to cover his ears.

“You’ll see,” she smiles.

Frank feels her kiss and he wakes with a jolt. His new shitty apartment has heat problems. Goosebumps cover his skin. Only now is he realizing he kicked the blankets off himself in his sleep. He tries to go back to sleep, he wants to relive that dream. That had been such a good day.

But Frank has work.

He pulls on a flannel shirt for warmth while he inspects the heater by the window. He gives it a whack with his hand and the damn thing kicks on. He sighs and hisses, when he smacked the heater, a blister on his palm burst open.

That dream stays with him as he goes about his morning routine. But something is bothering him. He can’t remember what happens after where the dream left off. He remembers making the phone-call and remembers collecting wood from the back porch for their fireplace.

Frank spreads peanut butter on bread and pauses to try and remember.

A quick glance at the clock tells him he’ll be late if he doesn’t leave now. He wraps the sandwich and forgets all about the dream until he sits down for lunch.

Gazing out over the city below, he clears his mind while he munches on his sandwich. The cool air feels good against his sweaty brow. His palm is bloody from the blister, and he tastes the bitter taste of chalky concrete on his sandwich from residue on his hands.

When he goes home that night, Frank’s room is warm. He sheds his shirt and boots, and picks up the latest book Curtis gave him. He read until he got tired, and drifted off to sleep.

Still no dream about that winter. He dreamed about Maria kissing his nose instead.

Soon those dreams turned to violent nightmares, and Frank forgot about the dream of the good memories that winter.

Months pass. And he’s moved to a safe house.

It’s not until Frank is up late cleaning his guns that he remembers the dream.

His guns are covered in blood. So is Frank. A night out as the Punisher always ends in blood.

Frank hears his blood pumping in his ears as he runs. Heavy work boots thump with each step, he’s chasing someone. His jeans are torn at the knee when he scales the fence. He barely notices the blood now trickling down his calf. He’s already covered in someone else’s blood.

Blood is his life. He’s been neck deep in blood even before he was the Punisher. This time though it’s different.

Anger and adrenaline pump in his veins as he runs to catch this scumbag. The cut on his leg doesn’t slow him down. His victim slows when Frank shoots him in the thigh. Blood loss weakens him from the shot, and he collapses. He looks up to see the white skull on Frank’s chest. The bullet in his leg and the smeared paint of the skull are a pretty clear message.

Death is coming.

Castle cocks his gun, and sees sheer terror in his victim’s eyes as he pleads for mercy. He begs Frank for his life.

But death is not generous.

A quick shot to the head and more blood is spilt by the hands of The Punisher.

Anger builds in Frank’s heart. This scumbag begged for his life. What life did he have? Frank’s family had lives worth living. Didn’t they? And they were brutally taken from him in front of his own eyes.

More blood.

Their lives were taken, and Frank takes the lives of those responsible. He punishes.

But his punishing expeditions almost never leave him unscathed. Frank is not afraid to get his hands dirty, sometimes that means his own blood is spilt in the process.

His trek to his safe house is long. His hands are shoved in his pockets, his wounds ache. It’s late. He’s not even sure what time it is. Even in the city that never sleeps, it’s quiet on the way home.

‘Home,’ he thinks. It’s just a word that represents where he lives survives. There is no life worth living to him. There is no home to go back to. All he has to go back to is a shitty mattress and some even shittier MREs to eat.

He tries not to dwell on how he misses going home to a warm bed and a meal. How he misses going home to his children jumping into his arms with excitement. How much he misses a soft kiss from his wife. He attempts to push those thoughts away, but tonight he can’t shake them.

The safe house is dark and cold. The room smells musty, and the scent of metal is heavy. Frank flips on the light switch. The only sound to be heard is the buzz from the lights. No laughing children, no greeting from his wife, only a quiet buzz in an empty room.

A chill up his spin flashes a memory in his head of Maria pulling splinters out of his hand. Why can’t he remember?

Frank sets his weapons down on top of a wooden crate. He’ll have to strip them and clean them later. His first order of business is cleaning himself.

With difficulty he removes his gear, his knuckles are cracked and bleeding. His left ringer finger is broken. The vest comes off easily, he tears apart the Velcro strips with one hand. Carefully and slowly, he pulls off his shirt.

He remembers when Maria used to rip his shirts off. He’d save those memories for lonely nights overseas. Those nights when he ached for his wife.

The ache he feels now will never be fulfilled. He’ll never go home to her loving embrace again.

A lukewarm shower is what waits for him. The hot water heater is busted and Frank still hasn’t gotten around to fixing it. The shower head creaks when Frank turns the knob. He can hear the pipes groaning in the walls as the hiss of the water pours out of the shower.

Frank finishes getting undressed slowly. His broken finger has swollen, and he can’t move it.

He steps under the spray of the shower and examines his body for any wounds he might have missed. Cuts, scrapes, and scars cover his skin. The water on the shower floor is turning pink from the blood washing off his body.

There is one unscented bar of soap and an old rag in the shower, and Frank begins to clean himself. His knee is still bleeding a little, and a cut on his forearm stings under the contact of the water.

Frank remembers when he’d be home, and Maria would sneak into his showers. She squeezed in any time she could get with him. He recalls once when she had put her ‘girly’ soap on a loofah and she’d begun to wash him with it. He’d teased her for the flowery smell, but she just rolled her eyes and continued to rub his skin with the loofah.

He didn’t complain.

She stood behind him and washed his abs off. She put the loofah down when she saw his abs tighten under her touch. So she replaced the loofah with her nails. She scraped them along his abs until he moaned. She moved her hand lower and lower until her fingers wrapped around him for a quickie in the shower.

Shit he misses that. He misses her touch. Her fingers set a fire in him. But her gentle touch also calmed the fire if he was angry.

When Frank would return home after a tour, he remembers the strange adjustment period. How do you go back to your life after all the horrors of war?

Maria was always so patient. She was his rock, and she loved Frank no matter what. And every time, he always found his rhythm. Every time it was because of her. She brought him back. She made him feel safe. She brought that level of comfort that he’d missed when he was away.

That’s why on his last return home, guilt ate him up inside that he couldn’t make love to her. She had done so much for him over the years. He ached for her, and he knew she missed him. But he was just so tired.

He promised he’d make it up to her. She simply smiled and said, “There’s plenty of time for that now that you’re home.”

With relief he returned her smile.

He regrets every day now that he didn’t hold her tighter that night.

He also regrets not fixing the hot water heater. The lukewarm water runs cold, and the harsh chill on his skin brings him out of his thoughts. He finishes washing himself and steps out into the cool air of the bathroom.

Dabbing himself dry with a towel, he picks up his medical kit. He closes the lid of the toilet and props his foot on the porcelain for support. The cut on his knee is worse than he thought. It needs a couple stitches to stop the bleeding. His leg hair on his shin is already beginning to stick to his skin from the blood flow.

A couple stitches and some gauze finally stop the bleeding.

More gauze and tape seals up the cut on his forearm.

His broken finger is starting to turn purple and he needs to wrap it. He makes a small splint and wraps tape around his ring finger to his middle finger to keep it straight.

Once he’s patched himself up, he packs the kit, and stows it under the sink.

Frank catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His hair is stuck to his forehead. The scratchy grit of stubble is on his face. Heavy bags under his eyes indicate his level of exhaustion. But he doesn’t need a mirror to tell him how damn tired he is.

Tired was his reason for not reading Lisa that story.

Tired is his life now without her.

Coffee is Frank’s remedy. Always has been. Doesn’t help him sleep. Though sleep is what he needs – but it doesn’t come naturally to him anymore. The nightmares creep in and he has no peace.

He exits the bathroom to enter his humble living quarters. Without disturbing his broken finger, he carefully tugs on a pair of underwear.

Frank’s living quarters ain’t The Ritz. Hell it’s not even shitty motel quality. There’s a mattress on the floor, covered only by a blanket and a pillow. His clothes are folded in stacks nearby. One thing he maintains is clean socks and underwear.

Pulling on some sweatpants and a hoodie, Frank walks towards the small kitchen area to brew some fresh coffee. There’s always coffee in the pot, and some nights he doesn’t mind the day old coffee. Tonight though he has to clean those guns. It’s not like he’s going to get any sleep tonight anyway. He can tell now when he’ll get a good night’s sleep. Tonight is not going to be one of those nights.

He gets settled and creates a pile of the guns he needs to clean. It’s going to be a difficult task with his broken finger, yet he carries on.

As he strips the guns and cleans each piece, only to reassemble each weapon, the memory hits him hard.

He’d gone outside to collect wood for the fireplace. Gathering up several logs in his hands, a couple of them smashed his finger. It wasn’t broken, but it hurt like hell. He pushed the back door open with his boot and called out for Maria.

Maria came quickly, hearing the strained tone of his voice.

His finger was jammed, but he stopped to smile and admire his wife wearing an old marine sweatshirt of his.

“Finger’s caught,” he winces and she reaches for the top log to ease the weight.

She takes that log and Frank follows to the fireplace in the living room.

Frank Jr and Lisa are wearing sweaters and have blankets wrapped around their shoulders. Candles light up the room, and Frank sees some marshmallows and chocolate on the coffee table.

One log goes in the fireplace while Frank gets the fire going.

“The tweezers in the left hand drawer in the kitchen?” Frank asks as he shoves in the second log.

“You got a splinter daddy?” Lisa asks.

“Yeah, got several sweetheart.”

“I’ll get it!” Maria says and carries a candle to light her way.

Lisa and Frank Jr cuddle up by the fire roasting the marshmallows, while Maria gets the splinters out of Frank’s hand.

“It would be really helpful if we had light!” Maria jokes with a smile. The fireplace and the candles around the room gave off a nice glow, but weren’t quite bright enough for her task.

“Hey Lis, hand me that flashlight,” Frank stuck out his good hand for her to give it to him. Frank held it over his other hand so Maria could see what she was doing.

“I coulda done this myself,” Frank whispered.

She shrugged, “I know.”

Once the splinters were out, Frank sat between his children on the floor to roast marshmallows on coat hangers. They laughed watching him shove the marshmallow directly into the flame to blacken it. He pulled out the blazing marshmallow and gently blew on it to douse the flame.

He turned to get the chocolate bar and graham crackers, when he saw Maria sitting on the couch with his guitar.

“When you eat that s’more Lisa has something she wants to show you,” Maria smiles and nods at her daughter.

Frank fixes and eats his s’more while Lisa sits at the piano. Shyly she begins to play a familiar tune. Frank smiles recognizing it, and Maria hands him the guitar. Frank plays a duet with Lisa. Frank Jr munches on his s’more and enjoys listening to his dad play.

“Atta girl Lis,” Frank smiles and stands to prop his foot on the piano bench to play closer to her.

A candle had blown out on the mantle, and from where Frank is standing he could see Maria go to relight it. Her hips swayed along to the music and Frank’s heart swelled.

Suddenly there was a hum of electricity and the lights came back on.

The music stopped. Maria quit swaying.

Frank Jr, still with his s’more in his mouth, stood up and turned off the light in the living room. The glow of the fireplace and candles returned. Lisa and Frank continued their playing, Maria continued her swaying. There was a twinkle in her eye when she made eye contact with Frank. He felt a familiar heat on the back of his neck and ears.

Frank smiles at the memory. He sets down the gun he’d been cleaning to pick up his guitar to play that song.

The soft tune of “You are my Sunshine” echoes in Frank’s quiet safe house. He feels better after remembering the memory. Maybe he will get some sleep tonight after all.

#frank castle #maria castle #frank x maria #the punisher #the punisher series #my writing #this is more frank centered #but his family is a heavy theme #i've been working on this one for a long time #like i wrote most of this before tps #i just filled in gaps with things from the show #i really really hope yall like this #i had a lot of fun writing it