#i have a few more scenes i want to illustrate knocking around in my brain so this might turn into a series of paintings

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

msr + world war ii

the way I could technically spin this to fit with the actual canon in-universe AU (6×03 Triangle) but like... I'm actually gonna do a twist on the 50s AU I started trying to write while I was brainfried from a cold this past week lol. this is so random and probably won't make any sense without reading my tags on this post lol

Binary Star

~2k words | WWII AU Pilot | pre-MSR | AO3

Dana Scully nearly lost her younger brother from violent illness when she was eight years old. What she did lose was the proper use of her left leg, but what she gained was an intense need for understanding of the human body. It's only intensified as she grows older, fights her way into medical school right as boys her brother's age are fighting their way through enemy lines in Europe.

Young men in the prime of their lives with the lives they planned to lead stolen from them see a young, pretty woman with a crippled leg using a cane coming to treat their injuries and they have one of two reactions: they either look sidelong at her with scorn, or they start crying. All the doctors are healthy, said one boy, her younger brother's age, and no one can understand each other. That's the moment Dana knows she chose the right profession.

Fox Mulder lost his little sister when he was twelve, and gained an intense need to understand why, and what happened. His father was a government contractor before the War, and got back in with the secret services as soon as the States decided to step in. Fox dodged the draft because of the familial privilege that couldn't save his kid sister, and because the FBI wanted him on the home front. Maybe his father couldn't bear to sacrifice another child to whatever happens behind the scenes in those smoke-filled government offices where they claim war plans are made, when really it's so much more than that.

Dana has seen things that she can't explain. Men with their flesh eaten away, that she can only treat with dangerous doses of painkillers; some who came home with fifty years added to their age after only being gone for a few months; a nurse who exhibited symptoms of radiation exposure despite never leaving the country and another who died painfully of a tumor that Dana has only ever seen in illustrations, eating through her sinus cavity into her brain. That last is the one that piques Dana's medical curiosity; the woman had insisted with a surprising gravity and calmness that she'd been abducted and experimented on. The vividness of her descriptions, of white light and fear she could never fully remember, was such that Dana has to doubt it was all contrived, or a symptom of the cancer. She's heard talk of conspiracies, the government conducting secret experiments in New Mexico or other unlikely places; her sister believes it all, but Dana questions. She wants to know.

Mulder isn't expecting the knock on the door of the basement office; he isn't even supposed to be down here. There are more important things to worry about and work on than the mysterious x-files, what with a war going on all around them. But there's a folder down here with his sister's name on it, because if any case can be considered unexplained, it's Samantha's abduction. His father had ordered an FBI investigation, but Mulder thinks it was all for show. He knows a little too much about what goes on down in Roswell, New Mexico; just enough that he keeps a lookout over his shoulder. No one knows he came down here again, so he pretends he doesn't know he's always putting himself in danger and he quips that there's no one down here, just the FBI's most unwanted.

Dana was told she might find the man she's looking for down here, in an unused office full of files. She wonders if her answers are down here, or if Fox Mulder is holding them in his hands. He pulls off a pair of reading glasses and looks at her with mild surprise. "Agent Mulder," she says, resting both hands primly on the buffed, comfortable handle of her cane, "I was told you might be able to help me."

He listens, absolutely intent, to the little doctor who limps into his office and rattles off a description that lines up with half the abductee stories he's heard. He has permission to take a case in Oregon, teenagers disappearing and coming back wrong or broken. It sounds a little too much like the boys who are sent home from the front lines, and a little too unearthly; they're sending him to make sure whatever facet of their conspiracy it is doesn't get out. So, on impulse, he invites Dana Scully to come along with him. He doesn't have a partner right now, he says — Diana was sent to a Naval base overseas — and he could use her medical expertise. Maybe they can help each other.

"Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?" He asks when he hands her the file, and Dana scoffs. Her patients have told her some terrible, inexplicable tales, but no matter what she doesn't see behind the scenes of this war, she's never given credence to the notion.

"Logically," she replies, "I would have to say no. Given the distances needed to travel from the far distances of space, the energy requirements would exceed any kind of craft's capabilities."

Mulder's eyes brighten and he smirks. "That, Dr. Scully, is conventional wisdom. What do we do when, in the case of these kids or your patient who died, convention and science don't offer us the answers we need?"

"The answers are there, you just have to know where to look." This is the tenet she has built her life on. Her search for knowledge began when she was eight years old, the first time she questioned God and the world she lives in, and has led her here. And when she's on a train the next day, sitting across from Mulder's sleeping form, she wonders if this is the right place to look.

Mulder squints one eye open, watching the little doctor, or maybe little spy, as she watches things he can't see pass by outside the window. She's got bright, curious eyes; he'd seen it in how intensely she argued with him about the existence of life beside their own, in the way she fixed him in her gaze like she was trying to figure him out. He's still doing the same; he's just as curious about her as she seems to be about the world around them.

He rolls onto his side, reaches across the space between them and carefully taps her left knee — the one she favors, pretty heavily by the worn look of the top of her cane. "A doctor with a gimp leg?" He asks, maybe a little bit teasingly just to see the reaction he'll elicit from her, when she looks at him.

Dana is used to the questions about her disability, but she's also used to the disapproval or doubt in her soundness as a physician that tends to come with it. Mulder, sprawled across the seat in front of her, seems purely curious. She blinks down at him, finding it strange because when they're standing, he's so much taller, and folds her hands on top of her knee.

"Polio," she explains. "When I was a girl. One of my brothers nearly died, I came up crippled. That's the reason I went into medicine, actually."

Mulder nods, like he understands. Later, in a dark hotel room, he'll tell her how the loss of his sister sent him running to solve mysteries that others wouldn't care about; they might just be more similar than either of them thinks. Their innate curiosity, longing for knowledge, to understand, draws them together. They both want to understand each other, as well.

Dana isn't an investigator, but Mulder is a mystery she wants to solve. He touches her gently, hesitantly, when she impulsively flies into his arms, he flinches at the flames when the hotel lights on fire and then turns angry. His entire face lights up in a tremendous, all-consuming grin when she starts laughing in disbelief in the cemetery and he catches her when her cane slips and she loses her footing on the wet terrain. He calls her by her last name, not her title or "Miss" like she's used to hearing; it reminds her of how people have always referred to her father.

For a moment, it's like there's no war; she forgets about Bill Jr. deployed with the Navy, forgets about Charlie deserting from boot camp and never calling. She forgets, for a second, that she is not and will never be normal or whole, and that she's caught up in a mystery that might put her in danger.

Scully argues with him, almost constantly. She's the skeptical daughter of a Navy captain who's spent her life fighting for a place in a profession that would have her be only a nurse, secondary to everyone else. She questions everything, won't believe a word of his theories. But she listens. She doesn't disregard him, doesn't tell him he'd be better off codebreaking or spying on the Axis; she wants to learn, wants scientific answers for unscientific questions, and when she's caught in a corner, barely staying upright because it's muddy out and she's staring down into an empty grave, she laughs. She doesn't rail against her own lack of knowledge, doesn't argue the way she's been since the moment they met. She looks up at him, something intense shining in her eyes, and she laughs. Mulder cannot comprehend her.

She loses her cane trying to keep up with him in the woods, trying to either hide from or find the source of the blinding lights hovering over the forest. He's not sure which it is; if she thinks they're in danger, or if she wants to know more. Billy Miles, comatose only hours before, is in the light, with Theresa Nemman in his arms. The wind picks up, the light blinds him, and he's not sure where Scully is or if she's seeing this; he hopes she is.

She shouts his name over the sound of the wind whipping through the branches, and he finds her limping through the undergrowth, shining her light toward the ground. He drops to his knees and digs around in the brush for a minute, counting the seconds. He wonders if his watch will have lost time again. Scully balances herself against his shoulder, staring up at him with wide eyes.

"It was incredible," he breathes, and she nods.

Her mind is playing air raid sirens, instincts shouting at her to get out of there, that the light came from a foreign plane or weaponry; nothing she's ever heard of can hover that way, though, and she knows Mulder is thinking of flying saucers. She can see it in his eyes, feels it mirrored in herself when she sees the sheriff's boy and the medical examiner's daughter, alive and whole. It's absolute wonder.

She came here looking for answers, but found something she cannot explain. No answer, just more questions. She's found a mystery, or maybe two. Maybe a friend. Maybe more.

He knows, as well as he knows the back of his own hand, that there are, in fact, more important things to worry about. Abductions by extraterrestrials, experiments done by the government or secret services, should be secondary to winning the war, but what if the two go hand in hand? What if the same is true of him and Scully; she's small and curious and determined enough to be a soldier herself, fits into the mysteries he's after like she was born to be there.

Neither of them expected to find each other in the midst of the tension wrought by the war. Maybe neither of them knew where to look.

#literally read the entire transcript of the pilot just for sequence of events #this is. not what i planned to spend my day doing but hey #Lu writes #txf #the x files #dana scully #fox mulder #mulder and scully #msr #msr fanfic #todayinfic

[sallertiafabrica]

💖💖💖💖 and 👀👀👀👀

💖 What made you start writing?

strap up, this one’s gonna be long

I always loved stories, consuming and creating them. All of my dolls had their own names and backstories that I play over in my mind again and again as I basically just silently moved them around (I struggled to express myself, so when playing with other kids I’d just go along with whatever they went with). I only learned how to read when I was eight years old, and even then, it was a slow process from going from funny comics, to kids’ books (those very thin and with full-page illustrations), to those “Diary of a--” kinds to finally reading a book with more than 100 pages and no illustrations (a classmate chose to read The Selection for a school work and end up buying all the books so I asked if I could borrow it [I remember liking it at the time, but I don’t think I’ll ever revise it, lol. Still fond of it for being my first “real” book, tho).

After that I tried getting into writing it a few times, but it never stuck. I just couldn’t find a story I was interested in writing for more than a few pages and always end up forgetting about it. Fast-forward to the ending of 2019: I’m graduated from high school and just starting my gap year. To put my English into practice, I started sending letters to other English-speaking folk through an app (Slowly, it’s really good!), and the more I write, the more I fall in love with the process of it. One of my exchanges was with another writer, and reading him talking about his stories inspired me to open a writing app; 1k words of a draft for an original story get out! It was about a concept I had been turning around in my head for over a year and I remember being really proud if myself for it (sadly, it fell victim to impulsive deleting tho 😞). That concept didn’t go much further (I tried making an outline for that story and found out I’m not an outliner, lol), but this time, writing stuck and I still wanted to practice it. I started watching tons of writing videos, practicing quick scenes as warm ups and to see what I can do (those I still have it, but only an edited version of them), and when I reached the bottom of the felinette fics on the Ao3 tag but was still craving for more-- well, I decided to give a go to the fox!Félix concept that had been bouncing around in my head :P

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

Well, I’m trying to keep my focus on finishing Trickster, but the brain worms don’t care for focus and just keep knocking on my imagination’s window with ideas that range from oneshots to new AUs that I really don’t have the time to right now, BRAIN! But, as for an actual answer: a new Komi Félix oneshot about how he met Flora (it’s still in the “foggy idea” stage, but I’m thinking that they could’ve been childhood friends/acquaints, but while Flora remembers fondly of their friendship, Félix ended up dumping their time together with all the bad experiences he had while interacting with his peers and gets very freaked out when she greets him during one of their classes together), and there’s a whole chapter in my docs for a new felinette fic that I promised myself I won’t post before writing more for it (it’s pretty much Outside of my Comfort Zone territory and I’m kinda scared of ever sharing it djmddjmddimd).

#mailbox #ask game #Sal Talks

[knamil]

I have been encouraged by awesome friends so... :]

blacklist #knamil sketches

The new project is a prompt I made up myself. An illustration where foreign invaders depose a Queen by force, but the Queen has a secret that allows her to fight back. It's a little ambitious to show all that in one image, but I'm too stupid to make my own life easy.

SO. Here's the first set of thumbnails I came up with

I had the idea of something involving chess maybe or something involving a pen.

I took that to class a few weeks ago and the feedback was that there was no real feeling that the queen had any means to fight back. A suggestion was to do something with the background maybe, or have a sword hidden or a shotgun under the table or something. All good feedback, and I agree I didn't get the "secret weapon" thing communicated in there at all. Back to the drawing board.

A little hard to see, but in the second week I had the idea that her shadow was the indicator that she had a way to fight. I thought she would be grabbing one of them and stabbing the other with her quill. The feedback I got on this one was that the shadow was good, but the grabbing hand looked like she was mind controlling one of the invaders so maybe not do that one. Other suggestions were to play around with the angles so it's less boxy and had more movement.

Moar thumbnails! again again!

This was from last class. I got the approval for B. So now there are two scenes. On the bottom the queen is being forced to sign something. But in the shadows behind she's attacking. There's a kind of extreme bottom up perspective and a bright light source in the foreground. They liked the environment also acting as a weapon with the swords also going through the shadow version of the men. Some other suggestions were knocking over her throne and making the background painting be some kind of addition to her shadow silhouette.

This is where I got to before my brain decided I wasn't going to get to paint anymore. I'm feeling better, but I've just lost all my momentum.

At the time I made this I decided on the rococo era for the clothing and architectural inspiration. She's kneeling now and her throne is on it's side behind her. I've also knocked off her crown (it definitely shouldn't just sit on her dress like that lol). I think I'll try to give the crown back to her shadow through some gilded rococo decorations. I also was going to use banners with sword painted on them, but now I'm thinking I'm going to do some more gilded weird decorations or maybe some statues.

I'm still working on the shadow positions. I like the guy stabbing himself with the sword, but I kind of want her to look like she's more responsible for that.

Also she's an elf now. I wanted it to be obvious that they were foreigners taking a throne and not like her subjects overthrowing her. Because that is a different vibe.

Anyway hope you enjoyed my awful thumbnails.

#knamil art class #knamil sketches

[muffinshark]

“beside him Steve quakes before the oldest and the only god.” (x)

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #howling commandos #stucky #not easily conquered #the thirteen letters #not easily conquered fanart #mcu fanart #??? sort of #m draws #the fanart i should have made back in 2015 i am 5 years late to this party #i have a few more scenes i want to illustrate knocking around in my brain so this might turn into a series of paintings #wips and start>finish and etc. can be found on my twitter!

[gravelyhumerus]

Criminal Minds College AU - Chapter Thirteen

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Title: “I may just take your breath away” Relationship: Jemily

Rating: Explicit  Summary:  Foxes, lattes, churches and resolutions.

Slow-burn Jemily college AU where they live across the hall and despite all odds, the universe pushes them together. AKA they’re silly gay babies who pine after each other for months.

Read it on AO3

Tumblr:  One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, (bonus scene), Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Epilogue

The first thing she noticed was the snow. It was falling down on her, hitting her skin with pinpricks of ice cold. She wandered through the bookshelves, searching for something. She wasn’t sure what for.

It didn’t normally snow inside the library, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. 

The snow crunched beneath her feet as she turned down another row of books, past the history section and stepping over a stack of books on the floor that was left there by some other student. To her left was a row of empty desks. It was just Emily and the books. 

But, Emily didn’t feel peaceful. Something inside of her told her that she couldn’t wait around, she needed to do something, find something. 

Emily trudged through the snow. Was she searching for a spot to sit and study? Was she searching for a book? When she found it, she would know.

She turned down a corridor, looking up and down the tall bookcases, her eyes skimming along the spines. They were old leather bound tomes, in rich oranges, blues and reds. They looked as if they hadn’t been read in decades. She searched for something she recognized, but nothing made sense to her as she couldn’t make out the titles or authors.

Out of frustration, she turned away to stomp back down the row, but something stopped her in her tracks. 

Emily blinked at the image in front of her. It was a fox standing in the middle of the fiction section, looking at her expectantly. It was as if he had climbed out of one of the books and materialized before her eyes. 

“Bonjour,” Emily said, kneeling down before the animal.

“Bonjour,” said the fox. 

Emily looked around, confused at the appearance of the animal. What was a fox doing in a library? When she looked back, he was gone. 

She looked around. 

“Je suis là,” came the voice, from between two books, announcing his presence on the adjacent shelf.

“Qui es-tu?” Emily asked, wondering who he was—or what he was—and what on earth he was doing here in her college’s library. 

“Je suis un renard,” said the fox. He was a fox. No shit.

She blinked at him, trying to figure out what she was remembering. The fox was familiar. She had seen him before… or read about him before. 

It was just like out of Le Petit Prince—the book that JJ had given her for her birthday. The book was a classic children’s novel, one that Emily had read many times. It was as if the character had simply stepped out of the book. 

The book was about a little boy who lived on an asteroid and was in love with a rose. He went on an adventure through space before landing on Earth. There, he befriended a fox. Emily could picture the simple watercolour illustration of the small boy prince speaking to the fox. She could almost feel the pages of the book between her fingers. She smiled as she thought of JJ’s excited face as Emily unwrapped the present a few weeks back. 

This fox, like in the book, was speaking to her. She racked her brain for what she was supposed to say. 

“What am I doing here?” Emily asked, this time in English. 

“Je ne puis pas jouer avec toi,” said the fox, which was not the answer to her question, since he had told her that he couldn’t play with her. “Je ne suis pas apprivoisé."

I am not tamed, he said. He has not yet been tamed. Emily remembered now what she must say.

“What does tamed mean?” she asked, in French. 

The fox jumped down from the bookshelf and walked through the library, his small paws leaving prints in the white snow. He was bright red against the ground and easy to follow through the familiar stacks. Emily noticed that she wasn’t cold, despite the weather, even as her breath came out in puffs that lingered in the air. 

“It’s something that’s been too often neglected. It means ‘to create ties’... but you know this.”

Emily remembered this part, he was right. In the book, the boy doesn’t know what taming means, how to create ties with the wild animal. He does not yet know the meaning of friendship. 

The novel was filled with layers of metaphor. It spoke to childhood, love, loss and the power of the imagination. Emily’s copy sat next to her bed, and she had been looking through it before she fell asleep that night. 

The fox crept through the seemingly endless bookshelves, his tail swishing back and forth as he walked. Emily tried to keep up, but he seemed to weave through the library with a practised ease. 

The fox stopped. He hopped onto a desk and curled his tail in front of him. He cocked his head and looked at her expectantly. 

“Your person has run from you, correct?”

Emily stared at him. This part was not in the book. She nodded after a moment. 

“I ran from my boy at first, too.”

She remembered this part: in the novel, the young boy wanted to befriend the fox. But he was impatient. The fox explained that it would take time, that the boy would have to return over multiple days to build his trust. The boy would begin sitting far from the fox, not even making eye contact. Over time, he could move closer and closer until they finally could play together. Their friendship could only be forged over time. 

“Were you scared?” Emily asked. 

“At first,” he replied. “But he was patient. And persistent.”

The fox swished his tail, then continued: “At times, my heart was not yet ready to greet him.”

“How did the little prince finally tame you?” 

He did not answer the question, as she already knew the answer, instead he said: “Words are the source of misunderstandings.”

“Was it all worth it? Even though he left you in the end?” Emily asked, her voice barely above a whisper. 

He nodded, then looked off into the distance, almost wistfully. 

“Here is my secret,” he said. “It’s a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

“On ne voit qu'avec le cœur," Emily repeated. She knew this line by heart. It was better in French. 

The fox disappeared into the books and Emily was left alone in the empty library. His words filled her mind.

Words are the source of misunderstandings. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. 

Emily woke up to the sound of her alarm blaring in her ear. She was curled up on her bed, on her side. Her blankets had fallen onto the floor, and she was close to shivering in the chill air. She slammed her hand onto her phone and fumbled until she turned off her alarm. 

It was a dream. A vivid dream. She didn’t normally get those. 

She stretched, her neck sore after sleeping at a weird angle. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the convoluted dream that was still clear in her mind. Somehow, even after all she had done to distract herself, JJ still was a key figure in her unconscious brain. 

Emily needed to move on from that, focus on school. She couldn’t dwell on what she couldn’t control. She was an expert at pretending everything was okay; she had held herself together through worse.

She stared out the window. Instead of the white snow that had been so crisp and bright in her dream, outside was grey and dreary. She couldn’t see any hint of precipitation, frozen or otherwise, just dead grass and wet asphalt. The trees were bare as the leaves had fallen and been raked up last month, and there was salt on the roads in anticipation of the freezing temperatures.

Emily methodically dressed, donning a pair of jeans and a dark green button up shirt, pulling a sweater on top to combat the chill. She then played some music on her laptop. She focused on the lyrics, allowing her mind to go blank. 

She sat in front of the mirror on her desk, carefully applying her makeup. There was something about a swoop of liquid eyeliner that made everything feel okay. At least, more okay than they used to be. If she looked put together, maybe she would feel like it, too. 

Emily rarely remembered her dreams and she really wasn’t used to having to think too hard about her subconscious. All that was very Freudian, anyways. She wrote the dream off as her sleep-deprived brain mixed with reading before bed. 

She donned her warmest leather jacket, the one with sherpa lining on the collar and tugged a mustard yellow beanie onto her head. Then, she lifted her tote bag onto her shoulders, and put her headphones into her ears, turning the volume up high, hoping that she could drown it all out. 

During her lecture, Emily didn’t retain a single word her professor said. She mindlessly typed her notes, completely zoned out the entire time. She wondered if the words on her screen made any sense, but decided that it must be an issue for a future version of herself. This was probably a bad idea, as it was just about finals season and her exams were fast approaching. 

Her mind was elsewhere: thinking about the blonde who lived across the hall. At times, Emily thought about their kiss, or imagined holding her hand, or holding her body. Then, as her daydreaming gave way to reality, she remembered the anxiety as JJ ignored her texts. She remembered JJ ending it one day, then coming back from a hookup mere days later.

Every day that week, as Emily walked down the hall, a part of her wanted to knock on JJ’s door, like she used to, just to say hi. Beyond everything else, Emily missed JJ. She missed laughing over dinner, studying French, or even lounging in one of their dorm rooms, doing nothing and talking for hours. She missed the way she smelled and her soft touch and her big blue eyes. She missed JJ’s kindness, how she would remember little details about Emily, and how she would knock her shoulder against Emily’s to get her attention. Emily missed her friend.

But the hurt was still there, and it overpowered her longing. The hallway reminded her of JJ’s words, her breaking it off, the tears in her eyes.

Emily hadn’t seen her since, with JJ doing an amazing job at avoiding her.  

As soon as her class was over, she walked off of campus, heading straight to her favourite cafe downtown. It was usually busy this time of day, but she hoped the crowd would keep her from wallowing and make her focus on her work. Campus was inextricably tied to JJ. The field reminded her of JJ’s soccer games, the library of their study dates, the cafeteria of their group dinners and even the quad made her think of the time she almost ran JJ over with her skateboard when she was distracted. 

Emily sat at the long sandy wood table and sipped her latte as she opened her laptop. 

Members of the Prentiss family were extremely talented at pretending things were normal, that everything was fine, and Emily was no exception. She had tucked all the hurt, all the confusion, into a neat little box in the back of her mind. Storing it away until she could deal with it. 

She typed away at one of her essays, only taking pauses to sip her coffee. She was busy finding sources and working on integrating quotes to develop her argument. She enjoyed the sound of her keyboard clacking, adding to the din of the cafe. 

Her phone was tucked neatly away in her pocket. While there was a noticeable silence in their group chat—the one with both Emily and JJ in it—Emily’s phone seemed to be constantly pinging with messages. Derek was checking in on her, Penelope seemed to be trying to distract her, even Hotch had sent her a message to make sure she was ok. If Reid had a cellphone, she knew he’d be doing the same. Sometimes she got messages from Penelope’s number that was signed by the younger boy. Somehow, the whole world seemed to have known exactly what had happened between her and JJ. 

The sun was setting faster and faster these days, and by five, it was creeping below the horizon. At this point, she had most of her essay drafted, so it felt like a good enough time to call it quits. Anyways, her back was starting to get sore from the minimalist chair and all she really wanted to do was curl up in her bed again. 

Emily packed up her bag, depositing her empty mug on the counter, nodding at the barista before leaving. 

She took the long way home, walking along the river and listening to her music, trying to clear her mind. She pulled her hood up against the cool air. 

She walked for five minutes before slowing as she came upon a church that she had passed before. Instead of continuing along her way back to her dorm, something made her pause. 

Lights lit up the facade: a red brick building that stretched up into the sky with a pointed bell tower in the centre. Columns graced the front, standing strong on either side of the large, wooden doorway. 

Emily stared at it. It was simultaneously familiar and foriegn. Emily had spent almost every Sunday in church, be it Sunday school or mass with her mother. No matter where they were in the world, there was always at least one church in the city that they could attend. 

In Rome, their visits had only gotten more frequent, as after school, she and Matthew would wander the Renaissance churches around the city, admiring the architecture and discussing theology and morality and free will. 

Something came over her in that moment, and she found herself wandering up the steps, trying the door to see if it was unlocked. The door swung open easily, and for a moment Emily thought about walking in. She thought about kneeling before the cross and going through the familiar motions of prayer. 

She thought about asking God about JJ, about what was going on, praying for guidance on what to do. She could picture the way the light would dance through the stained glass window, she could feel wooden pew under her knees, she could almost mouth the words of her prayer. 

She thought of St. Georgia, her confirmation saint. She thought of her life of solitude, and how that almost sounded nice. Young Emily had thought the same thing. 

She thought about the mass that she sat in her pew, with tears in her eyes, as the priest talked about how being gay was a sin. She thought about how her mother repeated those words when she came out at sixteen.

She let the door close without entering, before walking away, longing for the feeling of the wind on her face instead of the dusty smell of incense. 

It had been years since she had set foot in church. The last time had been in Rome, the day she walked in with Matthew, before… well there was no before. It just was. Her pregnancy had triggered something in both of them, questions about the church that could not be prayed away. 

Emily clenched her fists, her short nails digging into her palms. She remembered the way Matthew had held her hand at the doctor’s, and held her as she fought back tears, and walked arm in arm into the church in defiance of the priest. 

After, their questions hadn’t subsided. Matthew read and read and read and the more he learned, the more the church transformed the place of safety and solace to something neither teen could stand behind.

Still, she missed her childhood certainty. She missed the feeling of a power greater than herself watching over her. She missed the singing—though she would never admit it—she had really enjoyed being in the choir. She missed how her mother would sit next to her, how it was often the longest time she got to spend with her busy mom. 

Emily shook her head, fighting back the memories, and turned up her music and continued her walk home. She dug around in her backpack for a lighter and her pack of cigarettes. Fumbling for a moment, she lit one and breathed in the dark smoke. 

The wind was biting and her leather jacket did little to keep the cold from creeping into her bones. As the sun was setting, Emily began to shiver. 

After dragging her walk out as long as she could, she finally went back to her dorm. Her hands were iced cold and she was shivering. She dropped her backpack on the floor before collapsing onto her bed. She checked her phone to find a missed call from Derek.

She called him back, knowing that he was likely to pick up from only down the hall.

“Hey,” she said. She felt suddenly tired, and wondered whether he would pick up on that.

“Hey Prentiss,” Derek said. “How’s it going?”

“I’m fine,” Emily lied. 

“No you’re not,” his voice came through the phone, and from the hallway, and he knocked once before opening her door.

Emily sat up, looking over to him in surprise. As if he owned the place, Derek walked over and sat down on her desk chair, letting it spin with the motion of his body. 

 “We’re ordering take out,” Derek said, “You can’t survive on coffee.”

“I can try,” Emily muttered. 

“Pizza?” Derek proposed.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding the cafeteria.”

Emily crossed her arms. Derek was good at making her feel better, pushing her to take care of herself without forcing her to talk about her feelings. He was a private person, and so he never went too far, knowing that there were lines that neither of them crossed. 

“Thai?” he said with a sly look in his eye, he knew she couldn’t refuse. 

“Ok fine,” she gave up, “You know what I like.”

“That I do,” he said, dialling his phone and calling the local family-run Thai restaurant for delivery. 

Forty minutes later the two of them were eating curry and watching The X-Files on Emily’s laptop. They were sprawled out on the floor, both scooping rice into their mouths as they discussed the plot of the episode—aliens—and whether or not they actually believed in them. 

Emily didn’t realize how hungry she had been and struggled to remember the last full meal she had eaten.

After she had finished, she felt slightly more human, slightly less out of it. Still sad, but being sad on a full stomach, sitting next to her best friend and watching her favourite tv show was a bit more bearable. 

“I just don't get it,” Emily blurted, surprising herself as the words fell out of her mouth. 

“Yeah,” Derek replied, “What’s the point of probing? Don’t they have good enough technology that they could just scan someone and know what’s up?”

“I mean, yeah,” Emily said with a laugh, “But I was talking about JJ.”

She paused. 

“Did I push too hard?” Emily mused, “Was it my fault?”

Emily didn’t plan to vent to Derek. She hadn’t really told him the details yet, as she was still embarrassed after Thanksgiving weekend. Telling Derek’s entire family about how she had a girlfriend and then immediately getting dumped was not great for the ego. 

She learned early that it was safer keeping things to herself. 

Emily had done just about anything to fit in when she was younger. She was desperate to be normal. To be someone that wasn’t the weird queer girl that moved around a lot. She learned languages, learned cultures. She learned how to wear the right clothes, say the right thing. She tried so, so hard to be normal, and yet she never seemed to do it right. 

In her senior year, Emily finally gave up. She dyed her hair, did her make up in a way she knew enraged her mother, and dressed the exact opposite of what the other kids did. 

Since then, Emily was trying to focus on being herself. Derek was her first friend to really accept her for her, and over the past year and a half, she felt herself beginning to relax around him. In her second year at college, she was no longer the new kid. 

She had started to feel comfortable with him, and all of their new friends, so she was kicking herself for letting things with JJ blow up in her face. She should have known this was all too good to be true. 

“Em,” Derek said, “You can’t blame yourself. There’s definitely more going on with her that we don’t know.”

“Did Pen say something?” Emily said hopefully.

“I don’t know,” Derek said, rubbing the back of his neck, “She hasn’t said anything outright, ‘cause, y’know it’s all so complicated. We’re friends with both of you. But she made it seem like it wasn’t just you.”

Emily gulped at the guilt she felt when she thought of how all of this with JJ must be hurting her friends. They had all gotten so close this semester, and she hated the thought of ruining it for everyone. 

“It’s not you, it’s me,” Emily said with a sardonic laugh.

“Essentially,” he said. 

“Look Prentiss,” Derek said, “I think this is just a hiccup. You’ll figure it out. You two just need to talk and stop running from each other.”

“How do I get her to stop running from me?” Emily asked, her dream vivid in her mind once again. 

“Wait it out,” he said, “She’ll come back to you eventually. For now, eat some mango.”

He offered her the dessert, some mango and sticky rice that they had gotten to share. Emily took some with a grin.

She could wait. JJ was worth waiting for.

———

Emily was almost ready for bed when she heard a knock at her door. Derek had stayed for most of the evening, watching tv and talking for hours to keep her mind off of things. He had wandered out around nine, as he had an early practise the next morning.

She was just about to get undressed after brushing her teeth and washing her face. She stood in the centre of her room with her fly half undone as she heard the sound. She zipped her pants back up and walked to her door, unlocking it, expecting to see Derek returning for something that he had forgotten. Instead, she was face to face with Jennifer Jareau.

“Hi,” JJ said. “Can we talk?”

In JJ’s hands was a large tin filled with homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were piled high in the tin, perfectly baked with picturesque chocolate chips still warm from the oven. On JJ’s face was a nervous expression as she held out the gift for Emily to take.

Emily stood and stared at JJ, wondering if she was real or if she had finally snapped and was hallucinating.

A moment passed. JJ smiled nervously at her, big blue eyes boring into Emily’s own.

Emily took the cookies.  

#criminal minds #cm #criminal minds tv #jemily #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #jemily cm #jj x emily #emily prentiss x jennifer jareau #fanfiction #fanfic #jemily fanfiction #gravelyhumerus cm college au #my post #my writing #sweater weather au #sorry for the delay!!!! #life got in the way

[cosmic-lavender]

Stability Chapter 11

Otis Driftwood x Reader

Masterlist is here.

"You listen to me, and you listen well! I am gonna kill every member of your family! I'm gonna hunt them down like the animals they are, and I'm gonna skin em' alive! They are going to feel the pain and suffering of every last victim!" A disgusting squishy sound-filled the empty void of the cell. Sheriff Wydell had stabbed Mama Firefly in the stomach and twisted it until the light left her eyes. 

He was done playing this cat and mouse game. Mama's last taunt and laughter that ran through the station after more questioning pushed him over the edge. He had grabbed a large knife from his office and stabbed her in the stomach. As she fell to the ground he stood and took in the scene of what he had done. There was no turning back now, people like these people are monsters he thought to himself and the only thing monsters fear are other monsters. He had discovered through the interrogation that his brother was indeed murdered by Mama herself when he had come to investigate the cheerleader's disappearance.

 Sheriff John Wydell's eyes widened at the sight of his dead brother getting up from the couch he was sitting on, he began stuttering "I'm, I'm walking the line on this brother. I'm... I'm walking".George Wydell scoffed and answered sarcastically "Well, mother pin a rose on me, that is so great! I want these motherfuckers dead! Kill 'em!" John Wydell jumped up in a cold sweat… oh it was just a dream he thought, or was it? It couldn't be this hard to be signed by his brother that he needed to avenge him. "I'm brother, I'm trying," he thought to himself. 

"Why are you over here all by yourself handsome? Married or not you don't gotta be all alone"... Candy had slinked over to where Otis was laying on the couch downing a bottle of Jack Daniels. The rest of the crew was partying with the ladies at the brothel. Otis wasn't in the mood to party though. He wanted to get out of here and get moving. 

He felt guilty which was surprising for someone like him, that he was here enjoying a safe environment for the night without knowing where you were. "What do you want woman" he scoffed and attempted to get up.. "now now lay down You look like a mess Is your back hurting or something I can give you a massage I am a masseuse Well at least I can give a good enough massage that feels like I'm a masseuse" Candy said in a sultry voice twirling her hair, "listen here woman I said I ain't fucking you so go on and get" Otis said shooing her away with his hand.

 "Hey now no one said anything about fucking! How about I help you out friend to friend? You just must be tense worrying about your old lady out there". She sat next to him on the couch, he slowly got up to face her, "just a massage right No funny business or I'll throw your ass through the window". "Duly noted" she laughed and helped him stand grabbing his arm. She led him to a soft mattress on the floor. 

Sheriff Wydell on the other hand was not having the best night either, he was racking his brain on what was the next step to take for finding the four of you. He found himself staring at himself in the mirror talking to himself "You know I got to tell you, that's some catch phrase you got there, Devil's Rejects. What? You got something to say to me clown, huh. I bet you scare lots of folks, don't ya? Yeah, regular fuckiin' killer. You want a piece of this motherfucker? You want a piece of this? Huh, what you got! What you got! Lord I am your arm of justice. Lord I am your arm of justice. Lord I am your arm of justice. Your righteous sword of vengeance. Let my blows be true. From the illusion leads me to truth. From darkness leads me to light. From death leads me to eternal life." 

"Ah sir? That guy you asked for is here" his deputy Ray Dobson knocked on the door to his office breaking him out of his trance.  It was his deputy, who made the connection that  the aliases the family members usually went by and their connection to the old Groucho Marx films. He also discovered that the Fireflies were associated with the local clowns celebrity Captain Spaulding. Hoping to gain some insight into this connection, Wydell brought in film critic Marty Walker for consultation. 

The over the top Marty illustrated how each of the killers named themselves after characters played by Groucho Marx throughout the course of his career. Things between Wydell and Walker quickly became unsavory when the critic made a remark about Elvis Presley. Marty head scateched his head while looking at the clues pinned to the board "that goddamn fucking Elvis Presley." Sheriff Wydell looked up at him with his eyes wide and full of rage. 

"What'd you say about the King?!" Marty was clearly taken aback by the sudden tone change and looked around at everyone else in the room before sputtering out "I said he died three days before Grouch…" Wydell walked very close to him, looked him deep in the eyes and slowly said "Marty... if you ever say another derogatory word about Elvis Aaron Presley I WILL KICK THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU!". 

"Boss don't you remember we had to run in with that guy Charlie not too long ago didn't he stay around with the guy named Spalding?" Ray quickly replied trying to defuse the situation. "Well goddamn you're right Ray… let's go pay Mr. Charlie boy a visit" he backed away from Marty and grabbed his hat. "Be seeing you Marty" 

Spalding had told Charlie that if he went and bought some fresh chicken He whipped them up some fried chicken on the house as a thank you for letting them hide out there. Unbeknownst to Charlie Sheriff Wydell had spotted him leaving the funtown and heading towards the chicken stand. He corners Charlie and demands that he give up the three of them and if he had any information on where you were he needs to give that information up to or it would not end well for him.

 He also asked him if he catches Otis in any compromising situations if he could snap a photo. It would be in his best interest. "I was also wondering," Wydell said, closing the car door a bit more on Charlie. He had closed his car door on Charlie's hands after instructing him to approach the vehicle once they cornered him in with their vehicle. "Is this girl with them by any chance? and I'm only going to give you one chance to answer me honestly" he held up a picture of you, Charlie shook his head viciously "no no naw she ain't with them gods truth man god's truth".. "god's truth hmm well you know where she is? I would like to have a little chat with her" Wydell replied. "Oh c'mon what's that lil girl gonna do" Charlie attempted to chuckle. "Hmm" Wydell said "looks can be deceiving, anyways tonight midnight I'll be seeing you". He released his hand and drove off in a cloud of dirt and smoke.

Back at the house unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it for Otis, Candy was actually a very good masseuse and actually did just give him massage without reaching for his penis which is what he assumed was going to happen. His back was killing him from the hours of driving and that shit van they had stolen from the family back at the motel. 

He also was holding a lot of stress in his shoulders from the anxiety of the plan not going his way and not having any word from you now for multiple days. Unfortunately now she wouldn't stop following him around which was starting to piss him off because one she was annoying and two his back was still hurting and he could have used another massage. "You sure you don't want another one I mean you passed out during yesterday's massage just let me do your shoulders just a little more" she said skipping toward him.

 He wasn't sure if she was just trying to be nice or she was trying to wear him down to fuck her or something. He sat cleaning his knife while staring off into space thinking about you and when you gave this knife to him. You were in town with Baby and wandered into an antique store. You knew as soon as you saw it you had to have it.. he was overjoyed at the knife and vowed to never go anywhere without it. 

"What took you all so long? You said you were just heading into town for some supplies tonight" He asked , slamming the screen door behind him and walking out towards the car. You had insisted on driving your mustang into town with Baby on a girl's trip while he was in the middle of a project. He was hesitant but he allowed it because he knew that you two could probably use some girl time, he wasn't the easiest to always be around. 

"Oh shut up Don't know why you always got to be rushing people" Baby replied flipping her hair and strolling past Otis. "Fuck you" "no fuck you" "no fuck" "Hey!!" You yelled waving your hand in his face. "I took so long because I got you something, I saw it and I couldn't pass it up". You pulled out a dark paper bag and handed it to him. He looked inside and got silent, it was a large beautiful knife. Taking it out the bag he held it in his large hands and studied it closely. "Shit darlin this, this is beautiful..for me huh?" "Yeah of course!" "Why though?" He asked looking back at you with general confusion on his face. You walked over and stepped up on your tippy toes to softly kiss him. "Just wanted to do something nice because I love you". You said patting his chest and walking inside after Baby.

 He stood there for a few more moments looking at the knife and tucking it in his boot. Once inside he grabbed you by the waist and kissed you deep. "Thanks.. ah.. I just don't know how to accept gifts, not used to 'em." "Well I'm glad you like it" you smiled up at him "had me worried for a second I was starting wonder if you didn't like it" "naw I love it it's going everywhere with me always" he said wrapping his long arms around you "just like you". 

"Stop hovering woman!! If I need anything from you I'd ask now get" he huffed at her looking back to his knife. She stood for a moment and turned on her heels and headed away. Charlie headed back to the house trying to swallow the anxiety in his throat. He didn't want to betry the group but he also wanted to protect his business and livelyhood. He stopped at the liquor store and grabbed a bunch more bottles of Jack Daniels, might as well get them drunk and make this shit easier. 

#otis driftwood #house of 1000 corpses #three from hell #otis driftwood x reader #otis firefly #thedevilsrejects #the devils rejects

[sweetestlamb]

Stronger Part 3 (Unbreak my Heart)

Summary: Gang-tae finally gets a reality check.

Author's note: Slightly tipsy as I wrote this, life has been very busy but I have plans to write a naughty Search:WWW fic so I wanted to get this out first. The next chapters will be the climaxes and y'all can let me know if you want smut in this series, or if you like it nice and wholesome. 🙃🙃🙃🙃 But no worries the smut would come muchhhhh later.

Mang-tae lays limp on the night frosted ground, gleaming button eyes peering up at him in judgement. With a deep rooted sigh he bends over to retrieve the doll, pocketing it before turning from the empty spot she no longer resides.

The happiness that bubbled up at her unforeseen appearance has twisted and crystallized into a rancid pool of disappointment and melancholy at her just as sudden disappearance.

He doesn't understand.

Opening up had been difficult, the most challenging obstacle he'd faced in their.... predicament. She'd been poking and prodding for as long as he'd know her, enticing him to crawl out of his self imposed prison, until he broke. Unleashed all his pain and misery on her like torrential showers thundering from the heavens. Voicing hidden horrors and his not so hidden desires, he'd tried to subdue his feelings but as always she made him act out of character.

The thought of that mad woman harming her made his skin boil with heated anger, so much so that all he could do was kiss her back to life; his grim thoughts had painted morbid tales of her demise and seeing her there on the staircase, painfully gorgeous had been so heart shattering he almost wept.

But somehow that hadn't been enough. His secrets and his scars weren't enough for her, she'd seen the real him and taken his advice to get lost. She wasn't supposed to listen to him, she never had before.

"Geesh what was that about? She looked like a witch out here! Did you two have fight? Why didn't she try to kidnap you and take you home?" Jae-su's bewildered voice cracks through the thumping of his heart, weighty in his chest.

He fumbles to think of an answer. He's at a loss, maybe he was the one who wouldn't understand her for a hundred years.

"I... don't... It's nothing. We're fine. Let's go inside." His friend scoffs, condescending eyes calling him a liar but he ignores them, running away instead.

At least he still has Sang-tae.

"I can't. I'm busy." His brother carelessly rejects his offer to hang out and watch cartoons, stuffing pencils and a notepad into the satchel slung across his body. Fidgeting as he fixes his hair in the mirror, visibly excited about his events for the day. He tries not to be jealous that he isn't a part of those plans.

He fails.

"Where are you going? Can't I come?" He pleads, staring up at his older brother with wide beckoning eyes.

Sang-tae stares back nonplussed, "You're not as cute at the alley cat, that won't convince me. That isn't convincing at all Gang-tae."

With a groan he rolls on the bed roll, before clambering onto his feet. Pulling out his phone he sends Jae-su a text, Do you want to hang out? He freezes as his eyes unknowingly land on her messages underneath, tricks to get him back in the castle and teasing selfies that he had saved once he received them.

He'd composed many messages to her before his thumb destroyed them with systemic viciousness, leaving no letter untouched. There was still a minuscule part of him that envisioned her coming back of her own volition. She always came back, boomeranging back into his life every time he attempted to flick her out. It was a law of his universe.

Yet it had been days since their last interaction and he'd heard nothing from her, no calls or messages, simply radio silence. He was beginning to become worried.

The honk of a car snaps him from his thoughts as Sang-tae perks up at the alarming sound, happily flailing before running out the doors.

He follows blindly, stopping in the doorway gazing down at her familiar car, instinctively he grabs Sang-tae's arm hindering his movement and escape.

"Where are you going?" He asks stupidly as if he can't see what is so painfully obvious.

Sang-tae looks at him with a look that mirrors his own thoughts, "My bestie invited me to a book conference, I'm going as her illustrator. We're going as partners, it's too to make connections she said. I'll be gone all day."

He can't hear Sang-tae's excited spiel over the blood rushing to his face, she hadn't contacted him at all but clearly was still conversing with his brother. Why was she only upset with him? Annoyance and jealousy ebb in equal waves in his blood line.

"Hyung don't you think that's too much? I thought you weren't talking to her right now." He instigates, feeling petty about being the one left out.

"I was but I forgave her, sometimes best friends fight but she apologized so I forgave her. She's going to be a better best friend now."

Sang-tae speaks calmly and certainly, pulling away from his firm grip and skipping down the stairs before hopping into the car.

Finally he allows his eyes to land on the window, readily expecting her answering gaze, eager to lock eyes with her and get lost in time with her.

Her smile is blinding and tender, eyes soft crescents.

But they aren't on him, they are locked instead on Sang-tae. Cloying possessiveness curls around his control and without any acknowledgement of him, they're gone in smoke and the smell of burnt rubber.

He gets drunk, disgustingly so, sloshing the liquid on his sleeves as he loses his balance and almost pitches off the table.

He'd bitten the bullet and finally sent her a message, readying for her to call and for them to fight their way back into their... predicament.

Instead he'd gotten a taste of his own medicine, it was poignantly bitter. It hadn't even been read. He wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.

"I told her everything, things I never even told you! But she's ignoring me, why? Why would she do that?"

Jae-su's eyes are huge as he rambles on, snatching a shot of soju from his hand before he can slam it back, he whines making grabby hands.

"Why did you get so drunk? You said that you only wanted to have a few drinks." Jae-su sighs exasperated, falling back onto the table folding his arms behind his head.

"Jae-su, what did I do wrong? Why won't she answer my messages? I stopped running, I let her catch m--"

"Yah!" They both jump from the volume of the scream, Gang-tae almost falling to the ground in his shock.

Sang-in's rage filled face swims in his vision, intoxication stuttering his movement.

"You think you did her any favors? You think meeting you did her any good? Do you know what she was like after you left her that day? She cried everyday. You broke her. You made her come back to this wretched place, do you know what that castle means to her? You're a selfish prick. Did you even say sorry to her for everything you've done to her?" Sang-in's spit showers his face in a wet splash, a feeling of deja vu overwhelming him.

He blinks back, dazed.

Jae-su shakes himself from his trance, jumping to his defense, "What's your problem? Of course he apologized to her! What are you accusing my best friend of?" He points his finger into the manager's face as they slap and hit each other.

That day. His blood runs cold, remembering his cruel words, berating and belittling her all because he couldn't deal with his feelings for her. Couldn't be honest with his brother or himself.

One time event.

Her tears salty like the sea water that crashed at their feet.

Realization drops on him like a dead weight, severing his air flow.

Did you even apologize?

Did you even say sorry?

He racks his brain scouring his memory desperately, that conversation playing out in his mind like a movie, scene by scene.

Telling her about Sang-tae and his trauma, the effects that had on him and the way he was allowed to live life, inviting her to join this life, be with them.

And, I, need you.

All about him.

He hadn't asked her if she was okay after being targeted by a patient, her skin pale as he ascended the stairs to wrap her in a hug. Her voice was not a part of the conversation, he'd said let's talk but in all honesty he had been the only one to talk.

About his pain.

His suffering.

All about him.

Gosh.

"I'm an asshole." He whispers aloud finally, finally understanding.

Sang-in and Jae-su both pause at his soft declaration, hands tangled from their scuffle.

"You are. But somehow you got the bitch and the nice girl. You don't deserve either."

He has never felt smaller in his life.

Why are you mad?

Stop acting up.

Those had been his messages, the only messages he'd sent to her, nothing but shameful regret fills his veins now, he hadn't done nearly enough. Not by a long shot.

He'd woken up the next day with a killer hangover and a sour taste in his mouth, wanting the ground to swallow him up. He wasn't that lucky.

He'd called her, one, two, three, many times. Each time going to voice mail, testament to her avoiding him.

Mun-yeong. Please.

I need to talk to you.

He'd lost track of the amount of times he'd looked at his phone hopefully, only to be crestfallen when it wasn't her. If this was anything like she felt when he ignored his messages he would never do that again. That coupled with Sang-in's snarky comments and withering glares made him want to pull his hair out.

The castle looms over him as he hesitates at the gate, before pushing it open with a loud creak.

His knocks boom on the hollow wood of the door, pounding as hard as his heart. The castle is silent, he pounds once more.

"Mun-yeong! Ko Mun-Yeong, please open up! I need to talk to you." He hangs his head, hand sliding down the smooth wood.

The silence is deafening.

"Please, Mun-yeong. I'm.... sorry."

He falls to the steps, the strength disappearing from his bones.

"Get up. Stop making such a scene, this was always the outcome. Only I can take care of her."

He twists his head around, eyes too tired to form a true glare but the intent there.

"Where is she?" He demands, fury and shame emboldening him.

Sang-in scoffs at him, walking away after peering through the windows.

He feels his eyes prickle from his emotions overtaking him, life without her was like going from high definition to black and white, his life was lack luster and empty.

"Wait." He begs, tears caressing his cheeks, "Please, where is she? I have to make this right."

Sang-in pauses on the last step, hesitation evident in the sharp angle of his shoulders before he starts walking again, leaving him shattered on the ground.

Sang-in stops at his car, steel eyes as he looks at him with pity, "Maybe it's your turn to start chasing."

The truth can be humbling.

#it's okay to not be okay #it's okay to not be okay fanfiction #psycho but it's okay #ko mun yeong #moon gang tae #kim soo hyun #seo ye ji #long live IOTNBO #More groveling on the way #MY pov next

[mightbewriting]

Wait and Hope Outtake!

Our winner for the outtake drabble was the scene wherein Draco tells Theo that Hermione finally used his first name! So please enjoy this little nugget from Theo’s POV from that night! Please note, this takes place directly after chapter three so if you haven’t read Wait and Hope at least through that chapter, you’ll want to do that first! Read it here!  

Theo paced, contemplating his alcohol options. He’d already hidden most of the expensive bottles in a different wing, about as far away as possible from the Floo access Draco kept stumbling through.

Even Blaise had commented that the Nott Manor stores seemed to be running dry. And then he’d gone and offered to curate a more esteemed collection as if Theo’s tastes left something to be desired. If Blaise wanted to curate something, he could curate a new tapestry collection for the north wing after last month’s incident with that fucking cigar. Which is what Theo had told him in not quite so many words.

Theo paused in his pacing. The sudden absence of clacks from his dragon hide shoes made the manor, enormous and empty as ever, feel even more so. A chill passed through him, the dark corners of his haunted childhood home taunting him from the periphery of his vision. Something squalid and vile lingered just beyond the edges of his sight and it did nothing to calm his nerves about how the next few hours of his night would pan out. 

There were a few potential avenues, if he really thought about it.

The first involved Theo being a genius to rival that of the great Hermione Granger. In this scenario, he’d fixed everything in his kidnapping adventure and Draco was currently fucking his wife’s tremendous brains out, problem solved. This was the most ideal option, Theo decided, as it likely included no hexes, curses, or jinxes being sent at him. Frankly, it could probably earn him the title of godfather in the future. 

In the second scenario Hermione ratted him out and Draco was currently plotting Theo’s assuredly very dramatic, very painful death. There would likely be psychological torture involving peacocks. Theo shuddered. Rule loving Gryffindor as she was, Granger wasn’t a snitch so Theo considered this outcome rather unlikely. However, the threat of albino peacocks was enough to force Theo to take the possibility seriously. 

A third option involved failure on Theo’s behalf to convince Hermione to take any sort of pity on Draco. Which meant that soon, a predictably moody Draco would waltz himself into Theo’s home like he owned the place, helping himself to whatever he liked. Just because Draco didn’t have his own estate to prance around anymore didn’t mean he could commandeer Theo’s just because Theo really, truly hated the place. 

The last possibility, of course, was that Draco didn’t show up at all.

Of all of them, this was the least likely. Draco showed up almost every night like clockwork after waiting for Hermione to fall asleep, prepared to vent or drink or sleep in a real bed for a few hours before returning to the vigil that had become his marriage in the early hours of the morning.  

Theo resumed his pacing. His afternoon with Granger had gone well, all things considered. Though he did make her cry, but just the once. Since she didn’t hex him for it he’d essentially already been absolved all his wrongdoing. 

And truth be told, he’d missed the witch. Irritating as her insertion into his life might have seemed at first, she certainly had a sneaking effect on one’s sensibilities worthy of a snake.

The Floo roared to life in a flash of green and a dazed-looking Draco Malfoy stepped through. 

Not ideal. The lack of focus in his eyes meant he wasn’t occluding. And the bit of unsteadiness in his step? Possibly already imbibing. 

“Scotch,” Draco announced as if he owned the fucking place. “We need scotch.”

Theo reached for the cheapest bottle he had, prepared to climb back in the trenches with Draco’s bruised ego and broken heart. Gods, being such a fucking fantastic friend was exhausting. 

“Not that swill,” Draco said with an eery sort of cheeriness. The affectation did not look good on him. Theo could feel a suspicious grimace spreading across his face.

“All out, mate,” he lied.

“I thought Blaise wanted to curate a whole new collection for you?” Draco asked with better clarity that Theo expected from a man already deep into his drink.

“And I told Blaise exactly where he could shove said collection,” Theo muttered. Even quieter, “fucking prat.”

The holler of a laugh Draco released further confirmed for Theo that something was off with his friend. Perhaps he hadn’t been drinking, but the wild sort of mania he saw in front of him was not typical Draco behavior, before or after Hermione’s accident.

“Get the good stuff, Theo, I know you’re just hiding it somewhere,” Draco said when his laughter calmed.

“Not a chance, we’re getting down to the collector’s stuff. I’m not breaking open a 25,000 Galleon bottle to nurse your broken heart, sympathetic as I may be.”

To illustrate his point, Theo poured from what was absolutely going to be a horrific bottle of scotch. The sting from the smell of it alone, even at a respectable distance as Theo poured, did not bode well.

Undeterred, Draco grabbed the drink as soon as Theo finished pouring and knocked it back without a blink. 

“Now get the good stuff,” he said, voice tight from what Theo could only imagine was a terrible burn. “We’re celebrating tonight.”

Celebrating?

Oh? Oh. 

Carefully, ever so carefully, he posed his question, “celebrating what, exactly?”

The dazed expression returned, clouding Draco’s features with a faraway kind of look. He slung an arm around Theo’s shoulder and laughed. Dazed and unhinged, that was really the best way Theo knew how to describe it. 

“She finally said my fucking name,” Draco said. “And she bought me a book.” Technically, Theo bought him the book but the nuance of the matter probably wasn’t worth mentioning. 

“And,” Draco continued with an almost conspiratorial glint behind his eyes. “She sat so close to me I could smell her shampoo and, Merlin, then she asked me about us. Theo. She asked me— about us. And she said my fucking name, did I mention that part?” Draco released a sigh he’d probably been holding since January if Theo had to place a bet on it. 

With an arm still slung around Theo’s shoulder, Draco steered them from the room. “Now where’s this 25,000 Galleon bottle?”

Theo showed him. 

And for the night, Draco’s relief lit up all the dark corners haunting Nott Manor. Theo imagined it did even more to light up the dark places that haunted Draco, too. 

#waitandhope #drabble

[the--sad--hatter]

Name Calling (17)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU

PAIRING - BUCKY X READER (female reader, no physical descriptions)

WARNINGS - ALL OF THEM, SMUT, VIOLENCE ANGST

DESCRIPTION -  In which the ongoing and bloody war of words between you and Bucky turns in your favor when a disgruntled one night stand of his lets slip a secret when you run into her in the elevator… Now you have all the ammunition you need to destroy your enemy but you don’t plan on killing him quickly. Oh no, Bucky Barnes was going to suffer and you were going to enjoy every second. You just didn’t count on how much you would enjoy it.

MASTERLIST

Chapter Seventeen - Puzzle Pieces 

There was a steady drumbeat that woke you, you tried to open your eyes to tell whoever it was to knock it off but it was too bright and you quickly squeezed your eyes closed, hissing in annoyance at the stupid sun. The drumbeat carried on and you belatedly realised it was inside your head, sending a fresh wave of throbbing pain through your skull every few seconds.

You moaned lowly and shifted slowly, trying to manoeuvre you head under the pillow but you were trapped. You gradually became aware of an arm slung over your waist, trapping you in place and your eyes shot open in alarm. Wincing at the brightness you waited for your eyes to adjust. When they did you looked around, this wasn’t your bed, this wasn’t your room. Where the hell were you?

You twisted your head around to look behind you at the person who was holding you tightly and blinked in surprise. Darcy was spooning you, her eyes screwed tightly shut and soft rhythmic snores falling from her open mouth. You grimaced and tried to sit up, accidentally knocking Wanda’s head off your lap. Wait, Wanda was in the bed?

You nervously peered around, thankfully there was nobody else on the bed but Natasha was curled up on an armchair in the corner of the room, fast asleep. It took you a few minutes but you managed to piece together the scene. This was Wanda’s room, Natasha and Darcy were still wearing their party dresses from last night, Wanda was wearing red pyjamas and you were wearing…. A tuxedo?

You crawled off the bed, stopping in fright when you accidental kicked Wanda in the face but she only rolled over and carried on sleeping and you breathed a sigh of relief and continued to make your escape. As soon as you were standing upright you seriously considered just getting back into the bed. You felt weak, like you hadn’t had food or water in days and yet as soon as the thought of food crossed your mind your stomach started turning and nausea had you running/stumbling for the bathroom.

Ten minutes later and after sticking your head under the tap you tiptoed out of Wanda’s bedroom, leaning on the walls for support as you very very slowly made your way towards the kitchen. You needed to find someone who knew what had happened because you had absolutely no idea whatsoever. The last clear memory you had was of kissing Bucky.

You stopped in the hall and nearly toppled over. Bucky. Kissing. You and Bucky had kissed. Resisting the urge to slap some sense into yourself you tried to remember what had happened after that. You had flashes of Blonde hair and muscles and the taste of something sweet and honeyed. Oh God. God of Thunder to be precise. You must have gotten to try Thor’s mead.

You were hungover. You had gotten blackout drunk.

You desperately resumed your quest for the kitchen, needing more than ever to find somebody who could tell you what had happened. Your alcohol soaked brain finally remembered the way and after only one wrong turn and a detour past the gym you made it into the kitchen. Sam was sat at the counter, nursing a cup of coffee.

“Sam! Oh thank god, you have to help me.” You whisper shouted and threw yourself dramitically into his arms.

“Whoa, what’s wrong?”

“I’m hungover.” You lamented, a little teary eyed.

The heartless bastard snorted in amusement.

“It’s not funny, I think somethings really wrong with me. Maybe my Super Soldier Serum reacts badly with alcohol, I think I’m dying.” You sniffled.

“Oh baby, you’re not dying. It just feels like you are. The first hangover is always the worst.” He assured you, trying and failing to hide the smirk on his face.

“But I can’t remember anything about what happened, it’s all blank. My head feels like somebody is scooping my brain out with a blunt knife and my stomach feels all wrong. I can’t stop shaking.” You told him, holding out your trembling hand to illustrate.

“Trust me, that’s normal. I don’t feel so hot myself. Of course I’m a little more used to it and I didn’t get one taste of Thor’s mead and drink the entire flask.” He snorted.

“I did what?”

“Don’t worry, Thor thought it was hilarious.”

“Least of my worries Sam, least of my worries. What else did I do?” You asked with trepidation.

“I’m not sure, check your twitter account. Most of the highlights are on that.” He said with a shrug.

“My… My what?”

“You don’t remember that either? Darcy and that Parker kid convinced you to sign up for social media.” Sam explained, patting your pockets and pulling out your phone.

He unlocked it and after a few clicks turned the screen round to show you. Sure enough you were logged into ‘Twitter’ as…

“Baby-Stark-Do-Do-Do-Do-Do-Do?” You questioned.

“That was Parkers idea. Don’t ask, you don’t want to know the answer.”

You scrolled down the posts with a growing sense of shame. There were pictures and videos galore. You pressed play on one of the videos to see yourself being dancing to Mr Roboto with Iron Man. That video was especially popular. There was a picture of you mid arm wrestling match with Steve, thankfully there wasn’t a video of that, you’d be fucked if you’d revealed to the world you could hold your own with Captain America in strength.

“The Falcon is my favourite Avenger for anyone who was wondering, he’s the best looking and coolest!” You read out loud.

“They do say drunk people are honest.” Sam shrugged and tried to look innocent.

“Sam this is so bad, my dad is probably going to kill me.” You whined.

“I wouldn’t worry about that.” Sam said, taking your phone and clicking on Tony’s twitter profile.

Tony had retweeted a photo of you Dj’ing with an Iron Man helmet on your head with the caption ‘She parties like a Stark! So proud!’.

“None of this explains why I’m wearing a tuxedo or why I woke up in bed with Wanda and Darcy.” You pointed out, stealing Sam’s coffee.

“Can’t help you there but I have so many questions.” Sam said.

You didn’t answer, as soon as you’d tasted the coffee you moaned loudly and drained it like a vampire tasting blood for the first time. Maybe Clint was on to something when he drank it straight from the pot. Sam rolled his eyes and got up to make more.

“Where is everyone else?” You questioned, really wondering if he knew where Bucky was.

“Still sleeping probably. Steve and Buckinator are gone.” He said casually.

“Gone? What do you mean gone? Gone where, gone why?” You yelped.

“They left in the middle of the night. Steve said something about supporting Bucky.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly sober myself.”

“Did Bucky say anything?” You pressed.

“No, last time I saw Bucky you two were screaming at each other in the corridor.” He told you.

Oh no. This was bad. This was very very very bad. What had you done?

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

After sneaking back into Wanda’s room to leave bottles of water and painkillers on the bedside unit for them and lamenting that aspirin couldn’t do a damn thing for you, you decided you needed to retrace your steps from last night to try and figure out what had happened. Bucky’s phone was switched off, as was Steve’s and you were growing more frightened by the second.

Still clad in the ill fitting tux you made the arduous trek downstairs to the floor where the party had been held, hoping to trigger some memories. There were cleaners milling about, bagging up all the evidence and you smiled politely at them as you made your way through the large room.

Nothing in your memories was shaking loose as you teetered around the room shakily and you sighed heavily, ready to give up and try something else when you spotted somebody on the bouncy castle. There was a dark haired man lying on it with his back to you. You crept over and leaned in curiously.

“Hello?” You called.

He sat up rapidly and groaned, holding his head in his hands. He glanced over his shoulder at you and did a double take.

“Oh hey! It’s you!” He exclaimed.

“Scott? What are you doing?” You enquired.

“I was at your party, I’m Scott Lang. You know, Ant Man?”

“Scott we’ve met like twice before.” You reminded him, holding out your hand to help him climb off the bouncy castle.

“Yeah but I wasn’t sure if you remembered me, you were really busy.” He said, accepting your hand and clambering down to stand beside you.

“Trust me, you make an impression.” You laughed.

“Sorry.”

“No, a good one.” You assured him.

“You look as bad as I feel, only with more shame and regret.” He noted.

You sighed heavily and sat down on the edge of the castle and he perched next to you with a patient and open expression.

“I think I fucked up, badly.” You admitted.

“Wanna talk about it? I know a lot about shame and regret.” He offered.

“I don’t know if I can explain it. Ok, there’s somebody here, on the team. We don’t get along and I kind of betrayed them a teeny bit but last night we made progress, really good progress. Great progress actually. But I think I got drunk and messed it up and now he’s gone and I don’t know if I can fix it because I don’t know what I did.” You rambled.

Scott looked a little overwhelmed.

“Wow. Ok, that is a lot more information that I was expecting.”

“Yeah.”

“Well if we can figure out what you did, you think you can try and fix things? That doesn’t sound too complicated. I bet we can do this, you just need to try and remember what happened.”

“I’ve been trying. That’s why I’m down here.” You explained.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” He asked.

“Um, Thor I think? Sam said I drank all the Asgardian mead.” You admitted ruefully.

Scott blinked at you in awe.

“Well that’s a start. Hey lets ask around, the more you can piece together about what happened the better your chances of remembering.” He suggested.

“We? You wanna help?” You asked.

“Sure, it’ll be fun. Probably.” He smiled goofily.

“Besides, every great detective needs a sidekick. Sherlock and Watson, Inspector Gadget and penny… That’s all the examples I have. Come on.” He said, walking off with a spring in his step.

You sighed and shrugged. You didn’t have any better ideas so you got up and followed him.

“Wait, which one of us is the sidekick in this scenario?” You asked.

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

“Well that doesn’t look good...” You remarked.

There was a fist sized hole in the corridor wall. You placed your fist into it but it was clearly made by someone with much bigger hands. Sam had said you and Bucky were arguing in the corridor last night and whatever you had said to him, it looked like it was bad enough he’d punched the wall.

“Hey, there’s another one over here.” Scott called to you from further down the corridor.

You went over to him and saw what he was pointing at. There was a large crack in the plaster, much much bigger than a fist. In fact, it was similar in size to you. You looked behind you and saw that the hole was parallel to the stairs. A fuzzy memory began to play in your head and you pulled your shirt up. Sure enough there were fading bruises along your side.

“Uh, I think I may have tried to use Caps shield as a sledge to go down the stairs.” You admitted with a blush.

“Cool!” Scott exclaimed and then looked at the hole in the wall again.

“Or maybe not so cool.” He decided.

“Very not cool.” You agreed with a wince as you remembered hurtling down the steps and into the wall.

“But hey, at least you remembered something. This is working! Let’s keep going!”

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

The next piece of the puzzle to be solved was in the lab where Banner was working. As soon as he saw you he backed away.

“Are you sober?” The doctor asked you nervously.

“Yes? Why?” You asked.

“Because last night you asked me if you could fight the Hulk and film it. You said Vernichtung Vs The Incredible Hulk would be the greatest death match in history.” Bruce explained.

“I mean, it kind of would.” Scott said while the colour drained from your face.

“I am so sorry Bruce! I would never do that, I swear.” You protested.

“It’s ok, I think you were joking. Besides, I’m pretty sure Darcy put the idea in your head.” He said placatingly.

You were still horrified as you remembered asking Thor if he wanted to referee the fight. You hurriedly apologised to Bruce and fled the lab, your face burning. Scott waved bye to Banner cheerily and ran after you.

“Where to next?” He asked.

“Far away from Bruce.” You said as your feet led you back to the kitchen.

Sam had left and now Clint was perched on the counter drinking coffee. You snatched to pot from his hands and started chugging it.

“Whoa, rude.” Clint snapped.

“Did I do anything last night you wanna tell me about? Steal your bow and pretend I was Merida or something equally stupid?” You groaned.

“No, nothing like that. Well you did ask if I kept animals on the farm and cried for ten minutes when I said I had chickens and phoned my wife to ask her to let you say hi to them.” Clint told you with a snort.

Now that he mentioned it you did sort of remember Laura Barton inviting you to come and see the chickens for yourself and meet the children.

“Oh yeah. Wanda and I are coming to your farm for the weekend.” You admitted.

“I know, the kids are excited.”

“Well, that’s not so bad.” Scott remarked.

“Yeah, at least I didn’t bodily injure myself or challenge him to a fight.” You agreed.

“I don’t want to know, yet I kind of do.” Clint said and Scott hurriedly filled him in while you smooshed your head into your arms on the counter.

“WANDA!” You shrieked, startling both the men.

You wish you had thought of this sooner, you could have saved yourself some time. You rushed away at a faster pace than your body could handle and had to stop in the hall to lean against the wall and rest.

“Wanda I want my memories back.” You yelled, storming into her room.

She was sat on the edge of the bed and you noticed Darcy and Natasha were gone as the witch looked up at you in fear and alarm.

“Your memories? You can’t!” She protested.

“What? Why? I need to figure out what happened last night. Can’t you just… you know?” You asked, imitating the hand gestures she used.

“Last night? Oh, uh I can’t do that. It doesn’t work like that I am afraid.” She informed you, colour returning to her face.

“Ugh. Can you at least remember anything that happened? Any arguments I may have gotten into or something I might have to apologise for?” You asked hopefully.

“I remember very little after karaoke I’m afraid Sestra.” She told you apologetically.

“After what now?”

“You mean you don’t have any recollection of singing?” She said with an evil smirk.

“Oh no. Just tell me.” You whined, throwing yourself onto the bed face down.

“You gave a very emotional performance of Bad Romance.” She sniggered.

“Please just kill me.” You begged.

“If it makes you feel any better, Darcy sang ‘I Touch Myself’ to The captain.”

“You know what, that does make me feel better.”

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

You tracked down Scott who was still in the kitchen, his head in the fridge.

“Wanda can’t help, though she did give me the rundown of my short lived pop career.” You informed him with a sigh.

“Don’t look so down, we’re making great progress.” He told you through a mouthful of cold take out.

“No, we’re finding out all the embarrassing things I did. I’m no closer to finding out what I did to Bucky.” You said mournfully.

“So that’s what this is about? You and The Winter Soldier? You know what, I can kind of see it.” Scott said, squinting at you.

“See what?”

“You and Barnes. You’d make a good couple.”

“What? That’s not what… I didn’t… No.” You spluttered.

Scott grinned at you and you knew you’d given yourself away.

“If you tell anyone I will hunt you down and introduce you to my bloodthirsty alter ego.” You vowed and he went pale.

“No, I wouldn’t. I was just saying, I’m on your side.” He hurriedly assured you.

“I know. Thanks Scott, I appreciate you trying to help but I don’t think this is working.”

You dragged yourself to the couch, accepting that you had messed things up with Bucky again and you didn’t know how.

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

It wasn’t until you got back to your own room that everything fell into place. In hindsight, you really should have gone there first. Especially since you were still wandering around in Tony’s Tuxedo. Yeah, Darcy had finally relented and informed you that she had dared you to steal one of Tony’s suits and wear it back down to the party. She hadn’t specified she had meant the Iron Suits and you had raided your dads closet for the expensive Italian tux.

You had pulled it off and taken a shower, padding over to your bed in a funk you tried once again to call Bucky and yet again it went straight to voicemail. You didn’t bother leaving a message, you wouldn’t know what to say. You sighed heavily and threw yourself onto the mattress, landing on something hard and pointy. You grumbled and pulled it out from under your stomach. It was a book, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. You frowned and flipped the front cover open. There was a note on the inside.

My dear Vernichtung,

I was sorry to hear about your mothers untimely demise, such a tragedy. Still, I am heartened to hear you are able to celebrate and decided to send you this gift. I believe you will find this book to your liking.

I will see you very soon.

Your Creator.

Your chest tightened and everything snapped back into place, all your memories of last night. Finding the book in a pile of gifts and running out of the party. Bucky had followed you into the corridor, worried about you. Through shaky breaths you had tried to explain, showing the book to him. He had been incandescent with rage, putting his fist through the wall. Your own fury had ignited and you had screamed until your throat was raw, wanting to know how he got the book into the compound, wanting to kill him.

You knew you should feel afraid right now but you were too relieved. You hadn’t fucked things up with Bucky. He had tracked down the caterer who had slipped the book into your pile of gifts. A young woman who had been paid an obscene amount of money to sneak the book into the compound, she had thought it was harmless since it was only a book and she needed the money to pay her college fee’s. She had told Bucky everything, about how a man had approached her during one of her breaks at the Catering Company in LA. Bucky had dragged Steve out of the party after begging you to try and put it out of your mind and go back to the celebrations and promised he would call you when he tracked down the mysterious man who had given the girl the book.

Docherty was doing all he could to torment you and proving he could get to you anywhere. Bucky was doing everything he could to help you feel safer, leaving your party and flying to LA for you. You really hadn’t fucked this up at all Docherty be damned, you were happy.

You threw your head back onto the pillow and laughed, jumping up when your phone rang. The screen was completley blank, no caller registered at all. With apprehensiveness you picked up.

“Hello?”

“Miss Stark, this Is Nicholas J Fury. I need your assistance with something. In precisely ten minutes the security systems in the compound will be down for exactly sixty seconds. If you agree to help us you will need to use that time to get out of the compound unnoticed.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because there is a very rich and powerful man who has managed to create a deadly virus he plans to unleash on an unsuspecting population in a war torn country. We can’t call The Avengers, they are too public and this man is to powerful. We need somebody unknown, somebody highly skilled. I am asking you to climb out of your ivory tower to save lives, a lot of lives.”

“And I can’t tell anybody why?” You demanded suspiciously.

“Plausible deniability. The man in possession of this virus has contacts within the UN. This mission is not sanctioned by the accords and neither are you. Millions of lives are at stake and you have eight minutes and sixteen seconds left. Are you in or do I need to find myself another hero, one who cares more about doing the right thing than getting their daddy’s permission?”

Your mind whirled as you tried to decide what to do. What was the right answer here? Did you betray Tony again and sneak away again or did you hang up the phone and let somebody else take care of this? Millions of innocent lives VS Tony’s trust, what were you supposed to do? Did you even trust Fury? Would Tony forgive you if you did it? Would somebody else stand as high a chance as you of doing this?

You took a deep breath and gave your answer.

“I’ll do it.”

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

I can’t believe that I have just hit over 50k words with this chapter. Thank you to each and every person who is reading, I’m so freaking grateful!

@nerdandproud-86 @harrison-shot-first@chook007@thejourneyneverendsx@thelostallycat@inquisitor-selvala@the-corruptor @iovher@kendrawr-kitkat@phoenix-whiskey-tears @the–real-wombat@buckitybarnes@fairislesheets@angieptt @meganjonezzzz

@dugan365 @fluffeh-kitty@memanda17@krystallynx@theonelittleone

@piscesbarnes @free-as-fishes@tarastudiesalot@captainamericasbeard

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #winter soldier x reader #avengers x reader #tony stark x reader #bucky x you #dad tony stark #Steve Rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers is a sweetheart #sam wilson #sam wilson x reader #sam wilson is a good bro #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff #captain america #steve rogers is a little shit #clint barton #parent tony stark #hattersmarvelverse

[post-itpenny]

"_____ get your ass in here" x3 I dont know

The Rabbit

A continuation of the mafia au. Sorry, this one got really, really long but oh things are getting good. X3

It was actually a quiet morning. Maggie and Ama sitting in the library reading together.

“This was one of my favorites as a kid,” Maggie commented, “though this is a way nicer copy than I ever had.”

The book in question, was called My Father’s Dragon and featured a little boy placing colorful bows in a lion’s hair on the cover.

“But does the dragon belong to his dad?” Ama questioned as she flipped through the pages.

Maggie shook her head, “it's more of the narrator is talking about an adventure his dad had as a kid. Here look,” Magie instructed as she pointed out some of the illustrations to Ama. “The little boy has to rescue a little dragon from all the mean animals that are holding it prisoner on the island. But he doesn’t fight them, he’s clever.” Maggie paused on a page featuring the boy scrubbing a rhino’s horn with a toothbrush. “In this scene a really angry rhino charges at him but the boy convinces the rhino he can help with his horn that's gotten all grimy and dirty which the rhino is embarrassed about. The boy packed all kinds of useful things in his backpack including a toothbrush and toothpaste. Once he helps, the rhino is so happy he lets the boy pass without a second thought.”

“Does he rescue the dragon?”

Maggie smirked as she flipped back to where they had left off reading. “Read it to me and find out.”

Outside the guards stood on alert yet were bored. Nothing passed on the street save for the occasional car. Nothing that is till something tiny came charging down the street. They almost didn’t see it till the thing had zipped between their legs and between the bars of the front gate.

William was summoned outside with all the commotion. The thing, now caught was wriggling and whining in the hands of the guard holding it. It took a moment for William to register having seen the creature before. Even less time to register there was dried blood matted into its fur.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maggie ran down the hall, behind her Amaranthus trying her best to keep up with Mune the cat wrapped in her arms.

Maggie threw open the door to William’s office. He stood at his desk with a deep frown on his face. Next to him stood a maid with a small bundle that had just received a much needed bath. The bundle squirmed to escape the towel it was wrapped in at the sight of Maggie. The maid passed off what was revealed to be a small dachshund. A tag on it’s collar revealing the name Trouble.

The little dog whined as it wiggled around and licked Maggie’s face over and over, the poor creature shaking but clearly relieved to be with someone it recognized.

“It ran up the drive this morning,” William explained as Maggie set the little dog down. Mune hissing at him however Ama was delighted, reaching out with a giggle as Trouble licked her fingers.

Maggie looked down at the scene with a slight smile before looking back up at her boss. The worry clear in her eyes. “Why was he given a bath?”

“... he was filthy of course, I was not about to allow the dog into my home without a bath.”

Maggie’s eyes turned hard. The unsaid things she could pull apart in a second. It was part of her job after all. Whether her boss was not saying everything due to his precious Angel being in the room or to simply keep it from Maggie was uncertain but the unsaid things still stood clear:

“What caused the dog to become dirty?”

“Where was his owner?”

Maggie did not ask, but the wheels in her brain were already turning. And just as she caught the unsaid things from her boss William caught the plans forming in her own silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vespers paced the floor with worry. His aunt should have checked in by now. But it had been two days and no word from her. Vespers had sent out a few men to investigate the area his aunt had last reported as investigating. Word came back of finding a blood-stained alley with tiny bloody paw-prints leaving it.

But no body.

Vespers had sent word to William about the situation, having tried and failed to contact Maggie, but it was radio silence on that end as well. Something that didn’t sit right with Vespers at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Maggie’s phone had been destroyed.

It had been “an accident” of course. She had her phone in her hand as she was about to walk downstairs when Pierre bumped into her. He had caught Maggie’s arm before she could lose her footing but the phone had gone flying out her hand and tumbling down the stairs. Landing at the bottom floor in pieces.  

“Oh Pierre you must be careful,” William scolded behind him, “just look what you’ve done to Miss Bryne’s phone.”

Pierre grunted an apology and Maggie was promised a replacement. That had been two days ago, just hours after Trouble had turned up. Now she and Ama were back in the library again, Mune curled up on the arm of Ama’s chair while trouble was asleep in Maggie’s lap. It would have been a cute scene if not for Pierre and another guard who were pretending to be reading nearby. It put Maggie on edge, something that was not missed.

“Are you worried about the dragon?” Ama asked, pointing at the illustration of a crying dragon with stripes.

Maggie shook her head. “I’m worried about Trouble’s owner…” Maggie paused, unsure what she was able to say especially with the guards nearby. “I don’t know where she is and I’m scared.”

Ama frowned, patting Maggie’s hand, “I hug Mune when i’m scared, or find daddy.”

Maggie smirked, “Mune doesn’t like me and I don’t think I want to ever admit to your dad when I’m scared.”

“Why?”

A servant interrupted them, delivering tea and cookies as a snack.

There was a tiny piece of paper folded under Maggie’s teacup.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vespers and Juno spoke in silence, they were at a meeting in the godfather’s home. It was clear their aunt was considered dead to the family but nonetheless their father supported his children continuing a small investigation. If anything but for closure.

A servant walked by offering drinks, there was a tiny slip of paper the servant also slipped into the palm of Vespers’ hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

William sighed, for two days Maggie had not put up a fuss though it was obvious her temper was biling just under the surface. But she had behaved which was all he could really ask of her. That being said it was time they had a chat.

He reached out to knock on her bedroom door, surprised when Maggie opened the door and nearly ran into him. She was dressed in her old uniform instead of the comfortable dresses of late. Her hair back in a tight bun and a gun being tucked into a holster under her coat. They looked at each other in surprise.

William frowned, hands on his hips. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Maggie frowned in turn, “out.”

“Out?”

Maggie held her ground, “I’m going out to look for Magpie. I was hoping you would respect that as the only family I really have you would understand I have to go.”

William sighed, shifting so that he was blocking the doorway. “I was coming to tell you that I have been investigating myself. She isn’t to be found anywhere.”

Maggie looked down, seeming to process what he had said, “with all due respect I’m the one that should be sent out for information. It’s my job for goodness sake, let me do it.”

“You are too valuable an asset and it would be exactly what the enemy wants-”

“To hell with being an asset!” Maggie shouted. “How can I possibly be of any value if I’m here? How can I do my job here? I’m worthless right now.”

“Not true,” William insisted, “Amaranthus seems to have taken quite a shine with you and you do well in watching her.”

“You can hire anyone to babysit William.”

“It’s sir to you.”

“Fine, you can get anyone to babysit sir.”

William bristled at the ice in her voice. “Maggie dear you must have patience because believe me when I say you are trying mine. You will leave me to carry on an investigation and you will not leave am I clear?”

Maggie blinked, an unreadable look in her eye as she took a few steps back before running at the door.

Willam braced himself for impact only to be dumbfounded as the redhead leaped right over him with ease, bolting down the halway.

She nearly made it to the stairs when someone grabbed her shoulder. The reaction was quick, Maggie placing a well-aimed kick to the guards’ head as she hopped over the railing and fell onto a couch below. Springing over the head of a servant and nearly making it to the door before someone tackled her to the ground.

Maggie shrieked and twisted around, two more people running up to hold her down. William approached noting the scene reminding him of a program he once watched where several people were trying to capture a crocodile. Maggie looked up at him, her hair free of it’s bun and a wild mess around her face. Eye’s wild and teeth bared. So this is why people called her crazy.

William knelt down in front of her with a smirk though his eyes read anger. “I would be rather impressed except for the fact you’re causing quite a scene.”

“You’re a scene!” Maggie snapped, her words the only thing she had left. “You’re the one that has me pinned down like a fucking animal!”

“None of that language now,” William scolded, “this wouldn’t be necessary if you didn’t act like an animal.”

“You’re an animal! You- umph!”

Pierre had slapped a hand over Maggie’s mouth, “sir if your daughter sees?”

At this William’s demeanor shifted, Maggie seemed to lose her will as well. Not fighting when she was lifted up off the ground but still held so that her feet could not touch the floor.

William reached into her jacket and pocketed her gun, “lock her in her room and don’t anyone dare let her out.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was quite late at night now, and Maggie had to congratulate William in being so thoughtful on making sure her room didn’t have a window.

She also had to congratulate his men on clearly not haiving read her file.

Air vents were not her favorite place to be but shimmying up the one in her bedroom ceiling felt like she was stepping back into a beloved old pair of shoes. A tight space no doubt but a familiar one. She had long mapped out the ventilation shafts, as well as every nook and cranny that she was able to get into of the manor. Once even nearly fell through the air vent grate that was over William’s room and frequently using the one above Amaranthus’ to drop a few coins and glitter when it was time for the tooth fairy to visit.

Granted, William had already snuck a trade of tooth for money while the little angel slept. But the look of confusion on his face when Ama came racing downstairs with the additional glitter coated coins was priceless.

Maggie popped through an opening in the hallway, sneaking her way to the servant’s stairwell with a swish of her boa and down to the cellar where she had also noted the windows were not covered by the alarm system for some reason.

Really should mention that to the boss at some point.

Oh well.

She dashed across the garden, hiding in shrubs when she feared a guard nearby. Eventually making it to a tree whose branch was just close enough to the wall she could use it shimmy across to freedom. She paused to look back, there was a ground floor window open. In her mental eye of the manor’s map that would be a parlor, why was it open?

There was a rustling sound, another guard coming? Maggie leaped from her perch on the tree branch and over the wall, landing on her feet on the other side.

Maggie sprinted across the street and to the safety of a dark alley.

Free at last.

She grinned, turning to leave when she crashed into something. Looking down in surprise at a small set of toy angel wings.

Oh no.

Amaranthus clearly had gotten dressed in a hurry but at least had the sense to put on a ocat and decent shoes. She wore a small backpack as well which Mune the cat poked his head out of.

Maggie knelt down. Placing a hand on Ama’s head as if trying to process that the little girl was really here. “Wh-what are you doing?” Maggie hissed.

Ama puffed out her chest, “A Blueblood looks out for their o-own, Daddy said s-so. I gotta lo-ook out for you.”

If she was stuttering from the cold or nerves Maggie couldn’t tell, pulling the little girl into a tight hug despite Mune’s protests.

“You’re the best Angel… but your dad is also gonna kill me so let's get you back home.”

“Let me h-help! You’re gonna go find the puppy’s owner right? You said you w-were sc-scared.”

Maggie nodded, looking back at the manor and up at the moon. She was going to be late at this rate. Plus, if she took Ama back goodness know her boss would already be up and waiting. She was as good as dead no matter what.

Might as well go out with one last hoorah.

“We are going to go find this,” Maggie explained as she pulled a small piece of paper from her pocket to show Ama. On it was the simple drawing of a rabbit. She had not shown William earlier in fear of getting the servant who had given it to her in trouble.

Ama looked at the drawing with a nod, taking Maggie’s hand as they walked down the alleyway. “It’s like the story!”

Ah, so that explained the backpack.

“Heheh, kinda. We need to meet up with some friend’s first. You’re going to have to be really brave Ama. Can you do that?”

The little girl gave a firm nod as they rounded the corner where a car sat waiting.”

“Hey bird! Juno shouted, “get your ass in here!”

Maggie shouted, slapping her hands over Ama’s ears. Vespers and Juno pulling them both into the car with a look of surprise.

“Maggie,” Vespers gasped, “please don’t tell me that's whose kid I think it is.”

Juno frowned, “whose kid is it? Why the fuck would you even bring a kid?”

“Juno!” Maggie screamed as she put her hands over Ama’s ears again and thinking fast. “Sh-shes the kid of one of Blueblood’s secretaries. Snuck out to follow me and if I take her back we’ll get caught. I’m on lockdown right now… Angel how did you get out?”

Ama looked at her fellow passengers in fear, choosing to whisper to Maggie instead. “I s-saw you f-fall o-out of the vent and g-go down the st-stairs. S-so I t-took the other st-stairs and went out th-the window.”

“You did?” Maggie asked, beaming with pride. “And nobody saw you?”

Vespers shook his head as he put the car in drive, “talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire Birdie. Great to have you back but you’re fried chicken when this is over.”

Maggie nodded but said nothing else. Buckling a nervous Ama’s seatbelt as they drove through the city.

“You know if my dad hadn't dropped you-”

“You don;t know the whole story moron,” Juno snapped at her brother. “Dad did it so the Godfather had no hold over Aunt Pie. As long as Birdie here was around she was blackmail for Aunt Pie to stay.”

Maggie flinched, she had suspected that's what happened but it still hurt.

“That and the bird is nothing but trouble.”

“Hey!”

“We’re here,” Vespers announced.

Here was an abandoned townhouse, on the side gate was a small rabbit design welded into a post. Behind the townhouse was an old carriage house that seemed to be in much better condition, a small light on inside. Around the carriage yard were all manor of plants and a fancy rabbit hutch in one corner.

“Wh-ere are we?” Ama asked.

“The rabbit’s warren,” Vespers answered. “The home of the best stitch in the city.”

“Stitch?”

“Um, she’s a doctor for people who can’t go to the hospital.” Maggie explained. “The rumor is she was a great surgeon but someone tried to hurt one of her nurses so she defended them but lost her job as a result.”

Ama frowned, “that’s not right.”

“That’s like pipsqueak, “Juno muttered as she knocked on the carriage house door. A man in scrubs answered nodding at the piece of paper Juno held. One with the image of a rabbit on it.

Rabbits were good luck, creativity, and life. The Rabbit’s Warren was near legend. A neutral place that welcomed any patience as long as they came without violence. Because of this the Rabbit’s network of helpers was long and influential. Sneaking into nearly every gang in the city so to act as a relay should one of their own be hurt and assure the Rabbit was aware of all conflicts.

The nurse who let them in held out a basket, Maggie turning Ama to the small fire that had been lit on the pretence of warming her up while Vespers and Juno deposited their weapons into the basket.

They were then led to a small door, ducking down as they found themselves in an elevator that began its descent down. Ama was shaking, Maggie scooping her up into her arms while Mune rubbed against her cheek.

The elevator opened to a long tunnel. An abandoned subway tunnel by the looks of it. Around them here rows of hospital beds each with a curtain around them. Men, women, and even a few animals all in various stages of care. In front of them however was the Rabbit.

The real story was that a shootout had taken place in Dr. Adeline’s ER. The doctor wasted no time in wrestling the gun out of the assailants hands and holding them at gunpoint till help arrived. Help being a rival gang who in turn offered to help her set up shop when she lost her medical licence. She accepted on the grounds she be allowed to except all patients.

Adeline the Rabbit had greying blond hair and the fierce look of a grandmother about to scold her children.  

“You brought a child.”

“She’s with me,” Maggie insisted. I’m sorry but please excuse her Ma’am.”

The Rabbit huffed and pulled a lollipop from her lab coat to offer to Ama. “I never turn away children. Just get angry with their wayward caretakers. This is not the kind of place she needs to be in. She should be home, safe.”

Maggie flinched but did not say anything. Hugging Ama tighter as they followed the Rabbit down the tunnel.

“She was brought in with a gunshot wound to the shoulder and one to her lower chest. From what I can tell whoever went at her was aiming from a distance and is either a cheap hire or a lousy shot. She’ll make it but is sleeping off the painkillers.

Juno frowned, “who brought her in?”

The Rabbit pulled back a curtain. There Magpie peacefully slept with layers of bandages wrapped around her chest. In the bed next to her was a sleeping Jack.

Vespers and Juno both swore and reached for the gang leader. The Rabbit holding them back while Maggie held her hands over Ama’s ears again. Biting down her own anger at seeing the man.

“He brought her in!” The Rabbit shouted, “He took a shot to the hip for her!”

This froze everyone, looking to the doctor for an explanation.

“She was out when he had his men take them in. Said he was there to off her but someone had a hit on them both.”

Vespers and Juno asked questions as Maggie approached the bed. Quietly taking Magpie’s hand as relief and dread filled her in equal parts.

“Wh-who is she?” Ama asked.

“Um, kinda like a mom to me I guess,” Maggie explained. “I never called her it but she was just as good as one.”

Ama nodded as she reached into her backpack, pulling out Mune along with an assortment of items till she found what she was looking for. A bandaid covered in purple hearts.

The Rabbit took the tiny bandaid and placed it over the larger ones on Magpie’s shoulder. “This will definitely help her feel better sooner. That was very kind of you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ride home was uneventful. Ama seeming to have tired out both from her adventure and her nerves. Perking up as Maggie carried her out of the car and down the street.

“Your dad can’t know about this ok? Pinkie promise?”

Ama nodded and locked pinkies with Maggie before the two dashed across the street and to the wall of the Manor property.

“Ok,” Maggie whispered, “here is the plan. I’m going to set you up on the wall and you need to keep low until I get up there. I’ll hop down to the other side so I can catch you when you jump ok?” Ama nodded as Maggie lifted her up and onto the top of the wall. Maggie then jumping and pulling herself up. Surprised when she realized Ama was not with her.

Several lights flashed on. Maggie being blinded for a moment as she felt someone grab her arm and pull her off the wall. Maggie blinked as she became aware of her surroundings. Pierre was standing over her with a startled Ama in his arms. Like a shadow with the bright lights of the manor behind him stood William.

[houseofvans]

SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | INTERVIEW WITH KATY HORAN

Focusing around witches, old croons, ghost stories and folklore, Austin based artist Katy Horan’s works address and explore various aspects of female archetypes. In a recent collaboration, Katy worked with poet Taisia Kitaiskaia to illustrate 30 portraits of women writers for a book titled Literary Witches. We’re super excited to find out more about her works, her influences, and her process in creating these beautifully haunting gouache works. 

Make the leap below! 

Photographs courtesy of the artist. 

Introduce yourself. My name is Katy Horan. I do fine art and illustration. I am really into horror and Harry Potter.

Tell folks a little about your artwork and what you love to make works about? My work is mostly 2D-- paintings and drawings, but lately I have been dabbling in some sculpture. I love to make work about witches, old ladies, ghost stories or anything that is generally folky/spooky/weird.

A lot of your artwork focuses on roles of women in various epochs. From addressing topics such as the Victorian idea of femininity to Appalachian and Ozark folklore of the healer/witch figure. Can you tell us what initially drew you to explore these particular topics, and what was the most interesting thing you discovered as you explored it as an artist? Over the years, I would stumble across Appalachian folklore or music and it sort of haunted me until I decided to explore it more directly. That’s when I discovered the Granny Witches of that region–older women who specialize in herbal medicine, midwifery and sometimes folk magic. Even though there is a lot of religion and fear of witches in that region, these women align with the witch archetype in many ways, and I find that very interesting.

Most of my work concerns itself with some sort of female archetype–witch, widow, maiden. I think it’s because these figures are changeable and can differ across time and culture. I use my work as a means of untangling all the variations, and to create a sort of inventory.

When working on a body of related paintings and works, what is your process like? What leads you to start researching any one thing? My process is kind of a mess. I am not great at starting pieces, so everything gets off to a rocky start and often goes through many changes and re-dos until they begin to make sense. At that point, I begin to enjoy them more because I can focus on cleaning them up and honing the details.

Often the things I get into researching have been knocking around in the back of my brain for a while, sometimes it’s even fragments of stories from childhood or pieces of movies I can barely remember. It’s in the process of trying to discover more about these ghosts that I uncover the strange things that end up becoming pieces.

Not only do you create moving works for shows and exhibitions, but you’ve also done tons of amazing illustrations and most recently for a book, correct? What particular illustration project was your personal favorite and why? I’ve illustrated one book called Literary Witches. It was a collaboration between myself and the poet Taisia Kitaiskaia. I got to paint surreal portraits of 30 amazing women writers to accompany her wonderfully strange writing. It really was a dream project.

What are some of your favorite books that you may have discovered while painting or researching for shows? What are you currently ready about? It’s not a new discovery, but the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy has always been a significant source of inspiration for me. I discovered the book Witches by Erica Jong in the Strand rare book room in NY in 2006/2007, and it played a huge part in my work going in a new and really important direction. I am currently taking a break from research and just enjoying some literature. Right now I am reading Joan Didion’s memoir Blue Nights and a collection of short stories by the sci-fi writer, Octavia E Butler. She was one of the writers I was introduced to while making Literary Witches, and I just love her work.  

What’s your favorite medium and what do you most enjoy about it? What medium haven’t you tried that you’d definitely like to get your hands on? Gouache would be my main medium. I love it because I can easily cover mistakes or things I don’t like. I use watercolor a lot too, but I am not very good at it, so whatever I paint usually gets covered with gouache anyway. I’ve used it before, but I would like to paint with oil sometime again. I haven’t touched it since I left art school 15 years ago and I miss it.

In your studio, what type of art materials and tools would we find on your desk? Lots of brushes in various states of ruin, masking tape in all sizes, lots of empty yogurt containers for water. Right now my sketchbook is out, which is kind of rare. I’m not a big sketchbook person. I prefer to work things out on scraps of paper and tape them to the wall so I can see all my ideas at once, but I recently took some time off my work and am just now coming back from that. I am moving really slowly and my sketchbook is a good place to ease back into things.

You’re currently residing in Austin, TX, right? What do you love about where you live, and what is the art community like in your area? Austin is a great place to live, even though we are going through a lot of growing pains at the moment. The art scene is interesting in that a good percentage of our galleries are artist run. We don’t have a huge market here, but a strong community. There are a lot of artists here making good work, but it is still pretty insular.

Who are some artists you’re inspired by and have influenced you throughout the years? Kiki Smith is a big one for me. I love how she works with archetypes across so many mediums. Other Contemporary Artists I love are Kara Walker, Nick Cave, James Kerry Marshall. I also love a lot of illustrators. Carson Ellis might be my favorite. As for older artists, I adore the female surrealists Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. My biggest influence, though, might be folk art. I love everything from early American portraiture to Victorian era mourning art.  

What’s been the most challenging part of your art career? What’s been the most rewarding? What do you do to keep the balance? My biggest challenge comes from wanting everyday to be productive and inspired, but when you make art everyday (and have a 4 year old) that just isn’t realistic. I struggle a lot with my focus at times and just have to accept the days that don’t yield much. The most rewarding thing is looking back on all the work I’ve made so far. Often, it takes me some time after finishing a piece to really appreciate it. The farther I get from it; the more I love it.

What’s your advice to folks who see what you do and want to pursue it as a career? I think it’s good to remember that the idea of success is subjective and personal. To some, nothing less than the Whitney Biennial will do, but some others are very happy showing their work in their community or selling zines on Etsy. The truth is all these things are equal. What’s important is that you make the work you want to make, even if hardly anyone sees it. I think that the best an artist can do is to make the work that is most naturally theirs, regardless of what is considered cool or significant at the time.

What are your FAVORITE Vans?  I don’t currently have any, but I have loved a few pairs of navy blue Slip-Ons in my past!

Finally can you share with us any exciting things you’ve got lined up? Right now, I am working towards a big solo show in 2020. I have some time, so I am enjoying taking my time with it. I am also tinkering with a few ideas for future book projects.

FOLLOW KATY | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER 

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Vans Girls #Sketchy Behaviors #Katy Horan #painting #women #women in art #folk art #interview

[handypolymath]

WIP challenge

I was tagged by @ellewritesfiction to post the first sentence of some of my works in progress, and I’ve been struggling with this because I’m only rarely a chronological writer, and I’m currently trying to wrap up a WIP I’ve been posting as I go since last August. I also co-write with @thassalia a lot, so sometimes the first sentence isn’t mine!

So I’m cheating all over the place with this one, in part to reassure myself that finishing and letting go of Electronic Thumb is a good thing, I’ve got some interesting places to land.

Dr. Sock Sez - where they find a baby in a lab jar

Bruce pulls the poor thing out of the gestation canister, flailing and sputtering because they’d taken out the power for the base before they realized the focus of the main lab was this baby in a fucking jar, and the only thing that keeps him from hulking out is not that Tony makes a ‘filthy Bene Tleilax’ joke, but that Steve gets it.

“That’s incredibly inappropriate,” the Captain bites out, “be useful and fetch the Bruce Out Kit.”

Blankets, Bruce thinks, would make it easier to keep a hold of this squirmy damp girl, who’s not much bigger than a handful but is putting up a good fight.

“Hey, Steve’s up to Herbert on the list!” Tony says, “If he’s up to Lovecraft does that mean we can’t call the baby Mi-Go?”

Natasha unfreezes, but her face is still blank with horror as she watches Bruce curl the tiny angry newborn against his shirt. She lunges toward the control panel and starts breaking into the system. She will find out exactly what they had done, were doing, planned to do with that girl.

Chiaroscuro - our Notorious AU

Natasha swings out the tone arm and stops the turntable, lifts the record and slips it back into the labeled sleeve.  She unsheathes the next record and aligns it on the center spindle, starts the platter turning, and sets the needle into the groove.

Dr. Bruce Banner makes very few calls, but the microphones in his apartment catch more than expected.  He’s a mutterer when he’s deep in thought, he hums and whistles depending on mood, and he’s carrying on a rather illuminating screaming feud with a neighbor.  She’s been out of town for a couple weeks on another errand of Carter’s, a field trip with a seasoned agent and yet another test that she passed without issues.  Now she’s playing catch-up on her analysis of Dr. Banner.

Clint has been in Santa Monica since Christmas.  She's teased him that at least he gets to talk to the scientist he’s assigned to, instead of just listening to them whistling along with Maria Callas and trading insults with the cranky old man across the alley.  In turn, Clint had described kimchi.  She’d asked if he realized he was talking to a Russian about cabbage.  He’d sniped that he’d eaten his own fair share of cabbage, thank you, and part of her share, and he wasn’t going to stand for any more even if Dr. Cho took offense.

Natasha sighs, and sets the needle back to the beginning of the track.  It’s stifling in this room, and it’s making her careless.  It’s also the hundredth time she’s listened to Dr. Banner whistle along to this aria from Manon, and a part of her brain has started choreographing a pas de deux to it.

At least he’s getting better at hitting the notes.

Go Out With A Lion’s Roar - just a working stiff on Sakaar

Hulk is sorry, and sorry for himself. He did what he could to make it right, but it’s flowers for a black eye.

The nightmare he was given lingers like a sour puke tongue, makes him feel anger like lava. What he woke up to...the anger turns in on himself.

He makes people sad, and dead. So he flicks off the screen and points the nose up.

The quinjet asks him questions, and he says, “Higher. Faster.” The machine shudders around him and talks to him about oxygen scrubbers. He flexes his hand, and pictures a scrubby sponge. He knows it’s not one of Banner’s memories, because he’s standing on a stool to reach the sink; it’s from the before time, before everything. He wasn’t always a monster. The jet levels out, and tells him about fuel levels and orbit decay.

He opens his fist, and pictures dogs shot into space. Russian dogs. He hopes the dogs weren’t lonely. They didn’t deserve that.

He punches himself in the head. He’s not a dog. He’s not a good boy. For a little while, he didn’t think he was a monster, either, but he’s less sure of that. He already knows Banner’s answer, so he wouldn’t ask him even if he could find him.

For Unlikely Carnal Knowledge - the bodyswapping one

It had been nearly 78 hours of Tony cycling through coffee, mango and algae smoothies, and scotch. Perhaps nibbling a little cheese. Pepper had last slept in her own bed three continents ago, her period was due any moment, and damn it, she was going to use her boyfriend as a heating pad whether he liked it or not.

She gets as far as nodding hello to Bruce, who's scribbling an equation onto a screen with his finger - she uses the same interface but with the financial template instead of half the Greek alphabet - and opening her mouth.

It's exactly like one of those old flash cubes going off. The spike of white blue light, the puffy sounding pop that also sounds like thin crackling glass, the whiff of hot carbon smell. The disorientation makes her grip the counter, but she still knocks her head against the screen and something jams the bridge of her nose. She pushes back, and a pair of eyeglasses go flying.

The Holtzmann Effect - Clint’s apartment building was an early work of Ivo Shandor

Steve isn’t impressed by the amount of material spread across the worktables, sheafs of blueprints and building permits, zoning board meeting notes and cloth-bound library volumes full of archeologists’ hand-drawn illustrations of bullae cuneiform, which Patty describes as Sumerian paperwork.

Steve is daunted.

“Do you drink coffee?” he asks, as Patty pulls out a used yellow legal pad and uncaps her pen with a twinkle in her eye. “I can make coffee, or go get coffee.”

“Not much of a reader?” She narrows her eyes. “Not enough action scanning primary sources for keywords? I thought you also got a boost with information processing, visual memory, that kind of thing.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work.” Steve bristles, “I want to help.”

“Then sit your ass down,” Patty shoves the thickest library book toward him, “and use your eidetic memory to find,” she flips though her pad to show him a page of Sumerian symbols carefully sketched: a stylized fish labeled ‘metal’, an athletic sock labeled ‘dog’, a striped wedge shape with a stem labeled ‘beer’, and a piece of erotic art, “anything that looks like these.”

Her frank expression dares him to give her any more guff.

“Anything to help,” Steve nod solemnly, then takes another look at the page. He points to the large pointed jar in the scene, from which the lady is drinking through a long straw while taking it from behind. “Is it safe to assume that’s also beer?”

Patty’s answer is a playful pout and, “I’m sure people are always bugging you about what you miss from back in the day. Well I wasn’t even alive for that part, but that’s my answer.”

Rust & Ague - that steampunk one

The Iron Man was the exception to every rule. Most airships were chartered cruisers, lumbering luxury liners, and official patrols, with a few oddball private ships here and there, small and ill-funded, or ostentatious fripperies. Stark's ship was a research vessel the size of a cruiser. It ran a small tight core crew, but rotated the bulk of its lower rank hands at every dock.

Those temporary crews were a potpourri mixed by the fine-boned hand of Virginie Petra Potts. She was a dynamo draped in daffodil crepe de chine, sitting on a camp chair behind a cleverly folding writing desk set midway down the dock. The Iron Man rose behind her, gleaming copper in the water, its solar sails furled into scrolls of gold, and she was her gatekeeper.

Main Vein - Jennifer Walters whistleblows on her diabolical law firm

"I...what do you know about Agent Romanoff?"

“You mean before finding out just now that she’s the pocket dynamite from the Battle of New York?” Jen’s look at him is reproachful, but in a teasing way. "I know she got me out of my apartment safe when I thought I’d be dead for sure. I know she had that jacket specially tailored around a double shoulder holster."

Bruce can't help checking the line of Natasha's back, remembering the feel of it snugged against his chest, surging against him slick with sweat. He takes a mouthful of ice water and crunches a cube.

Jen chews her own bite thoughtfully. "I find her skills comforting in a way I wouldn't have suspected a few weeks ago."

"Life is full of surprises."

Which is normally the kind of cliche conversation filler Bruce offers as a dry joke, but that's when the flash bang goes off.

#wip #i have not always been writing electronic thumb #writing is a ridiculous art

[ivadeshin]

Feeblemind pt 6

(continued from here)

The bed doesn’t feel completely real, but there is a voice nearby that is pleasant, singing, occasionally talking, humming, never far. Instead of lost very far away, Caleb feels himself hovering very close to his body, nearly grounded, almost there. The ceiling to the room is cobwebbed and the beams have expanded and warped from the brief summers of...

...of wherever he is.

The voice stops briefly, and Caleb feels a strange panic rise up from his gut to his throat. In his hand he can feel a knot of bed sheets, gripped too tightly, and then the voice is back, and Caleb is sitting up, and something is being pressed to his lips. It’s unpleasant. The rim of a mug? He turns and faces the wall. Soon, he is laying down again.

Someone is humming as they eat. Someone is talking. It is a male voice. It is not his father. His father is dead.

“Caleb,” he hears, and he tries to get back into his body to say something or turn his head toward the voice. It’s a pleasant one, calm and patient, and he would like to respond to it. He feels his mouth twist in frustration.

The voice is closer, and his hand is warm. Someone is holding it. They keep talking, and Caleb wants to be there with this person, wants to listen, wants to ensure this person is not talking alone to no-one. He tries to remember what he would do with Nott to-

-Nott-

-he shuts his eyes tightly and thinks about the prison and the breakout and the circus and... and...

“You’re Molly,” Caleb says, understanding washing over him like the tide. He forces his eyes to focus and there is a brightly colored something next to the bed, next to an empty plate and a full one on a little table. The something is smiling and it is someone; it is Mollymauk.

“Usually,” Molly agrees, and squeezes Caleb’s hand. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“Inside,” Caleb says. His body feels leaden and sluggish, as if he’s been running for days.

“Can you be more specific?”

“The inn, the, the Blushing Bride.” He thinks back. “I... floated here?” That can’t be right.

Molly’s glowing red eyes blink a few times. “I called Yasha over to the snowbank you walked into, and had her carry you here.”

Caleb tries to replay the event without letting himself fall into it. “That... makes more sense.” Yasha. The others. “I made some sort of scene, didn’t I.”

“There was nobody around.”

“You all were around.”

“Yes, and a good thing, or you’d have hypothermia right now, I think.” Molly lets go of his hand, leaning forward a little and pointing to Caleb’s legs. “Speaking of, what do you think of switching to some dry trousers? I dug some out of your pack.”

There is a blanket over his legs and the one underneath them feels damp and tepid. Caleb pushes himself up to sit and begins unlacing his boots, which are... soaked through, and his feet are the painful kind of numb. How did he not notice before?

“I’m an idiot,” Caleb mutters to himself.

“You’re not,” Molly replies calmly, and lays the trousers and socks out next to Caleb on the bed. He then turns around, busying himself with the plates and the mugs. Caleb falters on his laces and watches Molly for a while, realizing that there is nothing to do with the plates or the mugs, and Molly has just... turned. Molly has taken care of him but has not gotten him out of his soaking clothes.

Caleb tries to think of what to say - I trust you to undress me while I’m unresponsive - how does one phrase that less awkwardly? He kicks his boots to the ground, frustrated with himself, hanging his socks and trousers on the nearby chair and changing into the ones Molly’s provided. “You are very kind to me,” he says.

Molly turns and nods at his dry clothes. “I try.” He strips the soaked blanket off the bed, tossing it in the corner of the room. “Will you eat?”

“We just had breakfast.”

“We had breakfast at breakfast.” Molly tilts his head. “It’s past dinner.”

Caleb looks at the two plates and frowns. Then he glances outside, to the opaque gray sky and... “Have you been singing and minding me since midday?”

Molly’s quiet for a while, and Caleb stares at him, which Molly seems to mistake for a demand for an answer. “Nott gave me a break for a little while, but then she called downstairs and said you were getting worse.”

Caleb’s not sure what ‘worse’ means. Was he doing something or not doing something or...? He just remembers being still.

“Fjord and Beau went back to the mayor and got our pay,” Molly says, pushing on. “The storehouse burned down fine. The foundation is old brick so I don’t think they’ll have a rough time building it again when the spring comes.”

Caleb tries to remember what they were even trying to do. “Did we find the weaver’s...?”

Molly shakes his head. “But I bet that asshole we took out in the storehouse had it. We’re going to check tomorrow when everything’s cooled down and see if we can dig up the bodies. It wouldn’t have been hot enough to melt down silver, right?”

“Right,” Caleb agrees, and feels heavier.

The silence fills the room, and with a start Caleb looks down to see Molly’s hand taking his again. Molly looks like he’s not sure if this is alright, and Caleb finds himself forcing a smile and squeezing tightly.

“Ah, you remember Hand Time.”

“Hand...?” Molly tilts his head, confused (but clearly a little relieved that the gesture was taken well. Caleb must be calming down if he isn’t having to struggle quite so much to read emotions.)

“I, you didn’t understand words at the time,” Caleb says, gesturing with his other hand. “And, also, I was saying it in Zemnian. When you were getting anxious I would tell you it was Hand Time.” He jiggles their joined hands in illustration.

Molly breaks out into laughter. Caleb’s smile grows warmer and more easy to wear on his face. “Yasha told me,” Molly says, and then sobers up a little. “After we got out of there, Yasha kind of caught me up. She said you’d been talking to me in Zemnian and that nobody had heard you talk so much in all the time they’d known you. Nott included.”

“I can babble when there’s good reason,” Caleb murmurs into his lap. “I, um. For a while I told you about how to cook traditional dishes, mostly one-pot recipes of stews and roast hare... and then I got a little bolder and told you what I thought of everyone in the group, and later on,” Sensing the opportunity to lighten the mood with a funny anecdote, “I, um, I told you that you would not want to rut on a shabby loser like me!”

Caleb is smiling at the joke, waiting for Molly to smile back, because nothing would make Caleb happier right now than for Molly to look back at that memory and find it to be a comedy of errors, a beautiful fae creature doting on a donkey - but Molly’s face has fallen, deeply hurt, and Caleb kicks himself and tries to dig himself out.

“It was a joke,” Caleb says hurriedly. “That is, I did say that, because, obviously, but, I meant it for us to, to laugh at, because everything turned out fine... you did not...”

Molly’s voice is so soft. “Did you really say that to me?”

“Yes,” Caleb confirms, because he still isn’t sure how this wouldn’t assure Molly that everything is as it should be, Caleb did not misread Molly’s temporary interest, and Molly’s dignity is still intact. He racks his brain for what else he blathered about. “I said you didn’t really want to; I knew that, of course, and-”

“Caleb.”

Caleb looks back at the clothes drying on the chair and grimaces. “I just mean, Molly, last week we hauled Fjord out of that bog and had to take everything off him, remember? And we, you know, we definitely learned that everything they say about half-orcs is true, but we did it because he was paralyzed and that ooze was acidic. Even Jester did not say anything to him afterward. I, I just mean we all trust each other, and, that includes me trusting you, so-” Caleb’s cut off by a knock on the door.

“Nott?” Molly calls, standing up.

“Yes, I heard voices, is he up?”

“Come on in,” Molly says, and he’s barely finished his sentence before Nott has rushed through the door and leaped onto the bed, standing at Caleb’s side and hands over his face, hair, briefly squishing his cheeks.

“You’re awake! I mean, you’re aware! Caleb, can you hear me?”

“I’m here,” Caleb confirms through forced ducky lips, and gently takes Nott’s hands in his to bring them down. “I’m sorry. It sounds like I gave you all a. A very bad scare.”

“It was horrible,” Nott whispers, tears welling in her eyes. She looks at their joined hands a moment, biting her lip, before pulling herself free so she can throw her tiny arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry...”

Caleb shoots a look to Molly, who’s shutting the door, as he hugs her back. “None of that was your fault, Nott. I thought I was okay, and I stayed there, and then I, um.” He swallows. “Then I was not okay.”

“I should have been with you. I should have had my eye on you. Molly didn’t catch up with you until you were a quarter mile away-”

“-it was only a few steps!” Caleb looks to Molly again for backup.

“Closer to a quarter mile than a couple steps,” Molly hedges, and shrugs.

“-and then Yasha had to carry you back and you were crying and you wouldn’t respond, and I knew, I knew I’d totally failed you-”

“Nott.” Caleb pulls back just enough to kiss the crown of her head. “You didn’t fail me. Nobody failed me.” He holds her tightly. “If it weren’t for you, and for the rest of the Nein, I. I’d probably be in a gutter right now. Or still rotting away in that cell.”

Nott sniffs and presses her cheek to Caleb’s before releasing him. She looks across the room. “You didn’t eat your dinner,” she says finally.

“He wouldn’t even drink,” Molly murmurs. “He only ‘woke up’ a couple minutes ago.” He looks out the window at the growing snowdrift. “We’ve just been catching up and talking.”

“Oh.” Nott frowns at Molly, and then at Caleb. “If I go take your wet clothes downstairs and put them up by the hearth to dry, do you promise to eat?”

Caleb smiles. “I do.”

“Everything on the plate,” she adds.

There is a warm glow in his heart that Caleb can’t quite put to words. “Every crumb.”

Nott seems satisfied, pushing some strands of hair behind Caleb’s ears and fixing his part in a rare moment of motherly grooming. After a moment’s hesitation, she makes sure Molly is still looking out the window as she licks her thumb and swipes it firmly across Caleb’s jawline.

“Zum Tuefel, Nott.”

“You had dirt on you,” the little goblin explains, unapologetic. She hops off the mattress, gathering the socks and trousers up in her arms, nodding to them both before walking out the door and shutting it behind her. Caleb waits until her little footsteps are disappearing down the hall to look down to his lap and smile to himself.

#critical role #critical fic #widomauk #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #nott the brave

[acaseforpencils]

Jason Chatfield.

Bio: I grew up in the far flung suburbs of Perth, in Western Australia, and used to spend my paper route money on MAD Magazines (I cheaped-out and stole my dentist’s waiting room issues of the New Yorker. I think I was the only kid who looked forward to going to the dentist).

I moved to New York in 2014 and started pitching to the mag in person. I’m not sure Bob liked me, so I went back to pitching via email. Then I went in on his last day and finally sold my first piece. I feel like it was his final f—k you to the magazine. “Here! Have a Chatfield!” 

Find this print here!

The cartoon was a goofy play on Vlad the Impaler. 

I didn’t sell to the magazine again until last month, but I’ve had a handful sold as dailies. And I’m published in MAD often, so they’ve clearly done away with any of their standards.

When I’m not drawing gag cartoons I write and draw a syndicated legacy strip called Ginger Meggs which I took over 10 years ago. It’s been around since 1921 and now appears daily in 34 countries. He’s kind of an Australian version of Dennis the Menace, except he predates him by about 30 years.

Tools of choice: For drawing/roughs, I use a Prismacolor Turquoise clutch pencil with a red lead and try to find some paper with a little bit of tooth. The mixed media pads at Blick do the trick nicely.

I ink using a Uni-ball Vision Elite Stick Roller Ball Pen… or a Pigma Micron 03. 

DO NOT use the Uni-Ball Vision Rollerball Pens, Fine Point (0.7mm) if you’re traveling. They explode on planes. And ruin your copy of The New Yorker.

For a wash, I just use watercolor and whatever brush is lying around. Nothing fancy. There’s a scanning app on my phone called “Adobe Scan” which does a nice job of scanning line-art into a PDF when I’m out of the studio and need to email in a quick rough.

I use a Wacom Mobilestudio Pro for finished artwork. I like to get out of the studio and work from a bar or restaurant, so it helps that I can take that with me. I use a little glove that I got on Amazon so I don’t grease up the screen, and the felt-tip nib that comes in the pen-holder makes the friction between the stylus and the screen more like pencil on paper. Unfortunately, they’re not waterproof, as I found on a recent vacation…

My wife plays piano and sings at bars around the city so I’ll often sit at the bar during her sets and draw. Digital/Traditional depends on what deadlines are most pressing. (She has a weekly residency in Astoria —if anyone’s interested in going, let me know!)

A lot of people email me for advice about tablets —I’ve been trialling/demo-ing Wacom products for 15 years— I think they’re great. If you’re married to doing stuff by hand but want to colour digitally, you can get a decent tablet without going broke. Depends on your workflow.

Writing Desk: My wife and I were living upstairs in 5A when my neighbour in 4B died. He was a brilliant poet and had an incredible old writing desk. It’s the only thing that was left in the apartment, so I’m looking after it ’til his grandson moves in at the end of our lease. I work for countless hours at this old thing. It’s beat up, but I’ve patched it together enough that it won’t collapse and bury me mid-brushstroke. I’ve stuck a few of my favourite toons on the top of it.

Tool I wish I could use better: My brain. It really is a sack of cats. Whenever I want to sit and do work, it clocks off. Then it comes up with a pearler of an idea at 3 in the morning when I’m trying to sleep. I write it down in my phone, but autocorrect makes it indecipherable by morning.

I like working with my writer friend, Scott. We both do comedy at night and have developed a nice short-hand. We also seem to have the same library of references and can build on each others’ premises, which tames my sack-of-cats.

Tool I wish existed: The Deadline Extender.® I’ve never missed a deadline, but that said… an extra 3 or 4 minutes to allow for a terrible wifi connection, or a errant scanner wouldn’t go astray.

Also: The Deadline Extender® PREMIUM: Let’s you go back in time to when you were procrastinating and slap yourself in the face. $30 p/month.

Tricks: Ok, well. This is going to sound a bit Dalton Trumbo, but bear with me: I do my best work…in the bath.The most productive 3 hours of my week are during Scotchbath Sunday; an immoveable chunk of time on Sunday evening whereby I lock myself in the bathroom, run a bath, lug my drawing stuff onto a bit of wood that sits over the bath, and just write and draw. Nothing else. I write weeks worth of my syndicated comic strip (Ginger Meggs), I write New Yorker cartoons, scribble up roughs for dailies— and when I feel like I’ve earned it (usually 2 hours in) I tap the side of the bath three times, and my wife peels herself from her piano and I unlock the door to a nice big glass of scotch. It’s a hell of a carrot on a stick to work towards when you’re stuck. (PS. Lest you think I’m some kind of Don Draper-era misogynist; the scotch reward part was her idea. I think she realized it keeps me in the bath and out of her way.)

Anyway. It’s a great way to switch gears creatively. It’s like being on an aeroplane. No wifi, no phones — just the work you need to get done. Get involved. #ScotchBathSunday.

Oh! And if I get my deadlines done for the week, I have a small budget for a solo lunch somewhere where I can eat cheese and draw. I really didn’t know cheese ’til I moved to America. (And yes, I’ve already been to Wisconsin. Good Lord.)

Tips? I always tell younger artists to not even think about touching a drawing tablet until they’ve learned to draw by hand first. Otherwise they’ll always be drawing away, knowing they have the insurance of the CTRL+Z key at their disposal if they screw up a line. That’s not a good habit to have when you’re working to a deadline. But, once you do know how to draw, by all means dive head-first into the digital realm. It’s incredible. Procreate, Sketchbook or Photoshop are all great.

Misc: One of the hangovers from working in advertising illustration is that I’ve had to be a bit of a chameleon style-wise for the last 15 years and haven’t allowed myself to just settle into one style. Lately, I’ve just decided to say “Bugger it!” and try and find a loose, consistent style that I’m comfortable with, that’s an apt conduit to my silly ideas.

I always loved George Booth’s line, and his ability to create a scene with so much movement but just at the right moment in time. Also Sam Gross’ dark, hilarious cartoons with perfect line-economy. And I’d give my left arm (I draw with my right) to know how Barry Blitt has so much control with his washes…

Chatfield’s portrait of Sam Gross

While I’m geeking out, I love seeing younger cartoonists find their feet and thrive in a style that just feels like they’re speaking to you— Ellis J. Rosen, Sofia Warren, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, Jason Katzenstein, Amy Kurzweil, and a seemingly endless list of talented younger artists who are putting in the work are a big inspiration. 

I know it should be Steig or Thurber or Addams, but my favourite cartoonist is Sergio Aragones.

I was always so enamoured of MAD growing up and studied the lines of Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Al Jaffee and the Usual Gang of Idiots. I remember being so frustrated I couldn’t even come close to getting my work to look like theirs, but I think I found a style somewhere in between when I fell short. 

I think Wil McPhail’s poses are masterful, and I wish I knew how how the hell he did that. One day I’ll trudge up to England and knock on his door to ask him. I find myself doubled-over at John Cuneo’s Instagram, and Ed Steed’s absurdly funny gags. I have a slew of toons I’ve torn out of years’ worth of magazines and taped to my studio wall, or my zillion year-old writing desk. I’m constantly humbled by how generous and welcoming the existing crop of New Yorker cartoonists have been to a goofy Aussie immigrant — Joe Dator, Matt Diffee and Pat Byrnes, Mort Gerberg and an ever-growing list of prolific, talented cartoonists who make the 99% weekly rejection tolerable.

I’ve made some of my closest friends and have been lucky enough to meet my cartooning heroes through the National Cartoonists Society. I got to spend a lot of time with Sergio at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in the UK last year which made my year. We were signing together for a whole afternoon and I spent more time geeking out with him than signing.

Okay. Enough drooling. Sorry.

I’m a fan of cartoonists.

Website, etc. I have a weekly podcast where I throw around ideas for New Yorker cartoons with a fellow comedian and writer, Scott Dooley. It’s called “Is There Something In This?” It’s a bit of fun. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the art of writing gags very seriously. It’s an extremely difficult skill to master, and we’re virtually zygotes at it. We have lots of listeners now, which is bewildering. Talking about drawing is like dancing about architecture, but here we are. Anyway you can find it on iTunes or wherever you waste time listening to podcasts.

My website is jasonchatfield.com and my comedy stuff is up at jasonchatfieldcomedy.com  ( I’ve been doing stand-up comedy for 11 years. If anyone wants to come see a show, hit me up! I’ll put you on the door). My instagram is @jasonchatfield. I’m still trolling the British chap who has the @jasonchatfield handle on Twitter to no avail. To that end, I’m @jason_chatfield on Twitter.

If you want more art supplies in your life, A Case for Pencils is on Instagram and Twitter.  You can also find me, Jane (the person who created/edits this blog), on Twitter here, which is where I stick the paintings that I’ve been doing instead of interviewing people consistently (I needed to balance working on other people’s work and my own work!). Oh, and If you’d like to support this blog, which is always very appreciated, there are many different ways to do so, which you can find here!

#Jason chatfield #how to draw New Yorker cartoons #artists on tumblr #art supplies #drawing process #artist interview

[mygiantesslove]

Mother & Son: Underfoot by Azra

Chapter 17

In a beautiful part of the world, in a homely Japanese inn beside a famous hot spring, a large beautiful woman slept between fine silk sheets, her face, as regal as an empress', adorned with a blissful, silent smile. Underneath her, unconscious from the heat of her mighty body and with his face wedged securely up his mother's backside, her son dreamt of the week just past.

*

The commercial was a mess. At least, it was from Phil's perspective. He had assumed Madame Harukawa had offered them a vacation in Japan with no string's attached, but of course, that had dovetailed into "optionally" shooting a big set of adverts for his mom's joint-marketing push in Tokyo, and when it came to business that was never an option.

It was a series of short vignettes centering around Phil getting completely dominated against his will by his mother, with shots like him getting dragged away by her foot as her toes latched onto his head or shoulders, or him swimming up from deep underwater only to find the plump, breath-stealing ass of his mom ready for his face as he  broke the surface.

They took care to illustrate the inevitability of his mom's superiority over him, framing it as "fate" or "destiny". One commercial depicted him as a tortured, brilliant artist, struggling to climb the "mountain" of his torment with his bare hands only to find his angelic muse (his mother, dyed blonde with angel-wings) falling laughing from the sky butt-first, impacting his face and knocking him off the mountaintop and back down to earth. Another showed him trying to run away from something in tears, only for his mother to slurp him up like a string of spaghetti, winking at the camera as she caught his face between her lips for the money shot. There'd be one where they were dressed for a dinner ball and he was smoothly chatting up a beautiful Japanese girl, only for his mother to realize this and with a raised eyebrow yank a leash that was revealed to be around his neck and pull his face into her crack as the girl laughed.

Yet another had him running a race barefoot along a beach in record time, only for him to be crushed by some unknown shape and blackout at the finishing line and the scene to switch to his voluptuous mom, who has now completed the same race half a minute quicker. She would then smile in victory and raise her almost-barefoot, revealing she'd been running on her shrunken son who had been strapped to her foot the entire race. He'd be a wrestling champ, fresh off a title win, only for a massive, purple toe-nailed foot to come down from above and squash him, and a zoom out to show his mom taking his title. They were all played half for laughs, but they were also partly going for a serious and forthright tone. The femdom angle was obvious, and the mother-son element was reinforced at the start and end of every clip as a choir of energetic girls would scream "Son Life?!" and then "No! Mother Life!" as his mom made her sudden impact. He didn't get that, but then he supposed it wasn't for him.

The end of the ad would feature him acting as a throne for his mom, now clad in spikey leathers and a glittery silver tiara. She had a catchphrase to say at this point but he never heard it as the role always necessitated his face being between her butt-cheeks, but he did know that when she stood up he had to repeat the name of the station as loudly as he could (despite being buried in bum) and then give a hearty thumbs up with her as the commercial ended. This was quite awkward, as when his mom stood up the part of the leather outfit that strapped his face into her butt-crack would pull taught as she raised her arm for the thumbs-up, causing him to stumble more than once, much to everyone's mild amusement.

Eventually, at last, they got it right, with both mother and son giving the line and salute at the same time with him on his knees and her standing with her ass in his face, and they could finally, he thought, get on with the remainder of their vacation. He was so embarrassed that briefly, just for a moment, all he wanted was for his mom to push his body up between her buttocks, his face into her anus and just hide him there forever, away from the rest of the world.

However, this feeling passed quickly enough that when his mother asked him to sit beside her in the taxi he was relieved not to be finding his head a cushion for her bottom once again. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a big kiss on the cheek, her face glowing with maternal pride.

"I'm so proud of you sweetie, my little acting star." She beamed. "Did you enjoy yourself today? I found this acting thing very easy personally, most of the scenes we shot today came very naturally to me."

She raised one plump leg off the floor with a grin and left it dangling there between them. Catching a wink of her eye he removed the strap from her shoe and then place it on the ground as she slowly moved her foot towards his face, letting the aroma waft around him.

"It felt very ... true to character..." He admitted, suddenly transfixed.

"It did, didn't!" She agreed happily. "Did you enjoy having mommy's bum on top of you in front of lots of sexy Japanese girls? Did you enjoy their nubile young bodies moving to follow you, only for you to be smothered under my big, smelly feet?" Her soft sole pressed against his face now, and his eyes rolled up as she began rubbing it up and down, caressing him with her skin. She laughed as she caught his nose between her big and middle toes and he visibly shook as the earthy stench, leather and sweat, entered him point-blank.

"Lick?" She commanded quietly. He did with a large exhale, as his tongue snaked out and caressed her salty, soft, occasionally calloused skin. She cooed appreciatively, never taking her eyes off his face, framed as it was from her perspective as if her foot was resting on top of it. She arched a heel and pressed her biggest toe firmly against his lips.

"Suck." She commanded, considerably more smugly. She pushed insistently and his lips yielded, allowing her plump and fragrant foot into his mouth. His brain almost seemed shut down know, she smiled; his eyes were white and his expression pale, and the only movement from his body came from his sudden shaking and drooling at the mouth. She raised her phone and took a picture.

She decided to let him massage her toes with his tongue until they got back to the hotel, she was sure she'd have something else by then. She smiled and rubbed her other foot against his groin where despite himself his member stood at full mast and pressing hard against his pants. She had heard, translated though it was, that he had born it all shoot long.

*

The door shut with a solid click, and Phil ushered his giggling companion in, heart all a-flutter. His hands around her waist, he led Naoko into their hotel room the studio had arranged. Never having any luck with girls before, Phil was thrilled to find cute, giggling Naoko eating ramen at one of the touristy-traps down in Shibuya-cho. She could speak broken English but understand it perfectly, and she was intensely interested in a cute foreign boy like Phil! He hazarded she was a few years younger than him as he cheekily groped at her perky chest (getting slapped playfully for his efforts) and braided her hair into pigtails to exacerbate the look of a schoolgirl, complete with bright pink schoolbag and pleated short-skirt. He took her hand, and he was walking on air. After a few hours of her leading him around downtown he invited her back to the hotel so he could change before finding a place for dinner, and here they were.

"I hope you don't mind waiting a few minutes, I just feel so uncool next to you in my dorky shorts and tee." He laughed. She giggled and shook her head in response. "Do I look like I mind?" And then with the pristine delicacy of a butterfly alighting on a petal, she pressed her lips against his and gave him his first kiss.

He breathed out.

"That ... was amazing." He said, trying hard not to gasp for air. Naoko giggled and teasingly drew his hands lightly down her slim young hips as the light flicked on and -

"Oh. Philip. And who's this you've brought back with you?"

His mom was sat on the leather sofa with a glass of full red wine on the table and a Japanese phrasebook in her hand. In contrast to Naoko, she was dressed aggressively, in a low-cut black figure-hugging tee and leather mini-skirt that came down to mid-thigh. Her legs were covered in tan pantyhose, and she wore dark pumps on her feet. Her mature face was covered in make-up, rouge, mascara, eyeliner and deep ruby-red lipstick, her hair was trussed up and dyed blonde in indifference to the dark-haired masses of Tokyo and she wore two large gold rings on her ears. Phil's breath quickened as her thunder-thighs unfurled and came to rest just a head's width apart.

"Hi. Mom. Hi!" He said, shocked. "I didn't think you'd be back yet! This is Naoko and we just met today!"

"Oh?" She said rising, and Naoko saw she was much taller than she had suspected. The maternal bbw stalked behind her son and placed a hand possessively on his chest, heaving her buxom cleavage onto his shoulders. "And just what does Miss Naoko-chan want with my son, hmm?"

Naoko was blushing pale almost as much as Phil was red. She quickly looked away from the lady's jiggling bosom around her paramour's face and said "I - I take him out for dinner! Show him sites of Tokyo! I live here a long time and know all the great place to eat!"

"Yes and I've just remembered I don't really mind what I'm wearing right now so we're just going to be going right ahead and l-"

"Oh Phil you can't possibly leave just yet," Mrs. Metzger said, her eyes flashing, "not when I'm feeling so gassy."

Phil went white. "Oh. Uh. I guess not, mom."

"Excellent!" She replied, a wide smile splitting her face as she strode over to the sofa. Naoko felt very confused.

"Um, gassy? What is?"

Phil turned on a wirey smile and looked sheepish. "It's just this thing me and mom do, it's no big deal. I just smell her farts and kiss her butt a bit, you know, it's nothing." He said, sweating.

"Farts?" Naoko repeated. "Butt?"

"C'mere Phil sweetie." His mom interrupted, curling a finger at him as she produced that little decanter from between her plump bosom. Assuring his newly minted girlfriend Phil hurried over and drank a single drop from the little bottle. Obediently, he then knelt down on his knees and braced his back. Debra giggled. "Oh, somebody can't wait for his mom to sit on his face!" She said, laughing expectantly at Naoko as if it was a joke between old friends.

Naoko then watched as the lady turned around and began rubbing the largest butt she had ever seen right into the face of the boy she had only just met!

"Oh, yes! Ohh!" Debra moaned theatrically, tossing her hair and rubbing her hands up and down her rotund hips, "Oh take it, Phil, take it all! That feels so good!!"

The poor Japanese girl wasn't sure what she was seeing! Right in front of her eyes, a cute foreign boy seemed to be ... worshipping the ass of his big, beautiful mother?

"Phil?" She said, inching back to the door...

"No, no! It's fine, see? We do this all the time!" Phil blurted out frantically, lips still plastered to his mom's backside. "Please don't be weirded out!"

"I-!"

"Hush now dearie, we're almost done," Debra laughed, clapping her cheeks on her son's nose, "You wouldn't know but Phil's just absorbing some of my gas so I can shrink him down to size."

Sure enough, Naoko noticed that Debra was now leaning farther back onto her son's face. Whereas once her bulbous skirt-clad cheeks had covered up to his ears now they reached past his hairline, and soon she was leaning on his shoulders as his head had disappeared altogether up her bum! Her mouth opened wide as Phil got smaller and smaller until -

*BUMP!!*

Debra crashed seat-first onto the floor, landing on a pile of Phil's clothes that suddenly had no Phil in them. Naoko rushed over, panicking.

"Is he- is he -?!"

She was searching through the tumble of garments as Debra merely laughed getting to her feet. "Don't worry dear, he's in a safe place." She said, turning around to reveal her naked son plastered against the leopard-skin clad seat of her large skirt. She scraped him off with two red fingernails and held him up to the light.

"Oops! I think he's unconscious!" She laughed. "Phil, come on, wake up sweetie!" She took her little boy in her big, warm hands and gently prodded his naked belly with one plump finger. He began to come to, slowly sitting up in her palm. "Ah, there's my big strong boy!" She turned conspiratorially towards Naoko. "You know I sit on him quite a lot so he's really quite resilient! Which of course just means he gets sat on more!"

Phil shook some feeling back into his head and, suddenly very aware of his nakedness, covered his groin with his hands. "So mom now that I've helped you out I thought you could maybe get to growing me back and Naoko and I could just be on our-"

"Oh no sweetie, no, this is a perfect time for us to have a little chat and get to know each other!" She smiled innocently, looking directly at her son's small companion. "Like Naoko-chan here and what she plans to do with my little boy behind my back."

She hushed the suddenly very jittery girl backward into a chair. "No dear you just sit there, my little Phil will sit here," she said, pointedly placing him directly behind her on the sofa, "and I'll just sit down right on top of him-"

Naoko rose to her feet. "No! Don't sit on him!"

Debra snorted at the thought. "Don't sit on him? Why ever not? I've been sitting on him for years, Naoko-kun! Did you know that? My little Phil is my favorite pair of panties." She smiled proudly. "Besides, you saw earlier - he'll be perfectly fine even if I sit right down on him. A mother knows when her son's in trouble, and I can assure you that there's no safer place for my little boy than right under my big, soft bum!"

"It's - it's alright Naoko, honestly," Phil said rising, his head still woozy from the huge impact it suffered moments ago. "I - I can take the pressure and breathing's not too much of a problem, especially if mom keeps farting on me. Honestly, it's pretty safe."

His words didn't seem to be working. Naoko's hands were shaking and her eyes were bright and watery. "Phil, I don't think this - our dinner - you could die!!"

But Phil's mom was smiling smugly at all of this. Picking Phil up again, she strode over to the girl with the solution, as it were, in hand.

"Here sweetie, you can even help me put him in." The large, voluptuous Mrs. Metzger said to the suddenly very small and frightened girl, who suddenly found herself holding a tiny man. Smiling confidently over her shoulder, Mrs. Metzger reached around with one meaty hand and pulled the hem off her skirt from her prominent hindquarters, nodding to Naoka to drop her son into her butt-crack as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Too frightened even to notice Phil's nakedness, Naoko squeaked as she drew her hand near to that big bottom and Phil, whom only minutes ago she was kissing on the door-step, dropped because of her into his own mother's ass-crack!

"Ah, there we are." She said, wiggling her buns as she felt Phil's body drop in between them. "He's nice and cozy. Now, what would you like to talk to him about?"

Phil was not a party to the ensuing conversation because his mother chose that moment to sit down on their plush leather sofa and seal his body under the weight of her giant form. However, he heard what he assumed was Japanese being said by the girl and the frantic, rushed pace of it worried him. He tried to parse it but before he could his mother helpfully said: "I'm sorry dear, but I don't speak Japanese."

Phil happened to know this was at least partly untrue, as by this point many of his mother's clients were, in fact, Japanese natives, but the girl didn't know that and responded in broken English.

"How can do that! That you son! How you kill him?!"

Phil was shocked. Kill him? His mom wasn't trying to kill him, she just popped him in between her butt-cheeks for a bit, didn't this girl know that? His mom sounded equally affronted. "Kill him? How very dare you! I'm not killing him, you silly girl, we do this all the time! I assure you he's very much alive!"

But the little girl wasn't convinced. "No! I see you! You sit on him!"

"Oh for goodness sake," Debra said, suddenly standing up and swinging her prominent posterior into view, "There, you see? Right where I'm pointing?"

The little girl found herself scrutinizing the bigger woman's bottom very hard for a moment. Sure enough, there was the little boy, or at least his outline, pressed up against the tiger-skin skirt covering his mom's bottom. Or at least, there was most of him.

"Where his head?" She said, shaking hers.

"Well, it's in-between my butt-cheeks, obviously! That's his favorite part!"

"His favorite part?!"

Phil heard his mother sigh. "Phil, I've had enough, tell her yourself." She pulled down the hem of her skirt and, with some effort, plucked her son's head from its maternal prison.

"Naoko, it's okay, I'm fine, see? This is all just ... perfectly normal!" Phil gasped before his mom pushed his head back into it's home with her big finger.

"Normal?! You face up your mother's butt!"

"Well of course!" His mom yelled back, almost laughing, "because it's much more comfortable than your boney little behind!"

The conversation ended swiftly after that. He heard some more yelled Engrish, and then his mom farted on him and he didn't hear anything at all.

When his hearing finally returned after a few minutes he called out to the surrounding bottom: "Mom, is she still there?"

Debra smiled and rocked her bottom back and forth slowly into the chair. "No sweetie, I'm sorry. I don't think she was ready for this relationship. And, I may have said one or two things that scared her off." She conceded.

"Oh," Phil said, clearly crestfallen.

Debra smiled sadly and tapped her foot against the floor. "I know sweetie, I know. But that's girls for you. They'll drag you around, lead you on and then rip your heart out! And with you being shrunk half the time God knows what'd happen to you if you dumped one or someone thought they could push you around. That's why you're staying with mommy, right? That's why every day I keep you safely tucked away up my backside, where no-one can hurt you and you know exactly where your place is! You're one in a million sweetie; you're not meant to find someone, you're meant to live in my bum forever and make me feel so good! And I make you feel good too, sweetie! My big butt will hug and kiss you better than any flat-bottomed girl could! You don't really need anyone other than me, do you?"

Phil sighed deeply into his mom's suffocating ass-flesh. After all this time, it certainly seemed that way. "No mom, I guess not."He admitted.

His mom beamed, her chest swelling with pride. "There, that's a good boy! Tell you what! Come climb out of my butt and lie down on the sofa, and I'll give you a nice full-body massage with my butt! That always makes you cum, right?"

"That would ... that would actually be really nice, mom."

*

Phil kicked in his sleep, and to his surprise pranged his foot off the bed-knob on the wooden corner post. The sensation of being able to reach the corner of the bed with his feet was unusual to him because normally he was far too small to do so. He rubbed the sore foot on his calf as he woke.

Of course, then their sleeping arrangement came back to him; because Phil was on holiday with his mom she'd wanted him to experience life in Japan from as regular a point of view as possible, so this meant that for most of the time he'd walk around at full size, eat at full size, go to the bathroom at full size and yes, sleep at full size. He wouldn't even be tied down to the bed. The only minor concession that he had to agree to was that his mom would sleep sitting on his face each and every night with his young boyish face wedged tightly up between her plump, middle-aged butt-cheeks. He'd willingly spend each and every night with his face in the warm confines of his own mother's ass-crack. At no point would Phil take his head out from under his big mother's heavy, round ass, and if he broke their arrangement at any time then he'd be shrunk down to miniature size and crushed summarily between his mom's feet until she was sure he was sorry, and then attached face-first to her sole to be slept and walked upon for the rest of the trip. Phil, of course, agreed eagerly to the stipulations - he'd never dream of hurting his mom's feelings intentionally by doing something as rude as pulling his face out of her ass while she was innocently sleeping on top of him - and had readily enjoyed the hotel's luxuries so far.

Of course, this situation had it's drawbacks too. He was entirely under the sheets, and it was getting warm down there. Moreso, he just wanted to get up. He had no idea what time it was, but he imagined house breakfast couldn't be far off, and the thought of fried bacon and eggs made his lips drool even as they were pressed loyally against his mom's dozing bum-cheeks. He fumbled with the sheets and poked his mom's round hips with his right hand. Her soft white flesh yielded pleasantly to his touch, and her plump flanks bounced softly. No response. He waited a minute, and then hesitantly poked her again.

*sngr, snore*

Still nothing.

"Oh, mom ..." He sighed, lying his arm back and trying to find a sweet spot for his face to sleep in when suddenly the force on his face increased dramatically as his mom sat up and all her upper body's heavyweight was on him and

"Wuz Phil? Wuzza?"

*BBBLLOOOOOAAAAARRRFFFTTTT*

Mmmng! The stink was all around him! His nose hadn't even been against her butthole but mom had a very definite stench that she exuded from her musk and of course, her beloved son was the constant recipient of it. His young body, much smaller than his voluptuous mother's from years of her loving, taxing domination, whipped and spasmed under her from pure reflex as her half-awake rump kept him pinned to the floor. Outrageously, he could not get his face out from under his mom's fat ass.

"Mmm? Phil? Phil, you're not trying to get out, are you?" She said hotly, misunderstanding him. No, no! he waved and kissed her bottom frantically. "Ihm justh ... hungwy mohm!" He muttered, his voice very much obfuscated by attendant maternal rear-end.

"Oh," she smiled, wiggling her bum on her own son's face, "well it's almost 7 o clock, they'll be making breakfast soon. Let's go get showered and dressed sweetie. You get in there, mommy'll wash you!"

His mom "washing him" generally involved, from Phil's point of view, an awful lot of standing and kneeling, and then standing up again. After getting him sufficiently soaked in the shower she'd step in next to him, completely buff, and proceed to wash him with only one part of her large body - her curvy ass. So after she'd lather up her big, chubby cheeks and the deep dark crack in between she'd spend an extended time washing Phil's face, hands, chest, and groin. Afterward, if he was lucky, she'd shrink him down, soap him up and then use his tiny body as a loofah to scrub herself with, paying particular attention to her ass, bust, armpit, thighs, and feet. However this was not one of those times, and as their bathroom toilet didn't have space for Phil's head to fit in after helping that enormous rear-end towel itself off he found himself dressed and waiting in the eating area with his mom, eagerly awaiting breakfast.

But today turned out to be different in more than one respect. Shortly after arriving in the breakfast room two beautiful young spring maidens wandered over to them and both began attending to Phil; asking him was he okay, laughing at anything he said and generally flirting quite obviously with him. Phil was feeling great until a much heavier, middle-aged hostess appeared and spoke something in their native tongue. The two listened attentively as the elder lady pointed at Mrs. Metzger and then at her own bum, and made a sweeping motion with her hands. The two turned to Phil and for some reason burst out laughing, before rising and swiftly excusing themselves from the room. The older lady smiled and led them out into the hot-springs unisex changing area and Phil, blushing red and suddenly remarkably interested in not being in the dining room any longer, quickly followed as his mom politely stifled a giggle.

They changed and were led into a private hot-spring, Phil trying not to stare at his bbw mother's wiggling bottom as she teasingly swayed her hips in her purple bikini. They were asked if they were hungry, and then politely told to sit down on the edge of the spring.

After not even a minute Phil, a little bored, slipped down into the warm waters of the spring. It was surprisingly deep, and he found his feet on the lower rungs of a makeshift ladder. He splashed his mom, who smiled back at him, spreading her legs and then clapping her thunder-thighs together. A mock-warning. Phil gulped but smirked back, and made to rise from the water.

"No no Phil, that perfect. Stay right ... there!" The matron suddenly said as she entered, striding over gracefully to the pair of them and gently pressing his head down until his chin was just below the water line. His face had come level with his mom's big, bikini-clad crotch. He stared in awe of it. The matron's request to spread her legs had pushed her hips forward, and he blushed and tried not to look. "Oh, look at that," she teased as his mother tried not to giggle, "you gone back to where you come from. Don't you feel good? Now mom, please move your legs over here." She motioned down to Phil.

Mrs. Metzger draped her thick thighs over her son's shoulders and giggled to see his peculiar expression. Having his mom's big, strong legs, each the size of his own chest these days, wrapped protectively over his shoulders made him feel safe, but there were also problems. The added weight pushed his face below the water-line; he could breach the surface and breath, but only if he pushed constantly with his own body, and only if she didn't push down. Her own body at rest was almost enough to drown him. She gave her son a cuddle with her legs, squeezing her quads thickly around his face.

"You look so cute down there sweetie! Like a little bunny trying to pop his head out of a hole!" She said, tightening her leg muscles and giving Phil's head a good squeeze between her thighs. With a small motion, she locked her ankles and Phil's face fitted perfectly between the big, strong legs that were ready to squash it silly.

"Phil," the matron said, smiling warmly down at him, "hold on to the back of your mother hips, and rub her there quietly." He did so and was rewarded with a relaxed moan from somewhere above the big maternal breasts currently blocking his view of her face. He had to admit, rubbing such a big butt felt really good, and he liked that his mom enjoyed it. But ... this was just a stone's throw from being mom's seat cushion!

"Okay now, mom," he sputtered, "take your legs off my shoulders, please, and let me back up."

"Oh, I don't think I should Phil," she said, pursing her lips in concern, "the matron said not to, you know ..."

"Of course not!" The lady in question smiled, "Phil, your mom is giving you hug! Hug with big, strong legs much better for you, she can squeeze you lots, remind you of dominant love. Besides, where would you eat breakfast?"

"Br ... breakfast?" Phil asked, puzzled.

"Yes! In fact, here it comes now!" She replied, nodding to the spring entrance which had suddenly burst open and three smiling maids, all large and maturely aged, came bustling in with big blank smiles carrying trays. The first carried a large tray filled with delicious smelling food (Phil could make out some rice bowls, an egg in a cup and was sure he smelt bacon in the air), the second with an assortment of cups, kettles, jugs, and decanters for various kinds of teas, coffees, and juices, and the third carried an odd tray of what seemed to be cutlery and hot, moist towelettes. The big maternal thighs around Phil's head wiggled in delight, causing water to splish and splash around him as they squeezed his skull. That was nothing to what happened next, as the first maid leaned down and with a big smile laid her delicate ceramic tray down on his mom's lap, squarely on top of his face!

"Oh, how wonderful!" His mom squealed.

"There! Now you can have breakfast with son!" The matron said. Phil couldn't believe the world his face had been thrust into! Everywhere around his face, his mom's thighs sat softly, enfolding him in fat thigh-meat. Right now it was like a warm, soft hug, but they were ever so slowly pressing him down into the water unless he strained against it and besides, he knew just how strong his mom's legs really were. He wiggled and wiggled, but he just couldn't get loose.

"Phil? Phil! Now calm down Phil, this very instant! You're going to make me spill my breakfast!" She said, tightening her grip around her son's head until her treetrunk-like thighs had lifted the tray three inches off his face from muscular swelling. He heard the maids giggling girlishly as he thrashed in pain before his body went limp and his mother's leggy grip relaxed on him, setting the tray down to its original position balanced carefully on her legs and his trapped face. "There's a good boy." She said warmly, gently butting his lower back with her locked ankles.

This was ridiculous, Phil thought. I'm hungry too, but I get mom's big, strong legs wrapped around my head and squeezed. I'm trying not to upset her meal but her quads are pushing me underwater and I have to stay on tiptoes to even stay up! What do I do?!

The matron called down helpfully to him. "Use your mother body to help you, Phil! Hold onto her bottom to keep your head afloat! Do not rely on your own body, it will fail! Rely on your mother and respect her wishes!"

What choice did he have? Phil readied his arms as the blood began flowing into them again and then pulled, letting his feet be pulled off the ladder some several feet below. The tray righted slightly, and the egg-cup slid precisely into his mother's waiting grasp. He felt her legs give him an appreciative cuddle as she squeaked in delight, and then began eating.

It was a long ten minutes before she was done. She had used this time to converse nonchalantly with the always happy to be of service maids who were pleasantly helpful in suggestions for their last day in Japan and always seemed to have another jug of warm sake to hand. In fact, Debra was well into her second gourd before she remembered Phil was caught between her warm, heavy legs. The maids insisted on lifting the tray for her, and as it turned out for good reason; Phil was sleeping quietly, his dozing head tightly caressed by his mom's encircling thighs. His arms hung limply from under her butt - they had gone limp long since and he was being restrained from the depths solely by her motherly head scissors.

"That's so strange! I've always thought he hated my big legs. I always used my head scissors to punish him or reward myself with a guilty orgasm. I never thought he actually liked it." She said.

The matron just smiled knowingly. "This one of greatest gift boy give his mother. The knowledge that he like that his suffering brings you pleasure is a very rare thing. You instruct son to become one with your foot, you ass, and he obeys. Now, he goes further and let you know it okay you crush his head with your legs." She tipped the gourd of sake into Phil's snoring mouth and he sputtered awake.

"Now mother reward son with a hug. Show how proud of him you are and that this his proper place in the world."

With a soft smile on her face, Debra then waded into the water after her son and reaching out with her warm, soft hand pulled his dazed face into her big, comforting cleavage. She held him deep in there as he came back to the world of the living, squishing her big boobs playfully against his face and whispering how proud she was of him in his ear. She held his shoulder with one hand and pressed the back of his head into her considerable bosom with the other, smothering him in her boobs. He tried to resist and made a moan like an infant, but she cooed and hushed him against her chest, and soon he was nuzzling in there like a baby with his arms drifting in surrender by his side.

"Such a good boy!" She smiled, kissing him lovingly on the forehead. "Up now, let's go!"

He stumbled backward as he tried to rise, and simply lay sprawled against the springs wall, his nudity and erection exposed for the tittering spring maids to see.

"I'm tired mom ... can I just ... go back up ... your bum ... please?" He panted.

His mom tittered in front of him with her hands proudly on her hips. She took a swig of sake offered by one of the maids, wiped her lips and offered it to her son. Thinking better of it, she rubbed the mouth of the jug between her big butt-cheeks and then returned it to him and smiled aggressively, nodding insistently as he eyed the jug before putting it to his lips and downing it. She smiled as the last gulp went down his throat. "Of course sweetie. Hurry on to our room, I'll be along in a moment to sit on your face. It's our last day here and we've got a little while before dinner, after all ..."

#giantess #g/t #g/t writing #butt crush

[sensc]

░ ✧ ❝ — plots based on [ SONGS ] ❞

here’s a list of random plots inspired from various songs on my spotify! they’re written out as m & f ( all muse a as the female & all muse b as the male ) but they can obviously be altered to your preference!

( # 01 ° * ) —― we own the night , selena gomez & the scene ; ❝  is it alright if I’m with you for the night? hope you don’t mind if you stay by my side. ❞

muse a and muse b were not only next door neighbors while growing up, but they were also the best of friends before inevitably drifting apart once high school began. muse a eventually left town to attend a university miles away while muse b stayed home to attend a local community college. now, almost a semester into their sophomore year, muse a is back in town without giving anyone a warning or reason. muse b isn’t even aware of her homecoming until muse a climbs the tree between their houses in the middle of the night and taps his window until he wakes up. it’s only then that muse b finds out the truth behind muse a’s reappearance.

... muse a is back home because something life-changing happened to her ( maybe she witnessed a crime, someone broke into her dorm, a friend passed away, a video/picture of her got around school, etc ) (( just something impactful ))

... as a result of the incident, muse a always visits muse b at night because she can’t sleep & refuses to be alone because she’ll start thinking about *the incident* all over again

( # 02 ° * ) —― colors , halsey ; ❝  you’re ripped at every edge but you’re a masterpiece and now you’re tearing through the pages and the ink. ❞  

since kindergarten, muse b has given muse a drawings. although they were mostly scribbles and shaky shapes, muse a was always grateful, unfailingly responding with a smile. this exchange continued throughout elementary and middle school, the scribbles transforming into sophisticated portraits and illustrations that showcased muse b’s artistic talent. however, during the duo’s first year of high school, muse a’s friends caught wind of the drawings and teased her endlessly. out of embarrassment, muse a stopped accepting muse b’s art and promptly told him to leave her alone. they haven’t spoken since. now, 10 years later, muse a is a small-time reporter struggling to find the story that’ll finally launch her career while muse b is a prestigious artist whose work sells for millions to culture-savvy socialites. after muse b shockingly announces his early retirement, every news outlet is dying for an interview. however, he’s always kept a low profile in the public eye, which is why he’s only allowed one network to interview him — muse a’s network.

( # 03 ° * ) ―― real , years & years ; ❝  i think i’m into you, how much do you want it too? i think i’m gonna make it worse, i talk to you but it don’t work. what have i been doing wrong? tell me what it is you want. ❞ 

muse b is an illustrator for a popular graphic novel. after struggling to find inspiration for his latest assignment, he wills to life a drawing of his dream girl — muse a. she becomes the muse that he’s been needing, even earning him a promotion. however, after muse a finds out that she can be seen by everyone and not just muse b, her desire to live a real life in the real world is ignited. now, muse b has more to focus on than just his work — the obligation to watch over the person he created, the need for her presence in order to complete ( what were once simple ) tasks, and the jealousy as muse a’s world become more than just muse b.

( # 04 ° * ) ―― r u mine , arctic monkeys ; ❝  i go crazy ‘cause here isn’t where i wanna be and satisfaction feels like a distant memory. i can’t help myself, all i wanna hear her say is are you mine. ❞ 

muse b always goes for a run at 2 am because he has trouble sleeping and every time he comes back home, muse a ( his next door neighbor ) is drunk and either fumbling with her keys or stumbling through the front door. muse b always helps her get in safely then leaves some water and advil by her bed and muse a always responds with drunken rambles of appreciation. the duo constantly exchange fleeting glances during the day, but muse b never initiates the conversation in fear of muse a being too drunk to remember his assistance while muse a never initiates the conversation due to being embarrassed by her frequent drunkenness.

( # 05 ° * ) ―― strangers , halsey feat. lauren jauregui ; ❝  we’re not lovers. we’re just strangers with the same damn hunger to be touched, to be loved, to feel anything at all. ❞

muse b has it all — a successful business under his thumb, millions of dollars that’ll sustain him until his dying day, and people who take his word as law. the only thing he’s missing? love. but unlike the age-old saying, money can buy everything. enter muse a, a high-charging escort who earns her living by sleeping with some of the world’s most wealthy men. after being setup by friends, a night is arranged between the twosome. however, unlike muse a’s regular customers, muse b wants to pay for her time instead of her body. they strike up one of the most profitable deals of muse a’s career, a deal that essentially turns her into muse b’s significant other once the moon is out. this includes spending the night, eating dinner together, late night talks, and ( most importantly to muse b ) affirmations of love. but it all ends once the sun is back in the sky and doesn’t begin again until it goes back down.

( # 06 ° * ) ―― down for me , g-eazy feat. 24hrs ; ❝  she was the only one down for me. had a hard time adjusting to new fame, my life ain’t the same since the day that you came. ❞

muse a and muse b only met once ― the first day of their junior year of high school where they crossed paths after both reaching for the last pamphlet for a local college of the arts. after a short ( and competitive ) conversation, they each swore that they would make it big. years later, muse b lived up to his promise and is now a famous rapper/musician whose name is synonymous with money, fame, and success. muse a is a college student who is struggling to get her degree and pay her student loans while still pursuing her dreams of being a dancer. muse a’s first public performance is at a small art show where a typical audience is around twenty people, which is why she’s dumbfounded when she’s in the middle of her routine and sees muse b sitting in the front row. before her set is even finished, muse b is bombarded by photographers and fans who are dying for a moment of his time, causing everyone’s eyes to shift away from muse a. while muse a is livid, she can’t help but wonder what the hell muse b is doing here.

( # 07 ° * ) ―― déjà vu , post malone feat. justin bieber ; ❝  now, tell me, is that déjà vu? ❞

muse a and muse b were childhood best friends but drifted apart ( for some reason ) and haven’t talked since they were kids despite growing up in the same town and attending the same university. recently, a group of amateur hackers have gotten into numerous people’s phones with intentions to steal and sell people’s nudes. muse a was the most recent victim and muse b bought her nudes so no one else would see them, but she found out and now thinks that he’s some kind of pervert… great! 

( # 08 ° * ) ―― if you can afford me , katy perry ; ❝  if you wanna ride, just name your price. don’t play cheap with your heart. don’t make a bet if you can’t write the check. ❞ 

muse b has always been overlooked and underappreciated, his eternal label being ‘the brain’. muse a is the complete opposite, an absolute bombshell who always has eyes on her. when their university has a bachelor auction for raising money for the end of year mixer, muse a places the highest bid of the night on muse b ― $1,000. while muse a tells everyone that she placed her bet out of pity, behind closed doors, she explains to muse b that she needs him to tutor her so she can pass her final exams. muse b, both offended and embarrassed for being naïve enough to think that she was actually interested in him, refuses to do anything more than what she paid for ― be her date. it’s only when muse a offers to double the money and pay muse b his own personal $2,000 ( alongside the school bid ) that they reach an agreement..

( # 09 ° * ) ―― the love club , lorde ; ❝  i’m sitting pretty on the throne. there’s nothing more i want, except to be alone. ❞

muse a’s life has been a whirlwind since becoming a seemingly overnight success a few years ago. although she appreciates her newfound fame and millions of fans across the world, it’s all become too much to handle. she drops everything and catches the next flight to her childhood best friend’s university ( wearing oversized sunglasses and a floppy hat to lay low ), wanting to surprise the person she hadn’t gotten the chance to speak to in months. after landing, she knocks on their dorm door but is instead met with her best friend’s roommate, muse b — a stranger. as luck would have it, her best friend has unexpectedly taken a semester off to travel ( a not-so-minor detail that she probably would have known if she hadn’t ignored their texts after her ego schedule blew up ). unfortunately, the media finds out that she’s in town and both college kids and the paparazzi are wanting a visual of muse a’s apparent breakdown. with no other option, muse a begs muse b to let her stay in his dorm until the attention dies down... to which muse b reluctantly agrees.

#indie rp #indie plot #rp plot #plot idea #i was going thru my drafts n totally forgot about this??? but someone pls give these to me!!! #❛ ✦ — wanted: plots.