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justsome-di · 1 year

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Nobody Ends Up Dead in a Bathtub, Everyone Keeps Their Organs: Chapter 11

Summary: Alex is an ordinary, highly-introverted office worker. He clocks in and out and goes home to his little apartment he shares with his younger sister. He hasn’t dated in years. Until his co-workers set him up on a blind date.

The only issue is he and his date are not on the same page. At all.

While Alex thinks it’s a normal date, Damián is under the impression Alex is a client who paid to be there. No-so-quickly, they realize something is up. It’s all a prank. Damián is a sex worker Alex’s co-workers hired as a sick joke.

After reassuring that they’re both okay, Alex decides he wants revenge for both him and Damián. The plan is to use the stigma of sex work and start a 6-week, scandalous fake dating scheme with a big finale at the office Halloween party. Alex’s co-workers will be too horrified to try to prank him again. At least, that’s the plan.

You can also read this on AO3, or Patreon (patrons also get chapters a week early along with bonus content). If you’re enjoying the story and want to support me in other ways, I do have a ko-fi! Or consider dropping me a message in my inbox or reblogging this post!

Eve threw her bag over her shoulders with little care for the aging straps. It sat heavily on her shoulders. The bulk of her laptop and textbooks weighed her down and reminded her of the ache in her lower back that she had initially earned from work.

Her keychains rattled as they smacked into one another and collided with her pins and buttons. A Tom Nook hit a Secret Police badge. An enamel coffee mug was assaulted by a Master Sword. All the plastic clinked together, echoing her nerdiness to the empty room. If she cared enough, she would think of herself as cringe. But she had too many other things on her mind to consider when she crossed the line from cool geek to weirdo.

“Are you feeling any better about any of this?” Leo asked.

“Kinda.”

It wasn’t the right answer. Leo didn’t look pleased that they were only in the “kinda” stage. He was so good at math, he was probably annoyed that she was taking so long to understand anything. Every time he had to go over a formula with her again or correct her steps, she felt she was burdening him. Even though he didn’t outwardly show it, she knew she had to have been the worst person in his life at the moment.

Leo was always passive in their study sessions. He corrected her without any sharpness in his tone. He would slowly erase her progress and tell her to try again, not ever giving her the answer.

But he was staying late for her. He could have been back in his dorm or his apartment or wherever rather than running through the same math problems over and over, correcting her, and re-teaching her how to work through formulas and watching her make the same mistakes over and over and over again.

“Better than I was feeling about it,” Eve said, hoping that would help her win some favor with Leo.

“When’s your exam again?” he asked.

“November 1st. Dr. Felner took major pity on me.”

But she was still going to try to be nice to Leo. He was the only other student she spent so much time with, and she was starting to feel a little kinship with him.

About a week ago, she passed him as he was leaving a campus coffee shop. He waved at her and smiled, and his smile felt familiar. Like she had seen it before. It was something about how it brightened his whole face or how his teeth were so straight it was like he should have been in an ad for braces.

After that, she thought maybe there was a chance that he didn’t totally hate her enough to ignore her. But then again, anyone would be in a good mood at noon, holding an iced coffee compared to 6 pm in a stuffy academic center.

Leo, she was sure, was nice and kind. She just always saw him with dark circles under his eyes after a long day of his own shit.

He pulled his own bag on. There was the rattle of his own keychains and pins. One keychain, an old thing, popped off its chain and bounced off the table.

“Noo!” Leo cried, tone way too dramatic for the impression he had already left on Eve.

Eve stooped to grab it off the carpet and handed it back. It had been a clean break. The chain had fallen out of its little nook in the plastic of the charm. There was a glob of dried hot glue on it where it had been repaired before.

“I like your Charmander,” she said.

Immediately, Leo brightened. He put it in the center of his palm and held it out to her so she could get a better look.

“Thanks!” It was the most expressive Eve had seen Leo since the coffee shop. He smiled again, and Eve could not place why it reassured her so much. “I got him from a claw machine. I spent, like, 20 bucks to get him.”

“You spent 20 dollars on that?”

“Yes! Look at him! He’s so cool.”

Eve nodded along with him. It was pretty cool. It was almost chibi-like and stood up perfectly on its own. The colors were vibrant but overall a little off and basic. Charmander’s body was a little too yellow. The flame on the tail was missing some depth. It looked like it could be unofficial merch in any of the many bogus restaurants in the city that stocked weird games and even weirder prizes.

But Eve had finally found a way to get Leo to say more than a few words to her. She was going to pounce.

“Do you play a lot of Pokémon?” Eve asked.

“Yeah!”

Eve slipped her bag off one shoulder and swung it around. She showed him her Ponyta keychain. She had gotten her from some mystery box from some store in New Jersey over the summer. While she wasn’t particularly a huge fan of Ponyta, she didn’t have enough money to buy another mystery box.

Alex had said it was cool when she brought it back to his apartment at the start of the school year. Ponyta had some good attacks. He secured it to her bag for her, and it stayed there ever since.

“Dope. Ponyta is pretty badass, but I’m personally loyal to the starters,” Leo said. His eyes caught something else. He pointed to the pink and orange rainbow pin on the front of her bag. “I like your rainbow.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Does it mean anything?”

Leo looked at Eve so earnestly, and Eve wanted to assume that he was a good guy, that he would have no problem if she told him it was lesbian pride colors. If she wanted to actually get to know him, he would have to know her. At some point, she would have to let him know that she was gay.

But she still froze. She didn’t know whether or not she should avoid the question, make up some lie about how she just liked rainbows, or that it was a reference to a movie or the emblem of a secret society on campus. She could tuck her secret away and hide it away until later. Until she was certain she wanted to tell him.

“Is it a gay thing?” Leo asked.

Eve could hardly breathe. It was a mistake to have the pin on there if she didn’t want to be asked about it. “Yeah.”

“What kind of gay thing?”

“What?”

“Like. Is it a special pride pin for October? Like breast cancer? I think that’s cool if that’s it.”

Eve shook her head. Did he really think the gays collaborated on merch with breast cancer awareness organizations? Did he think that queer people created different pins as special, limited-edition collectibles? It was kind of a cool idea but a bit too capitalist.

Her brief panic was instantly over. Damián looked at her so earnestly. It was like staring into the eyes of a Labrador Retriever. A young, clueless Chocolate Lab.

“No,” Eve said. “It’s the lesbian flag colors.”

“No shit? Lesbians have their own colors?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s dope!”

Leo looked excited to be learning so much. Eve was startled by the sudden switch. Only a moment ago it was like he wanted nothing to do with her. Regardless, her anxiety had easily melted away. Leo was okay. They had just needed a little nudge toward each other. They just needed Pokemon and gay pride to come out of their shells a little.

“I’m an ally,” Leo said, putting a hand to his chest.

“I can tell.”

“My brother’s gay.”

“Cool.”

“It’s super cool. And I love lesbians, too.”

Leo turned off the lights to the lounge of the academic center. It was where all tutoring sessions took place. There was comfortable seating for the students, snacks and coffee, and fancy tables with whiteboards as tabletops. During the day, it was pretty busy if only because people were swinging by for a morning or afternoon fix of caffeine.

In the evening, once all the real adults who worked there clocked out, it was eerily empty. The high ceilings imposed some feeling the opposite of claustrophobia. Something that reminded Eve of nightmares of drowning in an ocean with no land in sight.

“I also love trans people,” Leo said.

“You love the whole alphabet.”

“I do! So much!”

Leo held open the door leading out of the building. Eve stepped through it and down the few steps right outside. The campus was still lively. The sun was just starting to go down, and everyone was taking advantage of the last few warm evenings of the year. Girls whizzed by on skateboards, packs of seniors were carrying hammocks to try to find someplace on campus to hang them and then pretend to study. Really, they were all going to update their Instagram accounts.

“I really am an ally,” Leo said. “My brother’s taught me all this stuff about Stonewall and stuff. Have you heard of Stonewall?”

Eve wanted to sigh, but she could tell he wasn’t trying to be condescending. He was genuinely interested in talking about it. “Yes. I have. It’s pretty well-known among us gays.”

“I think it’s great. Throwing bricks and shit at the cops,” Leo went on. “I’d throw a brick for the LGBT community.”

“We’ll have to meme that. ‘Leo threw the first brick at Stonewall.’”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to take credit away from a black trans woman.”

Eve turned around. She was about to tell Leo that he didn’t have to worry. She was almost certain their meme would be harmless. It was like an inside joke with the LGBT community that she’d let him be in on.

But before she could say anything, she looked past Leo and at the picnic benches on the front lawn of the academic center. A group of boys sat at the one closest to her and Leo. They had textbooks out in front of them but were clearly not reading them.

Eve had a class with them. Though, that class was so big she didn’t know their names or anything about them besides the fact they usually sat a couple of rows ahead of her. She was one of the few girls in that class. Every day, they looked at her. At first, when they waved, she waved back. But as the semester went on, they’d look back at her and laugh and turn to one another.

It was hard to tell why they did all that. They could have been harmless, and Eve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. It could have been playful teasing. Playground, recess-type stuff a parent or a teacher would brush off with just, “That just means he likes you.”

They watched her wait on Leo. She didn’t look directly at them but could still see them out of the corner of her eye. She stared straight ahead, grabbing the straps of her bag tight.

Leo joined her, gave her a look, and then turned towards the boys. When Eve started to walk away, the boys started shifting around in their seats.

It was probably nothing. They were probably just getting up to go back to their dorms. But Leo sidled up close to her, his Chocolate Lab eyes shadowed.

Leo towered over her. When they first met, she thought that he must have been an athlete on campus. He had to have been over six feet, making him a solid foot taller than her.

“Where do you live?” Leo asked Eve.

“Off-campus.”

He took her arm and pulled her down the sidewalk. “Do you live far?”

“No. It’s in walking distance.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

“Thank you.”

It wasn’t until they were on the edge of campus that Eve started trembling. She was reminded of all the times she had made it back to Alex’s apartment in tears, her phone in her hand, finger ready to dial Alex’s number.

It truly sucked how much power men had. They could make her feel unsafe, terrified even. Or, if they cared, they could protect her. Like Leo was doing. The only thing that could stop a man was another man. Even Alex, who was not at all intimidating with his stocky build and baby face, could ward off creepy comments just by standing next to her.

The whole thing burned her up inside, but all she could think, walking through the city, was that she was lucky Leo was one of the good ones.

“How are you liking your other classes?” Leo asked.

“They’re fine. It’s just calc that I’m struggling with. I don’t get why I even need to take it.”

“It’s not a bad thing to be well-rounded.”

“I guess not.”

“And math is more than just math. It teaches you how to deconstruct problems before you solve them.”

They walked for a while longer, their conversation dying. Eve eventually calmed down. She was thinking about what she was going to make for dinner, whether or not they had pasta or something frozen she could shove in the oven. Alex was always nice and made sure, whenever he did the shopping, that he picked up things that she liked and could cook with her limited culinary talent.

“You know, I’ve never seen you around campus before,” Leo said.

“It’s a big campus.”

“True.”

“And I’m only a sophomore. You’re a senior.”

“Yeah.”

Eve led him around a corner. He kept close as people walked past. An old woman walking her tiny dog. A couple in matching beanies. The least intimidating the city had to offer.

They passed a bookstore with a pride flag in the window. The rainbow stripes and the triangle were prominent in the window. The flag was creased still from the packaging. The plastic-y material would never let the crinkles go until they were properly steamed out.

It wasn’t an uncommon sight anymore for flags to be displayed in businesses or outside homes or apartments, but Leo still stared it down as they came up on it, met it, and left it behind until his neck was all twisted around.

“Um, about the ally thing,” Leo said. “Do you know anything about the ally group on campus?”

“The GSA?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen some stuff about it, but I don’t really know all that much about it. Are you part of it?”

“I go to the meetings. Most of the time. They have a Twitter if you ever want to see what they do.”

“Like things they do around campus?”

“Yeah.”

“Do they do stuff often?”

“Every so often, yeah. I think there’s something coming up this weekend.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a queer author visiting. She’s giving a lecture or something.”

“Oh! I’d go to that!”

“’Cause you’re an ally?”

“Exactly! Will you be there?”

Eve hadn’t been planning on it. She had worked last weekend and the weekend before that. She had been looking forward to time to veg out on the couch. Nothing seemed more appealing than playing video games until her eyes were crossed and there was a deep ache in her sockets. And hanging out with Leo outside of tutoring was a drastic step to be taken right after their first real conversation.

But she found herself saying yes to Leo, and she found herself listening to him excitedly go on about how he was going to tell his brother he was going to a GSA event.

It was just a lecture—not that Eve meant to downplay the importance of their guests, but it was low-key compared to everything else the group did around campus. It wasn’t like their drag shows or their Friends-giving every November. It was just a thing to show up to when you didn’t have any other plans and were feeling something insightful.

Eve agreed to meet up with Leo there. She pulled up the promotional flyer from their Twitter account and got Leo’s number to send it to him. Leo asked how early they should get there, and she said it wasn’t like a movie premiere. There would be plenty of seats. They could get there a few minutes early and be fine.

Leo dropped her off at the front of her building and waited for her to get through the doors before turning around and starting off toward his own destination. No doubt, he was feeling pretty good about himself. Not only did he befriend a lesbian, but he was going to a queer lecture. Truly the ally they all needed, Eve thought.

#original fiction #original writing #writblr #writeblr #Nobody Ends Up Dead in a Bathtub Everyone Keeps Their Organs #Nobody ends up dead #queer fiction #queer writing

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herrmannhalsteadproduction · 2 years

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Promises Kept (Chapter One)

Summary: This is Part Two of my series A Herrmann/Halstead Production. It is an AU where Christopher Herrmann's mom had an affair with Pat Halstead resulting in a baby. The series follows this OC character (Rebecca "Bex" Herrmann) as she grows up and gets to know her brothers and the various Chicago teams. Part Two follows Bex and Jay during the four years while Jay is away in the Army Rangers and then the following four years while Bex is away at school

Rating: Teen Audiences and Up Relationships: Christopher Herrmann & Original Female Character, Jay Halstead & Original Female Character, Will Halstead & Original Female Character, Jay Halstead & Will Halstead Warnings: Talk of war, PTSD, multiple minor character deaths, ill parent, parental death, sibling friction A/N: I'll post the link to the ao3 page at the bottom. This story has not only an OC character, but some quirky elements which may or may not be everyone's jam. Just FYI. Please enjoy my mostly fluffy with a bit of angst story. :D

Click here for the Part One of this series: Oopsie Baby

Chapter One

Jay had been super busy with basic training, especially now that he was almost done and would be shipping out soon.

But Bex knew that today, of all days, he would make time to call.

She pounced on the phone when it rang. “Jay?”

“Happy Birthday, Bex!”

“Thank you!” She sprinted up the stairs to her room so she could talk to Jay without Lee Henry hollering in the background. The kid was so excited for Halloween he was probably going to pass out before they left the house.

“Having a good day so far?”

“Mm-hm,” Bex leapt onto her bed and got settled in to chat. “Cindy made special breakfast—”

“Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries?”

“Yup.”

“And bacon??”

“Yes, Jay,” she laughed when he groaned. “I’d have sent you some, but me and Lee Henry ate it all.”

“That kid’s a bad influence, not saving me any bacon,” he grumbled. “What else have you been up to, birthday girl? Man, I can’t believe you’re fourteen. It’s crazy.”

“Now you sound like, Chris,” Bex said. “Every year, he gets more emotional about how I was just a baby and starts reminiscing about my toddler years.”

“He’s not getting enough baby time with Lee Henry?”

“Ooh, speaking of,” Bex made sure her door was closed before spilling the news. “Guess what?”

“If you say you’re pregnant right now—”

“Oh my god, Jay, no,” Bex snorted. “Cindy is. She and Chris told me yesterday, they’re expecting again.”

“And we’re excited about this?” he double checked.

“Yes,” Bex said firmly. “They’re happy. I’m happy. Lee Henry is always happy. We’re all good.”

“Well, that’s cool news, then,” Jay said. “Tell them I said congrats. What else has been going on?”

“Lenny, Max, and Pete retired last month and their replacements just started at 51,” she said. “They’re already calling me Baby Herrmann thanks to Uncle Mouch and Uncle Bo—shut up, stop laughing.”

“It’s a cute nickname!”

“People are going to be calling me Baby Herrmann when I’m twenty-four years old at this rate,” she groused. “I should start calling them Uncle Randy and Uncle Wally as revenge.”

“Please wait until I come home to do that because I would really like to see it.”

“I don’t know that I’d ever actually be brave enough to call Uncle Bo ‘Uncle Wally’,” she said. “Anyway, the new guys seem nice enough. Chris is having way too much fun planning pranks to initiate them. He’s like a five year old. Cindy had to yell at him yesterday to stop with the planning and help her make dinner.”

“Uh-oh,” Jay laughed. “Then what?”

“He helped with dinner, we ate, and then Cindy helped him make better plans after dinner,” Bex said with a grin. “Those guys are in for it.”

“You’re going to have to tell me how it goes,” Jay replied. “Hey, did your card arrive in time?”

“It did! Thank you,” Bex said. “I appreciated the birthday money, but you didn’t have to do that.”

“Shut up, it’s your birthday, of course I did. What are you gonna use it for?”

“Well, I was thinking about…getting a guitar? I’ve been saving up for a bit and I think I have enough now.”

“A guitar? I never knew you wanted to learn how to play.” Jay sounded surprised and rightly so. It was an idea she’d been keeping to herself while she mulled. “You must be really bored without me, hunh?”

“You’re such a dork,” Bex laughed. “But yes, I am. Seriously. Lee Henry is not a great conversationalist yet.”

That got another laugh from Jay and Bex reveled in the sound. Soon he was going to be across the ocean, putting his life in danger. She wanted to bottle every conversation they had, every laugh, and keep it forever.

“I gotta go,” he said eventually. “And we head out day after tomorrow so it might be a bit before you hear from me again, but don’t worry, okay? I’ll email you as soon as I can.”

“Okay,” Bex said quietly. “Miss you, Jay.”

“Miss you too, Bex. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

They hung up and she flopped back on her bed with a sigh. She might joke, but it really wasn’t the same without Jay around. Things would be busy once the new baby arrived, but right now, it all felt wrong. Off balance. She wondered if it would be that way until he got back home.

Bex hopped on her computer to check her email before heading back downstairs. One new message. From Will.

Happy Birthday.

At least he remembered, Bex thought. That was better than last year. Maybe Jay emailed him to remind him this time around. Whatever. She headed back downstairs. There was cake to be had.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Hey, Bex!

Just wanted to let you know we made it. Everything’s a bit hectic, but we’re here.

Guys in my unit seem nice.

Talk soon,

Jay

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Yay! Glad you made it. Miss your face.

Sent you a pic of the newest member of the Herrmann family.

Love,

Bex

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

If that’s Chris and Cindy’s new baby, something’s wrong with it.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

We got a kitten, dork.

Kelly found it in the bushes at the firehouse and I convinced Chris to let us take it home.

Cindy wasn’t too happy about it, but then he snuggled with her and she caved.

His name is Frodo.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Wow. He really does look like that little hobbit guy. Good name choice.

Who’s Kelly?

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Thank you. Lee Henry wanted to call him Lee Henry, but I won that argument.

Kelly Severide is one of the new guys at 51. I told you about them, remember?

There’s him, and Matt Casey, and Andy Darden. They’re nice. Kelly and Andy are really funny.

Think we can have a video chat soon?

Miss your face!

Bex

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Not right now, but hopefully soon. I’ll let you know.

Miss you too.

Love,

Jay

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Check out our new family member! His name is Frodo.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Cute.

***

“Bex, mail!” Chris called out.

She thundered down the stairs and swiped the letter out of his hands.

“Hey. Manners!”

“Thank you, Chris!” she hollered as she ran back upstairs.

Finally, a letter back from Jay. They’d had a short video call over Christmas, but he’d been busy doing Ranger stuff and hadn’t had time for many emails.

She carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the letter.

Hi, Bex!

Sorry, it’s been awhile. Things have been crazy.

I hope things are going well with you and the gang. How’s Cindy doing? When’s the baby due?

Glad to hear the guitar lessons are going well. You’ll have to play something next time we have a video call.

T hanks for the picture you sent. Your art is getting REALLY good. Seriously, Bex. I showed it off to the guys. They were jealous my letters are way cooler than theirs.

Not much new to report from here. Jimmy almost strangled Axel the other day because he wouldn’t stop singing.

Bex laughed to herself about that. Axel had been somewhere in the background during their video call. He was enthusiastic, but very, very tone deaf.

Kevin ate something weird and stank up the tent. Weasel kept threatening to boot him out and we were kind of tempted to let him.

Mouse says ‘say hi to Mini Halstead’ so hi from Mouse. Hope you don’t mind the nickname, I think it’s sticking.

Write back soon.

Love you lots,

Jay

Bex sighed and read the letter over again before carefully tucking it away in the box that held his other messages. She was glad he’d found a good group of friends in his unit. They were all goofy, but seemed nice. Even if they’d saddled her with another nickname.

They all crowded into the background during her next video call with Jay, yelling questions and cracking jokes. She didn’t get much news out of Jay, but there was a lot of laughing and that was just as good. Just seeing his face and knowing he was okay was all the she needed. They could make all the fart jokes they wanted as long as she got that.

A few months later, little Luke was born and she sent Jay a few photos.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

…are we sure that Frodo’s not the father?

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Oh, my god, Jay! LOL! Shut up. He’s new. Babies always look weird when they’re new.

He took forever to come out too so he might be a bit extra squishy.

I wandered around the hospital a bit while we were waiting and the peds ward is pretty big. Did you know that there’s kids there who have to stay for months at a time? I was talking to a nurse there and she was telling me how hard it is and how bored they get.

Long story short – I’m volunteering there now! I go once or twice a week and do art with the kids and bring my guitar and we sing songs. It’s pretty cool.

Say hi to the guys.

Miss you!

Love,

Bex

There was a long stretch for a while there where it was radio silence from Jay. She was starting to get worried when it had been three weeks. And then six.

Finally an email saying he was okay.

Two weeks later, a video chat. He looked tired and older somehow. Not the usual Jay spark in his eyes. She wanted to know what was going on, but was afraid to ask. He probably couldn’t tell her anyway.

“Hey, Bex,” he said, softly. “Good to see you. How’s it going?”

“Happy to see you too, Jay,” she said. “I’m good. I, ah—” Bex thought fast, trying to think of things to tell him that wouldn’t stress him out or make him sad or worried. She should just talk and take his mind off of things. “Oh,” Bex snapped her fingers. “Big news. Chris let a raccoon into the house.”

“What?” Jay looked a little more alert at that and she could see Mouse sidling in on the side of the screen.

“Yeah, so you know we’re all crazy sleep deprived here because Lukey’s like ‘sleep, I don’t know her’ and uh, Chris has been trying to help out when he can with the night feeding, but he’s got a really bad habit of only turning on the stove light when he goes into the kitchen.”

The other guys were gathering behind Jay and Bex tried not to notice how quiet it was and the notable lack of Axel.

“So, he’s making the bottle and he hears a sound on the back porch and goes to look out the door and sees a little creature there. He thinks it’s Frodo.”

Jay frowned and laughed a little. “I thought Frodo was an indoor cat.”

“Yeah. He is,” Bex shrugged. “He thought he got outside somehow? I don’t know. 3 a.m. Chris does not have the best thought process. So he lets ‘Frodo’ in,” Bex said, doing the air quotes. “And then goes back to making the bottle. This is when real Frodo trots into the kitchen.”

“Oh, no,” Mouse murmured.

“Oh, yes,” Bex nodded. “Frodo freaks out. The raccoon freaks out. Chris freaks out because he realizes finally he has let some creature into the house.”

The guys were all starting to chuckle along with Jay at that point.

“All of the shrieking from the kitchen wakes up me and Cindy, but not the babies, thank goodness. We run downstairs to find absolute chaos in the kitchen.”

“What did you do?” Jay asked between laughs.

“Cindy grabbed a broom and I opened the door so she could shove the raccoon back outside. Then she smacked the broom against the wall and said ‘Lights on, Christopher. Lights. On.” Bex shook her head. “Then she went to bed and I helped Chris tidy up the kitchen. It was hilarious.”

“That’s crazy,” Jay said and the guys chimed in their agreement behind him. Bex was happy to see him look the tiniest bit more relaxed. They chatted a bit more before saying good-bye.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

I'm sorry about Axel.

Love you.

***

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Love you too.

***

After that, she tried to keep the energy going for every video call they managed to have. Talk a lot and tell jokes and funny stories. Anything to keep Jay’s mind off of things for a little bit. Sometimes they others were around and other times they left them alone. When they were there, it always seemed to help them too.

During their next call, she had big news for him.

“I have a new very specific super power,” she declared.

“Oh, really?” Jay raised his eyebrows. “Tell me.”

“Excuse me,” Mouse sidled in beside him. “A new super power? This speaks to there being a previous one. You have multiple super powers and we’re just now hearing about it?”

The other guys crowded around, voicing their complaints and Bex held her hands up. “Enough! I’ll explain,” she said. “I only have two—”

“Only two, she says,” Mouse muttered and Jay shushed him.

“I discovered the first one when I was a kid,” she continued. “I can stop the rain, but only once a year.”

“Bullshit,” Weasel said.

“It's true, man,” Jay turned around to face him. “I’ve seen it.”

Mouse was nodding. “I can see why they’re labeled very specific super powers. What’s the new one?”

“Okay, so Cindy taught me and Jay how to bake ages ago and I hadn’t done much of it aside from at Christmas, but recently, I just really felt like baking cookies. I kept looking up random cookie recipes and picking one to try. But then I kept having all of these cookies so I started giving them away.”

“Okay,” Jay said slowly. “This sounds pretty normal so far.”

“Here’s where it gets weird,” Bex said. “I start making these single batches of cookies and taking them with me wherever I’m going that day and then I come across someone and I just know those cookies are for them. And guess what?”

“What?” Kevin asked, leaning over Jay’s shoulder.

“Every time, it turns out that it’s that person’s favourite type of cookie. Without fail.”

“Whoa,” Jay and Mouse said and Weasel scoffed.

“Okay, but it’s all people you know, right? So you probably heard them talking about their favourite cookies at some point,” he said.

“It started with the gang at 51,” Bex said. “But I didn’t know all of their favourites. And now it’s happening with strangers. Like, I gave some random kid at school oatmeal cranberry cookies and he cried because they were just like the ones his grandma used to make. Tell me that’s not weird.”

“No, that’s definitely a super power,” Kevin agreed.

“So, can you tell what someone’s favourite cookie is when you meet them?” Mouse asked.

“Nope.” Bex shook her head. “I make the cookies and then the cookies find their person.”

“So it’s the cookies who have the super power,” Weasel said and they all smacked at him, telling him to shut up.

“That’s pretty cool, Bex,” Mouse said with a smile before drifting away with the rest of the guys.

“It is,” Jay said and laughed a little before his grin got brighter. “Hey, guess who’s coming home for a few weeks?”

“What?” Bex shrieked. “You let me ramble on about cookies when you could have been telling me this amazing news like an hour ago? Jay!”

“I like to hear what’s going on with you,” he said, totally unrepentant. “Going to be even better to hear it in person.”

“Definitely,” Bex agreed, smiling so hard her cheeks were hurting.

“See you soon, Bex.”

She couldn’t wait.

Click here for Chapter Two.

Click here for Chapter Three.

(Here's the link to read on ao3 if you want:)

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puppetsandpantry · 6 months

Text

My Avatar History

This is the post the last month of content has been building up to. It doesn't really mean anything to anybody but me, but I want to document this info as a fun little project. This will be going through all the variations and changes in my online avatar since I first started using custom avatars. Let me weave you a tale.

So sometime in the past, around August of 2020, I was a player of the now shuttered game Club Penguin Rewritten. The owners of Club Penguin Rewritten held an art contest, and I decided to participate. I drew a pixel art version of the Astro Barrier ship from the minigame Astro Barrier. I don't have that file anymore, so I can't show it here, but imagine the astro barrier ship (which was already pixelated) but with a bit more graphical fidelity. Like taking something 8-bit and making it sixteen bit. I really enjoyed drawing that space ship, and so I decided to make another, fully original, top down spaceship image. After a bit of tinkering, and a lot of use of the "make rectangle" and "make circle" tools, I came up with something that looked like this:

(This is a recreation based on my memory) At that time, I realized that it vaguely looked like a face. So I made it a face.

At the time, I thought this looked really cool, and based on my desire to have a custom avatar on youtube, I chose this to be my avatar. (Fun Fact: The green and red lights were holdovers for the idea of this being a flying ship of some kind.) One of the next days, I decided to make this not just a head, and gave it a body.

This thing looked really bad, and not long after making it I decided to shelve the idea of giving this thing a body. (Fun Fact: This is the first time I recorded the light on his face red rather than green. This would not be done consistently afterwards, but I did it here first.) The only thing I would keep from this design was the little blue glowing hands, though they never appeared in any official capacity.

After this, I wanted to go back and make some changes to the avatar, or at least I think I did. I don't remember. In any case, due to the way I used to save my pixel art files, when I brought the avatar back into the editing program, it made some weird color blurring changes. For some reason, I liked how said changes looked at the time, and decided to use them in the actual version. I christened this version the "Hi-Rez" version, despite that making no sense.

(I think I thought that it looked like it was shaded better, but it really just looks messy.)

After this, I made some variations for holidays, Halloween and Christmas specifically.

The Halloween avatar is supposed to look like a Jack-O-Lantern, and the Christmas one should be self explanatory. I think I only used the Christmas avatar once, but the Halloween Avatar got used a couple of times. Now for a quick diversion: My original tumblr avatar. The avatars I've shown thus far were only being used on Youtube and Twitter, and maybe some other places that have since stopped existing. When I created my Tumblr, I initially planned on keeping my Tumblr and Twitter separate, though I've now gone back on that decision. When deciding on an avatar, I picked a random file I had lying around, and that was this:

This is a design made inside the Nitrome game "Steamlands," which includes a rudimentary flag designer tool. The resolution on them isn't great, and this is an upscaled version. It's supposed to be a skull, but it looks crappy. I figured it would suffice. At this point, my avatars are stable for a while. To get into why they changed, we first have to talk about my twitter banner. Here is my old twitter banner:

It's the name "Dipped Feathers, with what are supposed to be feathers in the "t", with Sleeping Beauty Castle, a really squashed game controller, and a half animatronic, half bird thing in the foreground. These were chosen to represent my main interests at the time, theme parks, video games, and animatronics. I don't have the file anymore, but the original version of this banner had a dog instead of a bird for the animatronic; I changed it when I realized that a bird made more sense with the name. (Fun Fact: I will not disclose where the name "Dipped Feathers'' comes from.) Here is the Christmas version:

There is snow and the controller is now hot chocolate. This probably also got used only once. (Why there isn't snow on the roof of the castle, I don't know.)

Cut to September of 2023, and I realize that I really didn't like how this banner looked. So I decided to make a new one. Here it is:

I decided to focus more on wavy letters for this one, which are something I have a fondness for. The weird divot at the beginning of "Dipped" is so that the banner doesn't overlap the twitter avatar space. I made the background for this black, which I like because it looks seamless to the rest of the twitter interface when in dark mode. I was really satisfied with this logo, and left it like that for a while. Cut to late September, I became really interested in The Amazing Digital Circus by @gooseworx and Glitch Productions. Even now, I remain obsessed. Knowing that the pilot would be released on October 13th (go watch it), I decided to prepare something to show my excitement. In addition to a group shot of all the characters from the show, I also made this:

It's my avatar with Pomni's Jester hat. (Note: I made the light red instead of green when designing this one, along with cleaning up the blurred details of the "Hi-Rez" version). I used this avatar from October 13th to October 23, before switching back to my halloween avatar for the rest of the month. But while I was designing this variant of the avatar, I realized I really didn't like the avatar base. For one thing, I'd never given it a name (the file name is just "yeet") or even figured out what it was. It wasn't really an OC because it didn't have character. It's a gormless face thing. So I began to make some new ideas, staying in line, color wise, with the new banner I had made. Here are those:

These were all pretty bad. My first attempt was just recoloring the old avatar with the new colors. It didn't look good, but it did lead somewhere. I now share with you, in gif form, the process of getting from my old avatar to my new avatar:

I realized while messing with the colors that the central teal part of the old avatar was basically a little ghost shape. So I gave them the colors of the new banner, and almost immediately I loved how it looked. It's definitely simpler than the old avatar, but it has potential to actually be a character, and it actually looks like something. I couldn't tell you what the old avatar was. This one is a ghost. Simple as that.

I've used this avatar since I made it here on Tumblr and on Youtube, but I've waited till today to use it on twitter. I actually made this avatar on the same day as the Pomni version of the old avatar, and had I not made that avatar, I would have started using this on twitter immediately. I really wanted to use that avatar (and the Halloween one, one more time) before saying goodbye to the avatar design, so I waited until the beginning of November. Which is now, as of me writing this. Thanks for reading!

#pixel art #old art #no one cares

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