#Utah Birthday Parties

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Birthday Party Places in Salt Lake City, Utah (Kids & Adults)

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Birthday Party Places in Salt Lake City, Utah (Kids & Adults)

How’s it going? Planning a birthday party in Salt Lake City, Utah? There are plenty of creative options available to suit any taste and budget. From outdoor activities such as exploring Salt Lake City parks and mountains, or indoor activities like arts and crafts workshops, dining in Salt Lake City restaurants and pubs, visiting Salt LakeCity museums, or swimming in a pool, there is a wide range of choices available to make their special day unforgettable.

Contents

1 About Salt Lake City, Utah

2 Salt Lake City Birthday Party Places

2.1 Classic Fun Center

2.2 Tracy Aviary

2.3 Kangaroo Zoo

2.4 Escape on 13th

2.5 Salt Lake City Ghost Tours

2.6 Red Butte Garden

2.7 Sugar House Park

2.8 Dave and Buster’s

2.9 Public Library

3 Birthday Party Ideas in Salt Lake City

4 Salt Lake City Map

5 Party Supplies in Salt Lake City

About Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City Night

Salt Lake City is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. Salt Lake City is home to many attractions, including the Utah State Capitol, Temple Square, the Salt Lake Tabernacle, the Salt Lake Temple, the Salt Lake City and County Building, the Salt Lake Art-Museum, the Natural History Museum of Utah, the Leonardo museum, and the Clark Planetarium.

Salt Lake City Birthday Party Places

Looking for the best birthday party places in Salt Lake City, Utah? Look no further! Let’s review some of the best birthday party venues in Salt Lake City for kids and adults:

Classic Fun Center

Classic Fun Center

This fun-filled indoor center has everything kids love, including roller skating, laser tag, and arcade games.

Tracy Aviary

If your little one loves animals, Tracy Aviary is the perfect place to celebrate their birthday.

Kangaroo Zoo

This indoor play center is ideal for younger kids, with inflatable bounce houses and slides, an obstacle course, and a toddler area.

Escape on 13th

If you’re looking for a unique and thrilling birthday celebration, Escape on 13th is the perfect choice.

Salt Lake City Ghost Tours

Haunted Houses Salt Lake City Utah

For a spooky and exciting birthday party, Salt Lake City Ghost Tours is a great option. Explore the city’s haunted history with an experienced guide and uncover hidden secrets.

Red Butte Garden

For a more relaxed and serene celebration, Red Butte Garden offers beautiful scenery, botanical gardens, and a tranquil atmosphere.

Sugar House Park

Hey! If you’re looking for an outdoor celebration that won’t break the bank, Sugar House Park is the perfect option.

Dave and Buster’s

Dave And Busters Salt Lake City Utah

This popular arcade and restaurant offers various birthday party packages that won’t hurt your wallet.

Public Library

Salt Lake City’s Public Library offers a unique and budget-friendly option for celebrating birthdays. They offer free event spaces and even provide equipment and materials for activities like art and crafts.

Birthday Party Ideas in Salt Lake City

Glam Picnics In The Park

Party Rentals Salt Lake City

Utah Parties

Birthday Party Limo

Capitol Theatre Stage

Salt Lake City Map



Party Supplies in Salt Lake City

Party Pinata

Zurchers

U S Novelty & Party

Party Supplies

PAK-N-Wrap

The Balloney Bin

Conclusion

From indoor amusement parks and bowling alleys to outdoor zoos and farms, there is something for everyone. The city also has several restaurants that offer both indoor and outdoor seating, perfect for hosting a birthday party. With its wide range of options, Salt Lake City is an excellent choice for throwing a memorable birthday party.

[daydream-believin]

Like A Boiled Frog (You Don't Even Scream) [ch 1]

notes: might proofread this before i post this to ao3 but here have the raw milk version (pasteurization is for losers amaright)

series summary: every time you think things cant get any more batshit, hurricane throws another pile of guano at you. every time you think the hole cant get any deeper, you fall further. and you’re not sure what frightens you more: the town itself, or your increasing reluctance to leave.

or: au where mike has that pizza shop for wayyy more than a week and you find yourself a horror protagonist. or at least one’s love interest.

chapter summary: get haunted bitch. now go drive to utah in a manic episode. go meet a nice walking corpse, maybe it'll fix you. or make you worse. probably that second thing lmao

word count: 7985, oh dear (thats with me cutting out some stuff lol)

warnings: uh, swearing, manic behavior, self-harmful thoughts/behavior, mention of hallucinations/hearing voices, shit this is sounding bad, i mean its canon typical violence so idk man no lifeguard on duty

You know how in Source Decay, John Darnielle says / I wish the west Texas highway was a mobius strip / I could ride it out forever / when I feel my heart break? / Well, that guy’s a bitchass snake oil salesman for romanticizing this. Fuck that guy.

Although, this is the first time you’ve ever been able to set a cruise control and actually just leave it at that. What with there being no other cars on the road out here at this hour for you to run into. You even forgot about it at one point.

Little puffs of fire danced in your peripheral vision, like fairies flitting about. It was easy to spot them out in the night air, all those pumpjacks that littered the desert. There was nothing but these small fires, with the tiny, dotted additions of the glowing red eyes of windmills to light up the way for miles.

And you tried not to think about how if you broke down, no one would be around to find you. Every now and then you would startle at the shadowy specter of a tumbleweed crossing your path, but you were acutely aware of just how alone you were out here.

On that train of thought, your gaze fell to the passenger side, to the little bear toy you had buckled into a seatbelt like it was a person.

“Can you believe this, Fredbear?” you asked the inanimate object.

Fredbear did not answer, of course. Would be insane if he did, right?

Hmm …Why did part of you expect him to.

***

The august sun was beating down hot on your back as you walked home that day. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but it was only last week.

The neighborhood was as full of life as it always was. The kids running around in a game of tag, the teens playing basketball, and the adults walking their dogs. You could hear some faint music playing in the distance, most likely from the stage setup in the square downtown, not too far away.

There were many yard sales set up, it being the thing to do on a sunny Saturday afternoon like this. Despite your very strong instincts to rummage through all the boxes in these sales like a raccoon looking for dinner in a dumpster, you were broke, with no money to spare for impulse purchases on random junk. And thus, being a mature adult, you walked right past them.

That is, until a yard full of children’s toys caught your eye. One of your cousins’ kids was turning 6 in a few weeks. Might as well buy presents now before you forget again and have to rush to the store in a panic 8 minutes after the party had already started, sweat rolling down your back as you search the toy isle for something the birthday boy would like, while your phone keeps buzzing in your pocket nonstop because both your cousin is texting and your aunt is calling to ask where you’re at because you were the one who was supposed to be picking up the pizza.

 I mean, just a hypothetical scenario here.

You didn’t really find anything good as you dug through the bins of miscellaneous action figures and toy cars. As you could recall, the kid really liked Iron Man right now. And sharks. Alas, you found no Iron Mans or sharks in those bins.

The other table’s baskets were full of stuffed animals. You could maybe get lucky and find a stuffed shark in there. But stuffed animals are notorious for being hard to clean; and yard sale plushies sometimes come with more than just one new friend. You weren’t about to be the reason your cousin had to fumigate her house for bedbugs. Again. So, you decided to close this case for now and skedaddle on out of there.

You took another look back at the table as you walked away.

Well.. The toys you could see at the top of the bins did look like they were well taken care of… It couldn’t hurt to just look, right?

Yeah no. You found no sharks unfortunately. What you did find, however, was this funky little teddy bear wearing a top hat and bowtie.

A real character, that one. The bright gold fabric of its body made it stand out amongst the other toys. The smile stitched onto the bear gave it a weird, smug look. And you hadn’t seen a plushy with eyebrows before.

That being said, this thing’s aura was so... unsettling. You stared into its black eyes, that seemed to stare right back at you, with a strange feeling twisting in the pit of your stomach.

“You like that one, do ya?”

You almost jumped out of your skin when the old man running the sale spoke to you. You had Not heard him come up beside you like that. Creepy.

“Yeah, it’s…” you tried to think of a positive word, “very intriguing. Looks like it’s ready for a party.”

“My granddaughter called him Fredbear. Found him over in Utah, many years back. In a yard sale, just like this one,” he gently took the bear from you, and looked down at it wistfully, “My granddaughter..  liked how smartly dressed he was. A perfect guest for her tea parties. You were right about that…”

The old man stared at the doll for a little longer after the conversation faded. You felt extremely awkward now. Perhaps you really should have just left without unearthing this obvious sentimental piece.

“My grandchildren are no longer here with me,” you felt a little uncomfortable with how he phrased that, “so, I’ll tell you what. Promise me you’ll take care of him, and he’s yours. Free of charge.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I’d be happy to pay for him, really,” you felt bad taking free stuff from the elderly.

“No,” he said with a tone of finality, placing the bear firmly into your hands, “the day’s almost over. I’d like to help this old friend move on. It’s time.”

Well that somehow was both sweet and foreboding at the same time.

So, you thanked the old man and started back on your walk home, Fredbear cradled in your arms. He waved goodbye to you. The grandfather, of course, not the teddy bear.

You probably aren’t going to wind up giving this one to your cousin’s son. There was something about it that told you not to. Maybe it was the way the old man talked about it. You felt compelled to take care of the plush yourself. Kind of like an honor thing. Or a pity thing.

It smelled a little funky. But that’s nothing a little TLC couldn’t handle. And some dish soap.

Maybe you were just. Feeling a bit childish lately. Too small and easily broken. Moved to tears by little things that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Disregarded and treated like your fears weren’t real.

Deeply afraid.

Yeah, you’d give Fredbear a nice soak in the sink with a fun dish soap bubble bath. And maybe after that, you’ll both feel a little better.

You were alone in your apartment that night, as your roommate was always gone these days. And when you made your tea, you brought Fredbear a mug as well. A little tea party, for old time’s sake.

Looking back, maybe that was your first mistake.

***

Static rolled from your radio. You gave up on fiddling with it hours ago, but you’ve got nothing better to occupy your mind now.

You turned the knob absentmindedly, never really expecting to get anywhere. Or any signal, that is. A muffled country song here, the broken-up voice of a DJ there, nothing strong enough to stay for more than a few seconds. However, a few seconds of a clear transmission was all you really needed when you rolled past a certain signal.

“zZz-Hurricane—“

Now that was a word that got your attention. Not that you were anywhere near the coast at the moment. You know, unless the person reading this is looking to buy some oceanside property in Arizona. In that case feel free to slide into my DMs.

“zZZ-Peach Days! -Zz celebratio— zzZ-year—peaches peach—-ZzzZ-Heritage-zZ,” you let your gaze flicker downward, towards the dimly lit red text of the frequency number display as if that would provide some more insight.

And then suddenly, the fuzz was completely gone, as if you were near the tower itself,

“So Hurry On To Hurricane City!” the spokesman encouraged cheerfully. You could practically here the giant pageant smile in his voice as he delivered his slogan. This man was your friend, obviously. Then, however, his tone shifted as he closed the ad copy, “Because you know the party can’t start without you…”

You held your breath as the silence dragged out a few agonizing seconds, until “ZZZZZZZZ!!!”, in a jolt, the transmission went completely out. Explosively. You even flinched.

You stayed on the station for a good twenty minutes after that, waiting to see if you could hear anything again. You could feel your heart pound against your ribs until the terrifying feeling faded. There was nothing else but static, of course, and for so long you almost thought you must have imagined it. If not for the way those dull words repeated in your head, over and over.

THE PARTY CAN’T START WITHOUT YOU.

THE PARTY CAN’T START WITHOUT YOU.

THE PARTY CAN’T START WITHOUT YOU.

You hadn’t really had a destination in mind when you took off. No goal other than to get out of there as fast as you could manage. The idea of the West had been bouncing around your brain a lot lately, hence your current trajectory, but you really hadn’t had a clue where you were supposed to be going when you left.

I mean, you still didn’t have a destination. You had no clue what that advertisement was even about. Where they were even fucking talking about. Hurricane City?

Yet, somehow, you knew those words were meant for you. Not anyone else. you. There was a party and the party was waiting for you.

Guess you’d have to look for a map or something in town. Perhaps use the library computer. Man, you would regret throwing your phone into the lake in a fit of passion as you left town, but honestly, this is the longest you’ve known peace in quite some time. Just gonna have to live a little retro for a while. Not the worst thing in the world.

You’ll get a new one later, once you’ve settled in to… wherever you’re going. Whatever new home lies over that horizon for you, you guess.

The sun was breaching the beige skyline of sandy shrub brush as you finally rolled over the state line. You needed to eat. Your stomach growled loudly at just the thought. Funny. You hadn’t even thought about eating in the last.. twenty hours. Which means you should be absolutely shaking right now. Yeah, that’s why you’re shaking. That’s it. You’ll pull into the first diner you see.

You were hoping to at least be in Roswell for breakfast, but there was no way your body was going to be able to keep running if you waited that long. Looks like it’s just going to be the first place you come across.

Hopefully they don’t put green chilis in their pancakes or something.

That sounds insane but it’s an actual thing you’ve seen before in this state, trust. There are no laws nor gods when it comes to Hatch green chilis.

***

Your sleepy brain was not ready for the bell that rang as you walked through the door. Embarrassingly enough, the tinny noise startled you. You almost tripped, to be honest. Thankfully your wobbly Bambi legs held up as you managed to catch yourself.

The hostess wasn’t in sight as you awkwardly stood in the entrance, but there was a whole heap of noise coming from the kitchen.

“Hold on just a second, Sweetpea!” a voice called out to you.

Well, guess you’re holding on a second.

Your eyes scanned the top of the walls, perusing the vast cookie jar collection that the owner had accrued over the years. They were never dusted, despite being on shelves that lined the top of every wall in the tiny shack of a diner, and thus you could easily tell that a few new additions had been made. You know, because those cookie jars were way less filthy.

That’s gotta be a heath-code violation.

After you heard a bit of garbled yelling, the hostess rushed out to take her place in front of you. Smoothing down her polka-dotted apron, she grinned at you.

“Table for two?”

You blinked. It was too early in the morning for fully intelligent speech.

“Uh. No. Just me today. Thank you.”

Her big, bedazzled cat-eyeglasses fell a little farther down her nose as she scrunched her face in confusion, “alright then. Just the one of you today...”

She grabbed a paper menu as she led your shambling body to a table near the window. Which was shut away with ancient looking vinyl blinds that you were too afraid to open, lest they crumble and the cost of replacing them be put on your on tab.

She had already disappeared back into the kitchen by the time you got yourself in a seat. You glanced around the room. You weren’t the only patron here, as a few tables held a few bodies, but you were the only one without your face buried in a newspaper. And to be expected honestly, you were the youngest person in the room at seven in the morning.

The hostess, who was also the only waitress in this tiny local business, placed two glasses in front of you. The dull sound they made hitting the table drew you out of your revelry. There before you were two cups, a steaming mug of fresh coffee and a short glass of milk. You looked up in confusion.

“Don’t worry, it’s whole milk. Builds strong bones.”

That... wasn’t your concern.

You looked back at the cup in confusion and by the time you turned back, she had already moved on to the next table, refilling mugs and having loud banter with the other customers. Her regulars, by the sound of it. You felt too apathetic to try and call her over again.

You shrugged, to no one in particular, as you did not have a breakfast partner with you, despite the waitress’s insistence otherwise. Wait, was she mocking you? Eh, maybe it’s just supposed to be for the coffee. Nevertheless, you would not be drinking the milk, so you just left it there.

Despite the prevalence of the local newspaper in the room, there wasn’t a dispenser or anything at the front of the restaurant, like there usually is. As you drummed your fingers on the tablecloth, bored out of your mind, you kinda regretted throwing your phone in the lake a bit more. Maybe not the best of moves.

But hey, at least you aren’t constantly quelling the incessant buzzing you’d be hearing if you’d kept it.

You busied yourself stirring your coffee while you looked over the menu again, just for something to read. Of course, you were ordering a waffle. Because this was a diner, and, yeah, you do like waffles. And pancakes. And French toast. Doodoodoodoo can’t wait to get a mouthful.

That voice kept echoing in your mind. The party can’t start without you.

“More coffee, Babycakes?” the waitress snapped you out of your thoughts.

“Oh! Yeah, thank you,” you moved the mug to the edge of the table, closer to her, “Say… I know this is an out-of-pocket question, but have you heard anything about Hurricane City? Maybe something about peaches?”

“Oh!” she snapped her fingers, “You mean the Peach Days. It’s a little heritage festival they put on every summer in Hurricane, you know. It’s a hoot, my family makes a trip out there every few years or so for it. Not this time of course, clearly, since I’m here talkin’ to you and not in Utah—”

“In Utah?”

Of course, it was Fucking Utah again.

“I know it’s soundin’ far, but it’s only ‘bout a day’s drive from here. Two days if y’ain’t crazy about following an itinerary like my husband,” she brushed a hand over her apron before you lost her attention to the other customers, “I swear that man would plan out a schedule for every second of the day if he could…”

After she wandered off to go top off more mugs, you lamented the fact that you still hadn’t ordered yet. That’s what you get for being nosy about peach festivals, you suppose.

Thankfully though, soon enough you had your hearty breakfast and were back in front of the wheel, on your way to the friendly neighborhood Walmart. Where hopefully no cops or employees would bother you as you crashed in the parking lot.

You took Fredbear to the backseat with you for good luck. Maybe it was the gold color, or the fancy getup he had. Maybe you just needed a cuddle buddy to not feel so alone in this parking lot swarming with people.

Much to your disdain, it was now a bit into the morning hours, and the sun was fully up.

You had tried to find as shady a spot as possible, but it’s not exactly like trees grow in this biome. At least not naturally. Windbreak tree lines were definitely a thing, but those protected buildings people cared about, and this was a Walmart. Nothing around here but concrete, rocks spray painted blue, and cigarette butts.

So after tossing and turning in the bright blinding sunshine for way longer than you should have, and making promises to higher deities was proven to be unfruitful in your attempt to find some semblance of peace, you finally just had to admit defeat. And here by rescinding any aforementioned promises to higher powers.

You laid Fredbear back down on the seat and tucked him in with the blanket when you got back up. At least one of you could be cozy and well rested. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be you, however.

Well, it’s far from the first all-nighter you’ve pulled without having time to take a nap during the following day. Sleep deprivation isn’t real, silly. Teachers just made that up to scare you. It’ll be fine.

***

You know you never really realize how much we structure our lives around other humans until you take a drive through the middle of nowhere. How essential it is to have enough gas to make it to the next town. From town to town, your life becomes segments. Only within the eyesight of other humans are you ever safe. Only within the bounds of the settlement can your soul be settled.

Gas stations become oases. Which is the plural of oasis, apparently. Anyway, you start seeing them like mirages. Dingey, weather-worn gas pumps become as good as a sparkling illusion of precious water in the Sahara. The empty shells of buildings you passed by, long since forgotten, became like mausoleums in these graveyard towns. Villages. Hamlets. Mostly hamlets.

“Are we there yet?” a small and very annoyed voice called out.

You had just written it off as your imagination until you heard the noise of shuffling fabric. Normally your audio hallucinations aren’t that detailed. Paralyzed, you held your breath, not daring to make any noise that would distract your ears from hearing whoever, whatever, was in the back seat. Your mind went to stories of skinwalkers and misshapen monsters and hitch-hiking serial killers.

“… Are we there yet?” the voice repeated, admittedly sounding even smaller to you now.

Yep, that’s a real person alright. Or a real thing. Your eyes were probably bloodshot from the way you haven’t blinked this entire time, just staring straight ahead on the desert highway. Taking a deep, shaky breath to steady yourself, you turned down the rear-view mirror…

Christ almighty. You had a stowaway.

Your stomach turned immediately. God, come on now, don’t puke up what little you had on your stomach. You need that.

“Hey Buddy,” you tried to sound as friendly as you could, “What’s your name?”

Clad in a little striped shirt and cargo shorts, he started kicking his feet in impatience, which would be cute if it weren’t for this situation y’all are in, and the adrenaline pumping through your veins, “We’ve been in here forever,” he whined.

If this was a skinwalker, he was a pretty darn adorable one. And definitely not a hitch-hiking serial killer. At least you hoped. But no, this was a greater form of terror: responsibility.

“Haha, yeah, we have been in here really long, haven’t we? How long do you think we’ve been driving, can you tell me?”

When did you pick up this child. When you got gas in Gallup? Albuquerque? Dear lord, if he’s been in here since Roswell, you’re about to have the world’s biggest headache on your hands, both metaphorically and physically. But there’s no way he’s been in here for fucking 10 hours, right? right??

Okay, okay. Maybe you’re just a little panicky right now and not thinking straight. Maybe teachers hadn’t been making up sleep deprivation just to scare you after all. You have been purposely not drinking anything for the lack of available restrooms. People get dehydration hallucinations, right?

The boy just stared at you, blankly. Probably fully realizing you were a stranger and not whoever he thought you were. In lieu of answering you, he started fidgeting more with the toy bear you had had in the back. You really hoped that hadn’t been what lured him into your station wagon in the first place.

Don’t be getting shy on me now, kid.

You put your blinker on, ready to merge off the road and onto an incoming rest-stop that you thanked your lucky stars for.

“Honey, can you tell me what your phone number is?”

He looked up at you, finally tearing his attention from the bear, and you could see gears turning in his head.

“…435-555-1987?”

You repeated it back to him, and he nodded. Alright, time to find that payphone.

Said rest-stop payphone was thankfully near a picnic table so you could sit him down and be able to watch him carefully the whole time you made this call. Because judging by the fact this situation was happening at all, he was a slippery one.

You got out of the car and opened the back door, but he was hesitant to get out. Which, fair, you are a stranger trying to get him to a second location.

“What’s up, Bud?” you tried your hardest to not sound like a predator but boy was that a real nebulous idea, wasn’t it?

“Fredbear wants to come too,” he mutters.

“Well, sure then, let’s bring him, we’ll have a little picnic.” With no food, but hey, whatever lie it takes to get him sitting on that bench.

It was really cute the way the kid set the bear down on the table and positioned it like they were going to have a picnic together. When you find this kid’s parents, you’ll let him keep Fredbear. Toys like it when they’re given to new children, right? Wasn’t there a movie about that or something. Wincing at the grubbiness of the payphone, you reluctantly dialed the number.

“Hello, Jeff’s Pizza on Main St, are you ready to order?”

You closed your eyes, counting the seconds as you breathed in for 4 seconds, held it for 7, and released for 8.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“Yes!” you practically shouted into the receiver. So much for calming down, “please don’t hang up,” you pleaded.

“Listen, we don’t take solicitation,”

“No, uh, sorry. I’ve found a lost child who told me this was his number. Is the owner of this restaurant by chance frantically looking for their son?”

You heard some muffled conversation happening behind the phone, “Well, no, I don’t even have any kids… and I uh, am currently understaffed. Im the only one here.”

you cursed under your breath.

“Uh, alright, well…” you could tell this was getting really awkward for him.

“Could you tell me where y’all are, I’m unfamiliar with the area code,”

“Uh, Hurricane, Utah?”

… If you weren’t on the phone, you fucking swear you’d be screeching at the top of your lungs like a chimpanzee right now.

“Thank you, you know, just in case he’s just remembering an advertisement he’s seen or something,”

“Oh, okay,” there was a pause, “well I hope you find the parents or, whoever,”

“Thank you,” you’ll put him out of his misery and hang up.

“Are you sure that’s your number, Hon?”

“Uh-huh,”

“Why don’t you tell me it again, maybe I dialed it wrong,”

“435-5--” his face scrunched up in concentration, “435-555—I don’t know…”

You tried not to look visibly stressed at this answer.

“Do you know where you live?”

He moved the bears paws along with whatever little game he was playing, before looking up at you, head tilted in confusion, “Hurricane?”

Okay. Police time. If not for him, for you. The skinwalker possibility just went back up. Because, honestly, he had to have gotten in your car as a coyote or something. No way you wouldn’t’ve noticed a whole ass child entering your car.

“How does ice cream sound, huh Buddy?”

“I want ice cream!” he said hastily as if you’d change your mind if he hesitated.

“Ice cream it is then, but only if you’re good for me and the officers, okay? And tell them everything you can remember. You’re smart, right?”

“Uh-huh,”

“Great,” you smiled over clenched teeth.

After herding him back into the car, you had to take a moment to gently rest your head into the steering wheel. And it took everything within you to not smash said head into it. Or scream in agony. No, no, we mustn’t scare the child.

Tuba City wasn’t too far away. The police station was downtown, as most are. Luckily, across the street there was a paleteria with a courtyard area. The little guy got very excited when you got pulled into the parking space, so eh, what the hell, ice cream first. Maybe after a treat and some playtime in the courtyard he won’t be as wiggly and will be able to tell the cops what he knows about just where the hell he came from.

The noise of the bell chiming made you flinch as you two walked into the paleteria. You hadn’t thought you were that tightly wound right now but apparently you were wrong. The lady behind the counter greeted you warmly, and you responded in turn, trying to play it cool.

God, imagine if she got an off-vibe from you and the kid and called over the police from across the street before you even have a chance—

Deep breath. Okay. The kid you had started referring to in your head as just “Little Boy” was leaned against the display case, his breath fogging up the glass in front of him and probably leaving little handprints for the shopkeeper to clean later.

“I’m sorry about that,”

“That’s… Okay. What can I get you?” she seemed a little confused. Strange, but you brushed past it just as quickly as she did.

“Ah, what do we want?” you asked Little Boy.

He excitedly tugged on your pantleg and pointed to the popsicle he wanted, looking up at you with puppy dog eyes. He doesn’t need to convince you, but you quickly realized you were not going to be able to say no to any else after this if he deployed the same cute begging look.

“One of those cute little Tweety Bird faces,” you pointed.

“Anything else?” she handed you the popsicle and you gingerly took it.

“Nah, that’s it” you were too nauseous to eat right now.

You paid, throwing the change into the tip jar, and turned to give Little Boy the popsicle she handed you.  The words caught in your throat as you looked down to find your pantleg absent of any tugging by any Little Boy. You quickly scanned the tiny paleteria. He was nowhere to be found, anywhere in the room.

“Uh, did you see where the kid went?” you tried not to sound too panicked.

She was taken aback, also quickly looking around the room to find no one, before shaking her head, “Did you have a kid with you?”

You furiously nodded in confusion,

“I’m sorry, then I didn’t see them,” she pointed to the glass door that led to the courtyard only a few feet away from y’all, “Try outside, maybe?”

You burst outside, searching the area in a panic, but you couldn’t see him anywhere. Not hidden in the tangle of the garden, not splashing around in the fountain, not at, under, on top of, or around any of the tables.

You went to call his name, but your voice caught in your throat when you realized you didn’t have a name to call. And.

And.

Something hit your shirt. A water droplet. You looked up into the clear, blinding blue sky. Your nerves tickled as another droplet ran down your cheek. Oh, you were crying. Huh.

You took the closet seat you could find, counting the things processed by your 5 senses. It’s all you could do to not start bawling for no reason. Maybe you’ll calm down and be able to think straight soon.

Why can’t you think straight? Everything feels so fuzzy.

You should be terrified, and in a way, you were. In your heart of hearts, you knew the truth: Little Boy wasn’t real. Or at least turned back into a coyote and ran off.

As you stared vacantly into the open air, you realized you still had a dripping popsicle in your hands. Supposedly “Tweety Bird” shaped, it just looked like a yellow skull missing its mandible bone to you. How fitting.

You pulled it to your mouth. Yum. Tasted like AAAAAAAA. Or orange, according to the package.

Attempting to lick the melted yellow liquid off of your hand, you accidentally stuck the ice pop on your face. Great. Now you’re sticky all over.

God, you’ve really gone and lost your fucking marbles this time, haven’t you.

There was a bulletin kiosk a few feet down your field of vision. On that bulletin kiosk was an old poster, barely visible as it was buried under layers of other flyers. It caught your eye and seemed to burn your retinas. What little you could see was the word Freddy and part of what looked like a version of the bear you’d been toting around this whole little expedition, but that was enough.

Something clicked. You looked down at the bear hanging by your side in your other hand. The kid had shoved it into your arms so he could more easily lean on the display case, right before he disappeared the very moment you took your eyes off of him.

You know, you hadn’t really felt alone since bringing Fredbear home. And not in a good way.

Guess the name you should’ve been calling was Freddy.

You had to get rid of that bear.

***

You had been walking home like you always did, same route. But you noticed something peculiar about this time. The house that the old man had his yard sale in was now stripped of all decoration, with a For Sale sign proudly standing in the grass. No cars, and no blinds or curtains on the windows, so you could see into the den which was now devoid of any furniture.

You’ll admit it, you crept around to the other windows, searching for any signs of life at all in the empty rooms. None. No furniture, no people, no trash. The yard sale was yesterday. How did they clean this place out so thoroughly in the short amount of time between when you’d seen it last and now.

A little confuddled, you went home as usual. While strange as hell, this wasn’t a missing person’s case or anything. And it’s probably why the man was so adamant on giving you Fredbear because it was the end of the day. He had a deadline. He was skipping town.

God, you wished you could just skip town.

You frankly thought nothing of it when you unlocked the door to your apartment to see Fredbear was already seated on the couch, like he was all set to marathon whatever 30-year-old cartoon you wound up watching that night. And it’s not like your roommate hadn’t done something like this before, move a stuffed animal or action figure into a funny position for you to find later.

You hadn’t seen him much lately. Or like, at all. The only reason you knew he was still alive were the dirty dishes in the sink, dirty clothes on the floor of the bathroom, and the aforementioned moving the bear around.

Looking back now, was he moving the bear around?

If you locked the deadbolt that can’t be unlocked from the outside, you’d be guaranteed to catch him in person for once. But you weren’t willing to go through the trouble and emotional toil of doing that, however.

In the name of feeling less like a ghost haunting your own home, getting yelled at for intentionally locking your roommate out might be a wee bit counterproductive. Sure, you’d be seen and spoken to, but the harshness of his words and tone would send you into a worse episode than you were already in.

Well, at least Fredbear seemed ready to keep you company tonight...

The fact that they put unskippable advertisements on streaming services you’re paying for in the first place is criminal. Or at least regular cable tv in a trenchcoat.

You got a drink while they prattled on about luxury cars you couldn’t afford and real estate companies you weren’t going to have the privilege of patroning any time soon. Embarrassingly, as you poured the pitcher of water into a glass, you got a little distracted.

The cheap glass’s glass was only about a millimeter or two thick. You could easily just crush this cup in your hand, in one swift movement. The muscles of your arm began tensing up at the thought.

But thankfully, a loud, blaring advertisement coming from the TV snapped you out of it. And so, you promptly decided to Not Do That, because picking all of those tiny glass shards out of your flesh would be a bitch. And that was not how you wanted to spend a perfectly good Sunday night. And of course you didn’t need the questions at work tomorrow.

You returned to the couch, curiously, and you swear, that damn teddy bear followed you with its eyes. Even though they were a shiny, solid black, and the idea itself would be insane.

As you settled back down, you grabbed the remote to turn down the volume of the cheery music playing. Mysteriously, it wasn’t just a commercial with bad sound mixing, the TV itself had been turned up. Now that it had your attention, the thing that was being sold to you seemed to the state of Utah. You know, those Visit [X] ads that were commonly played between cooking shows and ghost hunting documentaries.

“Oh hey, you’re from there, right?” you poked at fredbear. And immediately felt pathetic. God, you’ve got to stop talking to inanimate objects and like get a boyfriend or something. Geez.

The imagery on the screen was just, you know, normal southwest stock footage:

A drone shot of Zion national park

Old men golfing

Owls living in holes they’ve dug into cactuses

Rock archways

A family laughing as they shared a pizza being served to them by a man in a bear suit that looked just fredbear,

“Oh, well there you are, I guess.” you once again absent-mindedly spoke to your toy friend.

Kids swimming in a fancy resort pool

A Navajo cultural event

More rock archways and red sandstone cliffs

Kids crowding around a claw machine filled with toys just like the one sitting next to you

Kids crowding around a stage as an animatronic band played

Kids crowding around a birthday cake, the light of candles bouncing off their faces as they sang along…

The fake sounding voice of the announcer rung out, “Visit Utah! You know the party can’t start without you!”

Your mouth felt dry. Good thing you now had that glass of water.

***

Of course, you did what any smart, sane person would do and feverishly ripped through the layers of old flyers to get to the advertisement for what you now knew was Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place. A themed diner and nickel arcade that made most of their money hosting birthday parties, by the looks of it. You knew the type; you had been an American child once too.

Good thing none of the cops were hanging around outside to fine you for littering, because the amount of paper you just released into the breeze was in fact criminal.

There was a short list of locations at the bottom of the poster. They had a few scattered over Utah, or at least they used to, judging by the harsh weathering of this poster. The closest one being in Bigwater, explaining why this poster was out here in Tuba. But the word Hurricane stood out to you like it was lit up in neon. It burned like sunlight.

It appears you are in fact on your way to Hurricane, Utah. As if you didn’t know that already at this point, you being out on the canyon rim instead of your much preferred and beloved Rockies. Well, congratulations bitch. You’ve only got another three hours to go. Better get going. Have fun!

***

Oh, this place was creepy as hell. Or it’s just late at night, and you’re sleep deprived and paranoid. In the spirit of being honest to yourself, ‘sleep deprived and paranoid’ has always been your natural state of being, but right now it’s definitely ramped up to an eleven.

But even though it’s been close to 48 hours since your last brain-reset, this place still had a certain energy about it. Like New Orleans, or the woods around lynching bridges did. That spooky oh I am Not Safe here type of energy.

The gas station-man gave you a real weird look when you stormed in and asked where the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place was. Normally you would’ve chalked it up to you being a clear foreigner asking for directions as if it’s 1995, to a children’s arcade close to midnight nonetheless, but now you weren’t so sure.

You eyed the fridge full of wine in pint sized bottles and little juice cartons. But nah, you probably needed to have a quick reaction time to whatever was waiting for you in this Venus flytrap you’re willingly walking into. You grabbed a Monster instead and you know what, yeah, that probably wasn’t the best decision either. If you weren’t high strung before, you definitely were now. You felt like you could punch a bear. A Freddy Fazbear.

You bought a local map alongside the energy drink, feeling like you were gonna need it. Man, low-tech was actually kinda annoying after a while. You got the gas station-man to begrudgingly mark Fazbear’s down onto it for you. Apparently, it and all other locations within town had closed down some twenty years ago. Not many people are still around who remember why, he said, but it had something to do with the faulty animatronics. Teenagers told ghost stories and dared each other to spend the whole night in the dining room. But otherwise, beyond the rumors, the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place was just an empty, scorched building. And the other various locations like Jr’s or Circus Baby’s had been sold off, passing so many hands who knows what businesses were in there now. But you could still kinda tell, if you paid attention, in the same way you can tell if something used to be a Pizza Hut.

What you really wanted, according to gas station-man, whose nametag read Gary, was this new location that was opening soon, simply named Freddy’s Pizzeria. It’s set to open for business in September, so you’re lucky. He marked it one your map as well.

You don’t know why Gary was so nice to you. Maybe it was the harrowed look in your eyes. Maybe it was the twitchiness. Maybe Gary is just very bored of this tourist town and was looking to fall madly in love with a random troubled soul he met at midnight in a gas station and would wind up running away with to some far-off place. If that was the case, sorry Gary. You were too busy with the metaphorical torture labyrinth to care about romance at the moment.

You couldn’t decide if the haunted Fredbear would want to see an old location or the new one. You asked, but of course the fucker didn’t answer. Just sat there with his smug grin and glassy eyes that followed your hand movements. So, you quite literally tossed a coin. A new mint, the face side had Eleanor Roosevelt on it. And she marked the fact that you were going to try the new location first, and then try the original building next. Cool.

***

Your patience was kinda at its limit here, you’ll admit. You really should get some sleep soon. Or eat. Since you were hellbent on getting here and nothing else, the only thing on your stomach besides that wretched Tweety Bird popsicle is half a monster energy. Guess you’ll go by a fucking Denny’s after this. If you survive.

If you were going to die horrifically, you’d really rather the forces that be make it snappy. This was getting ridiculous.

You pulled into the parking lot. The building clearly wasn’t new but had been freshly painted. Nothing creepy so far. As you stared down the building, sizing it up, you noticed there was one car parked in the front, and a few of the windows were lit up.

Cool, so there was someone in there. Great. That makes, well whatever this is, much harder.

The door was locked.

You could hear music playing from inside. You banged on the door as loudly as you could manage, and it still took a couple of minutes before the music stopped. And then a very disgruntled man in coveralls was in the doorway, tiredly asking just what the fuck you wanted at this time of night.

He smiled to cover up his rudeness, but the smile stretched a little too wide, inhumanly wide, and a shiver ran down your spine.

You took him in, unashamedly raking your eyes over his form. He stood awkwardly, as if ready to bolt at any moment. What you could see of his build made him out to be weirdly skinny. That unnaturally wide smile gave way to some exposed teeth on the left side of his face. His eyes were shadowed by his bangs in the backlight of the door, but you swore they almost glowed themselves. His complexion was greyish and bordered on almost purple in this lighting.

Despite all this, he was still pretty handsome. Well, you did always think some of those creepypasta guys were boyfriend material. Maybe, you wouldn’t mind getting chopped up into little pieces if this guy was the one doing it. Okay, and maybe you’ve been sleeplessly chasing ghosts too long.

Startling you, he reached his hand to grab your shoulder, a little too fast.

“Hey mate, are you okay?” He asked nervously,

It snapped you out of your stupor, realizing you had yet to say a word to him, “Uh, yes, I just wanted to…”

How do you even fucking ask this. “Hey, can I bring a stuffed bear to your dining room so maybe it’s spirit will leave me alone? Maybe conduct a séance or something?” Seriously, did you even know what you were doing here? Shit. Okay.

“I wanted to ask if I could check out your facility?” came out like a question because even you had no clue what you were saying.

“Come back tomorrow in the daylight, then,” he began closing the door, shaking his head in annoyance, “or perhaps when we’re actually open.”

“NO!” you slammed your foot into the door as he closed it, “AAGH!”

“Jesus Christ! WHY.”

Dear lord, this man now 100% thinks you’re a crackhead.

“Just, don’t close that door, okay,” his brows scrunched together as you grit your teeth to swallow down the pain, “I need you to help me.”

“I really don’t have any money to spar--”

“I’M HERE BECAUSE OF A GHOST,” you interrupted. Finally, you managed to get that out somehow, if nonsensical.

A look of recognition flickered in his glowing eyes. He lowered into your space, kind of intimidatingly. Or intimately. Yeah, no, this was hostile, don’t fool yourself.

“What kind of ghost,” he asked suspiciously.

“Uh,” shit, okay, “the weird, haunted doll kind? Uh, like the ones the McElroy brothers are always bidding on on eBay. Or maybe this is kind of a Ben Drowned kinda situation, I’m not completely sure.”

He blinked, “okay, I only understood a few of those words, but—”

“It’s a Freddy teddy bear that really wanted me to take it to Hurricane, okay?” You really were at the end of your rope at the moment, “I have literally driven here for days straight on no sleep and barely any food and I need this Unauthorized Fucking Thing to find it’s eternal peace or kill me in some horrible way so I can hurry up and get on with my goddamn life,”

“Uh, see… the thing is,” he started to retreat back again, slowly moving his hands like he was trying to calm down a spooked animal.

 You realized what was about to happen, and it must have been visible in your eyes, since his huge unnatural placating smile returned,

“I actually don’t want anything to do with that, sooo…”

“PLEASE—” you reached out in blind panic, but he dodged it. (now if only you could’ve dodged the scooper like that Mikey)

The door slammed in your face.

Your breathing was ragged and fogged up the glass as he locked it again. You stared up at those glowing pinprick pupils of his as he gave you an apologetic little wave goodbye. And then he fucking made a big show of pointing at the closed sign before turning tail to disappear back into the darkness of the empty restaurant.

Okay.

Just a little setback. You’ll go to the older location first, now, and come back when this asshole is sleeping. Can’t be too hard to bust out one of those windows, and you doubt he has an alarm set up already. It’s his fault, really. If he didn’t want property damage, then he should’ve just let you in. Not like you haven’t warned him that you were desperate or anything.

Just gonna go to the other location. You’ve got your map, you’ve got a tank full of gas, and you’ve got chutzpah.

Now what you don’t have? Is a car that will start.

[krirebr]

I Know I Should Know Better 2

Pairing: Curtis Everett x Female Reader, minor Colin Shea x Female Reader

Word Count: 5418

Summary: Curtis has been working as your body guard for almost two years now. Standing by and watching you work and party your life away is becoming more and more difficult, but is there anything he can do about it?

Warnings: Angst, adult themes, complicated power dynamics, minor age difference (not explicit in this part, but reader is mid-twenties and Curtis is early thirties), drinking, explicit language, bad boyfriend, self-destructive behavior, anxiety, negative self-talk. The reader's having a bad time, you guys. All of my work is 18+ - Minors DNI

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

A/N: We're back! I so enjoyed writing this part. I hope you like reading it! Any comment, reblog, or ask to let me know what you thought will be greatly appreciated. As always, thank you so much for reading! 💜

You were stretched out on one of your lounge chairs by the pool, sunglasses perched on your head, wearing a bikini with a sheer coverup draped over your shoulders and an aperol spritz in your hand as you tried, for the third time, to get through this script.  It was unbelievably dull. And the female lead was barely a person. You were clearly wrong for it. At least ten years too young, for a start. But your agent, Wilford, was insistent that you read it. Some up and coming guy was attached to it and apparently, he could be ‘talked into you’ for it. And as Wilford always said, “It’s not what it is, it’s what it represents.” So you would read it. And you’d tell him why you didn’t like it, and he’d talk you into it anyway. Same as it ever was.

  You heard the door to the patio open and close. Michelle and Curtis had both been out doing who knows what and now you figured one of them was back and needed something from you. You’d been grateful to have the time on your own after a few days of Curtis’s careful glances. You didn’t remember exactly what you’d said or done after your fight with Colin outside the club, but you woke up with the feeling that you’d said something to Curtis and the way he’d watched you since seemed to confirm it. But he hadn’t said anything, so you hoped that you hadn’t embarrassed either of you too much.

When you looked up, it wasn’t either Curtis or Michelle who was standing on your deck.

“Mom!” you said. You blamed your shock for the fact that the next words out of your mouth were “Who let you in?” She was supposed to go through Michelle if she was going to visit, give a few days notice, let you prepare yourself.

“Who let me in?” she asked, aghast, her Chanel bag swaying aggressively from her arm. “That’s how you greet your mother? Who let me in?”

“I’m sorry,” you said, voice small. You were not prepared for this today. “I was just surprised.”

“Yeah, I bet you were,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You and your rules. Well, if you must know, it was the young man with the goatee and muscles. I don’t think I’ve seen him before. He’s not nearly as rude as the other people that work for you.”

“He’s new on my security team. His name’s Jensen.”

She waved dismissively at that. Of course she wouldn’t be bothered to remember. She sat down on the lounge chair next to yours and fanned her long, floral caftan out around her. “I bet you don’t give your father this runaround.”

Your father only ever called you on your birthday and at Christmas, content to live with his new family in Utah and only drop your name when it could get him something. So technically no, you never gave him the runaround.

“Well, how are you darling?”

“Um,” you bit your lip. Conversations with your mother always felt like a game you didn’t know the rules to. “Fine, I guess.”

She hummed in affirmation. “You’ve been all over the gossip sites.”

You groaned. “You shouldn’t look at those. It’s all bullshit.”

“Well, maybe if my daughter called me occasionally, I wouldn’t have to resort to a google alert to see how she’s doing. People on deux moi are saying you’re rude to your fans. And then there are reports of you fighting in clubs with your boyfriend.”

You shrunk in on yourself. Michelle did her best to keep all that away from you, but you still knew how people talked about you. “I told you. It’s all bullshit,” you mumbled.

“Well, it’s not the sort of reputation you want to have.”

“I know,” you said weakly. 

“Whatever happened to that other boy you were seeing? What was his name? Jimmy? With the snowboard? I liked him”

“Johnny? I haven’t talked to him in, like, a year,” you said. She’d only met him in passing when you’d unexpectedly run into her at a restaurant opening. It’d been right in the middle of the one month you’d dated him.

Your mom scoffed. “Well, who can be expected to keep up, with how quickly you go through them?”    

You clenched your fists where they rested on your thighs. This was just how she was. Feeling hurt by her never did any good. “Why are you here, Mom? Do you need something?”

“I’m here because I am your mother and I want to have a relationship with you, even though you don’t seem to want one with me. But,” she paused and you fought the sinking feeling in your stomach, “now that you mention it, Luka and I are going to France next week and what you’ve given me for the month just isn’t going to cover it.”

You closed your eyes for a moment. Of course this was about her allowance. “Mom,” you said, focusing on the part of her request that didn’t have anything to do with your money, “who is Luka?”

Her face went hard. “You would know who he is,” she said, “if you ever listened to me. You’ve always been so self-absorbed, you know that? You never think about anyone else.”

Your hand moved to grip the chair beneath you as you tried to take a deep breath. You were sure she’d never mentioned him before. You would remember. For all she gave you a hard time about dating around, she was just as bad, if not worse. The only difference was that her hookups didn’t get reported on. But you didn’t have the energy for the screaming match this would devolve into if you pointed that out, so you just said, “I’m sorry. I must have forgotten.”

“Sure,” she scoffed. “He’s someone who’s very important to me. And so is this trip.”

“You know I don’t control any of that. You have to go through my accountant.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, frustration bubbling over. “I already called him, obviously. He said you have to sign off on it first. It’s like you all think I enjoy having to come here and ask for money. When it was my hard work that got you all this.”

She loved to do this, bring that up. And you knew that she’d worked hard and sacrificed a lot. You did. She was the one who got you an agent and drove you to auditions and acting coaches and put your team together. But both your parents acted like you were just a doll that they’d placed in front of the cameras and then pulled your string to make you talk. You’d worked hard too and you were just a kid when you did it.

But, again, if you said any of that it would just start a fight and if you’d learned anything on all those sets as a child, it was that fights with your parents were to be avoided at all costs. You would never win. So you just said, “I know, mom. I know everything you’ve done for me. I’ll call him and tell him it’s fine.”

She started to brighten. “Today? You’ll do it today?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it today.”

She patted your knee and smiled warmly at you. You did your best to pretend that it didn’t feel like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. “You’re such a dear,” she said. “We’re trying to get everything booked, so time is of the essence! Text me the name of the place you stayed last time you were in Paris. Your pictures were incredible!” She was getting up now, hoisting her bag back up her arm.

“Are you leaving?” you asked, disappointed despite yourself. 

“I’m so busy, honey, So much to do! But let me know as soon as you talk to him. And we’ll have dinner as soon as I get back, you, me and Luka! And you can bring your boy too! I want to try that new sushi place, down on Vine? They’re booked out for months, but I’m sure they’ll have a table for you!” Just as she was getting to the door back into the house, Curtis came out of it. He stepped out in front of her, narrowing his eyes, and pulling himself up to his full height. “Perfect timing,” she muttered, “your guard dog is here.”

“Mom,” you sighed.

She just rolled her eyes at you. “Calm down, it’s fine. He knows I’m joking. Don’t you, Carter?” You grimaced, but Curtis didn’t react.

“Ma’am,” he said, without any inflection at all. You could see her bristle at the address; she hated anything that reminded her that she was old enough to have an adult daughter. But she didn’t say anything else, just gave you one final wave and then moved past him into the house.

You took a deep breath, and then another, wrapping your cover up around yourself as tightly as you could. “Are you ok?” Curtis asked, startling you. He was closer now than you’d realized, standing right beside you. You’d never understand how a man that large could sneak up on you like that, but you were always surprised by the reality of him.

You shook your head and his brow furrowed. You shook it again, “No, I’m fine. I’m fine, it’s just–” you trailed off and shrugged. She always left you so jumbled. “It was fine.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” he said, sounding deathly serious. “Jensen’s been talked to. He knows better now. It won’t happen again, not without Michelle’s say so.”

You nodded and picked at your sleeve. “Do you think I’m awful?”

“Why would I think that?” he asked, his voice so soft.

You shrugged. “She’s my mom and I make her jump through all these hoops just to see me.”

He nodded slowly and stared out over your pool. “I think,” he started, but then paused for a moment. “I think that you aren’t the kind of person who would just do that for the sake of it. I can’t imagine you ever being that spiteful. If this is something you need, then there’s a reason for it.”

He did that sometimes, made statements about your character that left you reeling, that made you wonder about the person he saw when he looked at you. It always seemed so different from the person you saw in the mirror. 

You looked up at him, but he was still focused somewhere on the horizon. You were struck by how beautiful he was, as the sun shone down on him. His broad form, immaculate stubble, long lashes. You tried to think of him as just the wall of muscles that protected you from the world, but it was getting harder every day to ignore the ineffable Curtis-ness of him. He was so much, too much.

“What’d she want?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Money, like always.”

“You ever think about saying no?”

You shook your head. “She’s not wrong when she says she sacrificed a lot and worked hard to get me here. She did. I wouldn’t be here without her. If this is what she wants from me,” you shrugged, “I feel like I should give it to her.” 

He hummed at that and went quiet again. You looked down, went back to picking at the thread on your sleeve. After several moments, he said, “I think if you looked at all the sacrifices you made to get yourself here, and everything you’ve already done for her, you might see that you come out more even than you expect.” He finally looked back at you and nodded to himself. “I’ll leave you alone now. I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”

As he walked back into the house, you felt like your skin was too tight. You tried to shake it off and grabbed your phone. It was too quiet. You needed something to distract you. You pulled up Colin’s contact and sent a quick I want to see you text. Then you threw your phone on the lounger, shrugged off your cover-up, and dove head first into the pool.

When Colin showed up a few hours later, he was on you immediately, pulling you out of the pool and back over to the lounge chair where he settle you between his legs. “Fuck, you’re so hot,” he breathed into your chest as he laid back, bring you with him. When you resisted, he sat up, pushing his face into your neck and starting to trail kisses along your collar bone.

“Colin, it’s been a weird day,” you said, trying to push him down. Instead of backing off, his lips found your chest, just above your bikini. You tried again to slow him down. “Hey, hold on. Come on. I’m trying to talk to you. My mom stopped by out of the blue.”

Colin finally sat back with an annoyed huff. “Okay?” he said, “And?”

“And, I don’t know, seeing her always makes me feel really off and I just wanted to see you. Wanted you to come over and make me feel better.”

“Isn’t that what I was doing?” he asked with a grin, running his hands down your sides and then up your back, stopping to play with the string tying your bikini together.   

“Colin, I’m being serious! I just, like, want to tell you about my day and have you listen to me. Okay? I just need someone to listen.”

He looked up at you and you leaned back a little at the annoyance in his eyes. “You seriously dragged me all the way out here to talk at me about your mom? I left a studio session early for you.”

“Ok, well, I didn’t know you were busy! You could’ve just said.”

“You’re so hot,” he said, starting to paw at you again. “How could I say no to you?”

Maybe he was right. Maybe this was the best way to make you feel better. What good would talking do? What you really needed was to stop thinking. You leaned into him again and he picked up where he left off. “We could go out,” you said. “Get real fucked up.” 

“Mmm,” he said, with his face in your neck and his fist in your hair. “That sounds fun. You gonna promise not to abandon me in an alley this time?”

You pushed back against his shoulders and sat up with a glare. “Don’t be a dick.”

He rolled his eyes. “It was a joke. I’m joking.”

“It isn’t funny. I already apologized. And you never apologized for flirting with that girl.”

“This again? Seriously? I didn’t apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong. I wasn’t flirting, you’re just insecure.”

“Fuck you,” you said, standing up and putting as much distance between you as you could on your deck.

He rolled his eyes at you again and started picking up his stuff. “You’re so fucking high maintenance, you know that? One of these days, I’m going to wake up and decide you aren’t worth it.”

“Yeah?” You sneered, the pit in your stomach that started with your mom’s surprise appearance growing bigger. “Is that going to be before or after you use my instagram account to boost your album sales?”

“Fuck off. You think you’re so important. I don’t need your help.”

You threw your arms in the air. “Then why do you keep demanding it?”

“Whatever. I can’t believe I came all the way out here for this.” He shot you one final glare, before heading back out the way he came. 

You stood at the edge of your pool and looked out over the canyon that expanded beyond your property. “Fuck!” you shouted. It didn’t make you feel any better.

You picked up your phone and started scrolling through your contacts. You didn’t want to be alone right now. You just needed someone to talk to. But everyone in your phone was a ‘going out friend’ or an ‘impromptu house party friend.’ And suddenly, the thought of going out, with the loud music, and flashing lights, and all the paparazzi yelling at you, made you want to crawl out of your skin. You scrolled through your whole contact list again. You didn’t have a single person who you thought might drop everything and come spend the night on your couch with you. You didn’t think you ever had. You felt tears starting to gather in your eyes and quickly wiped them away. This was dumb. You were fine. You could spend one night alone.

You walked back into your house to find Curtis glaring at his phone, leaning against your kitchen island.

“Hey,” you said, trying to get his attention. When he looked up at you, you saw him take all of you in. Your wet hair, bikini, tense shoulders, and your eyes, which you could feel were still damp. He straightened up, looking very concerned. “Um,” you looked down, feeling like you needed to avoid his gaze, “I’m not going out again today, so you’re free to go. You and Jensen.”

“Ok,” he said. 

You looked back up to find him still looking at you carefully. When he finally started to move, you panicked and added, “Or, um, I’m probably just going to order a ton of food and just, like, watch TV, so if you wanted to, you could, um, you could stay. And, like, just hang out.” What the fuck did you just do? You were so pathetic. Why would you do that? What was wrong wit–

“Yeah, sure, I can stay.”

“Oh!” You didn’t know how to keep the shock off of your face. Or the intense relief. You started to feel yourself calm, just a little bit, for the first time all day. “Ok, great. I’ll just order the food – Thai ok?” He nodded. “And then take a shower and change. I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” he said. “I’ll let Jensen know that he’s good to head home.”

You just nodded and went upstairs.

After a long shower, you dressed in your comfiest pair of sweats and a large old t-shirt, clothes that usually stayed buried at the bottom of your drawer. You went down to your living room to find Curtis unpacking the bags of food onto your coffee table, the TV softly playing at a low volume.

“Thanks,” you said quietly.

He looked up at you and nodded. “I grabbed a couple beers too, that ok?”

“Yeah,” you said, grabbing one and pressing yourself into the corner of your large sectional.

“You want a little of everything?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer before he started making you a plate.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know.” He handed you a plate piled high and a fork, then started serving himself. “You doing ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you shrugged, “just a shitty day.”

He sat down a few spaces away from you. “Colin wasn’t here very long,” he said with a practiced casualness. 

“No,” you frowned, “he wasn’t.”

“Can I ask you a question that’s none of my business?”

You looked at him warily, “Sure.”

“Why on earth are you with him?”

You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of you. “Uh,” you stopped to think, “the sex is pretty good.” He’d known where your clit was, which was more than you could say for a lot of your exes. “He can be fun to go out with. And we look good together. I don’t know, he gets it, which not a lot of people do.”

Curtis looked at you confused, “Gets what?”

“The whole thing. Just, what it means to be with me. Like, that I’m going to get recognized when we go out, and there’s always going to be paparazzi around, and sometimes I’m going to have to be on location for months at a time. It’s just there’s all this stuff around me. Being with me, it’s asking a lot, you know? But he gets recognized too, sometimes, and he doesn’t mind getting his picture taken and he goes on tour and stuff. He’s more willing to put up with it all.”

His brow furrowed. “You shouldn��t be something to be ‘put up with’”

You shook your head and waved his comment away. “You know what I mean. Anyway, moot point, probably. I think I’m done. He wasn’t very nice to me today and I’m just kind of over it.”

“Probably just as well. His band is terrible.”

You let out a big, loud laugh at that, head thrown back, as you felt some of the stress of the day slide off of you. When you glanced at Curtis, he was watching you, pleased. Proud of himself. It sparked a little blossom of warmth in your heart, and you ducked your head. 

After a few moments of comfortable quiet, he cleared his throat. “For the record, anyone who makes you feel like it’s hard to be with you probably isn’t worth being with.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. You could feel him watching you but you were suddenly too afraid to look at him. After too long a pause, you said, “Well, you just described all of my exes, so…” with a weak little chuckle. He didn’t say anything, but you could feel your feeble attempt at a joke fall flat. You focused intently on your plate and shoved some food in your mouth for want of anything else to do. After a few minutes, you tried to change the subject. “I feel like now I should get to ask you something that’s none of my business.”

“Yeah? What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” you said, looking back at him. He leaned back into the couch, plate balanced on one thigh, a beer in his hand. It was the most relaxed you’d ever seen him. “I don’t really know anything about you.” You studied him carefully, feeling like this was your one chance at something, you weren’t sure what. “What were you like as a kid?” you asked without thinking, and then immediately regretted it. What an embarrassing question.

He didn’t laugh or roll his eyes at you, though. He just took a drink of his beer and then said, “Angry. I was really angry all the time.” You didn’t say anything, waiting to see if he’d volunteer more information or change the subject. He took another drink, then added, “I grew up in a few different foster homes and I was just mad, at everything. An angry little thing. Finally, when I was a teenager, I crossed paths with someone who gave a shit. Helped me figure out how to channel it, move past it.”

You sat for a moment, deathly afraid of saying the wrong thing. You didn’t want him to think you felt sorry for him, pitied him. You didn’t. But it felt glib to say you admired him for it or that he must have been so strong. You settled on “Thank you for telling me.”

He nodded and took a bite of his food. Once he swallowed, he asked “What about you? What kind of kid were you?”

You blanched slightly. You normally hated talking about your childhood, but in this moment it felt like it might be ok, like you didn’t have to sugarcoat it. Like you wouldn’t get in trouble for being honest. “I was really lonely. Um, I was never really in school? Or, I guess I was for the first couple years, but my parents were constantly pulling me out for auditions and commercials and stuff. And then when I was 9, I booked the show, and so from then on it was all studio tutors. And there were never really any other kids on the set. So, I don’t know, I was just by myself a lot of the time. Or with my parents.” You grimaced. “Even now, I feel like if I’m not working, I don’t really know how to interact with people. Never really learned how.” 

“You’re doing fine right now,” he said, voice so gentle it made you squirm a little bit.

“You don’t count.” He raised an eyebrow at you and you shrugged. “I’ve always been comfortable with you.” You weren’t sure why that felt so much like a confession, but when you met his eyes and saw how serious they were, you knew he felt it too. You took a sip of your beer. “My turn.”

“Your turn?”

“Yeah,” you grinned, “it’s a game now.” He rolled his eyes, but smiled and gestured for you to go ahead. “Are you seeing anyone?” 

He shook his head. “I don’t date much.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “I have other stuff going on right now. And my work hours can be kind of weird and unpredictable.” He must have seen the way your face started to fall, because he rolled his eyes goodnaturedly and said. “This isn’t your fault. I just have other priorities right now. I’m sure that if there was something I was looking for, I’d be able to find it.”

“Yeah, you definitely would,” you said with a laugh. He looked at you somewhat quizzically and it was your turn to roll your eyes at him. “Oh, come on! I know you know how hot you are.”

He cleared his throat and let out a small chuckle. “Uh,” he said, as he rubbed the back of his head and you noticed that his ears were turning red. He was uncomfortable. You had made your big, scary bodyguard bashful. It immediately filled you with so much glee. “That’s maybe been mentioned to me, once or twice,” he finally choked out. Just as you started cackling, he cut in, “Ok, me now. When was the last time you took a break?”

You looked around with a slightly furrowed brow. “You mean, like, other than right now?”

He shook his head. “No, I mean, I’ve been with you almost two years now and you’ve worked nonstop pretty much the entire time. When was the last time you took a real, sustained break?”

“Oh, um,” you had to stop and actually think about that. Everything had always been go go go, ever since you were a kid. And even once you were an adult, everytime you thought about slowing down, there was always something to capitalize on, an opportunity that shouldn’t be ignored. “Oh! The summer I was, I think, 12? Maybe 13? I didn’t book anything for hiatus and my parents were so mad. But I just got to hang out all summer. It was amazing. There was this girl my age who lived down the street. And we would just like, hang out in her backyard, or go to the pool, walk to get ice cream. Whatever we wanted to do. I was so excited to have a real friend. It was the best summer I ever had.”

“Did you keep in touch?” he asked softly, startling you when his fingers brushed against yours.

“No, the next season was when they started to really beef up my role, which meant I got paid more, so we moved. I never saw her again. Which was fine. It was really fun while it lasted.”

When you made eye contact with Curtis, there was a touch of sadness there that you couldn’t stand to look at, so you went back to your food. You were fine. Look at everything you had! You were good. You had no reason to be sad.

“You should think about taking a year off,” he said quietly.

You looked back up at him and scoffed, “A year?!”

“You just told me you haven’t had a real break in 13 years. I think a year is reasonable. I know you’re doing fine financially. You should think about it.”

“Maybe,” you said, but you were sure that no one involved in your career would let that happen. You couldn’t even imagine it. “Okay, my question. What do you do when you aren’t looking after me?”  

“Aside from sleep?” he asked, laughing at himself. You were instantly mesmerized by the sound. You didn’t think you’d ever heard it before. Dry chuckles, yes, but an actual laugh? You felt instantly addicted to it. “Uh, I go to the gym most days. I like to read, whenever I have the time. I’ve kind of been teaching myself how to cook, here and there. I don’t know, I’m not that interesting.”

You begged to differ, but saying that felt like too much. Like it would reveal more than you even realized. You were done eating now, so you put your plate on the coffee table and shifted to get more comfortable, bringing your legs up under the rest of you. As you did, your knees brushed against Curtis’s thighs. You stopped, surprised, and looked at where your bodies touched. Without realizing it, at some point during the conversation, you’d both eliminated the space between you. Wanting to see how far you could push it, while ignoring just how much you wanted the physical contact, you adjusted yourself again, so that now your thigh pushed against his. You watched for his reaction very carefully, while trying to look like that was the last thing you were doing. Something fluttered inside of you when he pressed imperceptibly closer. “It’s your turn,” you whispered. 

He turned so that he could look at you fully and just watched you for a moment. You could almost see him thinking, trying to find the perfect question. Finally, “What would you do if you weren’t acting?”

You felt your brain short out for a second. “Like, instead?” You asked dumbly. He nodded. “Um, I have no idea? This is all I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’m really good at anything else.”

“I highly doubt that,” he said and you were thrown off by how sure he sounded. You weren’t sure anyone had ever sounded so confident about you before, especially when it was so unfounded.  

“Well, it’s true,” you said and wincing internally at how harsh it sounded. “I don’t know. I don’t like that question.” Your skin was too tight again and you felt so, so small. He was seeing all of you now, how little there was, and had surely found you wanting. 

“Ok, that’s fine,” he said quietly, like he was talking to a spooked horse. Something about it made you want to flip over the coffee table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to– I’m sorry.” You just nodded and folded in on yourself. “We can stop playing.”  

“No,” you said. “I still have one question left.” There was really only one you wanted an answer to. “Why did you stay tonight?” 

He didn’t stop to think before he answered. “Because you seemed like you needed me to.”

“That’s not part of your job,” you said, feeling defiant without really knowing why. 

“No, it’s not.”

You didn’t know what to do with him. This wasn’t how people treated you. You were either something to be vaunted or something they could use. Your parents, your friends, the people who worked for you, the people you dated. They all wanted to get something out of you. Curtis never seemed to want anything from you. But he didn’t put you on a pedestal either. He had always treated you like just a person. It was unnerving. What were you supposed to do with that?

You turned back to the TV, finally registering what was on. It was some reality show you’d never seen before. “I have no idea what this is,” you said.

“Me neither.”

Whatever comfortable calm that had existed between the two of you on this couch, it was gone now. You curled up, placing your chin on your knees. “I’m probably going to fall asleep.” You were exhausted, not just today, but in your bones.

“Do you want me to go?” he asked. 

All you could do was shake your head and let out a small, whispered, “No.” As all over the place as you felt, you knew you weren’t ready to be alone yet, weren’t ready for him to leave.

“Ok,” he said, softly, as you felt his arm moving behind you to rest on the back of the couch. “I’ll stay.”

Part Three

[tacky-jack-with-a-hat]

I find the censorship to "corn" funny for the midwest

**************************

*On the midwest groupchat*

Utah: is Iowa coming to my youngest's birthday party?

Iowa: he told me he can't bc he's watching corn

Kansas: Oh he's watching "corn" ?!? 🙄🤦

*Meanwhile in Iowa*

Iowa trapped in a corn field: I genuinely can't tell if there's a murderer in here...

[onlycosmere]

OUTSIDE by Brandon Sanderson

Snow is falling. So I look up.

The world mystifies when you stare up through falling snow. Even standing still, you can soar. Even alone, you are surrounded. Even mundane, you find magic. I’ve spent my life chasing the fantastical, yet everything I’ve ever imagined can be casually matched by someone tilting their head up. The soft. Settling. Aspiration.

Of snow on an otherwise ordinary day.

When I was eighteen, I moved from Nebraska to Utah. Here, snow is fleeting, embarrassed to be an obstruction. But in Nebraska, snow squats. It claims land, builds empires. You fight it all winter, carving pathways, reconquering your sidewalks. The cold digs inside, frosting your bones with a chill that lingers, even after you return to warmth.

I often think of those snowy days, now that I live in a desert. But each year my memories are a little less fresh. We build our lives with layer upon layers of years, like falling snow. And like the new snow, most experiences melt away. In interviews, I’ve been asked to recount my most frightening experience. I struggle to answer because it’s the lost memories that scare me—the unnerving knowledge that I’ve forgotten the majority of moments that made me who I am. Those dribbled away when I wasn’t looking and joined the spring runoff of life.

Fortunately, some experiences do remain. In one, I’m fourteen, and it’s a cold night in Nebraska. My best friend at the time was a boy we’ll call John. Though we went to different schools, he was one of the only other Mormon kids around, so our parents often had us play together. When you’re very young, it’s proximity—not shared interests—that makes friends. This often changes as you age. By fourteen, John had found his way to basketball, parties, and popularity. I had not.

On that day, after a youth activity, another friend suggested we leave to go have some fun. I don’t remember where. Strange, that I’ve lost what this was about, though the rest of the scene is etched into the glacial part of my brain. One of us was old enough to drive, so we headed out to their car.

Five seats. Six teens. They’d already counted.

Without a word to me, the others climbed in. John gave me one hesitant look, then settled into the front passenger seat and closed the door. They left me on the curb. The car vanished, taillights flaring in the night like lit cigarettes.

The memory settled in for the long winter. That night. Watching. Remembering John’s face, which was so strikingly conflicted. Half ashamed. Half resigned.

I was no stranger to being outside. It happens when you’re one of three Mormon kids in a large school. You’ll be at a birthday party, and the wine coolers will come out. Everyone stands there worrying you’ll judge them—while you just want them to stop staring. But you leave anyway, because you know they’ll enjoy themselves more if you and your unusual morals aren’t there to loom.

It should have been different that night though, watching John and the others drive away. They were in my church group—ostensibly, my tribe. They’d still left me outside.

This event shocked me in how dramatic it was, as I wasn’t generally bullied. I tended to be adept at social settings. People generally liked me. At the same time, there was something I’d begun to notice. Something distancing about me.

It happens still. It isn’t that people shun me or don’t want me around; indeed, they seem to appreciate me. When I join a group, I generally end up leading it in some way, and I never sense resentment to this fact. But I also have an air around me. Some writer friends call me the “adult in the room.” I tend to attack projects too aggressively, tend to be the one who steps in and gets things done—even when they don’t need to be done immediately, and when everyone else would rather relax.

This comes, in part, from a certain…oddity about me that started in my young teens, around the time that John drove off. As my friends grew hit puberty, they became more emotional. The opposite happened to me. Instead of experiencing the wild mood swings of adolescence, my emotions calcified. I started waking up each day feeling roughly the same as the day before. Without variation.

Around me, people felt passion, and agony, and hatred, and ecstasy. They loved, and hated, and argued, and screamed, and kissed, and seemed to explode every day with a pressurized confetti of unsettling emotions.

While I was just me. Not euphoric, not miserable. Just…normal. All the time.

Often, it genuinely seems like I exist outside of human experience. It’s not sociopathy. I’m quite empathetic—in fact, empathy is one of the ways that I can feel stronger emotions. I’m not autistic. I don’t have a single hallmark of that notable brand of neurodivergence. It’s also not what is called alexithymia, which is a condition where someone doesn’t feel emotions (or can’t describe them).

I care about people, and I feel. I’m not empty or apathetic. My emotions are simply muted and hover in a narrow band. If human experience ranges between a morose one and an ecstatic ten, I’m almost always a seven. Every day. All day. My emotional “needle” tends to be very hard to budge—and when it does move, the change is not aggressive. When others would be livid or weeping, I feel a sense of discomfort and disquiet.

My emotions do go a little further than this on occasion, maybe once a year. It takes something incredible—such as being deeply betrayed by someone I trusted.

I’m not looking for sympathy; I don’t want to be fixed. I appreciate this aspect of my makeup—and it’s part of what makes me so consistent at writing. When everyone else is in crisis, I’ll just steam along. At the same time, when everyone else is elated by some good news…I’ll just steam along, unable to feel the heights of the joy they feel.

It makes people uncomfortable sometimes. Makes them think I’m judging them. While I’m absolutely not, I do try to be careful how I talk about my condition. Not as something to fear. Something, instead, I’m proud of—not because it makes me better than anyone else, but because it’s me. I like being me.

My neurodivergence came up in a recent interview I did. The interviewer latched onto the fact that I don’t feel pain like others do. (More accurately, some mild pains don’t cause in me the same response they do others.) I asked the interviewer not to mention it in his article, as I felt the tone to our discussion was wrong. I worry about my oddity changing the way people think of me, as I don’t want to be seen as an emotionless zombie. So I try to speak of it with nuance.

As the interviewer ignored my request, I thought I’d talk about it here. Profile myself for you—because this aspect of who I am has deep ties to another happening from my teenage years. In this, I want to answer a big question for you, the one everyone wonders about. The key to understanding Brandon Sanderson.

Why do I write?

Why do I write so much?

Why do I write so much fantasy?

Let me tell you about the first day, that beautiful day, when I found myself inside.

It was when I opened a fantasy novel. I was an isolated kid whose emotions were doing something bizarre. Even John leaving had left me feeling…disturbed more than angry. Alone, and outside. Then I opened a book where I found emotion.

In that story about dragons, and wonder, and people trying impossible things, I found myself. I felt a variety of powerful emotions through the characters—emotions that I remembered from when I’d been younger.

I hadn’t tried reading fiction in a long while, so I was blindsided by this perfect book. The experience transformed me, quick as a boy tilting his head back, looking up, and finding a new world.

When I read or write from the eyes of other people, I legitimately feel what they do. There’s magic to any kind of story, yes—but for me, it is transformative. I live those lives. For a brief time, I remember exactly what passion, and agony, and hatred, and ecstasy feel like. My emotions mold to the story, and I cry sometimes. I legitimately cry. I haven’t done that outside of a story in three decades.

Stories bring me inside.

My second published novel is called Mistborn. It’s about a world where ash falls like snow, and I can linger, looking up through it via a character’s eyes. Near the beginning of Mistborn, the teenage protagonist finds herself standing outside a room. It is full of light and laughter and warmth. But she knows, she knows she doesn’t belong inside that room.

She’s wrong.

Nearer the end of the book, I linger on as similar scene—only now, she’s sitting with the others. Light and laughter. Warmth. Mistborn was the first novel I wrote after getting the call offering me a book deal. Finally—after slaving over a dozen unpublished manuscripts—I knew I was going to be a professional writer. With that knowledge, I wrote Mistborn, the book about a girl who learns to come inside.

While writing Mistborn, I changed. Now that I’d made it inside of publishing—now that I’d joined those authors I’d loved for so long—why would I keep writing? I needed a new goal, and I discovered it that year.

So let me tell you why I write. It isn’t about worldbuilding; that’s a mistake everyone makes about me. Assuming I write because of worldbuilding is like assuming someone makes cars because they love cup holders. It’s also not because I’m Mormon, as some profiles bizarrely conclude. My faith and cultural heritage are both important to me, but if I were any other religion, that aspect of me would rightly be a footnote—not a headline.

I don’t write for plot twists, or dragons, or clever turns of phrase—though I enjoy all of these. I write because stories bring people inside. And I sincerely, genuinely believe that is what the world needs.

Lately, I’ve seen a resurgence of something that genuinely disquiets me: an attempt by some members of our community to hold others outside. Science fiction and fantasy is forever gatekeeping what constitutes good or worthy stories. Like my old friend John, who sought cooler friends, we renounce anything accessible—part of our perpetual (and largely fruitless) plea for legitimacy with the literary establishment.

Thing is, I can’t really get mad when someone does this, because I’ve done it myself in the past. The unfortunate truth is that we all probably have at times. The moment a group finds cohesion—discovering the warmth and peace of being inside—we decide there aren’t enough seats, so we start muscling and pushing. Readers who came in because of the latest popular teen novel? Outside. Fans of the film version of a story, instead of the book version? Outside. People who don’t look the same as the supposedly conventional fan? I suspect they know this struggle far better than I do.

To use a thematic metaphor, it’s like we’re dragons on our hoard of gold, jealously keeping watch, worrying that if anyone new enters, their presence will somehow dilute our enjoyment. The irony is that there is infinite space inside, and if we open the way, we’ll find many of these newcomers are the very treasure we’re seeking.

Fantasy, out of all genres, should embrace the different, even if it doesn’t match our specific taste. This is the genre where anything can happen—and should, therefore, be the most open genre. Only fantasy offers me the full range of emotion. The wonder of exploration. The magnificent highs of epic scope and the miserable lows of cataclysmic terror. In writing it, I can learn. Monomaniacal, I hunt experiences of people different from myself, then explore them in prose until I feel—in some small part—what they do.

This is why I write. To understand. To make people feel seen. I type away, hoping some lonely reader out there, left on a curb, will pick up one of my books. And in so doing learn that even if there is no place for them elsewhere, I will make one for them between these pages.

Those who interview me seem to have trouble understanding this fundamental part of who I am: that writing for me isn’t so much about performance as it is about exploration and elevation. I love prose both literary and commercial. And I think I write great prose. I’ve slaved over my style, practicing for decades, honing it for crisp clarity. My prose is usually intended to convey ideas, theme, and character, then get out of the way—because this is how I strive to bring everyone inside.

That said, I know my goal is impossible. Occasional strolls through the outside are part of being human, and I can’t eliminate that. And even I have to admit that there are lessons to be learned on those lonely paths. For example, contrast is the only way to appraise growth. Emotional alien I may be, but that very alienation has motivated me to understand. I value the connections I’ve made so much more for that struggle.

Moreover, I find that occasionally looking in through a window at everyone else gives a person a more complete perspective. Inside, things can get messy, and a streak of color finds it hard to comprehend the painting. I’m a better writer because of my time spent looking in. I don’t know that I could have written Mistborn if I hadn’t been left on that curb.

This isn’t to discount the pain of those who have been forced outside. Nor is it an advocacy for extended periods spent in the cold. I also don’t know if I could have written Mistborn if the wonderful people of the science fiction and fantasy community (including many of the friends I now work with) hadn’t latched on to me in college and—at times—forcibly pulled me inside to be with them. Beyond that, as I’ve grown older, I’ve found people like Emily, who love me in spite of (and partially because of) my quirks. Blessedly, because of this, my times outside have been increasingly brief.

My goal here is merely to point out (as I’ve had occasion to remember recently) that beautiful moments do accompany the isolation. You can only watch the snow fall when you’re outside. Only then can you look up and experience that mystifying world, where fragments of the sky drift past and lift you toward the heavens.

I’m forty-seven now, enjoying desert snowfalls in early April. The man I am is separated by distance and time from that boy who stood on the curb, and I’ve forgotten most of the steps that led between the two. I still don’t feel strong emotions outside of stories—but I did tell an interviewer lately that I sometimes cry when writing scenes in my books. They just aren’t the scenes that I thought he’d expect.

I don’t necessarily cry when characters die, or when they marry, or even when they find victory. I cry when it works. When it all comes together, and in a beautiful shimmering burst of humanity, I feel what it is to be that character. At those times, I remember what I learned twenty years ago writing Mistborn. That there’s a reason I do this. And even if I’ve lost more memories than I retain, each of them had a point, because they collectively brought me here.

So when you find yourself in the cold, know that sometimes, there’s a purpose to it. Trust me; I’ve been there. I might be there right now. Feeling the cold on my cheeks—but these days, no longer in my bones. Knowing that this will pass, and that it might be for my good. Most of all, looking up so I can appreciate it. The still. Solemn. Perspective.

Of one who stands outside.

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, Ammon Hennacy! (July 23, 1893)

An influential Catholic anarchist and pacifist, Ammon Hennacy was involved in left-wing politics from a young age as a member of the Socialist Party of America. Resisting the draft in World War I, Hennacy was imprisoned alongside other socialists including leading socialist Eugene Debs. While in prison he came to embrace anarchism and pacifism, and after his release spent time wandering, learning, and organizing. He became involved with the Catholic Worker movement, and in 1961 moved to Salt Lake City, organizing the Joe Hill House of Hospitality. While there, Hennacy continued his activism while also mentoring younger anarchists including folksinger Utah Phillips. Hennacy refused to pay taxes to fund war and protested against the death penalty many times throughout his life, among other actions. He died in Salt Lake City in 1970.

"Your damn laws! The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

[drinkinboilingcoffee]

💜👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

🐻🍦

🛌

Long post sorry

💜👨‍👩‍👧‍👦: Oh. Oh god. Um. Not great. (DISCLAIMER: I wrote the lore on William’s childhood a long time ago and may retcon parts of this in the future). William’s early years were pretty happy. He was the second youngest in a family of 6 living out on the English countryside. It was a sort of storybook life for the first few years of his life- I also don’t think William was a “problem child” exactly, but I think he was a bit… off (dead rodents turned up in the yard a bit too frequently and he almost poisoned himself trying to eat a lot of weird bugs). When he was 6 there was a house fire that claimed a lot of his family and left him with minor injuries (and if I haven’t said this before, my William is scared SHITLESS of fire later in life). His oldest brother David took him in, but in grief and with their entire property burned to rubble, things went downhill pretty quickly. They moved to Eastern London, where David got a factor job. I’m not going to go into details just because it’s not something you want to get jumpscared by on an ask, but David… really wasn’t a great caretaker. William ended up as the sort of weird kid in his town. When David was transferred to a higher position in the company and moved them to the US, William (who was 14 at the time) didn’t adjust well. Also keep in mind my William was a very clearly bisexual Indian kid in Mormon Utah during segregation so obviously shit was not great for him there. When he moved out for college, he quickly got a place to stay away from his brother and never really looked back.

🐻🍦: Evan died first. They’re twins in my au, so Elizabeth was actually at the party with him when he died. I think she acted kind of… numb after his death. Thats sort of the thing about her- she doesn’t let herself feel sad about things, and she thinks if she acts happy maybe it’ll cheer other people up, so she only really broke down about it in private. She died almost exactly a year after Evan when she went to the Funtime Circus for a belated party (William spent the day in mourning and didn’t see her on her real birthday).

🛌: It’s Michael! The exact game is set somewhere around fnaf 1 when Evan started trying to torment him through his dreams, but he’d had similar nightmares since before the bite that grew more graphic over time. He has these nightmares when he falls asleep at the pizzeria during his shifts Movie-Mike style.

oh uh also William was like 8 when the Great Smog Of London happened so uh take that as you will I guess

[sixhours]

WIP Wednesday

Thanks for the tag @joelmillerisapunk and @burntheedges!

Here's a snip from the yet-to-be-named birthday fic with Joel & Ellie. 🎈 Just a girl and her dad hanging out in an abandoned Party City in Utah, pre-hospital fiasco.

~*~

“So…you don’t know when your birthday is?”

“I told you, it’s April.”

“That’s not–I mean, most people have a…a day. A birthday. That’s why they had all this shit,” he says, waving his fork around.

“Well, FEDRA kids don’t,” she says. “That’s just when Marlene brought me to the orphanage, I guess.”

“You should pick one.”

“Pick one what…a birthday?”

Joel shrugs. “Yeah. Just, y'know, pick a day. That’s your birthday now.”

“Well…what if I picked today?”

“Then I’d say ‘Happy Birthday,’” he says drily. “Are you gonna finish your food or what?”

She pokes at the stew, wrinkles her nose. “It’s all meat left.”

Joel sighs, holding out his can so they can switch. She accepts it happily and continues picking out the carrots and potatoes, leaves Joel mumbling something about gout and scurvy and need more protein.

~*~

Tagging: @chronicallyonlinewriter @captainredspade @bumblepony @marceltheshellwithflipflopson @march-flowerr and anyone else who wants to play <3

[sportsbianism]

just experienced a moment more peaceful than ive felt in like five years. i was just leaned back in a chair with my face in the warm sun half asleep and thinking about pleasant things. i thought about my girlfriend and a birthday party i went to when i was four years old. i thought about the quality of the light in my aunt and uncle's backyard in alpine utah, and the peach trees there. i thought about the drive to the public park in oregon i worked at when i was twenty. really felt lovely

[gender-not-found-404-ao3]

Hello everyone on the WTTTbur :}

It is my ✨ day of birth ✨ today, so I got the Tism™️ running full speed in here and I'm gonna project onto my blorbos once again.

Headcanon hours let's gOOOO - Birthday edition!

Florida LOVES to celebrate his birthday and goes all in. You name it, he has it. A good barbeque, a crazy evening in the beach and a full night of non-stop party on Miami and every single club he's allowed in. His birthday is celebrated for 3 days straight and he has to take a week off after it happens cause the poor man didn't measure his own capabilities again.

California is a 50/50. If he has a party, he's going all in and he's not leaving anything or anyone out, the world must SEE and KNOW it's HIS birthday, all eyes need to be on him...

or he just disappears inside his state where not even Gov can reach out to him to celebrate in private. It depends on whether or not he feels the need to actually celebrate it.

Utah normally celebrates in private first with his wife and his kids, and enjoys spending the evening with them and doing family bonding activities (For reasons Utah isn't about to share, UNO and Monopoly are no longer allowed to be played in his birthday.) When he comes back to the Statehouse, Arizona, NM, Colorado and Nevada all gather together and make him a little party to celebrate with him too.

Most of the South and Midwest celebrate by doing a barbeque at their places and getting drunk, exploding fireworks and stuff like that. Some loose bullets too, for the heck of it.

Because I can't make something without angst, Gov doesn't even celebrate his birthday anymore. He looks at the clock, and the old calendar that has the date circled in red, and sighs as he steps up and walks away from his office chair for one second and takes a little sip from his (now) cold coffee.

"Celebration, I guess..."

... And he goes back to work again.

(If you wanna make it less angsty, pretend Gov is dragged away by Penn and IDC and he's given a very small celebration with the two of them. With his safe foods and all. Pretend. :} )

[metropolitanmutantofark]

Leverage gang gets stuck in the middle of the road somewhere in the desert in Utah

Nathan Ford: Alright gang, let’s go steal a 2007 Honda Civic *Leverage theme music*

Alec Hardison: alright the mark’s name is John Johnny McBingleBangle he’s been using his 2007 Honda Civic for 23 years now running over orphans puppies orphaned puppies AND puppied orphans but to get into his car we’re gonna need his keys now Parker-

Beloved Country Singer-Songwriter and Matt Mercer look-alike Christian Kane: damn it Hardison can’t you just hack the 2007 Honda Civic with your hacker van

Parker: actually guys-

Alec Hardison: Lucille broke down dingus that’s why we’re stuck here in the middle of Utah

Nathan Honda: Yeah that’s why we’re gonna go steal a 2007 Honda Civic gang *Leverage theme music*

Sophie Devereaux: if he’s been driving his 2007 Honda Civic that long then surely he’s got to go to the gas station sometime or another

Nathan Chevrolet: Right so we’re gonna disguise Sophie as an orphaned puppy and she’ll keep mr. McBingleBangle at the gas station long enough for Parker to get his keys and for the rest of us to get inside the car, let’s go steal a 2007 Honda Civic *Warehouse 13 theme music*

Parker: *swinging keys around on her finger* guys no but really-

Alec Hardison: it’s not gonna be that easy his 2007 Honda Civic has a dash cam protected by an enhancement modifier now that means we’ve gotta get not only his keys but also his driver’s license and also his keys’ driver’s license

Sophie Devereaux: *already adjusting her orphan wig* I could pretend to be an orphan who works for the DMV then

Nathan Mitsubishi: Nah no this con’s gotta be clean or we’ll never make it to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza for Parker’s birthday party, we’re gonna go steal a 2014 Ford Focus *Grimm theme music*

Eliot Spencer: wait Hardison rewind that dash cam footage

Alex Trebek Hardison: alright sure

Parker: *holding McBingleBangle’s entire personal records collection in hand* who’s that in the passenger seat?

Eliot Spencer: damn it Hardison that’s two-toe Tony Tommy the biggest baddest meanest guy in all of Uzbekistan this is really bad

*flashback*

Two-toe Tony Tommy, the biggest baddest meanest guy in all of Uzbekistan*: I’m gonna punch you Christian Kane

Eliot Spencer without stubble to indicate he’s younger: not if I punch you harder first Tommy

*they punch each other and they both look super cool end flashback*

Nathan Tesla: don’t worry guys Eliot’s just gonna punch him it’ll be a classic punch the guy steal his car con let’s go steal a leverage theme music *2007 Honda Civic*

Sophie Devereaux: *over earpiece* Guys this is bad Mr. McBingleBangle is gonna run me over he thinks I’m really an orphaned puppy

Parker: what you’ve never been run over before? I did that all the time as a kid

The gang: . . .

Parker: continue

John Johnny McBingleBangle at the wheel of his 2007 Honda McCivic: Man I’m so evil I love running over orphaned puppies like this they’re my favorite watch me hit this sick puppy-grinder Tony

Two-toe Tony Tommy, the biggest baddest meanest guy in all of Uzbekistan: why do i even hang out with you

Parker who is already in the backseat of the car: You wanna say that again?

John Johnny McBingleBangle: huh what who said that ***THUNK***

The crumpled broken form that was once Sophie Devereaux: ouch now im dead lol

Two-toe Tony Tommy the biggest yeah you know the rest at this point: my god John we’ve gotta call the police

John Johnny McBingleBangle: we’re not gonna

Two-Toe Tony Tommy: huh what

John Johnny McBingleBangle: we’ve gotta get rid of the witnesses *cocks gun* nothin personnel kid

Gun: bang

Eliot Spencer: damn it Hardison why didn’t you hack the gun so it wouldn’t kill Sophie

Sophie Devereaux: because I’m not dead

John Johnny McBingleBangle: HUH WHAT

Alec Hardison: *getting out of the car* look again Johnny

Orphaned Puppy, standing next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Sophie Devereaux: *whine*

Nate Subaru: yeah while you were monologuing about how evil you are we got Sophie out of the way so you’d leave your 2007 Honda Civic exposed now let’s go steal a 2007 Honda Civic *Alphas theme music*

*flashback*

*they do that cardboard cutout thing*

John Johnny McBingleBangle: but i just shot her in the head with my bang bang shooting gun

Nathan Dodge: nah uh uh

Sophie Devereaux: *peels off her bulletproof orphan wig and novelty dog ears*

John Johnny McBingleBangle: HUH WHAT THE WHAT

Sophie Devereaux: And now you’re under arrest

John Johnny McBingleBangle: you can’t do this to me

Two-toe Tony Tommy: yeah they can bub

*flashback*

Two-toe Tony Tommy, the biggest baddest meanest guy in all of Uzbekistan*: I’m gonna punch you Christian Kane

Citizen Kane: Wait zoom in on that asterisk

The Camera: *zooms*

Uzbekistan (oh but actually he’s FBI Agents Taggart and McSweeten in a trench coat)

*they laugh clink wine glasses and pretend to fight end flashback*

FBI agents taggart and mcsweeten in a trench coat: you’re under arrest for running over orphaned puppies with your 2007 Honda Civic

John Johnny McBingleBangle: No no this can’t be happening to me don’t you know who i am I’m John Johnny McBingleBangle I am THE GUY who runs over orphaned puppies you can’t do this to me

The gang: *gets in the car*

Sophie Devereaux: Looks like we’ll be making it to Freddy Fazbear’s pizza after all eh Parker

Parker: yay

The car: *vroom*

Frederick Fitzgerald Fazbear III: wow thanks guys you locked up the guy who’s been running over orphaned puppies outside my restaurant

Nathan Kia: no problem Freddy let’s go steal a 2007 Honda Civic *leverage theme music*

Alec Hardison: wait didn’t we already do that y’all

Nathan Toyota: i may have a problem

[ariathenovice3]

FNAF headcannons!

William-

Born in 1942 in England, as the second of 6 children in his family.

Had a twin sister who died shortly after birth

Lost 2 brothers and almost died to a illness outbreak in 1950, Les to a lifelong fear of death.

Got sent to a boarding school for troubled youth as a young teen by his parents due to some very concerning behaviors, it had no effect but teaching him to get away with things.

Left to the United States in 1962 at the age of 20 to attend university (and escape a reputation he had built).

Attended university for engineering, he met Henry who was attending for business, and Joanne, who was attending for medicine.

Joanne is the first Mrs.Afton, she and William started dating in 1963, started living together in 1967, and got married in 1969.

Williams first job was a repairing broken machines in factories.

He and Henry started Fredbears family diner in 1973, he worked there part time at first and quit his full time job to focus on the diner when it started succeeding.

William was an entertainer, repairman, maintenance worker, and security guard at Fredbears family diner, he designed half the employee uniforms.

The springbonnie and fredbear suits were originally cloth suits made by Henry’s wife, they were replaced by spring lock suits that William designed in 1976.

Joanne died in the birth of Evan in 1977

William rushed into his second marriage, with a woman named Claire, in early 1978, just half a year after Joanne’s death.

Williams first murder was in 1979, of a teenager who had wondered into the restaurant after hours, when he worked alone as the only security guard at the time.

William survived a partial (no head, but the rest of the suit failed) springlock failure while attending a child’s birthday party in 1980.

William was responsible for another’s child’s disappearance in 1981

He gifted his children “tokens” he had taken from his victims

After Evan’s death in 1983 he lost more then half his body weight in the following months

Fredbears family diner closed down, and Henry took over all of the runnings of Freddy’s while William recovered

In early 1984, just a few weeks after Evan’s death, William killed Charlie, her murder was unsolved.

In 1984 William opened circus babies pizza world, after noticing that the puppet was acting very weird and was oddly aggressive towards him.

He took Elizabeth there for her 12th birthday, he told her not to wander off without him but she didn’t listen, she wandered off while he was distracted and got killed by circus baby.

William had Micheal help him cover up Elizabeth’s death as her “running away”.

During the trial first MCI William was found innocent but as he walked out he was attacked by Cassidy’s father, making him loose a tooth.

William and Claire divorced in 1986, William made Micheal lie in court so Claire didn’t get custody, Claire died shortly after the divorce in mysterious circumstances.

There was a second MCI in 1987, of 6 kids, with 1 barely surviving. This girl identified her attacker as a man matching Williams description, when the police went to get William he was gone.

William traveled along the country and took new names each time, during this year and a half period he took another 8 victims (including 2 police officers after he was almost caught once).

In 1988 William took the name Dave and started working the night shift at a local mall, this is also where he had his last wife, a woman named Sarah Miller. They had a daughter named Katherine Miller (oc) in 1990.

William returned to Utah with his new family and took a job as the dayshift guard at the new Freddy’s in 1993, around the time of sister location.

A few months before Fnaf 1 he tried to disassemble the animatronics and accidentally released the spirits of the children. In a panic he hid in the old springbonnie suit and was springlocked. The company walled up the room, trapping him there.

William possesses Vanessa in security breach, while under his control she has no control of her actions, and while not under his control he’s like the voice in the back of her head.

The remainders of his consciousness die with Vanessa at the end of security breach.

Micheal-

Born in 1970 as his parents first child

Wanted nothing more then his fathers affection, and so tried to act out to get it as being the good kid didn’t get him any attention.

Liked to play with fire as a little kid

Was always the least favorite, a disappointment, he looked so much like William but acted nothing like him.

Got curly hair, tan skin, and freckles from his mother, got everything else from his father.

Artist

Hated Evan for being responsible for his mother’s death, or at least that’s how a 7 year old Micheal saw the new baby his mother had died having.

His doodles inspired the designs for foxy and chica.

Became a social outcast after 1983, his father hated him, his sister feared him. Only his stepmother cared enough about him to make sure he was ok and even get him therapy.

Never forgave himself for lying in court during his parents divorce.

Was made to lie to police and be an alibi for William due to fear.

Was 17 when his father vanished, was adopted by Henry.

Started working jobs under his mother’s maiden name (Schmidt) since no one in Hurricane would hire an Afton.

Had a girlfriend he met at a college party he was snuck into, her name was Rachel. She helped him through a lot of issues caused by his father, mostly panic attacks and flashbacks.

They had 2 daughters, Kate (oc) in 1991 and Vanessa in 1993

Sister location happened when Vanessa was 3 months old, she never remembered her father.

Rachel took the girls and she and Henry left for Washington after Micheal was scooped, mostly due to the fear of something impersonating Micheal.

Micheal started trying to find his father because he was confused and scared and angry, and he wanted answers.

After Fnaf 1 he started traveling to places his father might be around the country, this is what happened over the next 22 years until 2015, when he got a add for Fazbear frights and went to see if his father was there.

Recognized his father as springtrap almost immediately, tried to burn the building down to kill him and failed.

In 2018 Henry moved back to Utah and opened a new Freddy’s, Micheal became a manager.

Henry, knowing the manager was Micheal, left a note for Micheal on his desk, it had the address and phone numbers of his ex girlfriend and daughters.

Micheal visited them, Rachel and Vanessa were happy to see him again, but Kate wanted nothing to do with her father and wanted him to have nothing to do with her children.

Micheal died in the Fnaf 6 fire, I don’t personally see him as glamrock Freddy because this man deserves to rest.

Vanessa-

Was obsessed with finding out more about her father and his family, especially after only getting to see him once in her life that she could remember.

She became obsessed with researching, and when an opportunity to join the production of a game that involved her family in some way popped up, she gladly took it.

She was possessed by glitchtrap (William) in 2021, during the final months of the games production, this is when she started killing her therapists and making kids go missing.

She died in security breach in 2026.

[fnaflucasverse]

LUCASVERSE: AN INTRODUCTION

Fifteen years ago, on the night of his cousin's birthday party, Lucas Michaels became a murderer. It's a secret only one other person knows, someone Lucas thought he could trust, someone who was supposed to have his best interests at heart… But when that relationship is burned, Lucas is forced to run and hide in the only place he won't be found: Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where it all began.

Since then, he's been keeping the ugly truth from everyone he cares about: his aunt Mahogany, his co-worker Mike—and the very friends he watched die that day in 1987. After all, what they don't know won't hurt them… right? His new status quo, changed as it is, gets to stay familiar and peaceful… Lucas will take any peace he can get.

But when Jeremy Fitzgerald is hired as the new Night Watch, Lucas's fragile paradise threatens to shatter around him. The teenager has secrets of his own, determined to clear his father's disgraced name and drag out every bloody detail into the light. Desperate to keep his recreation of their Happiest Day, Lucas seeks out help from the mysterious Marionette. All he needs to do is agree to one little deal…

NOTE: This AU is based on the Parlourverse by @fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction and follows most of its major plot beats (up to the end of the FNaF 3 Arc, where Lucasverse concludes). However, not all details, events, or characters will be the same. Some changes are more drastic than others.

[TIMELINE]

[GENERAL LUCAS INFORMATION] (will be updated)

Who is Lucas? What is his personality like?

On the clock, Lucas is the Assistant Manager / Animatronic Technician at Freddy's Pizza, and Mike and Jeremy's boss. Off the clock, Lucas is a weird loner who spends all his free time either hanging out with the old decaying FazBand in Parts/Service, or hovering around Mike (who tolerates it). Generally polite and friendly to all (except Jeremy) with an air of superiority, he seems not to have any hobbies or interests outside of tinkering with animatronics.

Hey, has anyone ever seen him outside Freddy's?

What is Lucas's relationship with Mike and Jeremy?

While Lucas is willing to look the other way when a staff member takes a bit too long on their smoke break, or comes in five minutes too late, everyone agrees that no one gets more share of the favoritism than Mike. Though Mike wouldn't go so far as to call Lucas a friend, exactly, there seems to be an unspoken (if rigid) camaraderie between them; they can share a beer together in silence. They're both in charge of any new security guards, if that adds to it.

On the other end of the scale, Jeremy seems to have drawn Lucas's ire, to a point where it almost seems... personal? Although Lucas keeps a professional demeanor, there are moments where he seems to enjoy making Jeremy's life as inconvenient as possible, from calling him in on weekends or docking his pay for "damages". Does Jeremy's friendship with Mike have something to do with it?

Why does Lucas hate Jeremy?

Sometimes we hate in others what we see in ourselves.

Does Lucas know the fates of the previous night guards? What about the pizzeria / animatronics being haunted?

When a night guard is found to have "disappeared", it's either the owner's or the general manager's duty to inform Corporate. But Lucas tends not to bother Mahogany with troublesome things like that, and—don't tell him, but—Byron's going a little senile nowadays. Anyhow, Lucas is always there at 6AM, him and Mike, so it's no big effort for him to call them in. Mike... never takes it well. Lucas lets him take the day off, if he needs to.

Lucas doesn't consider the animatronics to be haunted, per se, as much as the animatronics are the new bodies/vessels of his dead childhood friends.

And of course he can see ghosts.

He's always been too nosy for his own good.

What was Lucas's life like before he started working at Freddy's?

Lucas grew up in Hurricane, Utah, in a loving family, with his mother Jacqueline, father ██████, and no one else we should be thinking about. Why would you think about that? There's no one else here. No one else worth thinking about. No one else left behind. He has an aunt Mahogany and a cousin Violet. He had an uncle Vincent, but after he died Lucas didn't have any more. Just the one. Only one. No one else.

When Lucas was ten, he ran away from the birthday party. He didn't like being happy. He liked to hide in places where no one would find him. No one found him that day. No one saw what he did, except for one.

When Lucas was ten, his father said they'd move away from Utah to be closer to family. That was a lie. They were running. His family ran across the country, Utah to Arizona, Texas to Missouri, Ohio to Tennessee to Florida. Lucas got good at running, just like he was good at hiding. They stayed a while in Florida, a long while. Nothing important happened to nobody special.

When Lucas was eighteen, he ran away. He came back home.

He's been running ever since.

What did Lucas do in '87?

Who needs to know?

What deal did the Marionette make with Lucas?

Give gifts, give life.

He will put them back together again.

[sketching-pasketti]

I’ve been looking for your blog for so long because of you thinking that fnaf and creepypasta exist together, and I also do!! So, I was wondering if you could elaborate on that. If not, that’s totally fine!! Have a great day.😸

I would love to elaborate on this!

For most of the characters it's a "I've seen/heard of you before but nothing else" type of relationship.

I'd like to think that because FNAF is set in Utah most of the characters have never interacted face to face, they've heard of the pastas when they've either been declared missing, dead, or wanted

Longer elaboration under the cut

So William and Henry being the old men that they are heard of Sally as soon as she went missing, now since Henry's the only one out of the two of them with a heart he wanted to help locate her. But William can make a pretty decent argument of "We have a whole business to run, we are not looking for a child"

Oh yeah Slender also likes to kill and kidnap children, William's heard it all and he doesn't believe Slender exists, but Mrs. Afton has seen him before, so she knows

Fast forward to the early 80s and Tim's gonna have a birthday party at Fazbear's! Or so he thought, thanks William. Yeah 6 missing children and the owner's son dying due to an animatronic in just like 2 weeks? World Record winning Afton over here ruined little Timothy's big day

84, bye bye Elizabeth :). And Mrs. Afton :(. What other reason do you need to not go any animatronic-hosting restaurant anymore? Especially when it's the one restaurant where the robots are designed specifically to kill children? Tim's parents clearly didn't need anymore reason, neither did Brian's.

Everyone's heard of the bite of 87 so we're not gonna talk about that since SL happens like right after it and probably not the best headline to make, Michael, but you tried. Oh yeah, somewhere around this point they find out that Sally's dead.

FNAF 1 barely exists for like half a second and then we go 30 years into the future to 2017 (Also I'm pretty sure William got springlocked sometime in 87). So now most of the pastas are actively being goofy, and some are starting to move into the mansion.

YAY Fazbear's Fright burns down, Jeff saw it, best night of his life if you ask him. After that it's all quiet on the FNAF front for a few years but with the pastas it's absolute chaos, Zalgo's now being the goofiest goober and restarting ancient shit that Slender no longer gives a flying fuck about.

Yippitee yippitee hooray, FNAF's back on the menu, boys. Except no one really cares about PizzaSim and UCN, so we're ignoring them. Anything after those happen way too late and the pastas are not as active anymore.

So I think I should clarify that most of the Creepypasta shenanigans are happening in or around the Midwest/Southwest area, not anywhere near Utah

[xsupticbars]

Janet (xChocobars) and Steve (Steven Suptic) Dating Timeline part 1

Disclaimer: Everything in this post was either mentioned by Steve, Janet or one of their friends on stream, or was posted on a public social media account by them or one of their content creator friends.

Part 2 - Part 3

Nov '20 - Mar '22

Nov 1 '20 Janet and Steve meet for the first time in Hafu's Among Us Morning Lobby.

Apr 16 '21 Their first IRL meeting for Hafu's 30th birthday, in Las Vegas. Janet and Steve carpool there with ther boyfriend at the time, Coplol_/David. Janet posts a thread about the trip on her alt twitteraccount. Hafu's April 17 and April 18 stream.

Apr 26 '21 Steve, Janet, David, Kimi and Tina go for lunch at The Boiling Crab in Los Angeles and spend the day together. Steve's deleted tweet. Kimi's tweet and insta. Kimi's vlog

Nov 27 '21 Steve, Dumbdog, Koji and Ellum have lunch with Janet in Los Angeles.

Dec 3 '21 The morning lobby hang out in Vegas together.

June '22 - ...

June

June 6 Steve returns from a 2 month break from streaming. He raids Janet after he ends his stream. Steve pov, Janet pov. Janet mentions having reached out to him.

June 15 Morning lobby Among Us reunion.

June 26 Steve, Janet, Kimi, Ellum and Cara hang out together in L.A.

June 30 Four days later Steve posts the picture from the meetup on instagram. The same pic was already posted by Ellum a day after the meetup. Janet likes.

July

July 2 Janet likes a picture in which David is tagged.

After this Janet doesn't mention David anymore and he's no longer seen on her stream, things that happened sporadicaly before. On an unknown date she deleted their pictures together from instagram. David continues to this day to like pictures and tweets of her.

July 20 Kimi invites Janet and Steve over for hotpot and drinks till after 3 am

July 31 Janet posts on instagram. Steve likes. During the 1.5 years of them knowing each other before this he only liked 3 of her pics.

August

Aug 3 Steve posts on instagram and Janet likes.

Aug 4-9 Steve goes on a trip to visit his parents in Utah, followed by a visit to his best friend Cib in Nevada.

Aug 4 Janet likes and comments on Steve's tweet. Steve likes Janet's tweet.

Aug 6/7 Steve's best friend, Cib, and his gf, Dylinn, start following Janet on instagram. Dylinn likes Janet's latest reel. Janet follows Cib back.

Aug 7 Janet posts a reel on instagram, Steve likes.

Aug 8 Janet posts a selfie on twitter. Steve likes.

Aug 9 Steve returns from his trip.

Aug 15 Janet invites Steve to a Valorant 5-stack with her friends. It's the start of them doing streams in smaller groups together.

That same day Steve posts his first tiktok. The first three followers of the account are his two best friends and Janet. They were already following him before he posted his first tiktok. When he posted the tiktok, he was also only following them.

Aug 16 Janet announces on stream that her and David have broken up and have been for over a month. She likes Steve's tweet. Steve likes Janet's tweet.

Aug 18 Janet tweet and instagram post, Steve likes.

Aug 21 Janet tweet and instagram post, Steve likes.

Aug 23 Janet instagram post, Steve likes.

Aug 25 In the morning Steve posts an instagram story from inside an Echo Park Lake swan boat at nighttime. No passenger was filmed and he would never mention anything about it.

Aug 26 Steve and Janet go to the same party. Steve tweets a pic with Jhb and Janet posts an ig story with Valkyrae.

Aug 27 Janet instagram post, Steve likes.

Aug 28 Steve and Janet plan a cooking stream together. The stream ends up not happening. Janet tells the story on stream, they went out to dinner together instead. (timestamps: 0:11:58-0:18:14)

September

Sep 2 Steve likes Janet tweet.

Sep 3 - 5 Janet and Steve go on a three-day trip to Las Vegas. No other streamer friends come with them. Hafu and them never mention if they met up on their stream. Kimi catsits Janet's cats in Los Angeles.

Sep 4 Janet posts an instagram story of her and Steve together in Vegas.

Sep 11 Steve, Janet, Scott and Kimi meet up in Los Angeles. Scott posts a picture.

Sep 12 Sponsored stream from Janet. Three youtube shorts (1, 2, 3) about the unboxing of the product are posted in October. They show Steve helping her set everything up. Janet mentions on stream that she got help, but not from who.

Sep 14 Steve and Janet go to the WHALES•TALK concert at the Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles. WHALES•TALK is Steve's best friend's (Cib) band. Janet meets Steve's two best friends and their girlfriends. (Group pics: deleted pic, 2) Steve's friend Hallie (twinsister of Cib's girlfriend) starts following Janet. Janet follows Hallie and Dylinn back in November.

Sep 18/19 - Sep 22 Janet goes on a trip to Berlin for a sponsor.

Sep 23 Janet posts a picture on instagram and twitter. Steve likes. Steve posts a picture on instagram. Janet likes. Steve tweets and Janet likes and comments.

Sep 28 Janet posts on instagram. Steve likes.

October

Oct 7 - Oct 9 Steve and Janet both attend Twitchcon.

Oct 8 Steve and Janet stand next to each other at a party at Twitchcon.

Oct 9 The morning lobby panel at Twitchcon happens. Steve and Janet sit next to each other and stand next to each other for the picture. After the panel Janet has a meet and greet session. A picture with a fan shows Steve holding Janet's nameplate for her booth before or after the meet and greet. The two of them take a picture with their friend Gumi. Steve tweets about Janet and Janet comments.

Oct 11 Steve tweets about Janet.

Oct 18, Oct 19 and Oct 21 Janet posts an ad on her youtube channel. In the ad, Steve and her unbox a product from a sponsor. The ads were filmed before September 12, the date she first used it to stream. The three ads: 1, 2, 3

Oct 21 Janet, Steve and Autumn (Rhodes) are going costume shopping together for Halloween.

Oct 22 Steve and Janet go to Softi's Halloween-themed birthday party, together with Autumn and Garrett Sutton. Janet tweets a picture of the two of them wearing a couples Halloween costume. Steve retweets it. A group pic with them being close is posted. Janet likes Steve's tweet.

Oct 31 Steve likes Janet's tweet.

November

Nov 5 Janet's 28th birthday. Steve likes Janet's birthday tweet. Steve is at Janet's birthday dinner in the evening. Kimi's instagram story shows them seamingly arriving at a surprise birthday dinner for Janet. Steve is shown holding flowers. Steve gets her this shirt as a gift.

Nov 8 Janet is a bridesmaid at Abe and Wendy's wedding. Steve also attends. Steve is seen sitting next to Janet at the table for the bridesmaids and their plus ones.

Nov 9 Steve is still wearing the suit he wore to the wedding. Janet and Steve have coffee from the same place.

Nov 11-Nov 15 Janet, Steve, Kimi, Celine, Eva (Chobo) and Jess go on a trip to Hawaii for Janet's birthday. Kimi, Celine, Eva and Jess return on Sunday (Nov 13), Janet and Steve stay two more days and return on Tuesday (Nov 15; story posted by Steve that day). Janet's posts a pic of Steve in Hawaii on instagram. Steve likes.

Nov 24 Janet posts on instagram for Thanksgiving, Steve likes. Janet spends Thanksgiving at Peter's place.

Next

[supernovaa-remnant]

oughhhh c!dreambur post-canon in utah... the way that it's such a mess at first and everything feels broken and fixing things feels like such a monumental task. but it happens slowly. gradually. sure, some times there are big moments where things blow up in their faces, but then those get fixed slowly, too. it's not one moment where things just magically get better. it takes so much time.

but things do get better. and it's not sudden in a "something clicks and everything is okay" way. it's just... one day they suddenly stop and realize that they're happy, and they've been happy, and the nightmares don't come as frequently anymore, and they haven't been frequent for a while now. it's wilbur buying dream's favorite food without even thinking about it. it's dream bringing wilbur lunch once a week while he's working.

the desire is still there. that ever-burning fire. and they are not shattered pieces of glass that have been wholly smoothed over by the sea. there's still sharp edges that brush against each other some times.

it's not perfect.

but it's nice. it's soft. it's sickly-sweet and domestic, but they mind it less than they thought they would.

it sneaks up on them. the days pass, and they go to make-shift karaoke nights, new year's parties, birthday parties, and so much more. the days pass, and they play chess on weekends and lay in the sun outside and dance in the rain.

it took a lot of trial and error to get there. there was a lot of taking one step forward, three steps back. but they do get there.