#but that was too hard to draw so now it's just checkers being two bees

[cordycepsbian]

wake up zombug enjoyers new zombugs just dropped

zombee is named checkers, zombeetle is mint, zombiant is latte

+ zommoth but slightly more accurate to irl moth-targeting cordyceps

[profoundchaoscomputer]

As time goes on

Summary:

“I will say this: I’m happy to be here with Jack. With you. And I love you. I love you both.”

This is a short fic Kate(@rathxritter) and me, Trev(@profoundchaoscomputer) wrote for the Destiel Partner Project (@destiel-partner-project). Thank you so much for this opportunity!

Kate, you were an awesome partner, all of our ideas complimented each other so well that that adding stuff and editing from you or me was always a delight, thank you so much!--Trev

Fic under the cut, alternatively you can also read it here https://archiveofourown.org/works/30576530

As time goes on

Late November. Knotty and naked branches tower themselves against the sky, dark outlines in the afternoon sun. The ground is covered in leaves and the grass is barely visible like winks of a long gone summer, spotted amidst the sea of warmer colors - yellow, orange, red and rich browns seem to make the universe that time of the year. It's a breathtaking and ordinary scenery, autumn always is. Everyday beauty is often taken for granted, but for Cas it will always be a new miracle. The sidewalk, on the other hand, is mostly clear, yet there are some areas of it where the leaves remain untouched, rotting away as they are being walked on, cracking under people's shoes as their heels click on the pavement.

Sometimes Cas thinks he is like those yellow checkered rooting away leaves.

...Once had he basked on the glory of a foolish leaf, proud stagnant, evergreen, timeless, aimless, clutching blindly to the tree, rain, wind, snow, only knowing of heaven above, but never about the dirt of the ground...to be still is to be alive?

Only after he fell, he understood, to fall is to become alive, it hurts, unthetered, weightful death sentence, to decide to root away.

And it took too much time to realize, but isn't all life beautiful because it's so ephemeral? so the past is treasured, today is a miracle, and tomorrow is a gift: to become a golden leaf and covered in spots, proof of every breath, copper, orange, red. The leaves fall and Cas falls, wrinkles and lines, aching muscles and tender joints, alone at times, but now trying something, with Dean, Jack, a family found along the way. Dancing along the wind, against tempest and arid times, getting muddy and dirtied, alive, along warm gusts and gentle times, and becoming crumpled leafs, laughing and crying at the mercy of time.

So times moves and flows away and now is a worthy day to note, It's a sunny day, as warm as the later autumn afternoon allows, and the, otherwise clear blue sky, is studded with some solitary clouds - dirty white that verges on grey, they look as if someone painted them on a canvas using the finest watercolours and the most exquisite brushwork. 

It's a sunny day and the air smells of rotten apples, oozing resin, and frost. It's the smell of death and destruction, of glimmering hope. A welcoming smell, the smell of life, so lulling and comforting, that fills people's nostrils as they go on with their day. The smell of home, an active reminder that life is to be treasured.

"How does the story end?" asks Jack as he hands Cas a paper bag, the bookshop's logo printed on it with bright red letters.  

"How do you want it to end?" Cas asks, smiling.

He knows the stories that Dean tells Jack, the ones he half reads and ends up making as he goes, stuffing in his own share for who knows what reasons. The thing is they both laugh and the red hooded girl surely doesn't have a shapeshifter, last time he checked. Overheard some of them while passing through the small living room in order to get outside and speak on the phone with Sam. 

It's their thing and he tries not to cross lines and wriggle in - Dean tells stories and does all the voices, Jack laughs, Dean laughs: a complete picture that doesn't quite need him there, an intimate bubble of two as he has his own with Dean and another one with Jack too and its Dean's "job" to put Jack to sleep. So he doesn't ask, Dean doesn't speak about it. It's healthy for Jack to grow different relationships with them on their own.

 Still, he does know about them and listens more often than he would care to admit, from behind the door, feeling like a stranger in his own house.

 About the ordinary tales of overcoming evil and suddenly there are Vampires and Djins and it's always about not giving up no matter how scared and angry one may feel. It's about children being allowed to be children even in a world of danger and Dean's voice oozing vulnerability as well as hurt. 

There were times he had considered taking his hand only to step away before he could be seen, Dean has allowed himself to be this vulnerable in front of Jack as his own kin. He couldn't mess up this trust and growth with selfishness.

Jack looks down distractedly and kicks some leaves, causing them to rustle, crack and scatter. Soon enough found a clump of leaves and decided it was good enough to swim on them. It's the contrast that makes Cas think and stop a bit, Jack so joyful on a blanket of cracked corpses, life playing with death, handfuls of leaves on Jack's hands, a handful of ashes, ashes to ashes, a pool of dead yet life stills blooms so beautifully and hopeful, death and creation, hand by hand, as time goes by. 

"I don't know," says Jack as he picks up an acorn from the mess he just made and studies it attentively before stuffing it into the pocket of his Jacket. Lately, they've been the hiding place of all sorts of hidden treasures - acorns, buttons, funny looking rocks, and empty shells - later taken out and displayed on the shelves in his bedroom, right next to his Paddington books and carved animal statuettes.

He laughs, "Dean always puts a lot of death in them."

"Does he?" asks Cas.

"Sometimes they are all alone. I don't mind, they make me want to live!" he says, his chirpy laughter echoing through the air, soon followed by thunderous stomping: Wellington boots, yellow with a bee pattern printed on them, splashing water from a puddle on the grass.

Castiel sighs and carefully sits down on the battered bench in the small park. Its wood is ruined and the paint is peeling off and soft moss is thriving in those places where the material never quite manages to completely dry off. A wet bench, but still appreciates it with a crack of back bones.

"Well," he says, holding back a grimace of pain. "I think you and Dean may both be right when you say that it's about feeling alive."

Jack nods solemnly in agreement. "And what about the children? They climb trees and drink lemonade, but what happens after that."

"They do everything their own way and they are good at that."

"Dean can do it better." Jack puffs loudly.

"Then you should ask him as soon as he comes back." Cas smiles.

"I think I will. Can I give you something?" asks Jack.

"Yes, of course."

"I'll get it soon," he says and walks away, running around through the leaves, freely, squealing in delight.

A knot forms at the back of Cas's throat as he watches his son play in the autumn scenery. Life and death keeping each other company, effortlessly interconnected in an endless cycle. So loud the sound of his youth, Jack waranders off, bubbling with raw energy, entropic in a contagious way that Cas can't help but melt a bit on this warm brightness and he laughs too. Bittersweet, yeah, that's life for you. Something hopeful, the sound of a child's laughter and his fatherly love, brightening everything  - precious and blossoming, always, amidst death and horror preventing the future from turning into ashes and mingling as equal with the past.

"This is for you," says Jack, out of breath, proud, stretching out his arm and handing Castiel a yellow leaf with green edges. "You can press it and frame it like they showed me in school."

"Thank you, Jack. This is... lovely. This is lovely, I like it." He smiles softly, fondness washing over him.

He looks at the gift, studying it as he turns it around, and wonders how much Jack knows about his own state. Does he know he chose to be a rooting away leaf too?

Cas fell, a long time ago, changing so completely, that his former self is nothing but a distant memory. Now Cas can look at the situation with more clarity of judgement, as he clearly lacked for more time than he could care to admit: in falling, he became alive and while it hurt and had at some point felt like a death sentence, life was, is, and will be beautiful with its alternating ups and downs.

 But again, being alive is always too much, so stuffed with messy feelings, whirling fiery tempest, it becomes crowded, on edge, flammable as well as vulnerable, scalding in a slow simmering way, such that he would call worse than falling.

 Meeting for the first time fear in a not immediate war or easily numbing adrenaline to survive, and thus being laid bare to see himself in the mirror and being bombarded with all the truths he didn't want to hear, scared of being alone, despite having Jack, Dean, and everyone else too; afraid of this too good looking second chance usually so monomaniacally forbidden and his guilt biting so hard he feels like choking on every breath, whispering his worst thoughts, over and over like broken record, all his faults, all his "greater good" soaking his hands in blood, what is to deserve when one has betrayed, what is a right when one has killed and done the unspeakable, what is to have freedom when each breath tastes of regret, what is peace when silence draws despair. On top of it now powerless, his own human body with the aching joints and cold bones… being at the mercy of time rather than being above it.

Because time now moves and flies away, slipping through his finger. Ticked away by clocks. Irrevocable hours leaden circles travelling through the air and ultimately dissolving. 

Blinding shrieks of fear and self consciousness slowly started to become a hum and then days turn into weeks and weeks into months, one season following the other and the world changing, subtly at first, adjusting to the rising and dropping temperature and the inclement weather. Too hot and then too cold, and the months of adjustment in between for a couple of weeks with perfect temperatures and no sudden changes. Soon, it will be winter once more: the first frost has already started to beautify the windows, leaving white and translucent intricate patterns on glass, and the weather is changing - rain and strong winds as announced by the weather forecast daily after the six o’clock news.

Some of it, he'll never get back. Those sorry months and years he'd relive by reentering the moment and changing it radically from within by doing everything right are long out of question and he wouldn't risk fate and destiny to make a miracle again to break from Chuck's narrative. This time, he'd do everything right by being less prideful and avoid arguments to grow bigger and bigger until the smallest of things, enlarged in disproportion, left nothing but annoyance and anger in their wake - arguments breaking like thunder, rumbling, filling the air and making it unbearable to stand there and wonder, even for just a moment, whether love may not remain buried one day, out of reach.

The first year had been the most difficult: they had discovered at their own expense that love declarations and dreams of a speckless wonderful future were hardly enough and never actually helped in making things easier. Nothing would ever be enough. One simple truth then, which they had learned the hard way: happy endings did not exist, only endings, and even those were neutral and subject to change. No happy ever afters that tied up all ends at the last page, no sweetly dull every day epilogue. Life simply kept going, as ugly as it was before, as beautiful as it was before. They kept being the same people they were before, with all their faults and virtues, all their nightmares and dreams. Defeating the "biggest bad of the book" did not erase all of their inner troubles, maybe one or two, yes, but how many more were inside of each of them?

Dean's fear of abandonment and Cas' own desperate need to be useful had proven to be the most explosive and dangerous mix. And thing is, they couldn't forgive each other, not a particular one big reason, just too many piled up and carried over the years and while they could forget and move on, deep in their heart they couldt forgive, not really, and the topics they so desperately tried to ignore stood in their way, holding them back.

So twelve months of Castiel repeatedly leaving, he needed to hunt, to be useful, got himself head first into the line of fire so to see that his hands, while bloody, still saved lifes; sound of gunshot to shush his mind out of the accusing mirror, a warrior will always be a warrior and he had been a commander of garrisons, and so he went out and jumped from hunt to hunt with all kinds of hunter strangers until exhaustion could give him a good night sleep, weeks upon weeks  and Dean's accusations following him out of the door, you'll always abandon me.

So twelve months of Dean drinking, as Cas's remarks no doubt rung in his ears, you're slowly becoming like your father. Dean didn't know what to do with his life, depression weighing him down so hard there were only some days he could get himself out of bed, tearing at the seams without a fight to pull himself together and so he drank, Cas's words ringing into his head like poison along the bitter aftertaste of a finished bottle.

 Neither of them should have said those things although he couldn't find the strength to do anything but hold his refusal to stand on Jack's side against Dean. Dean should have asked him to stay, he should have made it clear that there was no need to be useful in order to stick around. A vicious cycle, separating them more and more, and not quite a trial - had it been one, there wouldn't have been one person who wasn’t guilty.

The second year had no room for openings, just anger as they moved like in a quagmire, the snappiness of the first year replaced with inertia. Dean threw himself into work, dirt on his jeans. Cas went to the bunker with Jack and a duffle bag stuffed with their belongings. The bunker had become some sort of hunter's sanctuary and he enjoyed the work. They did talk, but simply not enough, and refused to show themselves vulnerable - no mutual consolation, no touching, and the frail assumption that they were still on each other’s side crumbling in front of them and leaving them dismayed.

After two and a half years, on a ghastly hot summer evening, Dean leapt for the first time, really, showing nothing but fearfulness and saying, as he looked at Castiel stripping in front of him, were you going to tell me that you almost died or… It had been an accusation, the tone used made it clear, the half healing wound still patched on Cas's side inbeetwen them and their heavy silence, but there had been something else too - genuine worry and affection. They had shared a bullet of a look. Then they had kissed, desperately, hungrily, and had sex - consuming their relationship: They understood it and enjoyed it, but were still out of their depths when it came to the rest: awkwardness settling as soon as they were back in their clothes. He and Jack had left the following morning and the rest of the year had been spent abroad working on helping the international community of hunters to create a network bound to help supernatural creatures rather than killing them.

It had been the year of endless night and unsparing insomnia, wondering how to rebuild a relationship when you were also mourning one? Different versions of themselves are forever lost in time, the angel and the soldier boy, the runaway and the righteous man, the falling and the protagonist. He had spent so much time looking for something, a warning sign that they had somehow ended that loop of misery, to face the present and stop grieving the past, sorrow and unhappiness that he hadn’t actively recognized the beginning of it all, only widening the gap further. Polished surfaces and volcanoes inside - a mess of feelings, a mess of thoughts, and no way to escape them and make sense of it all. They had been prisoners of their own fears and their history had stood between them. They had spent the end of the year, retreating: each question met either by silence or elusive answers that ultimately meant nothing. It had been fake and lacked depth, the peace they tried to build when both lacked courage: they had built up a facade and spent their time together pretending that they could start from scratch. They couldn’t. He was still angry at Dean, Dean waa still angry for a multitude of reasons Cas didn't even want to know, and still for what happened with Jack, Cas didn’t dare breathe a word. And every word that wasn't about the truth, it was another shovel to bury the thing that was between them.

At the end of the third year, they had come back and they had stayed at the bunker for two whole weeks rather than a couple of days.

He had spent some ten months trying to find the right words to tell Dean that he was considering hunting less and less - wounds healed too slowly and he wasn't getting any younger. He had tentatively enquired about Dean only to find out that Dean was doing better - therapy and AA meetings and the Impala had been sold to some teenage girls. They had met, Castiel had asked about Dean’s new lodgings, Dean told him. Dinner. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. On and on like starting from scratch. Things settled, slowly, by falling into place and one night Dean asked him to sleep in his room rather than on the sofa and they talked, opened their hearts, raw and exposed, the darkness making it less awkward and easier: like talking to the idea of a person, depersonalization at its best, a space that had welcomed them and liked them as much as they liked it. Hours passed and in the morning things were different - calmer, easier. They had no more tears left to cry and no more apologies to make.

It seems almost impossible now, four years on, to remember life as it was in all its tiniest details - the bigger picture there, but lacking the intrigue and the excitement there might have been on different occasions. It’s no longer bloody and vengeful, an endless and vicious cycle where violence only led to more violence, spiralling out of control and slipping away, out of fingers, no way out. The feeling of it is familiar yet new, something that he had a long time ago, perhaps briefly, a fading memory that never existed, to begin with, secluded to the realm of dreams and conditionals. Something missing, always and unconsciously so, the feeling of longing always blooming in his chest: for something. Pointing his finger and putting a name to it is easier now as things slowly begin to come into shape.

Castiel closes his eyes, tilting his head back, chin held up high. The sun is warm on his skin, shining in through the naked branches, but his cheeks are reddened by the cold. Wrapped in his winter coat already, all buttoned up and one hand stuffed in his pockets. The sunbeams look golden and create dancing shadows on the ground, and he just stays there, still and motionless, and at peace, as he listens to Jack play in front of him.

Somewhere, through open windows, a song plays faintly though he may just be imagining it, lyrics echoing in his mind for days on end. Come and take my whole life, you are everything I want. You are everything… Mulling over them and wondering, impossible to stop, rolling and rapid. It’s peacefulness as if he spent an entire afternoon crying while sitting on a chair, though he can’t really claim to be an expert on the subject. It’s contentment and residual happiness that sometimes mixes with annoyance and anger, arguments breaking out like thunder, rumbling. Yet, still, love and happiness at simply existing, being alive, being human. The fullest and most satisfying existence, feeling things, and waking up in the morning with the sun shining in through the window, filtering through the curtains and painting the room gold as dust dances in the air in a mesmerizing pattern. Next to Dean too, a couple of moments in amicable silence before the day begins - lying there, mouth filled with the metallic taste of sleep, lazily and whispering, good morning. Time for healing.

When he opens his eyes again, the air is luminous, like St. James’ Street on a summer morning right after a decent drizzle. The light reflects on every surface and makes the air appear bright and filled with light, the edges of reality seem softened and the appearance is almost dreamlike. From down the street, Dean walking towards them holding the bags with the shopping.

“Look at who’s coming,” he says, catching Jack’s attention.

“Dean!” squeals Jack, delighted, as he runs towards him.

“Cas. No need to get up, just make us some space, will you?” Dean replies as he puts the shopping bags down, leaning them against the bench's legs. Then, before taking Jack into his arms, holding him close, he kisses Castiel’s cheek and adds, “Jack, buddy, I’ve missed you too. I’ve got something for the two of you.”

“What’s that?”

“Wait,” He stretches his arm out. “Here you go. First tangerine of the year, not too expensive. Hell, thought we deserve some after everything we went through.”

“I want a segment!” Yells Jack. Jack grabs for the piece of fruit in Dean’s hand, looking at it with fascination and entertainment at the uneven sphere of the citrus, before handing it over to Cas.

“Thank you.”

As soon as Cas starts peeling the citrus fruit, the smell fills the air. He always liked the smell of it - upbeat and cheerful, penetrating and warm. Reminiscing of cedarwood and lavender, clove too. Christmas-y. One of the happiest and most irrelevant things, easily going unnoticed, every gesture is done dismissively, instinctively and without paying too much attention. Fingertips digging into the exocarp, passing through the albedo, and removing the peel altogether - one piece at a time. Dean’s eyes are on him, he feels it, sees it with a sideways glance, studying his every move, as Jack wriggles and gurgles, impatiently waiting for his segment.

“What?” asks Cas without turning around.

“Nothing,” Dean replies as he accepts a segment just as Jack stuffs his into his mouth. “Jack, you’re making a mess of yourself. - a pause, again to Cas - I mean, this… all of it. - Dean looks at the autumn scenery, gestures widely, to the leaves and the threes, Jack, the clear sky, Cas, dazed but in a good way - I don’t know. I like it. Hell, I love it.”

“Selcouth.”

“What?”

“The word you’re looking for, I think. Rare and extraordinary.”

He’d add ‘unexpected’ to the list too, but that one to himself. It’s one thing to say that one wouldn’t be happy anywhere else with anyone else, another thing to make it work. Admittedly it took some time, irrelevant weeks after twelve years of tentatively tip-toeing around the other - this far and no further, deferring and agreeing, evading and never thinking about it, not really, not after the first couple of years. They seem to have the grasp on the ongoing juggling of the time at their disposal and days are uneventful, repetitive: he works, Dean goes to therapy and cares about the house, they play with Jack.

Twice a week Dean attends AA meetings and evenings are spent trying to make Jack sleep without having to read ten different bedtime stories and doing all the voices. And time passes, seasons change. A whole year, he sometimes reminds himself. Unbelievable. Selcouth.

And Cas examines amused these little white threads of tangerine he tears from his own segment, frail as the heart, wonder and fear, with care, like life, weaving silly braids for the sake of it, fingers clumsy, vines lacing fingers, each feels like a promise, for you, for me, feeble yet together so strong, sometimes they break, frustrated, yet not giving up, sometimes we manage a fine work, proud of a miracle yet so natural, a string of hope, a string to life, life is a tangerine and we are leaves along the wind.

Maybe he should marry Dean - Cas distractedly thinks, to which he can't help but feel the corner of his lips pulling.

“What?”

“You’re in a good mood,” says Dean. 

“Could say the same thing about you.”

“Oh, look at you,” says Dean looking away, retrieving a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his Jacket and wiping Jack’s face clean.

“I need you to be honest with me, Cas.”

“I am honest with you, Dean.”

“I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t want you to die out there.”

“I’m not going to die out there, not violently.” Castiel nods and smiles fondly, affection and tenderness washing over him in waves. It's a warm silence, a promise, the sun is out and about today. Dean looks at him like the only thing in this world and leans in for a kiss, making him feel as if he swallowed a box of fireworks instead, and this time the kiss has a citric aftertaste. Shooting stars on a summer night, dropping like a thousand suns, speckled fireworks, sunny galaxy to cup in his hands, warm and ticklish, rumble laughter and stubble, soft and rough, sweet and bitter, bliss and life, so alive, for a moment Cas is again grateful of falling: so beautiful, so much like Dean.

“I will say this: I’m happy to be here with Jack. With you. And I love you. I love you both.”

[funkymeihem-fiction]

Strange Honey

“No! No no no, come back! Please come back!”

Mei waved the holofiber net in increasing desperation, but the buzzing swarm stayed just out of reach, flying above her head. They were a little cloud of yellow and black stripes, and for some reason they were not keen on being caught and returned to the hives…which was not at all good for her. She’d taken on this job as an assistant beekeeper not for the pay, but for her studies. Her graduate degree was riding on the paper she was writing, on the effects of climate adaptation and pollination of local agriculture. Taking a job in the field (literally, in the field) was a vital part of her studies and her reputation as a researcher.

Unfortunately for her, she had chosen a farm with famously temperamental and difficult bees, and an even more temperamental and difficult owner. The free room and board was barely worth it, and even if the honey on her breakfast toast was amazingly delicious, she had the distinct feeling she was being taken advantage of. The owner had put her to work doing the most unpleasant, grungiest chores that didn’t even further her studies, and in her first week she had already had several stings while she was still figuring out the finer points of the holofiber suit. And now she had been left ‘in charge’ of things while he went to go do…whatever he did in town…and of course, that was when one of the hives had started to swarm.

“Wait! Please, I’m sorry I called you a bunch of dumb bees earlier! I got stung and I was just angry! Nooo, don’t go too high!”

She stood helplessly, still waving her net, as the little cloud of buzzing insects started to lift higher into the sky, and then abruptly took off towards the east. Huffing and puffing and trying to ignore the stifling heat inside her suit, she pursued them. Down the dirt roads, across a pasture, and through two fields of soy and corn, she followed them. Pushing through rows and rows of green stalks and leaves, she finally shot free of the cornfield, and stumbled into a field that was choked with sweetgrass. For a moment, she vainly hoped that the chase was over, and that the flowering grass would distract or pause them long enough for her to capture them again…but it was not to be. They continued buzzing right over them, headed for what looked like a wall of overgrown sunflowers.

This was a field she had never seen before, far beyond the reaches of her tour of the farm. Was this the same property? Did the farm even grow sunflowers? She wasn’t entirely sure. They were giant things, tall green stalks growing so close together they resembled a tangled forest, each one topped with a cheerful, dazzling yellow and brown bloom. And they were so tall and large, she felt almost sure they must have been bio-engineered. She wasn’t really a tall girl to begin with, no, but these sunflowers towered over her like she had never seen. It was a solid barrier of overgrown green and yellow that would be nearly impossible to pass through.

And of course, that was exactly where the bees were going.

With one last swing of her net, she dove to catch them. Sailing through the air like an Olympic star, she all but threw herself at them as she swung…and missed. With a grunt, she landed hard on her chest, squishing herself in her thick gear as her hat fell down over her eyes. Moaning, she pulled herself up out of the dirt, pausing to turn off the barrier of her hat so she could adjust her glasses and wipe at her perspiring forehead. For a long time there was nothing but the sound of her rapid breath, and the ever-present drone of insects and birds, sitting alone on the ground as she looked at the impenetrable forest of sunflowers up ahead. There was no sign of the swarm.

Shedding part of her bulky beekeeper suit, she pulled off the harness and unzipped it until it was strung around her waist, left panting and puffing in her sweat-drenched tank top. Drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself, she sighed and buried her sweaty face in them, not even caring how dirty she was. “Oooh…I’m dead…I’m so dead. Mr. Rutledge is going to kill me.”

Mr. Rutledge was a hard man to work for, even on the best of days. It had taken her no small amount of convincing him to even take her on in the first place. And now she had lost a swarm with a viable queen, worth hundreds of credits, and the rest of the swarm had followed her, which was worth thousands. In the span of a few hours of her being left in charge, she had ruined everything.

She sniffled a bit, wiping at her reddened nose with her sleeve. So much for her summer of research…

The rows of sunflowers rustled gently as a breeze swept over them, cooling the sweat on her overheated body. For a long time she just sat there, sulking and sniffling by herself, and listening to the rattle of the stalks as another little gust of wind moved across them. Only…they kept rattling, even after the breeze had passed by. The stalks shifted and clattered somewhere deeper within, like something was moving amongst them. Blinking, she stumbled quickly to her feet and grabbed her hat, holding it like a shield in front of her as she staggered a few steps back. An animal of some kind, no doubt, but what? Dog? Cat? Deer? Maybe one of Mr. Rutledge’s pigs had escaped again?

The rattling ceased abruptly as she got up, the unseen creature freezing. Maybe it had just taken notice of her and was as scared of her as she was of it? Maybe it had paused, but she had the distinct feeling that she was being watched.

“H-hello?” she asked aloud, tilting her head. She quickly pulled on the rest of her suit, zipping it up. No matter how hot it was, if she needed to run away-

There was a strange little noise from the sunflowers up ahead, as the leaves started rattling all over the field despite there being no wind. Mei took another step back, eyebrows shooting upward, and was almost ready to book it back in the other direction when there was another sound…a buzzing sound.

From between the rows of green stalks, the swarm came. But they were behaving…rather oddly. The cloud of bees moved forward in one synchronized group, each bee hovering and facing her and very slowly, placidly, moving forward. She’d never seen such behavior ever before, even from a species as ‘orderly’ as bees. No animals acted like this on their own. What had compelled them to act this way now? It seemed completely unnatural.

For a long moment, she stared in a rather stupid way at those bees, eyes almost as wide and round as her glasses. But eventually she got enough of a hold on herself to reach for her net again. The holofibers shimmered blue, and before she could even lift the net to swing it at them, the bees started moving forward again. Mei froze in place, and watched in puzzled, unnerved fascination as the bees proceeded to, in single file, buzz their way directly into her open net. One by one they came, filling the confines of the little space and perching on the sides, until at last, she recognized the red-dyed dot on the abdomen of their queen. She too, went buzzing peacefully into the net. All of their wings stopped moving at once, and the droning hum of the swarm cut off. At a loss, Mei pressed the button to shut them in.

There was that silence again, although this time there wasn’t even any bird song. Just the sound of her breathing, and something moving amongst the rows of sunflowers. And then, all at once, the birds started up again, and there was a sudden storm of angry buzzing from her now-closed net.

Thoroughly spooked, yet somehow relieved that she had managed to retrieve the errant bees, she quickly shouldered her prize and turned to go. Bolting across the field of sweetgrass, she paused briefly to look back. The field of sunflowers stood bright and cheery in the afternoon sun, just like before. Nothing seemed amiss. Not even the ragged-looking old scarecrow that stood hanging from its pole out in the middle of the blooms. Strange…She must have simply missed seeing it out there before, with the flowers being so tall.

But she had her bees and her job- and source of research- was safe. Vanishing back into the rows of corn, she headed back towards the farm.

***

“Mr. Rutledge, can I ask you something?”

She always tried to be polite around Mr. Rutledge. Not just because of her good manners, but because she knew he was a particular man who simply disliked being disturbed. The man lived alone, worked alone, and ran his business alone, and that was how he said he preferred things. He spoke little, usually only to tell her to do things, and beyond seeing him at meals in the morning and evening, and him showing her how to tend the hives now and again, the two barely interacted.

“Hm?” He paused, cup of coffee halfway raised to his scarred lips. That was the most she had ever seen of him, was his lips, and perhaps the bottom of his nose, if she was lucky. He was almost always wearing his own beekeeping helmet, or a low hat, and kept his head down. Locks of stringy gray hair hung from his hat now, obscuring his eyes, but she knew he was looking her way.

The sunlight streamed in from the old glass-paned windows of his kitchen. They sat across from each other at his table, with its charming red-and-white checkered pattern, and the cute piggy-themed salt and pepper shakers, sitting next to the piggy-themed flower vase filled with fresh lavender, which was next to the piggy-themed coffee mugs still steaming with brew. Another breakfast of toast and pancakes and fruit with honey, always with honey, sat scattered before her.

“How many acres is your farm? Do you own all the land around here?” she asked.

“…Mm.”

“So you own the big fields with the corn and soy and the pumpkins, those are yours?”

“Mm.”

“What about the big field of sunflowers? With the scarecrow?”

He paused at that, and slowly lowered his cup of coffee back to the table without taking a sip. “Sunflowers…”

“Mmhm. East, I think? There’s a big field full of sunflowers, with a-”

“What were you doing out that far?”

She blinked, fumbling with her glasses a moment. “I…got a little lost,” she said, which wasn’t really a lie. “Are those your fields too?”

“…Don’t want you out that far,” he responded gruffly. “No need to be out there alone. Don’t go out that way again, understand?”

Her brows knitted a little and there was a strange little pang of disappointment. His words made complete sense, of course. It was a long way out there and she had no business going out so far by herself. If something had happened, she would have been completely alone. It was just common sense, really. But still he seemed a little…terse, about the subject, and she could not help but wonder why. But it was not her farm, and not her place to wonder such things. So she just nodded, and went to spread more honey on one of her pancakes, instead.

“Okay.”

“Finish your breakfast and I’ll show you how to repair that broken spinner, check the brood chambers, then we need to scrape the racks…And I want you to stay close to me today. Come on. We have work to do.”

***

It was over a week later before Mr. Rutledge left the farm again, heading back into town for more food and more supplies. Mei was left alone at the house yet again, waving to him as the old rattling truck turned the last bend in the road and went out of sight. And after a few more moments, just to make sure he wasn’t coming back or forgetting anything, she bolted back towards the house. Clattering up the stairs, she paused only to grab her backpack; shoving her notebooks, entomologist case, her pencils, and a lunchbox into it, pulling it across her shoulders before pushing open the back screen door and running out.

The summer cicadas were drowning the world with their song, a constant rattling drone to accompany a hot, muggy, yellow afternoon. They had made it hard to sleep at first, but she had learned to ignore them. And their singing covered the sound of her feet as she dashed across the farm, passing by the uninterested goats and pigs, and swerving on her path to give the active beehives a wide berth. Across the pasture, through the fields, into the corn, and out the other side she went, until she came to the same field of sweetgrass, and the sunflowers beyond it.

Out in the rows of sunflowers, she saw the scarecrow, hanging up and out above the sea of yellow blooms. It was a little too far away to get a very good look at it, but it looked a little…off, somehow. Most of the scarecrows she had seen were little more than old clothes and burlap sacks with a smiley-face drawn on them, only vaguely resembling a human, just enough to scare the birds. This one looked almost like a human that had been strung up and left to hang on a pole, even slumping with its head down. What an odd choice for someone to make…

Hesitantly, she pulled off her pack and opened it up, pulling out a blanket and spreading it on a little clearing amongst the grass. Tossing her lunchbox and her other supplies onto it not long after, she sat down and opened it up, pulling out her sandwich and her cucumber salad and settling down for a nice late lunch. The vegetables from Mr. Rutledge’s farm were second to none, and she intended to enjoy the fresh produce while she could.

She paused mid-chew when she thought she heard something crackling amongst the flowers. But when she stopped and listened, there was nothing. Probably just the breeze.

For a while she just sat there on her blanket amongst the field of sweetgrass, with the sun on her face and listening to the cicadas and birds serenading her meal. It was little moments like these that made all the hard work worth it, really. Fresh air, fresh food, fresh honey; everything out here made her stop and appreciate the little things. Maybe once she finished her degree on agriculture, she’d buy a farm just like this one… But she had work to do, first.

Wiping away the remnants of her salad and brushing the crumbs away from her lap, she stood. She pulled out a few jars and a pair of tweezers, adjusting her glasses before approaching the wall of sunflower stalks. The bees had behaved so oddly, specifically around these flowers, and she had not been able to stop wondering why. Perhaps there were other insects here that she could study, and see if their behaviors were similarly abnormal? She wasn’t an expert in entomology, but she could at least get some samples for those who were.

She leaned towards the rows of stalks, and began picking at the leaves, turning them upside down, pulling them away from the main plant, checking every nook and crevice on them. No sign of insect activity at all, not even a stray aphid. There was nothing to take samples from. Leaning down towards the dirt, she checked for anything crawling there. Again, nothing. Not a single bug to be found. Her brows knitted, squinting in a baffled sort of way behind her glasses. Things were becomings stranger and stranger, it seemed. But, just to be sure, she reached up, standing on her tippy-toes, and pulling down one of the sunflower stalks until it bent down to her level. The porous brown florets at the center, filled with seeds, had nothing crawling on it. The cheerful yellow petals didn’t have a single ant hiding In them. Nothing. Everything was so normal, it was completely abnormal, yet again.

There came another rustle from amongst the stalks, something clattering deep amongst the greenery just like before. Her eyes darted quickly, and she released the flower to let it spring back up, the movement causing a little ripple through the rest of the sunflower field. Whatever was moving around in there, stopped.

“Hello? Hello, is anybody there?” she asked aloud, tilting her head and putting her hands on her knees to peer into the inscrutable mass of stems and leaves.

No answer.

“Mr. Rutledge? Or… Winifred! Is that you, girl? Did you get out again?” She tapped her knees, calling out the name of a particularly escape-prone pig.

If it was Winifred, she wasn’t keen on being caught again. Or maybe it was some wild animal, just like Mr. Rutledge had warned her about, one of the reasons she shouldn’t have been out here. That thought made her a little nervous. Of course, she didn’t think there was anything particularly dangerous around the area…no bears or cougars or wolves or such things. But even if it was a particularly nasty raccoon, she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anything with claws or teeth. She’d rather face the bees, any day.

She should just get a sample and go. Maybe she could send one of these clearly bio-engineered blooms to someone in her department and find out what this was all about…

She reached out with both hands, grasping onto one of the stalks, and started pulling. Just one flower. If she could only take one weird, giant, insect-impervious, possibly magical flower, this might be the start of something big…Although, oof, that might be harder than first thought. She twisted and pulled, trying to wrench off one of the giant blooms, but it wasn’t making it easy. No matter how she tugged and turned, it didn’t want to come off. She even dug her fingernails into it, trying to sever some of the fibers, clawing until green chlorophyll started leaking down her fingers, and it started to give way, just enough to-

“HHhhrrhh!”

There was a noise, something she’d never heard before.

Again, the presence moved amongst the sunflowers, the blooms and leaves rattling noisily as it suddenly headed straight for her. Eyes widening, she dug into the dirt and pulled back with her entire body weight, one last ditch effort to pull up the flower before she could turn to run, just one bloom. She felt it start to give way, but then she saw the stalks parting in front of her, and then two of the sunflower blooms turned towards her…only they weren’t flowers, but glowing yellow circles, like eyes. She started to scream, and then the flower came loose in her hands just as the animal or person or monster or whatever it was, leapt towards her.

***

She must have hit the ground, because that was where she woke up. Maybe her feet had gone out from under her when she’d pulled the bloom loose, and she had hit her head? That might have made sense…if she hadn’t been laying on her picnic blanket, yards away from where the sunflowers were. But there she was, with the cicadas still churring away, and the birds were still singing and the sun was still shining, and for a moment she wondered if she had fallen asleep during her lunch and dreamed of everything that came after. But the tips of fingers tingled, and when she looked, there was still green under her fingernails. And laying on the blanket next to her, was the severed bloom…or was it? The sunflower she had picked earlier was now a withered and black lump of dessicated rot, and ants were starting to swarm around it, and on her.

“Uuuhgh!” With a shriek, she bolted to her feet and began brushing urgently at her legs, sending them scattering. A little kick sent the rotten flower flying, and she went about fluffing the blanket to fling off the remainder of the ants. Disgusting! What on earth?!

Even as she struggled with the remnants of her picnic, her eyes were drawn back to the field, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise upward. She felt like she was being watched again, but it felt stronger this time, and closer. Maybe it had something to do with those eyes she had seen before…or had she actually seen anything at all, and was just spooking herself with her own imagination? She’d never had much in the ways of a very wild imagination, but maybe being out here alone was messing with her more than she’d thought?

So she turned to the field, and mumbled a little, “Sorry,” even thought she knew that apologizing to a field was silly. But, she apologized often, and this seemed as good a time as any. “Sorry, I just wanted to know what you were. I didn’t mean to hurt anything…Maybe Mr. Rutledge was right, I shouldn’t mess around…I’m sorry.”

The wind rustled the flowers again.

She rubbed at her temples, and realized her glasses were missing. With a little curse, she returned to her blanket and started searching. Her vision wasn’t the best without them, and everything was a little fuzzy as she reached out with both hands, patting around to see if she could feel them. There was no sign of them, and though she walked around the sweetgrass field and even searched by the flowers as close as she dared, she couldn’t find them. Great. She had no insect samples, no flowers, and she’d scared herself into losing her glasses. More money down the drain. And for the rest of the summer she’d have to rely on her broken back-up pair back at the farm, with the tape on the nose.

In a very foul mood now, especially as she brushed away a few stray ants that had clung to her pants, she began folding up her blanket and gathering up the remnants of her ill-fated picnic. The sun was starting to get a bit low in the sky, and she had to make it back before Mr. Rutledge returned to the farm. He’d been right about this place. Whatever these weird sunflowers were- She glanced up at them, and then recoiled slightly when she noticed something.

Even without her glasses, she noticed it. The scarecrow from earlier was gone, missing from his perch where he had been hanging out in the middle of the patch. Had it fallen down, or moved somewhere else? No, that would be a silly thought. She was just scaring herself again, that was all. That weirdly human-proportioned scarecrow was just suddenly gone from its perch and that had nothing to do with the weird noises and movements she had heard, and how she’d been conked out and moved without her knowledge, and-

She looked back to the sunflower patch one last time, squinting to where the green stalks grew so thick they were almost black. Her blood went cold and every hair stood on end, and she leaned to grab her backpack, zipping it shut before she turned and outright ran, hopping over the rotten black sunflower bloom as she fled into the rows of corn and headed back towards the safety of the farm.

He watched her go.

***

The next morning, after an uneasy night filled with bad dreams she couldn’t really remember, she joined Mr. Rutledge at the breakfast table, pouring more honey than usual into her oatmeal. For once, she didn’t even try to make conversation with the man as he read his morning news, and her uncharacteristic silence actually seemed to unnerve the man a little. She just sat there, with nothing but the occasional clink of her spoon in her bowl, until he finally looked up at her with a low rumble.

“You sick?”

“Hm?” She answered dully, gaze still far off behind her spare taped-together glasses. “Oh. No, I’m fine. Just a long night, couldn’t sleep.”

He turned the page in his newspaper. “Can you work?”

“I’m fine. Honestly.”

“Mm. Take it easy today. You go inspect the hives while I feed the chickens and see to the pigs. Still don’t know how Winifred keeps getting out…”

She nodded with a little yawn, and went to dump her bowl into the sink for later. Plodding out towards the backroom, she began suiting up, pulling on the thick white armor and holofiber-netted hat that would protect her from their stings. Yawning and stretching again as she gathered up her smoke canisters and clipboard, she opened the back door…and paused abruptly, mid-step.

There, on the little cracked concrete square at the bottom of the wooden steps, were her lost glasses. The big round wireframes were still intact, and the lenses caught the morning light and practically glowed where they had been sat conspicuously in the center of the square…surrounded by a circle of scattered, bright yellow petals.

Her heart seized and then started trying to come up out of her throat, and she had to swallow hard to keep it down. “Keep calm, Mei, keep calm…it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine…” Very, very cautiously, she approached the circle. Nothing about the glasses seemed amiss, and when she brought one thick gloved hand to poke at them (just to see if they were really there), nothing happened. Completely dumbfounded, she stood staring down at them, coughing a little before lifting her voice.

“Mr. Rutledge!”

He called back from inside. “Yeah?”

“Did you find my glasses?”

A pause before he answered, a bit puzzled. “Your glasses? Aren’t you wearing them?”

“Ah…I think I must have dropped my other pair! I found them though, thanks!” With her eyes darting to and fro, she quickly went to sweep the concrete clean with her foot, scattering and scraping the petals into the grass and under the stairs. Again, she saw nothing strange, just the sights and sounds of the farm starting to wake up like it did every morning. The insects and birds were still singing, the tangled windchimes hanging on the sagging porch jangled, and further away, a goat bleated for its breakfast. Carefully taking her newly-returned glasses and setting them just inside, she gathered up her canisters and notes again, her mind whirring as she trudged on towards the beehives.

The insects buzzed around her, clinging to her netting and crawling around her suit as she began pumping in the smoke that would calm them. She just needed to check on their progress and take notes, which gave her time to ponder.

Maybe this went a little deeper than strangely-behaving bees and a field of odd flowers. And maybe she hadn’t just imagined that missing scarecrow from earlier. Twice now, she’d lost her nerve and been sent fleeing…only this time, it had followed her home. To offer her her missing glasses back? Did that mean it was friendly? Then again, hadn’t it attacked her? Or had it only moved her? Had she really seen it at all? Or…

So many questions. So many strange, strange questions. Though, as a scholar, she was used to having questions. That was one of the reasons she was here on this farm, after all, was doing her research and asking questions. Well, now she had more questions.

And just like before, she intended to find the answers.

[avengemebuckyy]

Sketchy 👀📝

Summary: Steve’s been crushing on you for a while but is forcing down his feelings….Well all that  tension has to go somewhere… and it manifests in his sketchbook.

Warnings:Language, not much else I think, it’s long lol I got carried away

Note: This is my first ever fic, feedback is appreciated! Even if its just ‘It was too fast paced’. Thanks for reading!

Steve Rogers had a problem. For some reason he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of you. It’s like his eyeballs had decided to separate from the rest of his body and follow you. Constantly.

This problem had started about a year and a half ago when you had come to the compound and started working with the reconstructed Avengers. You were a former SHEILD agent, hand to hand combat and espionage were your strong suits. You were also friendly and smart.

Steve knew he was in trouble when his first thoughts on meeting you were about how pretty you were. So he maintained his distance from you, keeping cordial and almost cool relationship. But keeping his distance didn’t stop his mind from wandering. Or his eyes.

“Wow,I really ain’t shit to you”

Steve’s head whipped around to meet Bucky’s grin.

“Huh, sorry?” Steve mumbles. Bucky laughs. “I was tryin’ to ask ya if you wanted some eggs,but your mind seems to have wandered.” Bucky leans against the kitchen counter top, they had just completed their morning run, and had showered before heading into the kitchen to grab breakfast. Where Steve found you already sitting on a stool at the end of the counter, talking to Natasha and a visiting Clint. You were wearing that skirt, the pleated white  one that was short enough to make him sweat a little every time he saw you in it.

“Oh, I’ll have some, sorry ‘bout that” Steve says.

“Oh no, it’s fine, after all your mind seems to have wandered to more… pleasing things.”  he jerks his head in the direction of your figure. If it was possible, Bucky’s grin gets wider. “Damn now those are some legs.” He gives a low whistle. Steve feels his face heat up and he whips his head around to make sure you didn’t hear. But you were too far away and too involved in your conversation. Bucky’s recovery is still ongoing, but in the past couple of years he slowly but surely made marked progress. Enough progress that he began to socialize and started giving Steve a hard time again. Steve’s glad that he is feeling better, but man if he wasn’t a pain in the ass sometimes.

“Don’t you have some fuckin’ eggs to make?” Steve hisses lowly throwing Bucky a glare, who in turn just laughs and grabs a saucepan from the counter.

“You’re not as slick as you think Stevie,”

Steve’s brow furrows as he tries to apply the right amount of pressure to get the shading right. Now more so than ever Steve finds himself turning to drawing as a way to relax. He had opened some windows in the kitchen and sat at one of the stools at the counter with some coffee and a snack. He finds he goes through phases,  a section of his sketchbook was filled with sketches of birds, followed by drawings of only buildings, and then depressingly desolate landscapes. But now he’s going through a different phase. One that has him checking over his shoulder every time he sketches out in the open. Recently it seems like his infatuation with you bubbled over into his drawings. He smudges the shadows that fill out the curve of your smile. The page he’s working on is filled with sketches of your face in different expressions. The one before that was of your face at different angles. 

He supposed it would be easier to forget you if you weren’t so sweet. And patient. And funny. Steve had had several moments where he almost laughed at a joke you had made when he wasn’t even in the conversation. And even though he tried to give you the brush off you always were friendly when interacting with him…and those legs…He found himself flipping the page and before he even knew what he was doing, the outline of you  sitting on a stool, legs crossed, was on the page. Then your figure in that tight dress you wore to the last party Tony threw joins it. His neck heats up. A sketch of your ass from that one time you wore tiny cutoff shorts soon follows. Damn he still thinks about those shorts sometimes. His whole body heats up. He feels like a creep, drawing you, but he can’t help himself….and admitting that makes him feel creepier. He rubs his hands over his face and groans.

“Rough day?” Your voice makes him jump, but when he catches sight of you he almost falls off the stool. You’re wearing a red bikini and water is trickling down your body. You seem hell-bent on giving him a heart attack.

“Something like that,” He says stiffly, flipping pages back in his sketchbook when you turn to get something from the fridge. His eyes trace your form, and he bites his lip to keep from groaning out loud. ‘How is it even possible?’ Steve thinks to himself ‘to have a body that looks that good?’ You bend over slightly to get something and Steve feels himself start to sweat. ‘I gotta get outta here.’

“Well,its an amazing day outside.” You stand up straight and turn towards him, Holding two water bottles and a Popsicle “I’m gonna spend the day by the rooftop pool, swimming and trying to finish my book…if you want to join?” Your voice tips up hopefully at the end. It takes a moment for Steve to realize you asked him something because he’s too busy watching the path of water droplets down your body while trying to not look like he’s watching water drip down your body. His mind scrambles and goes then blank.

“No thank you,” he finally musters and it comes out harsher than he intended. And Steve’s too busy getting the hell out of the kitchen to see your hurt expression. Or realize that he left behind his sketchbook.

Steve makes a bee-line to where he knows Bucky will be. He finds the brunette sitting in his usual spot, this time joined by Sam, and playing checkers. This makes Steve crack a smile. The two are constantly giving each other shit, but they’ll never admit that they’ve become pretty good friends.

Steve screeches to a halt in front of the window seat.

“Ya got the devil chasing ya or somethin’, Steve?” Bucky looks up and smiles at Steve.

“No something much worse.” Steve sighs and plops down on the floor in front of them. The men exchange an amused  glance.

“What, Y/N caught you drilling holes into her head?” Sam says. Steve’s head whips up.

“Excuse me?”

Sam and Bucky burst out laughing.

“Man you think you’re subtle?” Sam snickers. Bucky moves his checker and snorts. “Like I said, ya ain’t slick, Stevie.”

“I-I uh,” Steve stutters, flushing.

“I’m pretty sure even Fury’s noticed by now” Sam says moving his checker and Bucky chokes, coughing out a laugh.

“Just make a move already.” Bucky says.”Ya obviously like ‘er and the distant act ain’t fooling nobody, what with the way you watch her.”

“Amen.” Sam says, and raises an eyebrow. “And lets be real, a girl that smart and that fine won’t stay single for long.” Bucky nods.

Steve groans, running his hands through his hair. “Shuddap, don’t you guys have a game to play?”

Bucky and Sam share another smirk, but keep quiet, focusing back in on their checker game. Steve sits back and watches them play, listening to them making small talk. But his mind keeps on wandering back your body in that bikini…. he wanted to be able to call you his ….what he wouldn’t give to just hold you…. …you always looked so soft….

He doesn’t know how much later, but he knows he must have zoned out for a little bit because Sam is snapping his fingers in from of his face get his attention and the checker game is put away.

“Hey you want to order a pizza and watch a movie?”

“Yeah sounds good.” Steve smiles and stands, stretching, his joints making popping sounds. The three men make their way down the hallway and are entering the living room when Steve hears a voice calling his name.

It’s you. And you’re holding his sketchbook.

Steve’s stomach bottoms out. ‘Can Captain America enroll in witness protection program?’

“Hey, mind if I talk to you for a bit?” You say, jerking your head towards the hallway, and Steve nods glumly. His heart is pounding painfully and he squares himself for the inevitable rejection and disgust. He follows you into the hallway. Scratching the back of his neck.

“Listen I-” he starts, but you interrupt.

“You know you’re a really good artist. The birds almost looked they were gonna fly off the page.” You hold up his sketchbook “I’m really sorry about being nosy, but you left it open….and your art is amazing.” You sheepishly look down.

Steve’s eyes widen. Maybe you hadn’t flipped far enough to see the drawings of yourself? Relief soaks down his body.

“Uh thanks,” he says, taking the sketchbook and moving to get away.

“Wait, can I ask you something?” You say and he nods, freezing.

“Do you draw from memory or use models?” you ask curiously.

“Uh, usually I like having whatever I’m drawing in front of me for the beginning of the sketch, it helps with accuracy.” Steve mumbles.

“Oh, okay” you say, and step closer and closer until Steve can feel the warmth of your body heat. Steve swears he stops breathing. “You know,” you start, your face a hairsbreadth away from his. “You really are an amazing artist. But if it helps with accuracy you should let me know the next time you’re going to draw my ass. I’d love to model for you.” with that You smirk and turn, heading back down the hallway. Steve stays frozen for a few more seconds staring  at your retreating figure before glancing back to the living room where Sam and Bucky are arguing over movie choices and then back at the hallway.

There’s no question.

“Hey! Y/N wait up a second!”

[flauntpage]

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA 'City' Uniform

The biggest NBA news of the day is that Baron Davis and Laura Dern are dating, but the second biggest news is that Nike Released their designs for every NBA team’s “City” alternate jersey, which are jerseys inspired by cities or some shit. I looked at them and wrote about them, like a normal sports blogger does.

GOOD:

CHICAGO:

It’s the flag, and it’s a nice flag everyone is very fond of. I am worried about players spilling chocolate on their unis, though. That would be very embarrassing, I think, to walk around with a big ol’ chocolate stain on your nice white uniform. High risk, high reward play, here.

PACERS:

It has a checkered flag, like a race car. I like race cars. I like that they go vroom vroom very fast.

CLIPPERS:

Look I don’t know what the fuck is has to do with boats, or why the team is wearing Miami Dolphins colors, but teal is an NBA power color and you have to respect any team that dons it.

BUCKS:

Eggshell tones baby! Perfect for the river-yacht or a chilly, fire-lit library, with a tasteful stripe down the middle to bring it all together. This is the midwestern thinking man’s alternate jersey. Also they say “CREAM CITY” on the bottom, which is where I live, work and play, spiritually.

MAGIC:

If you don’t like these, you need to smoke more weed. One time I was EXTREMELY blitzed off THC drops at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, and I spent like ten minutes in the gift shop, looking at the t-shirts they were selling. I thought the drawing was really nice and for a hot second I thought, damn I need one of these motherfuckers REAL bad but then my good brain, not my stoned brain, kicked in and way like “Hey Corbin, man, you’re probably too stoned to make this purchase, this shirt isn’t that nice dude.” Anyway, if I was still using, and I encountered this jersey in that state, I would HAVE to buy the Bismack Biyombo manifestation of this jersey, just spend whatever obscene amounts of money was requested of me, and regret the purchase in a very true and real way while also savoring my stoned wisdom in that time. This jersey rules.

SPURS:

I get that, as a left leaning-dude, I’m expected to hate black and white Spurs-branded digi-camo. But by making the camo black and white, it goes BEYOND a tribute-to-the-troops and turns a bunch of dudes who plays a game for a living into members of a private mercenary gang that kills its enemies with hoops. Watching capital inadvertently debase the world spanning military colossus that keeps it in power is kinda funny, I think it’s good.

SIXERS:

EXTRAORDINARILY classy font! Finally, the play of Joel Embiid is being recognized for what it is: a luxury product, grander than any wine, any gold topped chocolate bon bon, any gentle scented oil, rubbed into your back by the world’s strongest and most skilled masseuse.

ROCKETS:

At first glance, it’s maybe a little weird that the Rockets have Chinese writing on a jersey that is meant to celebrate the city of Houston, a city where most people speak English. But, clearly, this is the harbinger of the future for the franchise, which is going to move to Beijing as soon as possible. What’s my source? THAT’s my source buddy! BEIJING ROCKETS 2018-19, DON’T TRY TO HIDE FROM IT!

UTAH:

Evokes the 70s, cocaine. Maravich belongs in this jersey.

KINGS:

The Basketball is a Lion King. He will stand above all other balls and roar, and the other balls will bow at his might until, one day, he is killed by another basketball, his brother who is also a basketball. His son, a basketball as well, will get revenge and take his place on the mountain, though.

BROOKLYN:

It’s a Nets Jersey. It’s black and white and it looks nice. Not everything needs to shatter molds.

MIAMI:

I wanna make a joke, but what, I’m made of stone?

KNICKS:

I like firefighters and no one can say otherwise.

BAD:

CELTICS:

You guys aren’t gonna believe this, but the Celtics have a boring looking alternate jersey to compliment their boring looking regular jersey. Features grey. More on that later. We are living in the wildest possible times.

LAKERS:

Kobe Bryant designed these. They’re supposed to look like snakes, because Kobe branded himself as a snake. Kobe spending his retirement trying a bunch of sports-adjacent shit he’s not good at and getting deferrence because he is Kobe Bryant, The Player Who Scored A Lot, is maybe the most embarrassing shit I’ve ever seen a professional athlete do. It would be less embarrassing if he was posting videos where people pissed in his mouth or making sly pro-Trump allusions to reporters or taking 125th place in Scrabble tournaments.

CAVS:

It is, I think, truly stunning how terrible these things are. They are, first, off, grey. You know, grey? The color of cloudy days and paved over fields? The color that only looks good on dads, while they swing hammers or pick up their children, or whatever? And then, the only color that REALLY compliments grey, which is yellow. You know. Like a paved road, that thing everyone thinks has a cool color? I mean who can blame Nike, I suppose, when LeBron James, the world’s most famous athlete, is the human being who is your most prominent non-Jordan pitchman, you gotta put him in the ugliest shit imaginable

OKC:

Honestly, It’s impressive how awful these are, soup-to-nuts. No one who made this had even one good idea they put into the final product. Every OKC jersey is bad, of course, on account of the team’s very existence being born from the poison seed of theft from Seattle, but… Gradients!? GRADIENTS!? A grey-to-grey-gradient? Why, on God’s green earth, is Nike fucking so hard with Grey, a color, not even a color, a SHADE, that has inspired exactly no people, ever? They like grey so much that they put TWO DIFFERENT KINDS of grey in this piece of garbage, and subtly mixed the two greys so that there would be nearly infinite manifestations of grey betweens the main greys. This jersey is seeking the limits of grey itself, the deepest grey, the grey at the edge of our understanding of grey.

WASHINGTON:

All the chocolate staining potential of the Chicago jersey, none of the evocative shit. These are maybe, low key, the worst one.

ATLANTA:

This evokes bees, not Hawks. Would someone please put feather texturing on these jerseys, like the world has been demanding all these years.

DETROIT:

These say “Motor City” but do not feature any pictures of cars, which I love because, like I said earlier, they are fast and they make loud noises. The move here was an updated version of the mid 90’s Grant-Hill vroom vroom firehorse, but Nike isn’t listening to good sense!

GOD ONLY KNOWS:

WOLVES:

Look, I’ve talked a lot of shit on Grey, which is Nike’s favorite color right now I guess, but I can accept it here. Minny winters are insanely grey, wolves are grey, this all makes thematic sense. But also: good god grey is ugly. Don’t wear grey!

MAVERICKS:

These are bad but they’re like so bad that I think they almost fly around the moon and become good again? They are a bad uniform that lives somewhere out of time, a look that has never been cool in any era, but in that fact I think they gain a kind of integrity. There’s a possibility that, someday, in 2067 or some shit, these will have been regarded at an innovative step forward in jersey aesthetics, even if we think they’re hideous now. Cop them and freeze dry to sell in the future.

WARRIORS:

That shade of yellow is hideous but the logo is cool? “The Bay” is some real San Francisco bullshit though, one of those subtle org-wide attempts to separate the team from Oakland before they strip the city of the team and move them to rich-ass tech boi SF in a few years.

MEMPHIS:

Honestly I feel weird writing snarky, mildly absurdist jokes about a jersey that is based on signs from a famous workers rights struggle. While I guess I respect Grizzlies celebrating a monumental protest with their unis, the fact that they were designed and manufactured by Nike, a company with a workers rights record that is spotty at best, goes a long way to defanging the allusion. Capitalism: it’s everywhere and it’s amoral!

SUNS:

EXTREMELY PURPLE. Purple is my favorite color and I honestly admire how purple these are, while also wondering… how purple is too purple?

PELICANS:

These are also Purple.

BLAZERS:

Every other Portland fan hates these things, which makes sense because they live in the world capital of streetwear snobbery. I think they’re fine. The plaid is totally unnecessary. If I was making these bad boys, I think I would stick a fat-ass salmon on there, personally. I also think that the mascot should be replaced with a salmon.

HORNETS:

I don’t even know, man. If it were up to me, I would make them play in a white jersey with a fat-ass picture of Michael Jordan’s smiling face on the front, and anything else will just seem incomplete to me.

RAPTORS:

Finally a uniform that tells sports fans: “Hey: my face is up here. I know my body is chugging away down here, but the soul is in the face, and that’s where a person’s TRUE MEANING can be found. Geeze louise.”

NUGGETS:

Nice shade of blue. Fun stripes. Otherwise: whatever.

Okay I did it, this is every uniform. Back to tracking down every last piece of information I can collect and Baron + Laura. Where do they like to go to dinner, you think?

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA 'City' Uniform published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA ‘City’ Uniform

The biggest NBA news of the day is that Baron Davis and Laura Dern are dating, but the second biggest news is that Nike Released their designs for every NBA team’s “City” alternate jersey, which are jerseys inspired by cities or some shit. I looked at them and wrote about them, like a normal sports blogger does.

GOOD:

CHICAGO:

It’s the flag, and it’s a nice flag everyone if very fond of. I am worried about players spilling chocolate on their unis, though. That would be very embarrassing, I think, to walk around with a big ol’ chocolate stain on your nice white uniform. High risk, high reward play, here.

PACERS:

It has a checkered flag, like a race car. I like race cars. I like that they go vroom vroom very fast.

CLIPPERS:

Look I don’t know what the fuck is has to do with boats, or why the team is wearing Miami Dolphins colors, but teal is an NBA power color and you have to respect any team that dons it.

BUCKS:

Eggshell tones baby! Perfect for the river-yacht or a chilly, fire-lit library, with a tasteful stripe down the middle to bring it all together. This is the midwestern thinking man’s alternate jersey. Also they say “CREAM CITY” on the bottom, which is where I live, work and play, spiritually.

MAGIC:

If you don’t like these, you need to smoke more weed. One time I was EXTREMELY blitzed off THC drops at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, and I spent like ten minutes in the gift shop, looking at the t-shirts they were selling. I thought the drawing was really nice and for a hot second I thought, damn I need one of these motherfuckers REAL bad but then my good brain, not my stoned brain, kicked in and way like “Hey Corbin, man, you’re probably too stoned to make this purchase, this shirt isn’t that nice dude.” Anyway, if I was still using, and I encountered this jersey in that state, I would HAVE to buy the Bismack Biyombo manifestation of this jersey, just spend whatever obscene amounts of money was requested of me, and regret the purchase in a very true and real way while also savoring my stoned wisdom in that time. This jersey rules.

SPURS:

I get that, as a left leaning-dude, I’m expected to hate black and white Spurs-branded digi-camo. But by making the camo black and white, it goes BEYOND a tribute-to-the-troops and turns a bunch of dudes who plays a game for a living into members of a private mercenary gang that kills its enemies with hoops. Watching capital inadvertently debase the world spanning military colossus that keeps it in power is kinda funny, I think it’s good.

UTAH:

Evokes the 70s, cocaine. Maravich belongs in this jersey.

KINGS:

The Basketball is a Lion King. He will stand above all other balls and roar, and the other balls will bow at his might until, one day, he is killed by another basketball, his brother who is also a basketball. His son, a basketball as well, will get revenge and take his place on the mountain, though.

BROOKLYN:

It’s a Nets Jersey. It’s black and white and it looks nice. Not everything needs to shatter molds.

MIAMI:

I wanna make a joke, but what, I’m made of stone?

KNICKS:

I like firefighters and no one can say otherwise.

BAD:

CELTICS:

You guys aren’t gonna believe this, but the Celtics have a boring looking alternate jersey to compliment their boring looking regular jersey. Features grey. More on that later. We are living in the wildest possible times.

LAKERS:

Kobe Bryant designed these. They’re supposed to look like snakes, because Kobe branded himself as a snake. Kobe spending his retirement trying a bunch of sports-adjacent shit he’s not good at and getting deferrence because he is Kobe Bryant, The Player Who Scored A Lot, is maybe the most embarrassing shit I’ve ever seen a professional athlete do. It would be less embarrassing if he was posting videos where people pissed in his mouth or making sly pro-Trump allusions to reporters or taking 125th place in Scrabble tournaments.

CAVS:

It is, I think, truly stunning how terrible these things are. They are, first, off, grey. You know, grey? The color of cloudy days and paved over fields? The color that only looks good on dads, while they swing hammers or pick up their children, or whatever? And then, the only color that REALLY compliments grey, which is yellow. You know. Like a paved road, that thing everyone thinks has a cool color? I mean who can blame Nike, I suppose, when LeBron James, the world’s most famous athlete, is the human being who is your most prominent non-Jordan pitchman, you gotta put him in the ugliest shit imaginable

OKC:

Honestly, It’s impressive how awful these are, soup-to-nuts. No one who made this had even one good idea they put into the final product. Every OKC jersey is bad, of course, on account of the team’s very existence being born from the poison seed of theft from Seattle, but… Gradients!? GRADIENTS!? A grey-to-grey-gradient? Why, on God’s green earth, is Nike fucking so hard with Grey, a color, not even a color, a SHADE, that has inspired exactly no people, ever? They like grey so much that they put TWO DIFFERENT KINDS of grey in this piece of garbage, and subtly mixed the two greys so that there would be nearly infinite manifestations of grey betweens the main greys. This jersey is seeking the limits of grey itself, the deepest grey, the grey at the edge of our understanding of grey.

WASHINGTON:

All the chocolate staining potential of the Chicago jersey, none of the evocative shit. These are maybe, low key, the worst one.

ATLANTA:

This evokes bees, not Hawks. Would someone please put feather texturing on these jerseys, like the world has been demanding all these years?

DETROIT:

These say “Motor City” but do not feature any pictures of cars, which I love because, like I said earlier, they are fast and they make loud noises. The move here was an updated version of the mid 90’s Grant-Hill vroom vroom firehorse, but Nike isn’t listening to good sense!

GOD ONLY KNOWS:

WOLVES:

Look, i’ve talked a lot of shit on Grey, which is Nike’s favorite color right now I guess, but I can accept it here. Minny winters are insanely grey, wolves are grey, this all makes thematic sense. But also: good god grey is ugly. Don’t wear grey!

MAVERICKS:

These are bad but they’re like so bad that I think they almost fly around the moon and become good again? They are a bad uniform that lives somewhere out of time, a look that has never been cool in any era, but in that fact I think they gain a kind of integrity. There’s a possibility that, someday, in 2067 or some shit, these will have been regarded at an innovative step forward in jersey aesthetics, even if we think they’re hideous now. Cop them and freeze dry to sell in the future.

WARRIORS:

That shade of yellow is hideous but the logo is cool? “The Bay” is some real San Francisco bullshit though, one of those subtle org-wide attempts to separate the team from Oakland before they strip the city of the team and move them to rich-ass tech boi SF in a few years.

MEMPHIS:

Honestly I feel weird writing snarky, mildly absurdist jokes about a jersey that is based on signs from a famous workers rights struggle. While I guess I respect Grizzlies celebrating a monumental protest with their unis, the fact that they were designed and manufactured by Nike, a company with a workers rights record that is spotty at best, goes a long way to defanging the allusion. Capitalism: it’s everywhere and it’s amoral!

SUNS:

EXTREMELY PURPLE. Purple is my favorite color and I honestly admire how purple these are, while also wondering… how purple is too purple?

PELICANS:

These are also Purple.

BLAZERS:

Every other Portland fan hates these things, which makes sense because they live in the world capital of streetwear snobbery. I think they’re fine. The plaid is totally unnecessary. If I was making these bad boys, I think I would stick a fat-ass salmon on there, personally. I also think that the mascot should be replaced with a salmon.

HORNETS:

I don’t even know, man. If it were up to me, I would make them play in a white jersey with a fat-ass picture of Michael Jordan’s smiling face on the front, and anything else will just seem incomplete to me.

NUGGETS:

Nice shade of blue. Fun stripes. Otherwise: whatever.

Okay I did it, this is every uniform. Back to tracking down every last piece of information I can collect and Baron + Laura. Where do they like to go to dinner, you think?

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA ‘City’ Uniform syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[flauntpage]

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA 'City' Uniform

The biggest NBA news of the day is that Baron Davis and Laura Dern are dating, but the second biggest news is that Nike Released their designs for every NBA team’s “City” alternate jersey, which are jerseys inspired by cities or some shit. I looked at them and wrote about them, like a normal sports blogger does.

GOOD:

CHICAGO:

It’s the flag, and it’s a nice flag everyone is very fond of. I am worried about players spilling chocolate on their unis, though. That would be very embarrassing, I think, to walk around with a big ol’ chocolate stain on your nice white uniform. High risk, high reward play, here.

PACERS:

It has a checkered flag, like a race car. I like race cars. I like that they go vroom vroom very fast.

CLIPPERS:

Look I don’t know what the fuck is has to do with boats, or why the team is wearing Miami Dolphins colors, but teal is an NBA power color and you have to respect any team that dons it.

BUCKS:

Eggshell tones baby! Perfect for the river-yacht or a chilly, fire-lit library, with a tasteful stripe down the middle to bring it all together. This is the midwestern thinking man’s alternate jersey. Also they say “CREAM CITY” on the bottom, which is where I live, work and play, spiritually.

MAGIC:

If you don’t like these, you need to smoke more weed. One time I was EXTREMELY blitzed off THC drops at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, and I spent like ten minutes in the gift shop, looking at the t-shirts they were selling. I thought the drawing was really nice and for a hot second I thought, damn I need one of these motherfuckers REAL bad but then my good brain, not my stoned brain, kicked in and way like “Hey Corbin, man, you’re probably too stoned to make this purchase, this shirt isn’t that nice dude.” Anyway, if I was still using, and I encountered this jersey in that state, I would HAVE to buy the Bismack Biyombo manifestation of this jersey, just spend whatever obscene amounts of money was requested of me, and regret the purchase in a very true and real way while also savoring my stoned wisdom in that time. This jersey rules.

SPURS:

I get that, as a left leaning-dude, I’m expected to hate black and white Spurs-branded digi-camo. But by making the camo black and white, it goes BEYOND a tribute-to-the-troops and turns a bunch of dudes who plays a game for a living into members of a private mercenary gang that kills its enemies with hoops. Watching capital inadvertently debase the world spanning military colossus that keeps it in power is kinda funny, I think it’s good.

SIXERS:

EXTRAORDINARILY classy font! Finally, the play of Joel Embiid is being recognized for what it is: a luxury product, grander than any wine, any gold topped chocolate bon bon, any gentle scented oil, rubbed into your back by the world’s strongest and most skilled masseuse.

ROCKETS:

At first glance, it’s maybe a little weird that the Rockets have Chinese writing on a jersey that is meant to celebrate the city of Houston, a city where most people speak English. But, clearly, this is the harbinger of the future for the franchise, which is going to move to Beijing as soon as possible. What’s my source? THAT’s my source buddy! BEIJING ROCKETS 2018-19, DON’T TRY TO HIDE FROM IT!

UTAH:

Evokes the 70s, cocaine. Maravich belongs in this jersey.

KINGS:

The Basketball is a Lion King. He will stand above all other balls and roar, and the other balls will bow at his might until, one day, he is killed by another basketball, his brother who is also a basketball. His son, a basketball as well, will get revenge and take his place on the mountain, though.

BROOKLYN:

It’s a Nets Jersey. It’s black and white and it looks nice. Not everything needs to shatter molds.

MIAMI:

I wanna make a joke, but what, I’m made of stone?

KNICKS:

I like firefighters and no one can say otherwise.

BAD:

CELTICS:

You guys aren’t gonna believe this, but the Celtics have a boring looking alternate jersey to compliment their boring looking regular jersey. Features grey. More on that later. We are living in the wildest possible times.

LAKERS:

Kobe Bryant designed these. They’re supposed to look like snakes, because Kobe branded himself as a snake. Kobe spending his retirement trying a bunch of sports-adjacent shit he’s not good at and getting deferrence because he is Kobe Bryant, The Player Who Scored A Lot, is maybe the most embarrassing shit I’ve ever seen a professional athlete do. It would be less embarrassing if he was posting videos where people pissed in his mouth or making sly pro-Trump allusions to reporters or taking 125th place in Scrabble tournaments.

CAVS:

It is, I think, truly stunning how terrible these things are. They are, first, off, grey. You know, grey? The color of cloudy days and paved over fields? The color that only looks good on dads, while they swing hammers or pick up their children, or whatever? And then, the only color that REALLY compliments grey, which is yellow. You know. Like a paved road, that thing everyone thinks has a cool color? I mean who can blame Nike, I suppose, when LeBron James, the world’s most famous athlete, is the human being who is your most prominent non-Jordan pitchman, you gotta put him in the ugliest shit imaginable

OKC:

Honestly, It’s impressive how awful these are, soup-to-nuts. No one who made this had even one good idea they put into the final product. Every OKC jersey is bad, of course, on account of the team’s very existence being born from the poison seed of theft from Seattle, but… Gradients!? GRADIENTS!? A grey-to-grey-gradient? Why, on God’s green earth, is Nike fucking so hard with Grey, a color, not even a color, a SHADE, that has inspired exactly no people, ever? They like grey so much that they put TWO DIFFERENT KINDS of grey in this piece of garbage, and subtly mixed the two greys so that there would be nearly infinite manifestations of grey betweens the main greys. This jersey is seeking the limits of grey itself, the deepest grey, the grey at the edge of our understanding of grey.

WASHINGTON:

All the chocolate staining potential of the Chicago jersey, none of the evocative shit. These are maybe, low key, the worst one.

ATLANTA:

This evokes bees, not Hawks. Would someone please put feather texturing on these jerseys, like the world has been demanding all these years.

DETROIT:

These say “Motor City” but do not feature any pictures of cars, which I love because, like I said earlier, they are fast and they make loud noises. The move here was an updated version of the mid 90’s Grant-Hill vroom vroom firehorse, but Nike isn’t listening to good sense!

GOD ONLY KNOWS:

WOLVES:

Look, I’ve talked a lot of shit on Grey, which is Nike’s favorite color right now I guess, but I can accept it here. Minny winters are insanely grey, wolves are grey, this all makes thematic sense. But also: good god grey is ugly. Don’t wear grey!

MAVERICKS:

These are bad but they’re like so bad that I think they almost fly around the moon and become good again? They are a bad uniform that lives somewhere out of time, a look that has never been cool in any era, but in that fact I think they gain a kind of integrity. There’s a possibility that, someday, in 2067 or some shit, these will have been regarded at an innovative step forward in jersey aesthetics, even if we think they’re hideous now. Cop them and freeze dry to sell in the future.

WARRIORS:

That shade of yellow is hideous but the logo is cool? “The Bay” is some real San Francisco bullshit though, one of those subtle org-wide attempts to separate the team from Oakland before they strip the city of the team and move them to rich-ass tech boi SF in a few years.

MEMPHIS:

Honestly I feel weird writing snarky, mildly absurdist jokes about a jersey that is based on signs from a famous workers rights struggle. While I guess I respect Grizzlies celebrating a monumental protest with their unis, the fact that they were designed and manufactured by Nike, a company with a workers rights record that is spotty at best, goes a long way to defanging the allusion. Capitalism: it’s everywhere and it’s amoral!

SUNS:

EXTREMELY PURPLE. Purple is my favorite color and I honestly admire how purple these are, while also wondering… how purple is too purple?

PELICANS:

These are also Purple.

BLAZERS:

Every other Portland fan hates these things, which makes sense because they live in the world capital of streetwear snobbery. I think they’re fine. The plaid is totally unnecessary. If I was making these bad boys, I think I would stick a fat-ass salmon on there, personally. I also think that the mascot should be replaced with a salmon.

HORNETS:

I don’t even know, man. If it were up to me, I would make them play in a white jersey with a fat-ass picture of Michael Jordan’s smiling face on the front, and anything else will just seem incomplete to me.

RAPTORS:

Finally a uniform that tells sports fans: “Hey: my face is up here. I know my body is chugging away down here, but the soul is in the face, and that’s where a person’s TRUE MEANING can be found. Geeze louise.”

NUGGETS:

Nice shade of blue. Fun stripes. Otherwise: whatever.

Okay I did it, this is every uniform. Back to tracking down every last piece of information I can collect and Baron + Laura. Where do they like to go to dinner, you think?

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA 'City' Uniform published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA 'City' Uniform

The biggest NBA news of the day is that Baron Davis and Laura Dern are dating, but the second biggest news is that Nike Released their designs for every NBA team’s “City” alternate jersey, which are jerseys inspired by cities or some shit. I looked at them and wrote about them, like a normal sports blogger does.

GOOD:

CHICAGO:

It’s the flag, and it’s a nice flag everyone if very fond of. I am worried about players spilling chocolate on their unis, though. That would be very embarrassing, I think, to walk around with a big ol’ chocolate stain on your nice white uniform. High risk, high reward play, here.

PACERS:

It has a checkered flag, like a race car. I like race cars. I like that they go vroom vroom very fast.

CLIPPERS:

Look I don’t know what the fuck is has to do with boats, or why the team is wearing Miami Dolphins colors, but teal is an NBA power color and you have to respect any team that dons it.

BUCKS:

Eggshell tones baby! Perfect for the river-yacht or a chilly, fire-lit library, with a tasteful stripe down the middle to bring it all together. This is the midwestern thinking man’s alternate jersey. Also they say “CREAM CITY” on the bottom, which is where I live, work and play, spiritually.

MAGIC:

If you don’t like these, you need to smoke more weed. One time I was EXTREMELY blitzed off THC drops at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, and I spent like ten minutes in the gift shop, looking at the t-shirts they were selling. I thought the drawing was really nice and for a hot second I thought, damn I need one of these motherfuckers REAL bad but then my good brain, not my stoned brain, kicked in and way like “Hey Corbin, man, you’re probably too stoned to make this purchase, this shirt isn’t that nice dude.” Anyway, if I was still using, and I encountered this jersey in that state, I would HAVE to buy the Bismack Biyombo manifestation of this jersey, just spend whatever obscene amounts of money was requested of me, and regret the purchase in a very true and real way while also savoring my stoned wisdom in that time. This jersey rules.

SPURS:

I get that, as a left leaning-dude, I’m expected to hate black and white Spurs-branded digi-camo. But by making the camo black and white, it goes BEYOND a tribute-to-the-troops and turns a bunch of dudes who plays a game for a living into members of a private mercenary gang that kills its enemies with hoops. Watching capital inadvertently debase the world spanning military colossus that keeps it in power is kinda funny, I think it’s good.

UTAH:

Evokes the 70s, cocaine. Maravich belongs in this jersey.

KINGS:

The Basketball is a Lion King. He will stand above all other balls and roar, and the other balls will bow at his might until, one day, he is killed by another basketball, his brother who is also a basketball. His son, a basketball as well, will get revenge and take his place on the mountain, though.

BROOKLYN:

It’s a Nets Jersey. It’s black and white and it looks nice. Not everything needs to shatter molds.

MIAMI:

I wanna make a joke, but what, I’m made of stone?

KNICKS:

I like firefighters and no one can say otherwise.

BAD:

CELTICS:

You guys aren’t gonna believe this, but the Celtics have a boring looking alternate jersey to compliment their boring looking regular jersey. Features grey. More on that later. We are living in the wildest possible times.

LAKERS:

Kobe Bryant designed these. They’re supposed to look like snakes, because Kobe branded himself as a snake. Kobe spending his retirement trying a bunch of sports-adjacent shit he’s not good at and getting deferrence because he is Kobe Bryant, The Player Who Scored A Lot, is maybe the most embarrassing shit I’ve ever seen a professional athlete do. It would be less embarrassing if he was posting videos where people pissed in his mouth or making sly pro-Trump allusions to reporters or taking 125th place in Scrabble tournaments.

CAVS:

It is, I think, truly stunning how terrible these things are. They are, first, off, grey. You know, grey? The color of cloudy days and paved over fields? The color that only looks good on dads, while they swing hammers or pick up their children, or whatever? And then, the only color that REALLY compliments grey, which is yellow. You know. Like a paved road, that thing everyone thinks has a cool color? I mean who can blame Nike, I suppose, when LeBron James, the world’s most famous athlete, is the human being who is your most prominent non-Jordan pitchman, you gotta put him in the ugliest shit imaginable

OKC:

Honestly, It’s impressive how awful these are, soup-to-nuts. No one who made this had even one good idea they put into the final product. Every OKC jersey is bad, of course, on account of the team’s very existence being born from the poison seed of theft from Seattle, but… Gradients!? GRADIENTS!? A grey-to-grey-gradient? Why, on God’s green earth, is Nike fucking so hard with Grey, a color, not even a color, a SHADE, that has inspired exactly no people, ever? They like grey so much that they put TWO DIFFERENT KINDS of grey in this piece of garbage, and subtly mixed the two greys so that there would be nearly infinite manifestations of grey betweens the main greys. This jersey is seeking the limits of grey itself, the deepest grey, the grey at the edge of our understanding of grey.

WASHINGTON:

All the chocolate staining potential of the Chicago jersey, none of the evocative shit. These are maybe, low key, the worst one.

ATLANTA:

This evokes bees, not Hawks. Would someone please put feather texturing on these jerseys, like the world has been demanding all these years?

DETROIT:

These say “Motor City” but do not feature any pictures of cars, which I love because, like I said earlier, they are fast and they make loud noises. The move here was an updated version of the mid 90’s Grant-Hill vroom vroom firehorse, but Nike isn’t listening to good sense!

GOD ONLY KNOWS:

WOLVES:

Look, i’ve talked a lot of shit on Grey, which is Nike’s favorite color right now I guess, but I can accept it here. Minny winters are insanely grey, wolves are grey, this all makes thematic sense. But also: good god grey is ugly. Don’t wear grey!

MAVERICKS:

These are bad but they’re like so bad that I think they almost fly around the moon and become good again? They are a bad uniform that lives somewhere out of time, a look that has never been cool in any era, but in that fact I think they gain a kind of integrity. There’s a possibility that, someday, in 2067 or some shit, these will have been regarded at an innovative step forward in jersey aesthetics, even if we think they’re hideous now. Cop them and freeze dry to sell in the future.

WARRIORS:

That shade of yellow is hideous but the logo is cool? “The Bay” is some real San Francisco bullshit though, one of those subtle org-wide attempts to separate the team from Oakland before they strip the city of the team and move them to rich-ass tech boi SF in a few years.

MEMPHIS:

Honestly I feel weird writing snarky, mildly absurdist jokes about a jersey that is based on signs from a famous workers rights struggle. While I guess I respect Grizzlies celebrating a monumental protest with their unis, the fact that they were designed and manufactured by Nike, a company with a workers rights record that is spotty at best, goes a long way to defanging the allusion. Capitalism: it’s everywhere and it’s amoral!

SUNS:

EXTREMELY PURPLE. Purple is my favorite color and I honestly admire how purple these are, while also wondering… how purple is too purple?

PELICANS:

These are also Purple.

BLAZERS:

Every other Portland fan hates these things, which makes sense because they live in the world capital of streetwear snobbery. I think they’re fine. The plaid is totally unnecessary. If I was making these bad boys, I think I would stick a fat-ass salmon on there, personally. I also think that the mascot should be replaced with a salmon.

HORNETS:

I don’t even know, man. If it were up to me, I would make them play in a white jersey with a fat-ass picture of Michael Jordan’s smiling face on the front, and anything else will just seem incomplete to me.

NUGGETS:

Nice shade of blue. Fun stripes. Otherwise: whatever.

Okay I did it, this is every uniform. Back to tracking down every last piece of information I can collect and Baron + Laura. Where do they like to go to dinner, you think?

A Comprehensive Review Every New NBA 'City' Uniform published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv