#damn i always knew homeschool kids are freaks

[mercutiotakethewheel]

ok so realistically i know theres important character reasons Kendra (and Seth and Warren by extension) never suspect Gavarog. It’s the old society trick to set up threats as team bonding exercises, etc, etc. plus this is a new and unfamiliar world thats rapidly overtaking her real world and replacing all her existing relationships, and right now Gavarog’s like the only member of her magical-worl peer group, so she doesnt want him to be a traitor, just like she didnt want Vanessa, her only female mentor to be a traitor, etc , etc.

but also i wholeheartedly 100% believe that every time Gavin did some truly bizarre, weird ass shit Kendra was just like. damnnnn…. average home school kid behavior.

[sheep33hallow]

Paws (GhostSoap) Call of Duty

Rating: G-T

Summary:

Soap, Ghost, Gaz and Prince have been in the Heavy Metal band, Underground 141, for over 20 years. They know they're a successful band, their manager Laswell has them working as a tight unit, and their accountants would agree as well. Three out of the four of them have kids, two are married and Ghost likes being the odd man out. 

AO3

___

Soap, Ghost, Gaz and Prince have been in the Heavy Metal band, Underground 141, for over 20 years. They know they're a successful band, their manager Laswell has them working as a tight unit, and their accountants would agree as well. 

Three out of the four of them have kids, two are married and Ghost likes being the odd man out. 

In his bones, he is a woodsman at heart. He likes wilderness activities, and collecting guns. His home is a fortress, yet it's also littered with teenagers' junk since Soap’s kids like being at his home as much as their Father does. 

He never understood his friends' fascination with him, and his kids have caught it as well. He's had to yell at them a few times when Gaz and Price bring their kids over and they want time with him as well. 

He knows more information about how the people think about their band than he's used to knowing, now that Emilio, Soap’s oldest, likes to record them for his TikToks. 

Ghost is always in his mask when he's recording. The world has never seen his face. He performs with it, does photoshoots in it and interviews. 

He was homeschooled as a kid, and the only person with photos of him as a kid is his brother. 

Against his will, he's learned the internet likes to ship Soap and he. He finds it odd. Shouldn't they ship their lead singer with someone who's handsome, or his ex-wife. He doesn't understand the appeal that two middle aged men have to people. 

Valeria, Soap’s ex, and PR manager, called him a Puta, when she told him to post more pictures of him and John on his insta instead of the fish he catches. 

Later that day, a photo of him without his face showing, and shirtless, with his fish he caught, shows up on Johnny's Instagram. They spent the weekend at one of Ghost cabins, making a fire, and cooking soup the old fashion way. It was something they liked to do from time to time. He knew Soap took photos of him, always has since they met. The little freak likes to act like the paparazzi and take photos of him when he thinks Simon isn't paying attention. 

The Internet instantly knows it's Ghost body. He may not show his face, but he shows his arms every now and again. It gets hot on stage playing the guitar for four hours, while Gaz will play the drums while they shower him with water during one of their theatrical sets. 

Valeria high fived Soap the next time they had a management meeting. 

He stood up and took a bow, everyone clapping for him. 

Ghost didn't clap, he was just confused. 

“Simon, ye just don't know the appeal ye have on people.” Johnny said when the meeting was over, as they walked down the hallway for their studio session. Johnny had his arm wrapped around Simon’s, leaning his head on the tall man’s shoulder. 

“Your attention is enough to fill a stadium. I don't need more people gawking at me.” Simon said, behind his half mask. 

“Ye just need me, big yin?” 

“I got you, even if I don't want you, don't I?” 

Soap laughs. “Damn, right.” He reaches over and rubs his hand on Simon's stomach over his signature black hoodie. “Ye gonnae cook fer me later?” 

“If you can make whatever those lyrics Gaz was trying to explain to us in that meeting sound good, sure.” 

They arrived, at the entrance of the studio, and Soap, wrapped a hand around Ghost wrist, “As long as ye, haz a right melody for me to holler to.” 

“Oh, I'll give you something to holler to, Johnny.” 

Ghost watched the blush flush up Soap's face, before opening the door, and pushing the Scottman inside. 

_____

Ghost shouldn't be surprised that it took this long for it to happen. 

Soaps have been hinting around for a while on the subject, and even the kids have been showing him videos and dropping horrible concealed hits on the topic, and now he's in this predicament. 

“Guys, guys, look at the new puppy my Uncle Ghost got!” Emilio was recording him while the dalmatian puppy was trying to take his sock off as he sat on the floor in front of his couch in the living room. 

The curly hair teen had his phone up, moving around in slow circles trying to get every angle, Ghost guessed. Soap was sitting on the couch next to him with Ghost's head resting on his knee. 

He had his official Ghost mask on since he knew the boy was going to record at some point during their time together. 

Soap’s daughter Tila, was in the kitchen eating out of a bag of grapes with the fridge door open. 

“Get ye a bowl, wee an.” Soap yelled for about the third time, but the 12 year old continued eating on the floor. 

“It's fine.” Ghost said he had one of his arms curled around Soap’s leg. He caressed his friend's ankle. “You MacTavish always eat me out of house and home. Don't know why you just don't move in at this point.” 

Soap stuck a few fingers under the back of Ghost’s mask, fiddling with the hairs on the back. “Dinnae thinks a Britt like ye, could handle us Scotts 24/7.” He murmurs. 

Simon huffs a laugh. He glances as Emilio picks up the puppy, and records themselves dancing together to some song. The boy had his ear buds in. 

“Oh, and 23/6.5 is clearly my limit.” 

Soap hums. 

“Well, both of our names are on the wee dug's certificate.” He says with a tone of nonchalant. 

Ghost firmly grasps Johnny's ankle. “Yeah, even though it's my dog.” 

Soap hums again. He takes his hand out of Ghost mask, and slides down on the floor with him. 

“Be careful Johnny. You can't get up and down like you used to.” Ghost teases. 

“Name the time, Si, and I can show ye, how much I can still get up and down just fine. Treat yeez like a bonnie cuddy.” He takes Simon's hand into his, and grins a feral grin at his long time friend before licking his bottom lips and biting it. 

Simon laughs at him. “I thought you needed a wedding before you'd give it up again.” 

“Aye, I do.” He looks at Simon meaningfully. 

Oh. 

“Oh.” 

Soap chuckles at him. “Let's talk more when the bairns are asleep, yeah? Maybe I'll show yeez a good winch.” 

Ghost is speechless after that. 

AO3

[batsforbadones]

Herbert West with a Teenage daughter?

For the hey of it, the mom skipped out. This turned out alot goofier than expected,

- Daughter? You mean prodigy - But he’d definitely say it in that highclass way of Pro-de-zhay. Herbert always stressed being proper and well spoken. She may or may not have a complex about it if anyone points out an accent. - Homeschooled freak. Why would she need to go to school to be taught religious dribble when she has him? He didn’t socially interact with any other kids and look at Herbert he turned out... Well rounded enough. - His daughter used to follow him around in the lab alot. He’d gotten her a miniature science kit when she was extremely small, and he had to hold back tears as he watched her mimic his pouring. God damn look at those beady eyes watching him calculate. He shouldn’t want to bite children but god her little legs are just so chubby- Herbert has never experienced baby fever.  - Daddy’s future nobel prize winner, yes she is-  - That was then, this is now and Herbert was still as dedicated to the craft as ever. As was his daughter, but he felt like he missed a step. He had to. He was supposed to be her dad- - Getting really sick and tired of how much better of a father Dan is. He’s not even her real dad, just the god father. It was confusing- Herbert’s parents were strict... He’s nowhere near as bad as that, why doesn’t she like him as much as Dan? He’s... - Oh who is he kidding he’s not fun. Dan’s fun. Dan is normal. He didn’t give you a complex about raising the dead. Herbert was used to being the bad guy- The fun police. He liked being that. He knew the things he found fun alot of other people didn’t, but he didn’t think his own kid would hate him so much for it. She just liked Dan more. - If he has to hear one more time about how Dan did this or Dan did that you’re going to have to reanimate him because he’s -- this close to ending it. It’s like you’re rubbing in his face how much of a better parent Dan is. He gets he’s not the most emotionally available, but this is just sad. - If she ever did anything equating to telling him to pull a stick out of his ass, he’d probably have a mental break down. He’d tell her to go to her room, and then he’d angry sob in the basement. If Dan came down to check on him, he’d probably try to hit him, or at the very least lash out.  - ‘ Why don’t you come get ice cream with us? ‘ - ‘ She likes ice cream? Since when? ‘  - Oh God why is he such a pathetic dad- - ‘ It’s not that bad, West. All teens are like this. She’s just rebelling! ‘ - ‘ I wasn’t like this! ‘ - Dan : 😬  - Dan. internally : how do i tell him he’s emotionally stunted - Dan, externally : It’s better this way. - That was the worst thing he could’ve said. Ever. - ‘ Don’t tell me what’s good for her! That’s my daughter, Dan. Get your own! ‘  - ‘ I apologize, West, I forgot to call the stork! Let me just - ‘ - ‘ Jesus, you know what I mean! ‘ - Not the best dad, but he’s trying his best. She’s just a little too tween to really understand that.

[hasliaran]

Undertale is owned by Toby Fox

Sooner or Later You’re Gonna be Mine is written by Staringback.

TimeHealsTale - Still a WIP by me.

Meet my undertale OC from TimeHealsTale which is an AU living rent free in my head. They are a canon MC that replaces the real Sans (age 5) after he got dumped into a tub of Void by Gaster to be forgotten.

Name: Comic Sans Du Font (Comic/Komi)

Age: 22 (5 years younger than canon Sans and 8 years older than Paps)

Job: Monster Healer that does House-calls. (Not a Judge; Sans disappeared because he was a Judge)

Profile in Game: Toriel’s Contact, The Smuggler, Summon Healer (after befriending; limited to 5 calls (diff. work phone no.); rapid calls will assume it’s a prank and not be picked up for a certain period of time.)

This is not her usual outfit but I just really wanted to post it.

In my head, the scene goes …

- she fell into the void trying to pull out a deformed still 5 years old Sans when she was going through her father’s stuff in his lab dungeon. (Occurred after the barrier broke)

- Sans was in a mega huge test tube floating in pitch black Void essence (frozen in stasis as no time passes through Void), so she couldn’t see anything or knew he was inside. Only after she accidentally tipped it over, smashing it to pieces, when trying to push it out of the lab that she realised there was an effing toddler inside it.

“Dad, seriously?” Comic got fed up already with the mess her father left behind after he got scattered.

- Cue her trying to grab the kid out of the muck only to fall in and be dropped down into another universe with the little one.

(Yes, this is the multiverse travel scene excuse and I love it)

Back then, Sooner or later your gonna be mine just uploaded a new comic chapter on YouTube. Hence, my brain went overdrive and said it’s a free real estate. So, I imagined the duo getting found by the skeleton brothers before the story started from rumours of them pillaging around trash sites, random food thefts and small skeletons offering up to do odd jobs.

Other skeletons than them, huh, curious.

Them skeletons in that story was already huge as heck though, now imagine a five a year old and a roughly five foot skeleton with a slight build running around what was essentially a mob era in the 1920’s.

The first thing that would go through their thick skulls was KIDS, THEY ARE KIDS, WHO HERE F***ED AND DIDN’T USE PROTECTION ?!

So much shenanigans from just trying to chase them down. ^_^

In the end, Komi and Void/V (little Sans; Komi’s not that creative at naming) were lured in by food, an offer for a roof over their heads and warm baths. Yep, tragic.

Little sans doesn’t look like a sans anymore here but a mere smooth skull shell with two big eye sockets and nothing else. I meant that literally. No lips or teeth as those were melted away and a pitch black body with stumps for legs. (look at Hollow Knight; Ghost but without the horns and has smoothen out round cheeks at least. I love that game.)

The last thing he remembered was that his aunt (step sister actually but he knows her as auntie) giving birth in the Underground Hospital and his uncle (Gaster) pushing him into a tub of black liquid, watching him drown.

And now he can’t talk since his lips is sealed shut.

Moreover, someone with his name who looks like a lot like his auntie and a bit like his uncle was dragging him around somewhere. It’s hella weird and confusing and he can’t cry properly. (Yes, HK reference here)

Yes, there is a story here for the duo that will coincide with SoLY’reGBM. Mostly, with Komi claiming Bara Sans courting skills were lame as hell no wonder Frisk ran screaming. This happen only at the time they were all comfortable enough to diss each other. Still, she and V were treated like sassy annoying younger siblings.

One’s assumed to be a teenager another a preschooler. So both were admitted to schools by force and with threats for Komi by Gaster since he didn’t want them in the house 24/7. Also to just enjoy the fact they have money now to send someone in their place to experience school. Papyrus here loves it that someone gets to experience and tell him all about while also not being the youngest in the family anymore.

Komi, in hindsight was 50/50 about it. Hating the idea at first before going, huh, maybe it’s not so bad… Hence the outfit up there. ^

She only has been to pre-school when her mother was alive and nothing else since, Gaster, her father, deeming it useless and only had been homeschooled by him. As much as you could call being locked in a room and told to read/answer these sheets of questions or not she’s never allowed to feed Papyrus as homeschooling activities. It happened in a period of when she was 10 - 14, so Paps would be 2 - 6. Damn well, she learned to memorise and spit everything out like a photocopier.

Seeing the Gaster in this universe sorta freaks her out. Making her wait to be ordered and when she doesn’t gets the order or the orders were just a pat on the skull and be told to behave, nothing else. She will proceed to look at him funny only to realise that oh, this is not dad. The three brothers can see that gal there has been through some shit and it’s not the fun kind. This also makes them question whether they should let them go back to wherever they came from, and that’s a whole other bag of fish to fry.

Komi knows they are a mob family, accepts it because hey her dad had a dungeon where he cuts up humans and eats SOULs for breakfast so why not this?

Only to find out they are pretty nice for a family and was this what a family suppose to be like? She liked it.

Komi with V/Void -, I will protect you my new baby brother that I have adopted at first sight with my body and SOUL. Which she does, she was raised with her Papyrus who was always aimed at gunpoint by her father. Basically, a rinse and repeat cycle situation in her eyes. Only to find out that no, nobody was out to get V!

She felt so gosh darn free in this universe but felt as though she was missing something all the time.

Yep, her found family from back home. So, definitely gotta get out of here somehow.

While also going to high school and befriending your adopted uncles’s enemy’s niece. Fuku Fire. Definitely not telling them what she did. They are gonna get so pissed.

Fuku - I have befriended the cool kid that’s not afraid to talk back against adults and was already a pro in home economics, who is also a skeleton Monster, meaning from a rival family. My parents and Uncle *pedo* Grillby must never know.

Comic will also be going through the motions of life here while figuring out how V’s powers work to send them back home and be getting a supply of Uncle’s favourite mustard since he’s been bitching about it every day by now.

He and Gaster will most definitely never know.

Nah, they know. Comic is a freaking blabber mouth that tells everything to this version of Papyrus just like she does in her own universe. Confirmed, she’ll be outed within 3 days by Paps and a fight about who she befriends was not their business.-at Gaster - who then sees it as an opportunity. Which leaves her storming out yelling they are all the same. Gaster and her Gaster.

Shit goes down that day, and everything went A-okay. Komi would make attempts to not overlap her father’s image over this guy because really, this Gaster is the farthest thing to her dad that’s a centuries old psychopath craving the secrets of the multiverse who would instead have not let her run out the house unscathed for yelling nor talked through things with her when she was brought back.

Darn guy was pretty nice.

Sans and Papyrus of this universe : who are you and what have you done to our brother?

G: What was that?

S&P: Nothing. S: (mutters under his breath) bias piece of sh*t

Then there’s that scene where they now got a new area to govern. Komi and V finds it weird but okay. *shrugs*. It felt like they were going to govern their territory or something. Sounds like basic Royal Guards one-o-one shtick her middle bro’s and friends’ kinda work. Seems simple enough.

It was not simple. I repeat, it was not simple.

G: No, we do not have to patrol the area.

G: No, we do not do shifts to monitor criminal activities.

G: It’s just an area that we will get a claim to.

G: But I need the humans here to be comfortable with Monsters, so I am going to let loose Papyrus on them. Since, we also have you two as well. Feel free to interact with the Humans. Tell me if anyone gives you three any trouble, Sans and I will personally deal with it.

S: wut? Yes? Yep, whatever he says goes. Better listen to your elders, brats.

P: Really, Sans?

C: So-, you want us to help around with the people in the area? Like charity work? Give free food and all that?

G: (how did she jumped to that? but otherwise, she’s not wrong.) … Yes-, that. Feel free to use your green magic on them as well if you have to but only when necessary. I don’t want you to suddenly disappear because your own loose lips.

C: Alright. (Does an excited fist pump) This is gonna be awesome~! …. Heyyy, did you just-

P: And I will be sure to guard them. (No arguing here from the other brothers)

V: (pouts and hand signed) N-O-T—B-A-B-Y

P: (could only stare at this being that barely reaches his kneecaps) Of course, little one.

All I know is, all of them are sassy sarcastic shits and there’s way more to be continued here.

So byeeee~

[marquiswrites]

Silk and Steel Ch 26

AO3 Link

Master List

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)

Characters: James “Bucky” Barnes, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, OFC/MC

Relationship: James “Bucky” Barnes/Reader

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 916

Warnings:  some language, some depictions of violence

Author’s Notes: Notes at end of chapter

Summary:  The team has finally managed to collect you, now all that's left is to get out, and get you to safety.So who, exactly, was in charge of the exit strategy?

Chapter 26: The Garage

Bucky hated himself for giving the order, watching Natasha render you unconscious with a spider bite once they had gotten you to where Steve was, the man surrounded by Hydra agents that had attempted to take him out.Natasha right there beside him, the pair just about back to back when the group finally reached their location. 

“Alright, Nat?” Steve called over his shoulder, keeping his attention outward as she tended to you, your fight against the webbing that held you in place continuing until you seized with the touch of her weapon. Giving a lasting look of betrayal to Bucky, one that made his heart stop for a full second before he was resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Squeezing in a way that Bucky could only hope was reassuring. “Don’t worry boys, our ride is on it’s way.” The woman smirked, gaze flickering over each of the team, even as she ran a surprisingly gentle hand over your hair. As though trying to soothe the crease in your brow. 

“Do I even want to know what that means?” Tony huffed, making Bucky bristle. He had history with Natasha, even if he couldn’t remember it, he knew he could trust her. Knew that she always had a way out, even on a mission with no extraction plan in place. 

“What about the other one, thought this entire thing was about grabbing her brother, yeah?” Sam flicked his visor across the room. “I’ve got visual on two separate teams, and only one of them is headed for us. Another visual on the garage, we need to be making time if we want to get out of this in any kind of shape that isn’t bad.” “Our priority is getting Druid out. After that, we regroup and track the others.” Steve gave a nod, then pointed his fingers down the hallway he had cleared, indicating that they should be moving forward. 

Bucky hated himself even worse for the fact that they had the kid carrying you, leaving himself with an assault rifle that he had filched from one of the downed bodies. Steve leading the way, shield poised as another layer of protection between you and any incoming. Tony keeping beside you and the kid, with the Falcon and Natasha taking the sweep position. They weren’t taking any risks. 

Not again. 

Not with you. Never with you.

The alarms were still blaring, irritating him all the more, setting him on edge. The flashing red lights causing him to see shadows where there weren’t any. Hell but he felt like a green recruit, thrown fresh faced onto the battlefields of France. 

He wasn’t that man. He hadn’t been for a long time. Not since Hydra. Not since the fall.

But right now he didn’t exactly feel like he could manage the cold exterior of the Soldat. There was too much at stake. 

Only responding with a sharp nod as Steve gave him the signal to sweep further ahead. “Redwing picks up that our incoming are falling at a pretty damn quick rate. Any ideas as to why that might be, Cap?” He could hear Natasha chuckle softly. “That would be our ride.” Her tone filled with wry amusement. Causing Bucky to look over his shoulder before he was jamming his thumb against the access panel. The steel door to the underground garage hissing open. 

“Well, don’t just stand there looking like a damn fool, let’s get a move on while I’m still young.” 

And there was Nick Fury, his black SUV already open and waiting, a second pulled up behind it with Maria Hill popping off a pistol at the remainder of the Hydra agents. 

“Not exactly the time to stand staring, Sargent.” Came her huff. Rolling her eyes. “Couldn’t even give them a warning Natasha?” “You know me, always so forthcoming.” Natasha swept in behind the rest of the group. Patting Bucky’s shoulder as she went. His gaze shifted to her before looking to Peter, waiting for him to nod almost too eagerly, too nervously before his attention shifted back to the situation at hand.

“Tony, long time no see.” 

“Fury, I had hoped to keep it that way for a little longer. You’ll forgive me if I sit with Miss Hill, yeah?” “Bucky, Nat, Spiderman, go with Druid. Tony, the other car with Fury and Miss Hill. Falcon-”

“I already know, Cap. I’ll be keeping a bird eye view.” Sam smirked. Jogging for the open access tunnel before flicking out his wings. Flying forward ahead of the other groups, while Steve grabbed a motorcycle, hotwiring it quickly before revving the engine. 

“Alright team, priority is completing the extraction. We’re cutting our losses here, but this is a temporary situation. We can place the call to Shuri as soon as we reach the base. After that, we regroup, find a way to extract her brother.” 

Bucky gave a nod, heading for the vehicle when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. 

Turning and freezing at the sight of another all too familiar face. 

It didn’t matter if he had gotten older. The look he had given him was the same. The glare just as full of hatred, of anger. Of desperation.

With a sharp nod, Kostya slammed his fist through the access panel, sparks flying out around him as the steel door shutt between the two men. Cutting off all further access to this particular route out. 

Placing himself between Hydra and his sister. 

Author’s Notes: Oh my goodness has it been freaking crazy since the start of the new year.To everyone following this story, I want to thank you so much for your patience and for keeping with me. I know that it's taken me forever to get back to everything, and I keep saying that real life has been getting in the way, so I feel like I owe everyone some sort of explanation.

Unfortunately, at work, they started to put more limitations on access to websites. And work is where I got most of my writing done, as I am usually too pooped out by the end of the day. Add onto that, that our CSR's ended up absorbing the work of two other departments, we've basically been entirely swamped, leaving me no time, even if I had had the energy.

Then, as of February, I ended up moving, which is a big yay! But it came with a lot of little adjustments that I am finally now setting into, including getting a working and writing space all to myself for the first time in years.

With the Quarantine, I am now working from home, and my workload is exponentially lighter, however I am now homeschooling my smol person, and we have finally settled into a good routine with all this craziness.

Again, I just want to thank everyone so much, if you've managed to stick around. I can promise that I will absolutely see this story through to the end, because it will not let it's hooks out of me. And for those of you who follow my other stories, if you do, they are going to keep being worked on as well.

[toonqueen]

DARK ANIMANIACS/TINY TOONS LORE

It's 9 am time for dark Warner sibling thoughts

First let's roughly establish:

-The warner siblings locked in the tower takes place in the same universe as Roger Rabbit.

-Tiny Toons, though not interacting with non animated  humans, takes place in the same universe as well. It does have the same fourth wall break that toons are actors since they're going to school for it.

-Bonkers and House of Mouse also exists in this universe but that's a detail I won't get to today.

This is written without doing research, just based on my memories of eps so things may be off. Woo.

Main plot  of the Warner siblings is that they were too wacky probably didn't fall in line to act to produce shows, pranked everyone, so they were locked up in the studio water tower. FROM LIKE THE 30'S TO THE 90'S JAYSUS. Though I believe there were some flashback eps where they broke out in the past. Lets roughly say from the 70s to 90s it had been completely silent in that tower. And that's kinda creepy.

BECAUSE TINY TOONS establishes toons can fade away if they are forgotten. There was an ep where Babs was looking for a female mentor. She finds old black and while films of a forgotten 1930s lady toon  that no longer exists cuz I remember it is stated that she faded away because she was forgotten. There was also an ep where the Dodo bird was captured by a villain and started to fade because while imprisoned he couldn't be wacky so he was literally fading away.

So did the human WB studios get so annoyed with the Warner siblings they locked them away to disappear- pretty much the toon form of a death sentence? Damnnnn. But then, they don't lock them away in some vault in the basement. No, they lock them away in a water tower that is seeable from  anywhere on a studio lot. Why?

TO SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE TO OTHER TOONS. To be a threat if you don't stay in line and make us money you can suffer this same fate of not being seen by humans and forgotten and then fade away. 

HOLY HELL.

Anyways this next part was written late at night due to too much caffeine: 

Now let's get back to Tiny Toons for a moment. What I remember from the ep that covered the kids and school origin was some animator had made some of the Tiny Toon’s villains first but they did not like the show premise he pushed or something? Anyways, he creates Babs and Buster bunny with Bugs bunny in mind. (No relation, all three of them. ha.) He creates the other kiddo versions of Loony Toons? GOD REMEMBERING THIS IS LIKE A FRIKKING ACID TRIP. Anyways, the kids make a ruckus? Bugs and maybe Daffy show up? Bugs just makes the University that the kids can go do. Like I bet he literally just painted it on a map and then it exists like the freaking elder god level powers well known toons have like DAMN. So thats how that all went down in show. 

Now my headcanon is that Daffy probably at first didn’t want to go along with this whole, ‘lets have this school for these new kid aged toons and be their teachers and we’re kinda responsible for them now.” lol since Babs and Buster was made with Bugs in mind, Daffy can make the side comment of something like, “Why am I responsible for your accident babies?”  Now the funny answer Bugs can give is something like, “Well there’s a duck that there too that has your eyes.” the more serious answer Bugs can give if he is irritated that Daffy is being difficult about helping is, “We don’t want another water tower incident.”

Because OH DAMN Bugs and Daffy would have been created around the same time as the Warner siblings were. And here’s the thing. Most toons are ‘created’ being adults just already. Some could argue the Warners were children. Hyperactive children with all the sorta powerful abilities that all toons have. Then they were expected to behave and make shows that were watchible to make the studio money and instead were just locked away. THATS SOME MESSED UP SHIT YO. 

So canonly Bugs made the school and headcanon he did it so the same thing that happened to the Warners wouldn’t happen to this new group of kids toons. Okay. Y’all still with me?

Okay, BACK TO THAT EPISODE where Babs finds out there is a lost female toon that would be a great mentor for her. What I remember once she saw the old reels of this toon’s stuff and found out of someone is forgotten the disappear. Just here seeing the vids doesn’t bring back this toon though.  She went to Bugs I think asking for the lost cartoons to be shown in class or something. And I remember Bugs being a HUGE jerk about it. Not helping Babs showing the cartoons. Like cold about it. Like DAMN BUGS. Anyways Babs rents? Builds? A movie theater herself and shows the cartoons. It then surprisingly brings back the lost toon in question so YAY. 

Now I don’t remember why canonly why Bugs was a dick in this episode but here is my headcanon. What if toons (At least WB toons) were lead to believe that only real humans believing in them lead to them not being forgotten and disappearing. What if this thing Babs did was a new discovery that TOONS not forgetting other TOONS could still keep them from disappearing. Bugs and Daffy would share a knowing look at this new information. One of them jokingly says, “I wonder if the Mouse knows about this.”

See something else is going down at Disney but I’m not getting into that now. Woooo.

Now let's assume soon after this incident is when the Warner siblings start getting active again, since their whole show was about them breaking out of the tower in now modern times after being locked away there for 50 years. Let's say that theater Babs made/used then started regularly showing old cartoons. Purposefully. Like a conspiracy to get faded out toons back real again. *cue X-files theme.*

BACK TO THE WARNERS PLOT.

Okay now the kids are back… mysteriously. The real human studio seems to have given up on having them be erased from memory and well, what was done in the 1930’s isn’t acceptable now so like they get that Dr. Scratch and Sniff to therapy them into good behavior??!?!?

Meanwhile while that's going on canonly I’m betting that Bugs, Daffy, and main Looney Toons crew are planning a Oceans 11 style heist to actually get the siblings out of there and to ToonTown/Acme Acres. Now they know they’d be in big trouble of the human studio knew they were behind this so they would go one step further and take the kids to Wackyland. Because while ToonTown in Roger Rabbit seemed like a place humans could go, I always got a vibe that Wackyland is this one step forward that no real human has ever stepped foot in so GOOD LUCK. 

Anyways I’m sure their plan would work. I TOLD MYSELF I WAS NOT GOING TO LOOK UP ANYTHING WHEN WRITING THIS BUT I HAD TO CHECK SOMETHING. Daffy was created in 1937 and Bugs was 1940 so even though Bugs is the brains of the operation and the more popular one and has better skills Bugs needs Daffy to make first contact with the Warners because Daffy was the only one that had known them before the whole water tower lock away incident. Like he is the one that has to be, “Hello Fellow kids, how about you -uh come with us.”

Once everything goes right and blows over they would either introduce the Warners to the school OR have them stay in Wackyland and ‘homeschool’ them.

Also rewind there are two things that could have gone on with the Warner siblings in the tower. A: They were around the whole time from 1930 to 1990 and did not fade away because they had each other. Since they didn’t have much exposure to the real world they still are toons that are kids. Or B: They had faded away for decades, came back because a duck and bunny plotted to have their shows shown to new toon crowds. <_< They came back but have no really emotional scarring from it because they don’t remember it.

NOW EVEN DARKER LORE:

But okay Yakko always gave me this strange- offness sometimes, in the show. He’s the oldest sibling of course so the only one out of three that seems to sometimes make mature decisions. I mean, as much as these three can. 

NOW IN THAT CANON BABS EP with her finding a mentor, get this- I remember from that old cartoon the toon that disappeared was from her male counterpart in the show was still around. Had not completely disappeared yet?!?!

What if- what if Wakko and Dot had disappeared in that long period in the tower but Yakko, being the oldest and still vaguely remembered, was all alone on that tower for decades. SHIT DAMN FFFFFF.  He seems completely okay but like, Bugs or Daffy pick up that something is off? Like hey kiddo, everything okay? Man I think Yakko is so elated and happy his siblings are back he doesn’t even realize he might have some bad feels.

I don’t know where I was going with this its time for bed. Bleh. 

[what-stop-the-presses-rly-means]

Bye, Bye, Sugar Blue Eyes part 2

Race x female reader modern au.

Warnings: some mild swearing

Part 1, x, 3, 4, 5, 6

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

Once we were in the office Jack handed me my food.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He gave me a bit of a side eyed glance. “And don’t let Rider get to you. If you let them think that kinda behavior is allowed, they’ll keep using it. Ya just gotta find a good balance of sweet and spicy. Good cop, bad cop. Each one of those boys is different and it’ll take some time but you’ll start learning what works for each of them.” I nodded. David rolled his chair over.

“And don’t worry, you’re not gonna be alone in all this. It takes a village to raise a child. God knows what it takes to raise fifteen. We’ll all be here. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.” He smiled encouragingly. I nodded in thanks.

Jack pointed his fork at me. “So! You got any questions for us? About the job or about us? Don’t be shy, we’re open books.” I thought about it for a second. I looked up and saw a photo on his desk.

“I guess I’d like to know your history,” I said, nodding toward the picture. “How you all met and what made you decide to change your lives with this big decision.” Jack smiled and handed me the frame. From what I could tell, it was taken years ago. A young Jack stood in the middle, smiling brightly. He had one arm around Davey and his other around a red headed girl. She had her arm around a boy holding crutches. To Davey’s right there’s a blond boy, who had his arm around Albert.

“Most of us grew up in this very orphanage.” I gasped a little bit. That was new information. Jack continued, “All except Davey, here, and Katherine, the lovely lady in the picture.”

“Yeah, I met the fellas at a young age, doing a paper route,” Davey added. “When I found out they didn’t have families of their own I made it my mission to be a brother to them. Make sure they didn’t feel like they were different or weird.”

Jack chuckled. “Yeah, his ma made some damn good cookies for us and knitted us all hats during the winter holidays. She’s a peach.” They both smiled at the memory. “And my darling dear Katherine is the daughter of the chief editor of the paper we sold. We’d see her everyday we picked up the papers. I fell madly in love and snatched her up the first chance I got.” He showed off his wedding ring.

“More like he wore her down and she finally gave in to shut him up!” We turned and saw Albert walk in. He grabbed a nearby chair and plopped down in it.

“Either way, we got married at eighteen and have been happy ever since. She took over for her father at the paper. Does a pretty good job, too.”

“Eighteen, huh? That’s pretty young. No offense.” The room grew silent and I looked around. Everyone kept their heads down. I knew I made a mistake.

Jack cleared his throat. “Well, I said we were open books, and we are. So, yeah, um, we had been together for a couple years at that point and we knew we wanted to get married someday. And when I was eighteen I was working for their paper as a political cartoonist, which didn’t pay a lot but it was somethin’. So I was trying to put some kind of a life together. It’s just… I had never been adopted at that point.” My eyes widened. Oh no, what have I done?

“All the other fellas had moved on with their lives with their new families and I was so happy for them. And it’s not like I didn’t have a couple offers, but they all lived so far away. I had always wanted to run away when I was younger. I felt like New York had betrayed me. But once I had gotten a little older and had this job and a nice girl… I don’t know, I guess I couldn’t give that up. I had a long talk with Katherine and she agreed to marry me. We found a little apartment and it was tough for a while, but we made it work. And it’s fine that I never got an ‘official’ family, I already had one. That picture was taken the last time we were all together. Right after that, a nice Midwestern family adopted Race. And one by one, all the other guys moved away with their new lives ahead of ‘em. But we kept in touch. And Davey stuck around, becoming a teacher at a local middle school. So please don’t feel bad for me. I got everything I wanted out of life.” The other two nodded, smiling.

I looked down at the photo in my hands. “Who’s the guy on the right?” Jack peered over and smiled.

“Ah, that’s Crutchie. He was like a brother to me growing up.”

“Crutchie?” I quirked my eyebrow, making him laugh.

“Yeah, that’s the nickname we gave him since he had a bum leg as a kid. Most of the boys in the home got a gang name. We thought we were cool. But yeah, Crutchie moved out of state after he got adopted. He works with disabled children in his hometown and didn’t have the heart to leave them to help us out here. But he stops by during the holidays. Likes to freak out the kids with his prosthetic leg.”

“Was it a difficult decision to leave your previous jobs and lives to help out here?” I asked the other two men. They looked at each other for a moment before Davey spoke up.

“Well, in my case, not much has changed. My students were sad to see me go but they understood. Now I homeschool some of the boys who have learning difficulties. I’m still doing what I love and I get to do it with my closest friends. I couldn’t ask for anything better.” I turned to Albert, who sighed, looking down at his plate.

“Uh, yeah, it wasn’t as easy of a decision for me. I got adopted when I was sixteen. At that point I was desperate to be taken, desperate to be wanted by someone. So once this couple showed interest in me, I didn’t even think. They were so nice and loving and excited to meet me. The fact that they lived in Italy didn’t even faze me at first. In fact, it made it that much better. You see, my father was Italian and my mother was Irish,” he laughed, pointing to his bright red hair.

“They promised to show me where I was from. Teach me all about my heritage. So of course I agreed. But once it sunk in, I knew leaving my friends - my brothers - would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do. And it was. I lived there for six years and it was more than I could’ve hoped for. I had a family that loved and cherished me. I met all of my extended family and they accepted me as one of their own right away. My Nonna would say things like, ‘Look at him! He’s the spittin’ image of my son!’ even though I looked nothing like him. And when they taught me to cook, she’d be the first to say I was a natural. They made me feel like I belonged.

“But when Jack called me, saying the orphanage was gonna be shut down, once again I didn’t even think. I said goodbye to my family so I could come back and help my other family. And I’ve been here for two years, sharing what I’ve learned with the boys. Some of them like to help out and I share my recipes with them. But I still call my parents and my Nonna all the time, and I visit on holidays. They make sure to tell me how proud they are.” He paused. “Sometimes I think we were all meant to come back here. That fate or whatever made sure we weren’t gonna be apart for too long. And maybe helping those boys is what we were meant to do all along. It sure feels like it.”

We sat in silence, taking it all in, before Jack spoke up. “Wow, Al. We get a female in the building and all of a sudden you’re some kind of philosopher? We should’ve hired her years ago.” Albert waved him off and went back to eating. I gaped at them.

“You all have such humble beginnings and heartfelt stories. You guys almost seem unreal.” Jack made some kind of noncommittal sound, deflecting the praise. “No, I mean it. You all either lived here or were very familiar with this place growing up and now you drop everything to come back and make sure the kids are taken care of and forge friendships like you all did. You’re solidifying their childhood and their well-being. Because anybody could’ve taken over the orphanage and treated those boys like the world has been treating them: like outcasts, delinquents, lost causes. But because you lived through it yourselves, you’ve made it your mission to not let it happen again. That’s incredibly admirable. So thank you. On behalf of every kid that gets pushed aside and forgotten, every kid that had to grow up too damn fast, every kid that you’re giving a second chance… thank you.”

The room grew uncomfortably quiet again. Did I mess up again? The first to speak up was Davey. He turned to Jack.

“You know, normally I don’t agree with your quick-witted judgement. I’ve always thought that you should really think something through before making big decisions. But this time I’m throwing caution to the wind and acting like you for a change. We don’t need to discuss the hiring choice for the nanny position. I think (Y/N) will be perfect.” My eyes widened as they smiled at me.

“Are you serious?”

“You will have to wait for the standard background check to go through and, you know, all of the proper legal documents to be put in place, but…” He stretched his hand out. “Welcome aboard.”

I may have squealed a little and I’m not ashamed. I shook his hand gratefully.

“You won’t regret this!”

Albert smirked a little. “Damn, she might not be replacing Race, but she sure could give Katherine a run for her money with a speech like that.”

“Don’t tell Katherine that,” Jack joked. “But I am glad that we’re making this official. We could really use the help and the boys… They need someone like you. It may be a little hectic at first, but you’ll get the hang of it. And it’ll be that much easier when Race gets back.” They all sat back to finish their lunches while I looked down at the photo still in my hands. The blond boy smiled up at me with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen and I couldn’t help but smile back.

Tag list:

@axolotlwhizzy

[your-old-enemy]

Relapse (Stanlon)

I finished this for @atypical-it-ships, and I hope you all enjoy it!

Edited by myself with the help of Google Docs so any mistakes are my own.

!!!!WARNINGS: Death mention, suicide mention, self-harm mention and smut!!!!

Read it on Ao3

~~~~

Being the scrawny, Jewish kid in a group of misfits - of losers - wasn’t so bad, because they all had something that made them different from the rest of the riff-raff kids in school. What was difficult, was being the scrawny Jewish kid in the small town of Derry where most people were devout Christians. Things got even more difficult when he realised that the rumours about him being gay were true, and then life was pretty terrifying once he started dating the homeschooled kid from the only black family in the whole of Derry.

Stan Uris was a walking target, just like the rest of his friends but being with Mike Hanlon made him forget about all of that. He’d have slurs thrown at him from every direction at school while Mike wasn’t there to defend him, his parents tried to convince him he wasn’t gay to begin with and that even if he had to go through this ‘phase’, that he didn’t have to be experimenting with a black boy. Running errands for his mother, and walking through town he would always receive weird looks from grown adults and he’d hear the kinds of things they would say to their children as they walked by him. Hell, he took regular beatings just like Mike, Bill, Richie, Eddie and Ben, just for being gay. They all had their qualities that had Henry Bowers and his goons seeking them out for a good beating. The only time Stan ever felt safe was when The Losers Club were together at the quarry or hiding out on the Hanlon farm on the outskirts of town. Even then, there was always a hint of fear running through his body but he felt at peace when he was in the arms of the boy he loved.

Stan and Mike had the relationship that many people envied - they never fought, and they easily resolved their disagreements, that was until it was time to apply for college and the young men realised that they had different plans.

~~~~

The young lovers were in Mike’s bedroom in the large farmhouse he lived in with his parents and his grandparents. They were in the middle of the floor , surrounded by books and brochures full of information on prospective colleges, and Stan couldn’t decide on the best few he wanted to apply for. He hadn’t decided what he wanted to do with his life, but he knew he wanted to get as far away from Derry as he could - he wanted to live somewhere where their love would be acknowledged and accepted by the people around them and not just their handful of close friends. Stan didn’t want to be a freak and an outcast anymore.

“What do you think, baby-love?” Stan asked, his voice muffled by the thick book covering his face. “I think we should just apply to them all, and whatever one we both get accepted into together, we’ll take it. Do you agree?”

“Uh-”

“Or maybe we choose two each that we both like, and hope we both get into at least one of them .” Stan continued, not giving his boyfriend a chance to speak. “We can get so far away from this damn town. Are you excited?”

“Stan..” Mike sighed, making Stan put down his book and look at him. “We need to talk about these college plans, Lamb. I…”

“What is it?” Stan asked, a worried frown tugging at his eyebrows. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I know you’ve never been in a school, but college is a whole new experience for me, too. It ’s all new and different.”

“ It ’s not that,” Mike assured him with a shake of his head. “ It ’s… I… I can’t leave the farm, Stan.”

Stan didn’t understand, and he looked at Mike for a moment in silence to see if he was being serious or if he was just messing with him.

“You can leave, Mike. Are your family trying to keep you at home?” He asked.

Mike shook his head in response to Stan’s question before answering.

“No, Lamb. It’s nothing like that, it’s just that.. Well, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave the farm and I don’t want to leave Derry. I grew up here and I want to stay here.”

Stan couldn’t believe what Mike was saying to him right now. They’d had plans, promises, for years to leave Derry and start the rest of their lives together in the city far away from peoples bias’, and now here he was listening to Mike admit that he didn’t want to leave.

“That’s it?” Stan asked in disbelief, his voice more than a whisper. “You’re not even going to talk it out or think it through, you’re just staying?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, Stan. This isn’t just a last minute decision I’ve made.”

“Well, you never mentioned a thing about it. Don’t you think you should have let me know before now you didn’t want to come to college with me?”

“Yes,” Mike sighed. “I should have said something long before now, but also I could have made it much worse and waited until the last literal minute, after being accepted and completing all of our plans.”

Stan knew Mike had a point. It was bad, and not at all what he’d been expecting but it also could have been much, much worse than it already was.

“Will you think about it a little more?” He pleaded, looking down and picking up the brochure for Harvard. “At least send off a few applications, and see what your options could be, please? You can make your final decision in a few more months, but you should at least try. You might never forgive yourself otherwise.”

Mike opened his mouth to protest, to tell Stan that he’d already decided but when he saw that hopeful look on his boyfriends face, he nodded.

“I’ll apply to a couple, and see what my options are.” He promised.

~~~~

Mike had already decided back then. He was staying on the farm with his family and one day he would take over and run it himself, with his own family. He did as promised, and he applied to three different colleges that Stan also applied to but he wasn’t nervous about acceptance or rejection letters because he knew either way there was no way he was going to college.

After a few months of waiting, pretending to be as nervous as Stan and the rest of The Losers, Mike’s three acceptance, full-scholarship letters arrived in the mail and he tossed them all in the trash but somehow Stan found out and he wasn’t happy.

“You promised to think about it!” Stan yelled, his face flushed red and the veins in his neck visible as he strained his voice. “Why did you even bother, huh? You wasted time applying just to keep me happy!”

“That’s what’s important, Stan!” Mike yelled back. “Keeping you happy has always been my only priority. You wanted me to apply, so I applied but that doesn’t mean I want to go.”

A beat of silence passed between the two men before Stan spoke again.

“Did you even think about it?” He asked.

Looking down at his feet, Mike sighed and shook his head. “No..”

“Then why did you-”

“Would you stay?” Mike interrupted Stan, looking at him again.

“What?”

“If I asked you to stay.. Would you stay? Or at least think about it?”

They both knew the answer to that, and Stan swallowed around the lump in his throat, not saying anything.

“We don’t want the same things anymore, Stan.” Mike spoke, still keeping the length of the room between the two. “Maybe we used to, or at least we thought we did. This, though, is where I’m meant to be and I ’m never going to ask you to stay here and be unhappy .”

“So, I guess that’s it then,” Stan whimpered, his voice trembling and cracking as he tried not to cry. “I didn’t think it would end this way.”

Mike was the one who cried first. He stood there in the corner, a huge hunk of a man sobbing like a baby as his entire world crumbled around him. Stan crossed the room and pulled Mike down into his arms, holding him while they both cried and Mike clung to the back of Stan’s shirt.

“We could try long distance,” Stan suggested. “But you know, eventually , we’ll end up right back here again but further down the line.”

Mike nodded. He didn’t want this to end, to be away from Stan forever but he knew he needed to let him live his life the way he wanted to.

~~~~

Stan had left with a tearful goodbye to all of his friends, and one last night in bed with Mike but he slipped out of bed unnoticed in the morning - he thought. Mike knew Stan was sneaking out, and he was awake but pretended to sleep so that he wouldn’t have to watch him leave.

All of the losers kept in touch via a group text that Eddie had set up the first day that one of them left Derry. They all wanted to talk every day so that they wouldn’t forget about each other, but any communication between Mike and Stan was kept to an awkward minimum. They would travel back to Derry when celebrating holidays and birthdays with their families, and they’d travel throughout the year to visit one another but Stan put off going back to Derry for as long as he could but his parents got sick of him skipping out on their family Hanukkah traditions and they talked him into coming home.

On his way into Derry in his beat up old car, that his good friend Patty called his ‘Sedanley’, Stan had one stop to make before going to his childhood home. The Hanlon Farm. He couldn’t have stopped himself even if he wanted to, because as soon as he saw the sign for Derry, it was like he was drawn right to Mike and he couldn’t force himself to keep on driving past. He took the turning on the right for the farm and drove up the winding road, leaving dust clouds in his wake.

Mike was outside tending to the pigs when he heard a car coming up the road. When he saw it at first, he didn’t recognize it, but then he saw the curly hair and crisp, clean shirt behind the steering wheel and he knew who it was. Wiping off his hands on the rag hanging from his pocket, Mike crossed the field to greet his visitor. As he approached the car, he could see Stan sitting inside talking to himself, arguing with himself, but the poor man looked like he needed help so Mike approached and knocked on the drivers window before Stan rolled it down and looked out up at him.

“Can I offer you a glass of fresh lemonade, sir?” Mike offered, a hint of teasing in his voice. “You’re gonna get cold just sittin’ out here in your car.”

“Thank you, lemonade would be great.” Stan replied, getting out of the car once Mike took a step away.

Out of his car, Stan followed Mike into the empty farmhouse. His grandparents had died and his parents moved out of town but still, Mike stayed. Inside the house looked just the same as Stan remembered it, with more of Mike’s personal touches throughout the house rather than it all being confined to his bedroom.

“Nothing changed much,” Stan commented, breaking the silence between them as they entered the kitchen.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Mike laughed, pouring lemonade into two glasses. He had a lemon tree out in the yard, and it was his favourite drink to make. So much sugar.

Stan sipped on his beverage once Mike handed it to him. The two of them stood there, drinking, in awkward silence.

“I didn’t think you’d ever be back in town.” Mike said, breaking that silence himself this time.

“I didn’t plan to, but my parents convinced me to be here for the holidays.”

“So, you’re leaving again after Hanukkah?” He asked.

“As soon as possible.”

Mike just nodded in response, his heart trying to climb up his throat to jump out onto the hardwood floor.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Stan spoke again, looking around the kitchen. “I… I couldn’t help it, I guess. So, if anyone asks, you never saw me.”

“What’s one more secret between two old lovers, huh?” Mike asked rhetorically with a soft chuckle that hid under his breath.

What could it hurt?

Stan wasn’t in love with Mike.

Stan wasn’t hung up on Mike.

Stan was just here wasting time before he had to face his parents and their interrogation.

Without another word passing between the two, they were on each other. Their glasses of lemonade were set down and the two of them were pressed flush together with their lips moving together in a memorised dance that had been perfected years ago. It was like a drug, addictive to the two of them and neither of them wanted to stop, so they didn’t. Their hands roamed the familiar paths across each other’s bodies as Mike guided Stan backwards through the house to the foot of the staircase then he scooped Stan into his arms and carried him upstairs to his childhood bedroom, which also had changed little but Stan was too busy to notice as Mike laid him down on top of his bed, parting from the kiss, making Stan whine.

“Tell me to stop.” Mike whispered against Stan’s ear. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”

“Don’t stop.”

Mike’s lips were back on Stan, but this time kissing down the soft, tender skin of his neck while his fingers worked out the buttons of his shirt to expose more and more skin. Each button that came undone, allowed Mike to kiss lower down Stan’s chest and his stomach until he reached the waistline of his khakis.

“Don’t stop.” Stan repeated when he sensed Mike was hesitating, ready to ask again.

Mike did as Stan told him , and his fingers moved to Stan’s belt next and then undid his pants. the two of them were naked together on Mike’s bed, kissing again as their bodies moved together, cocks slicked with spit and rubbing together in the large palm of Mike’s hand. Both men were so worked up after being apart for so long, that it didn’t take too much effort for them both to reach their climax and cum all over one another with desperate cries of pleasure. Mike hadn’t thought very far ahead, and as he rolled off of Stan and laid beside him, he half expected Stan to curl up against his side and fall asleep with his head on his chest just like he used to, but not this time. This time, Stan got off of the bed and went to Mike’s bathroom with his clothes to clean up and returned a minute later dressed and put back together like nothing had even happened while Mike sat on the edge of his bed with his boxers pulled back on over his hips.

“Stan-”

“Mike, don’t. This isn’t… I don’t have to have you, and I don’t need to need you. Okay?”

Mike swallowed hard, his eyes stinging with tears at Stan’s words.

“I was chasing a high, so please don’t think I’m coming back. This was just a…” He paused, looking for the right word to describe what they did.

“A relapse?” Mike offered, and Stan nodded.

“This was just a relapse.” Stan confirmed, and in just a few minutes he was gone without a trace.

Stan had lied, though. He came back once more before he left, giving Mike a small Christmas present while he was there, and that wasn’t the last time Mike ever saw Stanley. Stan stopped by the farm every time he was in town for something, despite having said it was over because it was hard to stay ‘sober’ whenever he missed Mike. He would show up at Mike’s door every time he tried to quit and they referred to it as falling off of the wagon.

~~~~

The last time Stan turned up at Mike’s door, was the night after Stanley’s father’s funeral. Stan wasn’t drunk, but he was drunk on Mike and he needed to forget. Mike could never turn Stan away, when he was hurting. The two of them got their high together in the empty barn they’d used countless times as teenagers - Stan felt like he was floating when Mike was buried deep inside him, reaching spots he forgot he even had, hitting them with every grind and snap of his hips that made Stan cry out to all of the gods that might be out there, because that’s what Mike did to him. Mike knew no sweeter taste than Stanley’s lips, or the slick that leaked from the tip of his cock while he was being stretched open on Mike’s long, thick and rough fingers and there was nothing more heavenly than pushing into Stan’s hole as it quivered and clenched around his cock.

That night, they cuddled afterwards. Mike held Stan as they laid on the plaid blanket spread over the straw in the barn, avoiding the wet spot right in the middle, and Stan cried. He cried over the choices he had made, the things he’d given up and he cried for losing his father, but in that moment he felt at home in Mike’s arms.

“I don’t want to leave,” Stan admitted, once he finished crying.

“What?” Mike asked, shocked and convinced he had imagined what Stan just said.

“I don’t want to go back to LA, I want to stay here, with you.”

“Stan…” Mike’s stomach churned and his blood ran cold, making the tips of his fingers tingle and his hands shake. “There’s something you should know.. I would tell you before you left, but now-”

“What is it?” Stan asked, sounding much like he did the night Mike told him he didn’t want to go to college with him, and Mike felt like the biggest douche in the whole country.

“I met someone-”

“You… You what?” Stan asked with a nervous laugh.

“A girl.. I’m bi.. And she’s moving in.”

Stan felt his heart shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. He pushed away from Mike like he’d been burned and he stood, pulling on his clothes as as he could - covering up the thin, white scars he’d been hiding for years but only Mike knew about.

“Stan, baby, stop. Please, let’s talk about this!” Mike begged.

“What is there to talk about?!” Stan sobbed, trying to get his shoes on. “You’ve got a girlfriend, a serious one and she’s coming to live here with you!”

“But I need to make sure-”

“Make sure I ’m not going to tell her?” Stan scoffed. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not telling anybody about any of this. I was never here, remember?” He spat the words at Mike, although it was himself he was angry with.

Mike re-dressed himself and followed Stan, begging him not to go yet, to stay until morning so he could calm down and they could talk about all of this. He wanted to explain everything, but Stan moved too fast for him, jumped in his sedan and sped off without looking back.

Stan would never return to Mike, never relapse with his old lover, not his human one anyway. When he got home after driving all night, he would reunite with his old, cold, metal lover in the comfort of his bathtub. How romantic.

[cielizzydefencesquad]

I don't know if you're still doing this or not. But! Because I like crack ships and all, how about Older!Lizzy and Joker?

Older!Lizzy x Joker (don’t worry, I have a thing for crack!pairings too XD)

Who is more likely to catch a cold? Joker—but he tries to hide it. He already considers himself way, way below Lizzy’s station and knows that she’s far too kind and good to ignore him so he’d make the job easier by avoiding her. He doesn’t expect Lizzy to be so hurt by it:

“Lizzy? Christ, whaddya doin’ here?” Joker hid beneath his rough woolen blanket, doing his best to hide his clammy skin and wheezing coughs.

Elizabeth, angelic in white with a cloak of rose pink, held a cream colored basket interwoven with ribbons and flowers in front of her. “I’ve brought you grandmama’s chicken noodle soup, lozenges, tea, and extra blankets. I—I would have come earlier only it was so difficult to locate these particular lozenges and I had to ask Sebastian for help so—“

“Why?” Joker was utterly baffled—why on god’s green earth would Lady Elizabeth Midford put herself through so much trouble? Surely her compassion for the pitiable and wretched had to end somewhere? Did she do this for every poor soul she encountered?

At that thought, a sinking, torturous weight fell on Joker’s chest, crushing both his lungs and heart. He knew it was impossible—knew he was being a right bloody idiot—but when he was with her she made him feel so light and free and happy that—

A gentle, starlight warmth spread through his skin causing Joker to finally look up, blanket falling to the wayside, before he felt the air leave his lungs. There Lizzy was, sitting right beside him with the loveliest, saddest smile on her rose-bloom mouth.

In that moment he felt, with absolute certainty, that this was as close to heaven as he would ever get.

“Don’t you know?” She murmured softly, gently intertwining their hands together. “I think I rather love you.”

Who hogs the blankets? Usually Joker would but whenever he’s sharing a bed with Lizzy he makes sure she’s warm and comfortable before even daring to sit on the bed XD

Who kills all the flowers? Joker. Despite his upbeat, quirky demeanor Joker’s actually downright cynical about some few things. Flowers being one of them…until Lizzy brought him a bouquet of pink magnolias she picked while on her way to see him: 

“You…you really picked ‘em for me?” Joker’s eyes widened, arms full of fragrant pink blooms as Lizzy smiled at him, as bright and warm as the August sun.

“Of course I did!” She laughed joyously. “You never seem to have flowers anywhere and I wanted you to have the first bouquet of spring. Do you like them?”

Joker glanced at the flowers in his arms and then back up, only to be met by eyes as bright and green as the Sargasso Sea.

How can I not? He wanted to say. Ya thought of me when you didn’t have a single, damn reason to—

(Since then, pink magnolias have been his favorite flowers.)

Who eats all the candy before Halloween? Joker. Massive sweet tooth here. Lizzy has to hide the candy bowl in the darkest corner of the pantry and even then Joker still manages to find it.

Who takes the longest showers? Neither—Joker takes short, brief showers with ice-cold water. Lizzy likes long, luxurious baths.

Who goes to bed at 5am but wakes up at 8am? Joker. Sometimes he honest to goodness can’t believe his luck. After all, he’s a miserable bastard without home, name, or title and somehow, the most angelic girl in all of London wants to be with him? Joker just can’t believe it. He’ll stay up at night gazing at the stars, silently praying to whatever deity was out there that yes, you gave her to me but please—won’t you let me keep her too?

Who makes sure the other has a healthy breakfast? Lizzy! She’s learned a thing or two from Paula about feeding growing men. She won’t let Joker leave the table until he finishes his porridge, sausages, eggs, and orange juice. (Which Joker likes to savor because up until now, he’s never even tasted an orange before.)

What pets do they have? A pet peacock named Marie Antoinette.

Wedding

Who proposes? Joker does but he’s honestly expecting rejection. Sure, Lizzy might allow Joker to court her but marriage? That’s an entirely different story altogether. After all, Lizzy—the former fiancée of the Queen’s Watchdog marrying a circus freak? Unbelievable. —> In fact, Joker’s proposal was just a way for him to finally confess his feelings: to let Lizzy know just how much she means to him (which she knew anyway—Joker may not be good with words but he shows how much he cares for Lizzy with every action, no matter how small).

Who actually enjoyed the planning? Well, planning wasn’t exactly necessary because…

Would their wedding be small or grand? The two decided to elope :) after reassuring Joker that yes, she wants to be his wife and yes, she loves him even if he doesn’t have a title, the two run away to Verona to get married. (“In Verona fairest eh?” Joker chuckled. “Well, I suppose this’s alright. Romeo and Juliet didn’t get their happily ever after so we’ll just have to live that out for ‘em won’t we?”) 

Which guest was happiest to see them get married? Lizzy wrote letters to her family and Ciel, informing them of her marriage. Both Ciel and Edward were ready to storm into Verona swords/guns blazing and demon butler in tow until Alexis stopped them. Of course he would have liked to walk his baby girl down the aisle and see her married to a duke or an earl but so long as she’s happy, then Alexis is fine too.

Children

How many children would they have? Around 4 or 5. Joker, who’d been abandoned as a child and alone for so long, always wanted a big family and Lizzy loves children.

Would they adopt or have them naturally? Naturally.

Who is the strictest parent? Lizzy. She makes sure they complete all their schoolwork, stay out of trouble, and eat all of their vegetables, even if they don’t like them. (“You want to grow tall and strong like your papa don’t you?” Elizabeth smoothed back her son’s auburn hair to press a kiss against his forehead. “Tell you what, if you eat all your vegetables tonight then we might just have enough time to go outside and work on your riposte, how about that? Won’t everyone at the fencing academy be surprised to see how you’ve improved!”)

Are their children in homeschool or public school? Private school—after running away to elope in Verona, Joker and Lizzy settled in Vienna, Austria where Joker slowly built up and became manager of one of Vienna’s most intriguing theater troupes. Lizzy, in turn, became one of the world’s first stunt coordinators at the Theatre an der Wien.

Who is the favorite parent? They’re equally loved. Both Joker and Lizzy encourage their children to pursue their own dreams and interests and never belittle them for what they might want to do.

Who checks on the kids in the middle of the night? They take turns—one week it’s Joker, the next it’s Lizzy.

Who decorated the nursery? They both did :) Joker hand carved a lot of the furniture they have and together they painted the walls a cheery and welcoming sky blue, installed new glass to the Romanesque windows, and put together a series of small bulbs that in modern-day might be termed “fairy lights.”

[deadstockpoetry]

Decisions.

I wrote this out originally as a story that didn’t particularly hold too much substance on its own, but I rewrote it as a poem that I think feels better in tone. A young man pride in his stride careless, Until now lived a life with no violence and both parents, Straight A’s in school a smile brighter than the sun, Perfect hair and manners that always stunned everyone, Barely fifteen starting a new school year, Full of happiness excited and with no fear, Stepped into the room in which his classmates were present, Excited to see his friends again he smiled effervescent, Greeted by the teacher extending a friendly hand, In hopes of shaking the hand of the young man, Both were in a good mood he shook no questions asked, And looked towards the back to find the seat he had established, To his surprise there sat a boy with light hair, Eyes like knives bags under his eyes light skin but fair, Not at all concentrating on what was being said, He stared out the window not a thought in his head, Caring not for confrontation the young man we’ll call Chris, Decided to find another seat and in hopes of avoiding the kid, The lesson went on and not once did the boy speak, Chris glanced his way so many times he looked like a freak, But there was something about the kid paying no attention, A certain drawing quality a whole other dimension, The lunch bell rang and up they both stood, Chris was somewhat surprised the kid moved and he thought he never would, For the first time in his life Chris felt fear in his chest, When he moved to the kid choked up his introduction and tried to say the rest, “Uh hi, how are you? I’ve never seen you around here, You’re new in town right? This is your first year? Sorry... forgive my rudeness you can call me Chris, What's your name?” Chris smiled with passionate eagerness, Obviously taken back by Chris’ introduction, He stood in place shaking as if he couldn’t function, Lifted his top lip and with a stuttered quiet sound, He replied with “I’m Joey, i’ll probably see you around”. In hopes of making friends with the boy Chris followed suit, But he was gone in the hallway full of excited youth, Hungry and playful the day went on the same for Chris, He saw his friends ate some food and played soccer with other kids, The day went on normally but still on his mind, Was Joey and whether he did similar things to occupy his time, He went home to a family perfect and so sweet, Mother reading a book and father rubbing the wifes feet, He said “Hey all, i’m tired, I think I might go sleep”, They said “That’s fine honey, dinner will be in the fridge to eat”, He struggled up the stairs obviously lethargic, Thinking about the day and how the thought had made him nauseous, “Maybe he’s just a kid looking for some attention, He wants be left alone and damn it I won’t let him”, Peering out the window prior to laying down in bed, He noticed a familiar face walking down street alone and upset, Joey was making his way to end of the street, Where a pretty little cottage sat perfectly non-discrete, This aroused Chris’ suspicion of the weird kid, So he climbed out his window and walked towards him, Joey noticed something out the corner of his eye, Chris was walking right towards him with a grin so wide, In his backpack he stuffed a small but rather full sack, When Chris came close Joey clutched his bag, Again not to confront he said to Joey “Would you look at this, We live on the same street as each other what are the chances?” Joey danced around an answer to the question, Although simple enough to comprehend his head wouldn’t let him, “I guess it’s pretty low.” Joey said with a crooked grin, Then walked off and said “See you around” once again. Chris for the first time in his seemingly perfect life, Was caught up in a bout of awful mental strife, “Does he like me? Does he just say hello to be nice? Will we become friends? Do I want to know that guy?” Plagued with more questions and seemingly no answers, Chris walked back to his house and climbed upon the planters, Lifted himself up into his bedroom window, Slept for an hour and awoke to a stomach crescendo, The time was 9:40 and on the couch his parents slept, Comfortable and warm alone is how they were left, He snuck into the kitchen to heat up hi meal, Ate a good portion of it before he heard something unreal, A bloodcurdling scream flooded with ill intention, Pierced his ears and within moments greatly upset him, That scream could be anything but one thought made Chris choke, What if the scream was from a mother seeing her child strung up by rope? Without a second thought Chris sprinted out his front door, With nothing in his head his legs becoming sore, He approached the house just in time to see, Joey panting heavily with a cut just below his sleeve, He said “I need to go somewhere anywhere but this place”, Chris saw burn marks on his face his fair complexion disgraced, Quickly he grabbed the kid and took him to his house, Where his parents stood concerned by the scream that was so loud, “I have no time to explain but can my friend stay for the night? He’s having troubles at home i’m assuming a big fight”, Questioning whether or not to let Joey stay, His parents said “Chris you know it’s a school day”, Without hesitation Chris raised his usually calm voice, “You don’t get it, he needs to stay, this is not a choice”, With one arm on the kid numb from the harsh cold, He walked up the stairs and despite being otherwise told. The time was 11:30 Joey was fast asleep, On a bed made of cushions various other sheets, Chris’ mother approached knocked and entered his room, And apologised for making a big decision so soon, “Joey is fine to stay however long he sound need, If there are any issues let me know, please”, Chris was thankful and smiled at his mother, She turned the light out said goodnight Chris said that he loved her, In return she said “I love you too, I hope your friend is fine”, “He’ll be okay..” Chris replied as he began to close his eyes, Chris’ dreams ran rampant that night Joey stayed, Woke up several times fearing Joey would be further maimed, An hour early Chris awoke and prepared himself for school, Joey woke soon after him pale and slow like a ghoul, Chris was unaware that Joey had already awoken, Joey walked down the stairs and left the house no words spoken, Upon the realisation that Joey had just left, Chris sighed and combed his hair with worry in his chest, Both boys emerged from their houses fully dressed, Chris looking dapper and Koey looking a mess, Waited at the bus stop where Chris attempted to chat, But was cut off by Joey saying “Stay at home you brat”, Joey quickly pushed Chris and looked him in the eye, As a tear began welling from the corner of his eye, Chris laid upset cowering on the ground, As Joey said “I promise I won’t see you around”. Chris hurried quickly home afraid of a fight, Called his mother on the phone and asked to stay inside, His mother realising that a fight had just begun, Told Chris he could stay at home but study must be done, Upon this realisation Chris sat down relieved, His hands sore from the landing his palm began to bleed, The bus pulled by his home and Joey stepped aboard, The wheels turned slowly and the bus engine roared, Down the street it fled in within moments it was gone, And Chris laid down for another nap in hopes this one would be long, His eyelids fell straight away and Chris was resting well, While Joey sat upon the bus his thoughts were stuck in hell, Children screamed and laughed the bus driver was smiling, The world passed by and Joey watched over it crying, The second day of school began and Joey was a mess, His first class was uninteresting and he was unimpressed, The second class began with the teacher asking the kid, If he would kindly stand up the front and tell her who he is, Hesitant he stood up gripping his backpack, Sweat dripping off his brow he pulled out a white sack, Stood up the front and with tears in his eyes, Told the class something the last thing we would say while he’s alive, “My name is Joey, i’m sure none of you knew my name, I’ve been homeschooled since the around about the second grade, My mother and my father decided that i’m not worth it, Kicked me out of the house and told me to find a purpose, So at age 14 I decided to make things right, I enrolled for a school in hopes it would change my life, But on the first day I picked up pretty quickly, That I can’t do anything without my stomach feeling sickly, My parents watched me shake almost daily while doing work, My father would scream in my face whenever I wore a smirk, I grew up in a family where happy was a no go, So when I tried to change my life happy didn’t follow, So now I stand in front of you at my wits end, And I know that there’s people who would love to be my friend, And with time i feel that maybe things will be okay, But this is time where I will have to sit and dwell upon my pain” The teacher was speechless and approached young Joey, When he pulled a small pistol out the white sack slowly, Raised it to his head and with a huge happy grin, Apologised for the situation he has put everyone in, The kids screamed louder than you could ever imagine, Wondering how this of all things could have happened, Joey with the gun to his head clearly upset, Screamed “I am ever so sorry about the mess”, A gunshot echoed throughout the school grounds, The screaming had stopped briefly only to once again sound, An alarm went off and Joey laid dead in the classroom, Blood splattered on the roof and painting of certain doom. His eye twitched once or twice in quick succession, And Joey awoke from the sleep he had taken mid lesson, Standing near his desk was a young man named Chris, Eager to meet Joey and discuss who he is, Confused and scared Joey just  stared into his eyes, Stood up and hugged Chris happy to be alive, He said “My name is Joey and i’m new to this place” A pained look sat upon his fair and pale face, “If you would be my friend that would truly mean so much”, Chris said “Yeah of course, wanna join me for lunch?” The two became friends and Joey grew to be a smart kid, Graduating with straight A’s all of his peers liked him, Of all things that dream made him feel so alive, And is a reminder for all that there is no need for suicide, Joey and Chris come from two different places, But share the same compassion that all of us a chasing, I wrote this to help people in any case, Where things are going wrong and no option is safe, There are people who truly care, They’ll make you feel alive and well and try to keep you there.

[kittydarlingplanets-blog]

Sometimes we do the right thing and it spreads like a game of telephone  on the playground. That’s how this election has felt to me. At first there were these little whispers of this guy… this guy who once had a punk band that was over on the border. Not Mexican, but has a Mexican name term of endearment nickname. Young. Handsome. Schooled at Columbia. All the beautiful secret things that are the real Texas. 

  See. I’m a native Houstonian. I love my fucking city. I also hate my fucking city. Or rather, I grew up hating it. I hated the burbs and the shit kikkers and the red necks and that we were known for whiny country music and rodeos and horrible accents that sounded like we were a bunch of dumb hicks. What I loved about Texas was so subliminal I didn’t even realize it until I left for awhile. Moved to another state and found out that my entire mindset was formed yes, of course by the books I had read and the education I’d received, but the foundation of who I was? The rock bottom core of my soul? That was Texas, folks. Drenched in sweet barbeque sauce and sizzled on the triple digit Houston sidewalks. 

They say that you don’t have to ask someone where they’re from who is from Texas. They’ll tell you before you get the chance. This is truth. Another thing I didn’t realize until I lived outside the state. Other people would go around the school or work meeting and mention children or accomplishments.

The first thing that would come out of my mouth was I’m from Texas. I began to realize that Texas is a State of Being. It’s a State of Mind. You can take the me out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of the me.

You sir, may go to hell. I am going to Texas.–Davy Crockett

Like so much of life, being away from home made me appreciate it. Then respect it. Then realize I’d not so much been in love with it as it coded into my soul.

I mean, I’d known when I’d driven the long stretches of road listening to the Fabulous Thunderbirds, which to me was Austin where I spent half of my time my college years dancing at the Continental Club or Club Foot and eating chicken fried steak, or when I’d gone to Lubbock to the Buddy Holly Festival that Joe Ely always played  in the closed down streets celebrating his idol and his own hometown.

I  taught myself to speak without an accent and read a lot of books. And the only thing I knew to do was reject everything that was symbolic of what I hated–small town thinking from small town sensibilities. The illiterate by choice. Cowboy boots unless they were worn by Keith Richards or Joe Ely or Joe Strummer. (I now love them  beyond.) I hated and hate hunting because you know, slaughter. Prefabricated neighborhoods outside the inner city loop where people lived who wanted yards as flat as football fields and houses too big and character-less for anything useful and huge expensive cars and a commute that stunk up the city and blocked the highways. Even then, back then, 40 years or more ago, it all felt wrong. Too much. Nothing good could come from so much….so much… waste….  clutter.

It was like Benjamin Braddock at his graduation party being told about plastics. It was Jack in the Box having too many damn menu options when all anyone needed was the Jumbo  Jack and fantastic flat Super Tacos that could be put in an envelope and mailed and Frings–a mix of french fries and onion rings and those dollar menu chicken sandwiches. Everything else was just too precious and absurd.

At 16 I found the Rocky Horror Picture Show and a mass of people that were not the same as those who frequented Katy High School, home of rice farms and small minds. At 17 I went to work at an AMC Theatre and found a bunch of misfits like myself who couldn’t quite get behind Friday night’s lights and shopping malls filled with generic crap. At 18, I found Herschel Berry and the Natives at Anderson Fair and my real love affair with Texas began.

What I learned from local music, what I learned from punk rock–was that in fact, love is all you need. That even the freaking Hard Rock Cafe is right–Serve All Love All. That hidden beneath the Urban Cowboy shit was this city of mystery and secrets. There was this unreal music. There was all night Tex Mex with kick ass juke boxes and those who frequented it. There was this love and honor among the punk rockers and the aging hippies and the drag queens and the gay men and the homeless teens and all of the others who didn’t fit into the Lone Star State stereotype  regardless of color or sexual orientation or socio economics.  You just didn’t know until you left the comfort of your sedan and talked to the people in the streets. We just didn’t let the others know. It was ours. They could have the rest.

Eventually someone would rise out of here or out of a place just like here that encapsulated all that is bright and beautiful and blazing about Texas. Our real culture. Our blended population. Our love of music that defies labels, like  Herschel, or Alejandro Escovedo. Our mixture of punk and cowboy that pulled in Strummer to hang out with that cowboy guy he liked, Ely. It’s not just music or clothing. Those simply reflect the ethic that is here. It’s mom and pop diners and taquerias and dive bars and little music halls. It’s a hot humid wet sweater of a place that is so deranged that out of it comes the Art Car Parade and the Orange Show and even a secret serial killer that only the locals know about, despite the liklihood he could possibly have the highest body count of all time. Before craft brew, we choked down Lone Star Beer in bottle necks because it was local, even if it tasted and still tastes like rat piss. It’s local heroes like old  lonesome Howard Hughes. That’s how we do things here. We have musicals written about our whore                                                            houses.

We create a legacy of cadallics buried in the dirt of what would be wasted landscape. We once had a pig here tattoed with wings. This is how we do art.

Houston still is the mystical and beautiful and secret place. This club for those in the know, on the inside. The cool kids. Most of those places  we frequented are still here. Preserved. Not just moments in time but part of the spiderweb that holds up our city even as it sinks into the swampland we are built on. Key words. Code words. Houston is a small small town, baby.

So the whispers started and slowly the buttons and bumper stickers began to emerge…. quietly, slowly likely from fear of retaliation despite the fact that we here all know that this is already a blue state. This is in fact, a brown state. The only reason this state reads red is because it was gerrymandered beyond belief so that areas range from Austin almost to Dallas rather than say, Austin being one place. In fact, those of us over a certain age, recall the whirlwind of all that is bravado and cyclonic about Texas in human form, Governor Ann Richards. Ann took no shit. We are channeling Ann this election. This day. This time when the tide is high.

We began to realize that it was  like a secret clubhouse. Nods, smiles, a quiet thumbs up. We were one. We were all still here. There was more of us than we were led to believe. In the ugly loud jarring swagger of the New GOP, even the natives here had been led to believe the stereotypes, the lies on par with Dallas, the TV show, not the beautiful lilting song. Love All Serve All.

The cowboy way. The musicans way. The rebel way. The artist way. The Texas way.

I think after Harvey we’d all just had enough. Enough of the fucking lies about us. Enough of being disregarded and counted off as worthless. A joke. A universal joke of Cowtown, USA. We weren’t going to go quietly into the night. We were going to rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And we had the One. Out of El Paso, of all places, our hero emerged. A tall drink of water, as we say here in Texas. A 40-something who still looked like a kid, like Alec Baldwin in Beetlejuice before he blew up. Long arms swinging, long legs running and walking and jumping and driving across a state that is close to the size of Europe. Hours and hours and miles through the heat, the sonic heat. Doing what others before said was a collasal waste of time. Those who didn’t know Texas. Those who didn’t know the real us.

        Not a dumb ass speaking of having beers together and how we don’t need no city slickers telling us what to do and  a C is good enough. That’s facade and bullshit.

The Texas I know has pockets of Republicans who are old school…. meaning that they don’t give a shit what you do in your own bedroom or your own home. They’re conservative in wanting their guns and their Southern gentleman ethics and the right to lead their own lives be it to homeschool their kids without answering to the Man which is the same as the old Art Car Parade slogan of we just want to ride around in our machines and not be hassled by the man. Which is the same damn thing. And they don’t care how their neighbor got here and what color he is if he keeps his place nice and will lend a hand in a tragedy and raises some respectful kids. I grew up next to a Mexican family, the Ninos, and I do not recall once hearing the word Mexican other than to descibe the exquisite cuisine and in regard to the family itself, the dad brought over left over KFC from his job as manager and we invited them to our BBQ’s and everyone pitched in if a car wasn’t running or one of the moms decided to have a garage sale or when their new babies were born.

Texans remember the Alamo and the aftermath. They celebrate Mexican cowboys. They weave tamales and brisket together like Spanglish. At least when it matters they do. We do. Before the brainwashing. Before the river of lies longer than the Rio Grande.

And then Beto showed up. With his Columbia education that is valued as the damning of the elite here never pertained to education… it pertained to attitude: being better than. Having some letters behind ones name is honorable especially those sleeves are rolled up and you’re willing to work side by side with ranchers and farmers and minority field hands.  Someone running and talking and talking and running. To everyone. The thing that is going to overpower the new not so grand old party today is that we do know a city slicker. We do know a used car salesman. And we do know the words to The Who. And yeah, we have lived a Teenaged Wasteland for awhile now… but it’s not going to be where we end up because it’s not who we are.

It’s Texas. We trust musicans here. It’s in the blood.

Tonight I sit here in a dive bar in an area that was once a broken down ward and is now an up amd coming bohemian artist haven being saved by millineal meets Gen Z punk rock aesthetics, just on the edge of Montrose. There’s nerves and hope and more movement than is normal for a Tuesday night. The bartender is hoping for celebratory customers later in the night. He’ll be here if things swing the other way. We’ve had Beto’s black and white signs out front of our blocks for months. Beto himself stopped in one afternoon early last Spring when he saw them and had lunch at the ancient diner and stopped in the shop of oddities and the record store. His photo was in the NYTimes here in that diner. We have his back. He’s got ours. And this we is the we I met so long ago, when I was a kid here having stumbled out of surburbia and inside the loop where the real Texas lived.

My twenty year old heart will dance tonight when the returns come in and once again, there will be faith in what we’ve created here. What we’ve dug into the mushy soil and what has somehow made this most unlikely of cities the 4th largest. That kid from the Border, a former punk rocker in a dress,having grown up on the   border not knowing there was a reason to think an arbitrary line meant anything and knowing for sure one language was as good as another, has risen up. The world. The entire world is watching. And he, this Irish guy with the Mexican first name, is going to let the world in on the secret of Texas and lead the world forward. I will wear the tears of joy and nostalgia like a Victory V in my boots eating tacos. Viva Beto.

the lone star is ever in your favor: you beto you beto you bet Sometimes we do the right thing and it spreads like a game of telephone  on the playground.

[mykatesingh-blog]

I’m reading Mrs. Sharon White’s Mother’s Book of Home Economics.  Mrs. Sharon White is very old fashioned and loves God.  She is so delightful to read but beware as she refers to the modern woman in terms of “rampant feminism”.  I have to chuckle at this because I know what a fit my mother would have about that comment.  I have a love of the feminist and thank them for all our freedom and rights today.  And I love being an old-fashioned housewife.  I think the two can mix well actually as I am both.

Despite some of her ways that are a bit too old-fashioned for my taste, I adore these books and eagerly await the mailman…or lady.  There is a simplicity and rhythm to her stories of keeping a home, raising children, and all that goes with that.  It reminds me to slow down and stop trying to be some super freak house frau with the home, kids, writing.  It reminds me that life is precious in its pure daily routine.  Babies are off to college too soon and we can lose all that we have in a blink of an eye.

  Being a housewife means that I run the house and tend to the family.  That is my true calling and my real career.  I like to call my writing a career but that is my mothers influence of thinking that homemaking was really not a noble career, that college and professions outside the home were all that was worth mentioning.

My aunt’s partner had a high profile life, a Yale education (or Harvard, what’s the difference right?) and enjoyed his martini lunches and expensive life.  He was also unhappy and fat.  One day he left it all and moved up to the coastal mountains, started running daily and ate vegetarian.  He lived a very simple and frugal life, I’m not sure he even worked.  He thrived and loved his life at last.  One night at a nice and uppity party a doctor came up to him and ask, “and what do you do?”  He replied, “about what?”

Ah, I love that story, it makes me chuckle every time.

I was blessed to be a housewife.  It is not a doctor, lawyer, or novelist on the New York Times bestseller list (although anyone who has a book that is read by more than a hundred persons seems to get on this list).  I never completed college.  I am a shame to my mother’s good name.  But I am something my mother with all her degrees, law license, and professional career was not…happy.

I am simple, content, happy.  I love the homemade yummy stuff that fills a day with all the things that entice all our senses.  The brewing of coffee in the morning, the baking of bread that you have to knead by hand for 10 minutes, sweeping the floor in silence and thinking about all sorts of things.  How about gardening and working out some issue that has brought you stress?  Working outside with the birdsong in the trees above and the sun filtering into your garden while you water your new baby plants.  How can one be distraught or grumpy for long with that?  Listening to the happy chatter of boys getting along well over a puzzle, happy dogs rolling on the lawn, a phone call from a good friend.

Don’t think I don’t wish for bigger and sparklier things sometimes, or that I’m always dancing about with my watering can and singing with my bird and squirrel helpers like Snow White.  I have days when I’m sick and tired of those damn dishes and the same serving of the mundane that is housework.  I sometimes long for a servant of some sort.  I like reading the Bible when a woman of the house would have a servant by her side or a handmaid, oh yes!!  I would like to go on a spending bender now and then.  I get tired just looking at the broom some days.

But this is with any job or career.  So, then you have to re-inspire yourself or up your education so you can be promoted to a more advanced position that offers new challenges.

I have been educating myself for years.  I started out as the basic housewife and mother but I have been reading piles of books and doing hours of research, joining groups, and reading blogs on everything that is housework, cooking, cleaning, urban farming, homeschooling, chickens, writing, health and nutrition and beyond.  I learn more and more and as I venture into new areas, make a lot of mistakes, master it, I then go on to put more skills on my resume.

It helps that I love what I do and I have a bizarre obsession with being frugal and backyard farming.  I am far from great at either and I’m still stumbling about.  But I have a lot of fun with it and I do reach my bite-sized goals day by day.

Right now I’m learning about my hens.  I rescued these girls from a factory farm and felt very noble.  They have me wrapped around their little claws already and are running the backyard.  However, as their life grows more fabulous they give me fewer eggs.  I purchased them to save money and so far these eggs are the most expensive ever.  I was feeling like a failure at chicken farming.  Then Bali suggested we put a few fake eggs in the laying boxes.  My cousin said this is just for a brooding hen but it worked!  I got eggs from 4 out of 5 hens and I think that 5th hen is debating it now.  Those girls lined up in the coop like they were waiting for the public transit this morning.

My garden was a flop this summer but we moved the beds behind the garage and with less sun the winter garden is doing well so far.

Then there is the housework.  I have been so preoccupied with getting the hens settled, planting gardens, painting the kitchen, writing books, becoming an elder care giver, and starting homeschooling that the house was getting the basic tidying.  I was reading Mrs. Sharon White and knew that I had to return to my housework with great pride and affection.

I woke early and brewed my coffee with a day of serious housecleaning in mind.  As I cleaned each room thoroughly I realized how much I have neglected my home.  I also was reminded how good it feels to clean and decorate, to rearrange things in a way that feels good as you enter a room.  I put extra pieces away and found new jobs for old furniture.  I decluttered some rooms.  Less stuff means easier cleaning. I washed walls, baseboards, scrubbed and dusted.  My house feels so good now and therefore I’m inspired to keep it up and do more.

As you can see, we have a real “homemade” house.  I love it.  As Mrs. Sharon White shares, I prefer the painted kitchen, old tiles on the counters and worn wood floors.  I have no desires for the modern homes with the granite and stainless steel.  My home is very old and all my belongings are hand me downs and thrift store finds and my home is cozy and adorable…when cleaned properly.

I also add touches such as candles, music, and lots of good, healthy food.

The afternoon is always a time to take a break with my coffee and reading a good book.

Whenever I get weird and want something different, I look about and remind myself that this is my little cottage.  I waited 47 years to have this home.  I remind myself that I have this amazing life where I can stay home and be with my children all day.  I can do fun things during the day at this job like can pickles, make a quilt by hand, write a book, play blocks.

I never did that at an office job and I certainly never had a coffee break that could last hours if I was caught up in a book.

  Home sweet home. Taking care of the house you have and taking pride in being a housewife. I'm reading Mrs. Sharon White's Mother's Book of Home Economics.  Mrs. Sharon White is very old fashioned and loves God.