#metaphors collapsing in on themselves in the tags rip

[inyoursheets]

i love being twenty four. it’s like the realizations and insights about myself / my life / life in general are tripping over themselves that’s how quickly they’re flying into my orbit

[bamboo-muse]

TW: possible gore/violence and mention of narcotics abuse.

Lately the black lives matter tag has developed into a slew of different topics, one currently being the recent coup that just took place at the U.S. Capitol.

Now, I'm happy to say most of posts are discouragement from doom scrolling and reminding others to step back and take care of themselves in healthier methods

Unfortunately that is not all of them.

I snapped a screen shot of @enragedbees highly questionable metaphor before they blocked and deleted my comments, thus hiding my reblog.

This is a dangerous mindset to project onto a social media platform with minors and those who suffer with maintaining their health, mental health, and utilizing effective and safe coping mechanisms.

I asked them to edit or remove their post due to what they were advising people to do because they were encouraging using any means necessary to cope that which could ultimately result in suicide or death.

To summarize even fatal coping mechanisms such as self harm, drug use, and abuse of alcohol. They used a medical emergency as their metaphor such as a stroke and attempting to driving yourself to the hospital.

I will told them step by step what that accomplishes:

As someone who just passed her level 2 first aid course, I can guarantee you that you won't make it to the hospital.

Your analogy here is terrible.

You'll have weakness on one side of your body.

You'll veer/get bombarded by incoming traffic.

Your airway is closing up cuz that is a thing for stroke victims that most don't know about.

You're not breathing if you're not dead from the car crash.

You're now going into shock.

Your heart isn't beating from the not breathing- cardiac and respiratory distress

If you aren't dead from the car crash and if haven't quite died from any of that yet, the moment you turn your head after the car crash that has likely fucked your spine/neck your paralyzing/severing that you're dying in the car.

Or your car door has been ripped off as you didn't have the ability to close the door as you drove off, you've fallen out because you never clipped your seat belt because of the weakness on one side of your body, you're on your back, not breathing, closed airway, you've vomited -stroke victims vomit- you're choking on your own vomit, the car crash has left you with a ruptured spleen from floating ribs, liver damage/internal bleeding, you have broken legs and one of your arms has an exposed fracture with an arterial bleed.

Your shock has advanced to the point of cool, pale, and clammy skin, your body was diverging all blood flow to your brain and heart, but the shock has progressed too far and your body can no longer control or regulate itself.

On the list of priorities in large car pile up of now multiple injured or dying people the stroke patient is a code black and not going to be looked at.

What's suggested is you dial 911 and spout whatever you can while you can, not hanging up and do your best to lay on your side 3/4 prone to keep yourself from choking on your own fluids, or run to find someone who will call 911 for you before you lose consciousness and collapse from lack of oxygen.

So the answer really for your crisis is be informed, have a plan, and talk to people.

Don't take it all on yourself because you won't last long if you do.

Please use critical thinking when reading any coping or self help posts on this website.

Please reach out to any one or organization to talk to if you are suffering and your mental health state is altered or suffering.

The rhetoric used in @enragedbees post is dangerous and is going to get people hurt, or killed because it's encouraging them to self-medicate which can result in overdose and death. Others have called them out and they aren't changing or fixing their post. Please report their post.

Please, if you need someone to talk to message my inbox and I'll chat with you a while. If talking doesn't help, please try to eat something doesn't have to he huge -could be a slice of bread, a few tea spoons of peanut butter -any food you have. Drink water, small sips.

Practice deep and steady breathing to calm your heart rate.

In through your nose, out through your mouth.

You're not alone, the world is in this together.

Here is a website with a list of help lines.

http://worldhelplines.org/usa.html

If anyone knows of more or better ones please reblog and boost this post!

[wordsablaze]

chapter 3: thankful enough

Pastel Protection Phenomena Phil’s a pastel in a shady orphanage, Dan’s a punk with a shady lifestyle. They find each other like opposite ends of a magnet and slowly but surely fall into a mutual shadiness they call love. *PREQUEL* to the oneshot ’Protective Punk’, enjoy!

A/N: tumblr cares not for my writing but Happy Pride and enjoy this chapter if you decide to read <3

There's nothing quite like waking up to the reminder that everything you love will ultimately be destroyed by those who see themselves as superior to you.

Phil groans the very second his eyes open, partly because he can feel the soil under his shirt and partly because his arms ache. He can't do anything about the former without using the effort he doesn't have so he chooses to twist and lie on his back, lifting his arms up to see that, sure enough, he has bruises from where Eric's minions had been holding him.

Sighing, he lets his arms fall back down and just looks at the roof, at the sky through the roof, at the clouds in the sky that look happier than freedom through the roof. He can hear gentle music playing somewhere so he eventually closes his eyes, losing himself in the melody of whatever's being played and imagining what it would be like to have something so beautiful written for him. It ends too soon and he's forced to sit up, to blink past the initial dizziness and remember where he is.

"I hate you," Phil mutters to Eric, even though Eric is probably still asleep and wouldn't listen to him even if he was awake.

Tears blossom in his eyes when he sees the torn petals and the ripped leaves strewn over the floor. They're beyond saving, killed for no worthy reason, but the succulents aren't. Some of them are, Phil decides as he chooses against trying to superglue the broken ones back together, but there are a few surviving leaves.

With a small but renewed determination, he finds the lid of the box they'd stepped on and cracked yesterday and clears a small patch of floor to place it on before scooping up handfuls of soil and carefully playing the remaining succulent leaves on top, hoping they can grow once more. It takes more out of him than he'd thought it would but he doesn't stop until he's searched for and found every single remaining succulent segment he can find, making sure they're all comfortable on their life-after-deathbed. Then and only then does he collapse again, exhausted and slightly demotivated by the number of flowers he'd further crushed by trying to salvage his home.

It escapes his notice that a whimper leaves his mouth when he ends up lying on his back again, a relentless sound that fades to a soft, guttural whine and carries on until he's back to sobbing, back to hating everything around him – except the plants, of course, he can't hate them because they're done nothing but die for him.

"Phil? Sh- Phil! Hey, are you okay?"

There's an unceremonious crashing noise but then the greenhouse lock is opening and there's a distinct smell of smoke as someone drops to their knees beside him.

Phil just shakes his head, feeling the tears roll sideways, too tired to even pretend he's fine, then tries to remember who this gentle voice belongs to and why they're talking to him. Brown eyes and curly hair emerge from his memories, tagged with that voice, and he wonders if he's dreaming but he's pretty sure even his dreams can't imagine anyone who cares for him at this point. After all, he's pretty sure he's read somewhere that you can't make up faces in your dreams.

"Phil? Can you hear me? This is going to be hella awkward if you're asleep."

Somehow, that makes him laugh. Once he laughs, Phil realises the dull sound of pain he'd been hearing had been his own. He cracks his eyes open again and looks up to see Dan nervously smiling down at him.

"Oh, thank Muse," Dan breathes, sitting back for a second before his tense expression comes back into view. "Think you can sit up?"

Phil nods and pulls himself onto his elbows, flinching when Dan steadies him but then offering a smile when the other boy's expression morphs into one of guilt and just accepting the help, eventually propping himself up on the wall of the greenhouse.

"I'm sorry," Phil says immediately. "For yesterday…"

Dan frowns for a second before shaking his head. "No, I- it wasn't you, don't worry. I just, uh, I didn't want you- I thought you were scared of me."

"I am scared of you," Phil replies, "but only because you stole part of my garden."

Dan's expression goes from horror to resignation to confusion to relief to guilt and then back to confusion again in under twenty seconds. "I… what?"

"I guess it doesn't really matter now, does it?" Phil asks bitterly, sighing.

"Do you mean the sucky lint?" Dan asks, his voice small and the words rushed as if he's not sure what he's saying.

Blinking, Phil tilts his head to the side and wonders if he'd misheard. "Succulent?"

After cursing under his breath, Dan goes slightly pink but nods. "Yeah, that. Uh, I didn't steal it, I borrowed it. I was going to ask but you looked way too cute when you were asleep so I was just hoping you wouldn't notice…" He fumbles with his jacket for a second before producing the succulent, pot and all, from his pocket, smiling apologetically.

Phil just stares at him. He shouldn't assume this is some elaborate metaphor but this boy, this thief, has just brought back a piece of his garden, a piece of his world, and Phil so desperately wants to take this as a sign that his heart can be rebuilt, replanted, regrown.

Realising that Dan is starting to get a little worried again, Phil takes the pot from him and gently places it next to the row of succulent survivors as if it's some sort of parental mascot for them. He lets his eyes start to close again second but he's snapped back into the present when Dan whistles.

"Phil, what exactly happened?"

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what Dan's asking, it wouldn't even take a toddler to work it out because there are very few things that can be asked by someone who's practically a stranger but also the closest thing you have to a friend and has just noticed that the place you've told them is your home is in ruins.

Phil shrugs. "They just went a bit further than usual this time."

He doesn't know what he'd expected from Dan but a look of absolute shock and disgust was not it. Dan's face is the epitome of rage as he glances to the house and then over the tiny bits of the garden Phil had managed to salvage earlier. His gaze goes back to Phil, searching his face as if it's full of answers before he frowns again, his undivided attention returning to Phil once again.

He reaches forward and gently brushes his fingers over Phil's cheek, wiping the last of the tears away, before retreating once again, apparently unaware that he'd stolen Phil's breath with the small gesture. "What happened to your face?"

Confused, Phil reaches up to touch his face in the same spot Dan had, wincing when he pokes one of the small cuts the succulent had unwillingly made when it'd been thrown at him. In response to Dan, he points to the succulent fragment he can see, hoping that's explanatory enough.

"Oh, damn. I'm sorry."

"Why?"

Dan looks confused for a second before saying, "Because you were hurt after I left and I could have been there to help you…"

Something inside of Phil warms up and he thinks it might be his heart because he ends up smiling happily at the thought of someone caring about him, wanting him to he safe and spared from pain. But then he remembers who it is that cares about him.

"What, so that you could steal more things?" Phil asks, folding his arms.

"Huh?" Dan looks genuinely confused but Phil isn't buying it, he's had enough of being gullible.

He scowls. "I know you were just using me to steal stuff. Like it's a coincidence that there was a burglary bad enough to call the police the very day we met."

There's a moment of silence before Dan splutters, "What? Phil, no! I didn't use you! I don't steal- I haven't stolen from you, I swear."

Phil pointedly points to the succulent.

"Okay, that was an exception! I just needed a reminder so I could- doesn't matter. But, honestly, I haven't stolen anything else from you." Dan's eyes are pleading with him as he throws his hands up in surrender, keeping them in the air as if that will prove something.

"Am I meant to just believe you?" Phil asks, raising an eyebrow as he subconsciously moves backwards, his sense of self-preservation telling him to get away before he gets hurt because that's just what it expects from people now.

"Yes! I promise... I swear on my life."

Phil's tempted to argue that Dan probably could have chosen something more realistic to swear on but he can practically see the sincerity radiating from Dan so he just nods, trying his best to believe it. It might help that, deep down, he wants to believe it.

"Then where did you go?" his voice is quiet because he can't make up his mind but they're in such close proximity that it doesn't go unheard.

"I have a curfew," Dan says without missing a beat so Phil figures he's either telling the truth or he's really good at lying. "I have to get back before sunrise and I didn't want to wake you so…"

There's still a massive part of Phil that can't believe he's lucky enough to have someone that's not a thief who cares for him but he figures that, if Dan had wanted to murder him, he'd had plenty of chances already so he might as well give this a go and hope for the best.

So he settles with saying: "Okay."

"Okay? What do you mean, okay?" Dan's eyebrows furrow but Phil just waits, smiling. Eventually, Dan grins back and his dimples make a quick cameo before he says, "Thank you. Hey, where did that crown go?"

"We're probably sitting on its remains," Phil replies bluntly, knowing he would have laughed at himself had he not been talking about his favourite and only accessory.

"Oh, sh- orry! It was kind of cute actually," Dan admits and Phil blushes before finally looking away from Dan, fiddling with the hem of his creased shirt because he doesn't know how to respond to anything so kind.

"Thanks," he mumbles after he's added another crease to his shirt.

"But that shirt is the ugliest thing I've ever seen."

"Hey!" Phil crosses his arms again. "Just because it's not black doesn't mean it's ugly."

Dan laughs but doesn't seem convinced. "It is the most horrible thing I've ever seen and you can't convince me otherwise unless you manage to find and show me something that we can both agree looks worse."

Phil grins, loving a challenge that doesn't involve fighting. "I would but I don't have a mirror on me."

When the meaning of Phil's words sinks in, the affronted look on Dan's face is nothing less than priceless. In fact, it's so priceless that the broken garden around him seems acceptable if the two are paired together.

"You are pushing the limits, flower king." If Dan had meant to sound threatening, it doesn't work because he's still smiling widely with a slightly dazed appreciation dancing in his eyes.

"King?" Phil asks, his laughter replaced by a pleasant confusion.

"You have a crown, don't you?" Dan asks, then bites his lip before adding, "Well, not right now, but I'm sure you have another one you can wear, right?"

Phil giggles before shaking his head sadly. "I'd love to but no, I don't."

Now the expression on Dan's face looks akin to the expression of a personal assistant who'd just learned that their boss and role-model in life is secretly a serial killer who uses the hair of their previous victims to strangle their next victim. Simply put, he looks extremely distressed.

"You only had one?"

"Yeah, I found it in the attic," Phil admits, his face heating up in embarrassment.

Dan blinks. "What? Wait, they tore apart your only flower crown?"

Phil winces. "Yeah, can we not rub it in…?" Then, seeing the angry look on Dan's face, he backtracks. "Uh, we can totally rub it in if that's what you want, I'm sorry, please don't hurt the plants!"

"I'm not going to…" Dan trails off, looking annoyed but not at Phil. "I would never hurt you."

Smiling, Phil nods in gratitude, then lets his muscles relax and breathes for a minute. "Sorry. I just..."

Dan offers him a kind smile in return. "It's okay. I wasn't mad at you anyway."

But that implies he was mad at someone. It takes Phil a minute to realise that Dan was angry on behalf of him, not at him. He was mad at Eric and his minions for ruining the flower crown, not at Phil for having let the flower crown be destroyed. The realisation warms his heart and makes him smile again.

Apparently hungry for attention, Phil's stomach makes its discomfort known by loudly grumbling.

Dan looks bemused until something dawns on him. "Didn't you have breakfast?"

"We had a lot of pasta after you left yesterday..." Phil tells him, smiling sheepishly.

"That's not..." Dan looks like he's in pain and Phil can't figure out why; It's not like they have a symbiote relationship and one of their diets directly affects the other's health.

"I'll go grab some fish and chips, okay? That's the closest thing to here, don't go anywhere."

Dan stands up but Phil shakes his head. "It's okay, I was going to get something from the house later."

"The door was locked, how were you going to do that?" Dan asks softly, a gentle accusation laced into his tone.

Phil shrugs. "I've gone longer without food, it's fine."

"What? No..." Dan bites his lip, winces as he disturbs the piercing on his lower lip, and shakes his head. "No, I'm going to get you lunch and you're not going to argue. Understood?"

Slightly intimidated by his command, Phil nods silently.

"I'm sorry, I keep doing the scaring thing and-" Dan cuts himself off but forces a smile onto his face even though the two of them both know he just feels guilty for scaring Phil again.

"I'll, um, be waiting? It's not like I'm meant to be able to go anywhere."

Dan nods absently, then walks over to the door. "Do I have to lock you back in?"

He wants to say no, he really does, but Phil nods. "That's probably best."

So Dan does, he steps outside and locks the door, then apologies twice before giving Phil a small wave and running at the fence, tucking his knees in as he jumps over it. This is followed by a painfully dull thud - which is probably him landing not so well - but Phil is in awe, amazed at how jumping can look so fluid and impressive.

He sighs as he glances around, deciding that if Dan does come back, they're not going to eat whilst surrounded by a mess of compost and broken foliage.

Grudgingly, he moves his aching limbs and starts to push all the soil to one side, picking out the leaves and petals, which he piles up in a corner. His nails aren't that long but they're long enough to collect soil underneath and become black by the time he's halfway done. Not that it stops him. He carries on, thankful for something to do with his time, even when the sight of his crushed roses makes him cry again, until the mess is significantly more organised and there's enough space in the centre of the greenhouse for two people to sit without having to get dirty.

He's sweating and tired and seriously hungry by the time he's done so he just leans against the corner again and closes his eyes, breathing deeply.

Once he's recovered, he wonders how long that had taken him. The sun is almost ready to set so he's obviously lost track of time whilst cleaning, which means that Dan is either a little later than planned due to some unforeseen factors, food takes longer than he'd thought to order and collect, or he'd stupidly fallen for the lies of yet another charming person. His nose prickles with the threat of tears as he wonders whether he's just been abandoned yet again but, just as he's about to break down, there's a rustling at the back of the garden.

He jumps as a black shoe appears, slowly, carefully followed by the rest of a body, but manages to grin away his looming heartbreak when he sees Dan's bashful smile.

He's balancing two typical plastic takeaway boxes in his hands so opening the door takes him longer this time but he does it, sliding inside and grinning at Phil, whistling in admiration as he sees the clear space. Phil waits until Dan's put the food down before launching himself at the other boy, not even thinking about it. He wraps his arms around Dan's torso and almost sobs with relief when the other boy doesn't fade under Phil's touch.

"You came back," Phil breathes happily, thankfully.

Dan awkwardly pats his back before hesitantly letting his arms rest against Phil's back. "I try not to break the promises I make to adorable boys."

Phil blushes and pulls away, highly doubting that smelling of sweat and being covered in dirt can be called adorable.

"I'm so sorry it took so long! I, uh, there was a slight complication..." Dan sounds like he doesn't want to talk about it so Phil doesn't push it, content with him coming back at all.

He doesn't get a chance to ask anyway because his stomach rumbles and he doubles over, wincing, immediately steadied by Dan, who guides him down to a more comfortable sitting position.

"I'm sorry, I should have gotten back sooner, you haven't eaten all day," Dan mutters quickly, but then picks up one of the plastic boxes. "Here, it's fish and chips, as promised."

Phil grins as he opens the lid, the delicious scent of vinegar and salt filling the air within seconds.

"Thank you," Phil says softly and his voice might be small but his gratitude isn't. He'd never expected anyone to willingly come back to him, never mind be angry on his behalf and go out of the way to find him something to eat immediately upon learning he's hungry.

He's genuinely so thankful, he's never been so thankful in his life, he's thankful enough to just about kiss Dan in thanks- wait, what?

He shakes his head and shifts his attention back to Dan, who smiles at him and bites into a chip, gesturing for him to do the same, which he does, his stomach now thankful enough to stop rudely complaining and let him enjoy the food. Once he finishes the first chip and starts the second without missing a beat, Dan beams at him, almost proudly, and says, "You're so frickin welcome."

like/reblog but don’t repost, thanks!

[they-thember]

In Which Mr. Krupp’s Secret Superpowers Aren’t Quite So Secret

( @guiltyhipster and @thatanimationgirl because we’re writing and tagging friends!!) hey y’all remember when I said I wrote CU fanfiction like five months ago. uh. here it is!! I mostly wrote it as a self-indulgent thing because I had no clue there would actually like…be a fandom!! So it’s not my best work lol I just wanted to get my ideas out on paper. 

In this, our favorite terrible principal comes down with a cold, and it turns out that Captain Underpants’ powers begin to leak through while he’s in this miserable state…I am a sad writer’s soul and I would totally love comments if you wanted to give them but totally don’t feel obligated yo!! (ALSO I wrote this when I knew that Miss Anthrope would be Mr. Krupp’s love interest, but I DIDN’T know that she was the lunch lady now so like…she’s the secretary in this lmao)

George and Harold were terribly bright children who just happened to also be terribly, terribly naughty. They never caused any harm, of course, unless one would think that placing ketchup packets beneath toilet seats, replacing the American flag in their classroom with a pair of XXL underwear, and rearranging the letters on the lunchroom bulletin board so it would read “FRIDAY’S LUNCH WILL BE: SWEATY BRAS”, was harmful.

And Principal Krupp definitely considered all those things harmful….

And thus, George and Harold found themselves in detention quite frequently. You would think that he would show a little bit of gratitude to George and Harold for keeping his miserable life interesting. And also, of course, for continuously assisting Mr. Krupp in saving the world.

Though, they couldn’t exactly expect his thanks for that last bit. Mainly because Mr. Krupp didn’t know about it.

“Do you ever think that things might go a bit easier for us if we told Mr. Krupp that he’s Captain Underpants?” Harold asked one cloudy afternoon in after-school detention as he doodled in his sketch book, completely ignoring the pages of math homework in the corner of his desk.

George rose an eyebrow, not even looking up from the story ideas he was jotting down on the page where his English essay ought to be. “So he can expel us for hypnotizing him into believing he’s a superhero?”

“…Okay, yeah, not the best idea.”

“Not the best idea,” George agreed with a teasing grin, giving his best friend’s shoulder a harmless shove. “Besides, he’d use his powers to fly up to our treehouse and make sure we’re doing our homework.”

Harold couldn’t help a snort of laughter. “And he’d use his super strength to sit on us!”

“And use his super vision to peek into Miss Anthrope’s bedroom window!” George added, and the boys were soon giggling madly, hands clamped over their mouths.

“And he would use his authority as the principal to give you brats another two days of detention!”

Harold and George paled and slowly turned to find Mr. Krupp glowering at them from the detention room doorway, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl etched into his face (which was usually just as unpleasant to begin with). The boys shared a horrified look, wondering exactly how much of the conversation their principal had overheard. He couldn’t have heard them mentioning his status as Piqua, Ohio’s local superhero?

Clearly not. He would be far angrier than this. This here was Mr. Krupp’s usual ‘angry’ setting—perhaps the most overused emotion he had, but nevertheless, it was better than the blind rage that the boys knew would come about if he had overheard the beginning of that conversation.

Mr. Krupp stormed into the room, snatching up Harold’s sketch book before the fourth-grader could protect it. He grumbled to himself as he ripped out the newest page, and Harold clutched at the metaphorical rip in his own heart. “I suppose you boys are making your ridiculous comics rather than doing your homework?”

“Th-This is our homework!” George lied quickly before Mr. Krupp could reach for his own notebook of story ideas.

“Is it, now?” their principal snorted in disbelief. “For which class, then?”

“Art!” Harold exclaimed at the same time that George said “English!”

“Ha!” Mr. Krupp snickered, jabbing a finger in Harold’s horrified face. “Art! As if we would offer that here! You miserable little hobgoblins are creative enough as it is! Now, I’m going to take this sketch book of yours and lock it up in my desk until—”

“Benny?” came the nasally voice of the school secretary over the PA system in the classroom. “You’re still in Room 201, aren’t you?”

Mr. Krupp flushed and cleared his throat. “Yes, Miss Anthrope, and the brats in detention are, too!” he called up to the receiver.

“Oh! Well, excuse me, sir—” The way his obvious love interest called him ‘sir’ had George and Harold shuddering, their faces scrunched in disgust. “–But there’s a…bit of a situation.”

“Can’t it wait?” Mr. Krupp growled, still glaring daggers to George and Harold. 

“Well….you see, there’s a flaming giant robot from space heading for the school! It just ate the gym teacher!”

Mr. Krupp’s toupee nearly tumbled off his head as he scrambled out the classroom door. “WHAT!? His family will sue us for sure! We’ll never get those holiday bonuses!” And with that, he was gone, footsteps thundering down the hall as he rushed to avoid this lawsuit.

George and Harold exchanged a wary look before pouncing out of their chairs. “Oh no!” Harold cried, running faster than he ever had in gym class. The boys bolted down the hallway in search of their principal, knowing that the school–and perhaps the world–needed Captain Underpants far more than it did Mr. Krupp.  

“Here we go again!” George’s voice echoed down the hall, followed by an exclamation from their principal (“Hey! Just because the school is under attack doesn’t mean you get to leave detention, bubs!”) and a loud snap of Harold’s fingers.

~~

As far as adventures went….this one was a bit dull.

Captain Underpants was more than ready to take on the flaming robot from outer space, of course. Once Harold snapped his fingers, the sound turned Mr. Krupp into his cheery alter ego, as per usual, and the hero was flying out the door in seconds. Fortunately, the dark clouds rumbling overhead chose that time to unleash a downpour. The flaming robot, clearly, was not expecting rain in Earth’s forecast so soon after arriving to wreak havoc. It promptly collapsed, the flames extinguishing in seconds. Captain Underpants grinned victoriously, hands placed on his hips in triumph. This only lasted momentarily before the rain had the hero’s head completely soaked. Only a minor setback for most heroes, perhaps, but Captain Underpants was much like the damaged robot from space in that water was his only weakness. In seconds, Captain Underpants was Mr. Krupp once more. The school principal barely had time to blink in surprise at being up so high before he was, unfortunately, plummeting back to earth, screaming in horror all the while.

Even more unfortunate was the gym teacher hurrying out of the robot’s broken chest plate, obviously unharmed. George and Harold would have expressed more disappointment if they weren’t screaming and scrambling with their arms outstretched, more than prepared to try to save their principal. Despite their small size and naughty tendencies, George and Harold really were very warm-hearted children, if not a bit slow to realize that trying to catch the plummeting man would only result in massive injury for them.

Thankfully, Mr. Krupp landed in the massive oak tree outside of the school. George and Harold skid to a stop and sighed in relief while their principal screamed and swore from the branches of the tree that had him tangled. They could have just left– after all, he was still alive, wasn’t he?— but the fourth graders couldn’t bring themselves to do so.

“You alright, Mr. Krupp?” George called, hands cupped around his mouth.

“What would POSSIBLY make you think that I’m ALRIGHT!?” he growled from the tangle of tree branches. The principal was still in nothing but his underwear and cape, shivering irritably as the leaves did little in protecting him from the rain. “Now get back to detention, like I ORDERED YOU TO!”

“Fine…” Harold frowned, fists balled at his sides as he started back into the school with George. “You know, if he was nicer, I would probably tell him that he can just fly down. But he can figure out how to get down on his own…Maybe Miss Anthrope will have to call the fire department to get him down like a cat.”

“I sure feel bad for the firemen…” George shuddered. “Let’s just go home, since Mr. Krupp’s not here to make sure we stay in detention….”

Harold grinned and hurried down the hallway to their locker. “Yeah! My mom’s making grilled cheese. We can take them up to the treehouse and watch a movie!”

“But, wait!” George frowned. “Shouldn’t we do our homework first?”

The boys stared at each other before bursting into laughter. They grabbed their backpacks and umbrella before starting out the door. And with that, they forgot about their angry principal screaming from the top of the oak, and they forgot about the (unfortunately) alive gym teacher, and they forgot about the robot rusting in the rain. In fact, they didn’t think twice about their nearly-exciting adventure until the next day when they were walking to school.

“That’s….weird,” George noted with a cocked eyebrow as they walked past Mr. Krupp’s house. The irritable man had a strangely pleasant garden, and at the edge of the yard was his mailbox, bent awkwardly to one side.

“So, someone hit it with a bat. I’d probably do that, too, if he wouldn’t suspect us right away,” Harold shrugged, before quirking his head when he got a good look at Mr. Krupp’s front door. It was shut, but angled a bit oddly at the doorknob. Like somebody had yanked on the door to a dollhouse and it bent. “Maybe this was all…the storm?”

“There was only just a bit of rain yesterday….” George frowned. They reached the school, noting dozens of children playing on the massive empty corpse of the robot. Of course the school wouldn’t remove it. That cost money that could have been going to terrible field trips and massages for the teachers. 

The boys turned the corner, approaching the parking lot of their school. Thoughts of bent mailboxes and crooked doors fled their minds with ease as they hurried for the playground, only slowing when they saw Mr. Krupp emerge from his car. “Well, I guess he got down from that tree at some point….” Harold murmured to George.

“He looks kind of…awful,” George decided on after a moment, his brow knit with concern.

“Uh, yeah, and you say that as if he’s not awful every day of our lives.”

Mr. Krupp grumbled to himself as he rose from the driver’s seat of the car, stalling as he held onto the top of the door. His irritated expression softened, only for his brows to knit together a moment later. He rose a curled knuckle to his nose while the other hand began to close the car door. “GhiihhHHH–! ShHEEUUHH!!”

George and Harold were barely able to choke back twin screams when the car door seemed to be sucked into the side of the vehicle with the force of Mr. Krupp’s slam. It looked like another car had crashed into it, for how battered it was now. Meanwhile, the window of the neighboring car promptly cracked with a spiderweb break with Mr. Krupp’s fierce expulsion.

The principal blinked dazedly, not noticing the damage around him as his sights locked on George and Harold. His pudgy nose crinkled with a sniffle before he scowled. “And what do you think you two are staring at!?” he snarled, turning to storm into the school without a second glance.

“….George,” Harold croaked after a moment, staring at the aftermath before them. “Did you just see—”

“Yeah. Yeah, man, I saw it…” George murmured, swallowing as panic raced through his mind.

“Mr. Krupp–”

“Yeah.”

“He must have caught a—”

“Uh-huh.”

“And his powers–?”

“I know!”

“The door and the mailbox–?”

“Probably!”

“What can we–?”

“I don’t know!” George exclaimed, clutching his best friend by the shoulders. “I didn’t think he could use his powers when he’s not Captain Underpants! H-He doesn’t KNOW he has powers!”

“Well, I-I guess sneezing isn’t exactly something he can control….” Harold shrugged, running a hand nervously through his mess of blonde hair. “So his powers must not be controllable when he’s Mr. Krupp, either…”

George groaned and hurried for the school along with Harold. “So are we just going to be chasing him around like we were before he got powers? Make sure he doesn’t kill himself?”

“HihhHHH–!” they heard from down the empty hallway.

“Or anyone else,” Harold swallowed, skidding to a stop outside of the admissions office.

“IGGHSEEUUUHH!!”

Not hearing any alarming sounds following that sneeze, George and Harold peeked into the office. Miss Anthrope sat at her desk, fanning her face as Mr. Krupp trudged into his office. Her glasses were gone, and her hair resembled a mess of wind-blown leaves. “Gesundheit, Benny…” she said dazedly, blinking in surprise. “Wh-Why don’t I get you some tissues?”

“I’m fine…” Mr. Krupp grumbled as he thoroughly scrubbed the underside of his itching, reddening nose. His nostrils flared ticklishly, and George and Harold tensed in preparation. They watched cautiously as Mr. Krupp’s breath snagged unevenly, but the need to sneeze soon evaded him, and he released a shaky sigh. “Ughh…” he grumbled as he rubbed his nose once more, clearly not making the connection that the movement would just tickle him further. 

“It sounds like you have a cold! Maybe I ought to warm you up after school…”

George and Harold shuddered and slipped back out fully into the hallway. “I mean, at least it’s not earth-shattering every time…” George tried to lighten the situation.

“Uh, yeah, but it could also be WORSE than earth-shattering…” Harold noted.

George nodded as the first bell of the day rang. They boys hurried off to class, backpacks clutched in their hands. “We just have to keep an eye on him! That’ll be easy enough!”

It was far from easy, really.

~~

“Hey! Pay attention!” Melvin Sneedly hissed to George and Harold, giving the both of them a poke with his pencil.

“Melvin! Shut up!” Harold huffed, snatching the pencil from Melvin as he and George continued to peer into the hallway, eyes trained on the admissions office.

“This will be on a test!”

“Then you better pay attention!” George said with a roll of his eyes, and he and Harold immediately jumped when a booming sneeze from Mr. Krupp echoed down the hallway. The two boys tensed and listened. They waited a moment before sighing with relief. Maybe nothing happened?

An instant later, shouts were heard from the hall as the water fountain in the office had, mysteriously, been dislocated from the wall.

“You’re up to something…” their nerdy nemesis growled, adjusting his glasses in a menacing way that only Melvin could achieve.

“Melvin!” Miss Ribble hummed pleasantly, giving his desk a tap with her ruler. “Pay attention, dear, or you won’t get cookies after class!”

“But– they were–!” Melvin hurried to explain, jabbing his finger at George and Harold.

“He’s distracting us, Miss Ribble!” George said, blinking innocently up to their teacher.

“We’re just trying to concentrate,” Harold added, though he couldn’t exactly say what they were supposed to be concentrating on.

“They’re lying!” Melvin exclaimed shrilly, face going red with frustration as he clenched his tiny fists. “They weren’t paying attention. THEY were distracting ME!”

“Well! We can’t have George and Harold being a distraction, again, now can we?”

The best friends stiffened nervously while Melvin grinned ear to ear. The three of them turned to find Mr. Krupp glowering in the doorway, just as he had found George and Harold the day before. Their principal had dark rings beneath his eyes, and his reddened, cold-ridden nose just looked ready to wreak further havoc. “You two! In my office, now!” he barked hoarsely. 

George and Harold exchanged a fearful look. Normally they would be defending their stance in regards to Melvin being the jerk out of all of them, but the two friends seemed to have the same idea as they rose, following after Mr. Krupp. They ignored Melvin’s snickering, simply following silently behind their principal.

“Can’t seem to go a day without misbehaving, hmm?” Mr. Krupp grunted hoarsely before stopping in his tracks.

George and Harold bumped into his back, stumbling once they realized he wasn’t moving. Mr. Krupp brought his nose into the crook of his elbow, taking in a shuddering gasp of breath. “HIhh–!! HIhh–HIhhHHH….”

“Oh, no!” Harold squeaked, clutching George’s arm.

“Oh, no!” George gasped as well, though his eyes were trained on the ground.  Mr. Krupp slowly began to rise from the floor, unaware of his added height as he struggled with the impending sneeze. He floated steadily upward, chest shuddering with more and more hitching breaths as he went, hovering just as Captain Underpants might.

To make matters worse, the bell rang to dismiss the students to their next class.

At once, George and Harold grabbed the legs of Mr. Krupp’s pants and pulled. The man’s powers clearly were no match for the kids, as nothing happened other than Mr. Krupp’s trousers coming down with George and Harold’s pulling. The boys gasped and gave one more yank, this time to Mr. Krupp’s ankles.With that pull, they brought him back to the floor, sending him sprawling down and resulting in a slight tremor beneath their feet. As the students filtered out of their classrooms, they stopped to stare at their principal tumbling to the floor with his pants around his ankles, though thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice his previous floating.

And, as children do, they laughed.

“HuuRRGGSHEOOOHH!!” Mr. Krupp sneezed fiercely down towards his chest, hardly concerned with using his elbow again. His brow knit immediately after, upper lip pulling into a snarl with the need to sneeze again.  “HiiiHHH–!! GHIIsHhhhEEOOOHH!!”

George and Harold looked frantically around at their laughing classmates, trying to determine if anything super-powered and destructive had resulted from those two sneezes. Perhaps the floating itself had been the dose of energy allocated to those releases, as everything else around them seemed fine.

Then they saw Melvin. The genius had his eyes narrowed as he watched Harold and George. He had been the only one not laughing at Mr. Krupp’s pantless tumble. He looked suspicious with an eager tilt to his scowl, knowing that there was something afoot that he could expose.

George and Harold couldn’t think about Melvin right now. There were more important things at hand. 

Mr. Krupp rose slowly from the floor, however, his eyes filled to the brim with unbridled rage. He stared coldly at George and Harold as he silently pulled his trousers up, adjusting the belt. “My. Office,” he growled, sending the children in the hallway quiet with the eerie, tight fury in his voice. “Now.”

George and Harold forgot about watching him to be sure that he didn’t have to sneeze. They scrambled into the admissions office, and into Mr. Krupp’s from there, feeling like bugs being chased by a starved bird. They took their usual seats, eyes locked nervously on the “KNEEL HERE” sign on the front of the desk.

“We’re dead,” Harold croaked, seeing his tiny life flashing before his eyes. “He didn’t even yell! George, he’s REALLY mad! He’ll murder us!”

“I don’t think he feels well enough to murder us…” George tried to reason, but he was definitely terrified as well.

“Ohhh, you don’t look well, Benny….” Miss Anthrope said in a cooing voice once Mr. Krupp came back into the admissions office. “You should go home…”

While George and Harold gagged silently at the affection that the two nasty adults had for each other, they couldn’t help but silently beg Mr. Krupp to listen to the secretary. That would make their jobs so much easier if Mr. Krupp just wound up destroying his own house, where nobody could witness his super-powered sickness. Unless Miss Anthrope paid him a visit later. The boys both shuddered as they had this thought at the same time.

“I can’t go home, Edith….” Mr. Krupp murmured, rubbing irritably beneath his nose. His angry expression softened only slightly when she placed her hand on his forearm. “We have that damn assembly at 10…”

George and Harold didn’t even blink at hearing their principal swear. They both clutched their faces and stared at each other in horror, thinking about the entire school filing into the gym for the assembly. Everyone in the school staring at Mr. Krupp and his sickly, super-powered self.

“George,” Harold gasped, face drained of all color. “What are we supposed to do!?”

“I-I don’t know–But we have to do…something!” George shook his head, refusing to think of what would happen if the whole school paid witness to something similar to what happened in the hallway. Who wouldn’t be completely horrified at seeing their principal start to float, or break something with the force of his sneeze?

“How, though!?” Harold groaned, struggling to keep his voice low. “We can’t keep this up!”

“This is what we get for hypnotizing him! And now we’re the only ones who….” George trailed off before sighing deeply, placing a thoughtful hand on his chin. “…I was going to say, we’re the only ones who know about….his powers…but….”

Harold gulped and shook his head. “No.”

“Harold—”

“No! We’re not doing that!”

“We have to!” George said in a tight, shushing voice. “We need someone who knows how to…deal with this sort of thing.”

“But–! He’ll tell!”

“Not if we offer him something that he can’t refuse….” George said before sighing again, looking far more exhausted than a fourth-grader should. “….We have to ask Melvin for help.”