#that after freddie dies she seriously has a moment of 'what's even the point of this my best friend died bc of me'

[firefurious]

in relation to what we were just talking about , but . how does grace cope with all the bullshit that happens to her in the week the game takes place in ? can she sleep ? does she cry or have any sort of breakdown privately ? or does she sort of just . not let herself stop and think about the trial ( yet at the same time be motivated by it ) and all these petty and spiteful fucks getting in her way ?

for the most part, grace is just pushing through and not letting herself stop. i think she knows there's literally no time for it; she can't give herself the luxury to process everything that's happening to her because each moment wasted on that is a moment less to figure out what happened and prove her innocence.

which means she gets terribly stressed out whenever whoever is helping her tells her to just wait. not only it's time she feels she could be using to act, waiting is when everything threatens to catch up to her and she can't stop. she doesn't wanna risk not being able to pick herself up again.

she sleeps very little, and mostly only because the stress and exhaustion of everything happening in such a short time just knocks her out eventually (i know apollo wanted her to rest but consider: she can't relax). i feel for the most part grace is either acting or considering what to do next. i could say preparing but honestly people keep her in the dark about what she's supposed to do next so often that the most she can prepare is like. preparing herself to face anything jsdnfakjsnd

and so she does! going to a club and facing down a goddess in a song battle? sure. going to the reliquary to find the minotaur? okay. going to a party no one wants to tell her anything about and adapting as she learns? will do. there's no other choice. so she just faces whatever bullshit people throw at her the best she can (as she says in my favorite reply to athena after it's determined there will be a trial, and the one reply i'd keep as canon for my blog: okay, it's unfair but it is what it is. she'll do her best. it's all she can do).

i think the only breakdown she has is very visible and it happens when freddie dies. it's also the one moment i feel she'd falter because to her, her life isn't worth more than freddie's. there's this dialogue option where she says 'it should've been me' that i feel is very fitting with how she'd feel about it. and at least with apollo, his reply ends with something like 'freddie gave you a chance' — that honestly is something i feel would lead her to keep pushing through. freddie died to give her a chance. she won't squander that opportunity, no matter how much she wishes things had been different. it's the least she can do when it's what freddie would've wanted her to do.

other than that, no, she never stops to cry or despair or breakdown even in private. all her energy is dedicated to keep going, no matter what happens. people around her might forget her life is on the line, but she doesn't. they might act like there is time, but she can't, she knows there isn't. it's definitely not stopping to think about it while keeping it as a motivator; a very serious threat that keeps her going but that she won't examine too closely so she won't breakdown.

after the trial, it'd probably take days for the sense of impending danger and the adrenaline and anxiety of being Constantly dealing with something to finally fade. and when it did... well.. that's when i think she'd really start to process it. to cry and feel the weight of it full force and be happy she's alive and be angry she had to go through all that and be devastated about freddie's loss. even then, i'd consider everything that happened pretty traumatic, from calliope dying in her arms to being sentenced to death to having a week to prove her innocence and everything that happens there. it's not like she'd get over it fast. it wouldn't stop haunting her soon after it was done. she can't just forget about it.

she'd definitely be on guard and have trouble sleeping, and i think the restlessness also lingers. i think her keeping herself so busy after the trial is also a means to cope; still not letting herself stop for too long or think too hard about what happened. hoping given time it'll be distant enough she won't have trouble with it anymore.

[melanodis]

What's the garden au tell me about it I'm intrigued

@valkyrkinnie feel free to add onto this because I'm braindead atm

just pasting the entire document here to be real

Garden of Afton au or just, "the garden", is just an excuse for every diverging continuity we make up.

The reasoning behind every continuity is that Michael is in a time loop, beginning from the moment Ennard decides to leave its flesh suit and he wakes up on that warm sidewalk.

To get out of this time loop, he's got to fix all the mess his father made by destroying every animatronic related to the incident.

If he dies, he starts over, left with only an incredible sense of unease and deja vu if he goes towards the wrong path once again.

But no matter the continuity, there's always one thing that's always there; the garden.

Before everything, the Aftons had a prize winning garden that Mrs. Afton kept up with mostly.

It's also where she and Elizabeth are buried, with Ballora burying her own corpse and the latter by William.

The garden has always existed, and will always exist no matter its dilapidation.

Commonly, Ballora will be drawn to it and will realize her identity as the late Mrs. Afton.

This all acts as an alternative to Pizzeria Sim; it never happens.

Here's where we get nightmare gas leaky. The time loop? it's fabricated.

At the end of the final, completed loop, Michael wakes up from a medically induced coma he was placed under by Henry. By Michael destroying everyone in this hyperrealistic dream, he frees them from the real world also. They agreed that this would be the end of it.

All Michael remembers is the very last loop that in his mind lasted years, when in reality it lasted about 2 months. Needless to say, he regrets ever signing those papers.

However, there were some loops where Henry seriously considered killing Michael so that he never would've known that this was just a dream.

Loops where he was finally happy. where he brought them together and made them whole. Because at least then, the end goal was still achieved; they could never hurt anyone in the real world again.

And Michael himself would finally have peace.

Michael waking up can ALSO segway into him brutally attacking Henry for this sort of torturous 2 and a half month long nightmare, with Henry agreeing to put him back under for good and they both pass on.

Which THEN segways to Michael accidentally possessing Glamrock Freddy years later while he's in the parts and services protective dome. And Gregory is playing Simon Says on his FACE.

The universe hates Michael so he exists only as a foil to his father. To clean up his mess and ultimately live in his shadow.

So if Michael is here now after dying 6 years ago... so is he.

But Henry could've never even anticipated William returning in the form of Glitchtrap.

The whole time traveling part requires Henry to die here, because then his soul is freed to literally fuck around and find out. Retaining information he's gained from different timelines and continuities, bringing them to others, trying to find *some way* to patch things up. Something typically always goes wrong, yknow butterfly effect and chaos theory bullshit. But he can dream, at least.

It all boils down to "what if he could save them all?" He can't, and he realizes this. but DAMN he will try.

The first thing he does is stop Michael from ever signing those documents. He doesn't need him anymore. There's no point in putting Michael through all that torture again.

He doesn't DESERVE any of that.

Whatever time to quantum suicide to the gay reality.

-

My favorite is when Henry shows up to Fazbear's closing in 1993 to stop William from having a workplace accident (eviscerating himself inside Springbonnie).

William being completely shell shocked because HIS Henry completely denounced ever wanting to see his face again and here he is just, nonchalantly walking up to him. Takes a drag of a cigarette and goes "yeah don't do that".

1st - The actual fear gas experimenting time loop shit. The "canon" timeline.

2nd - Michael getting trapped in The Good Timeline after Henry kills him (Michael refurbishes all the animatronics of his family himself, runs fazbears, etc)

3rd - Henry dies and his soul is freed to fuck around and find out.

Hell, all of this is more just a prologue to everything considering I mostly fuck around with 3rd continuity Henry anyway.

[amarbell123]

I always come back Chapter 4

“Good morning bench mate!” Gregory greeted Cassie with a bright smile. Cassie looked up from her book and blinked. “Good morning Gregory.” The brunette sat down next to her. “What ‘cha reading?” Cassie lifted up the book, the title said ‘Cinderella is Dead’. “Ooh! I read this a week back!” Cassie’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Really?!” She moved her chair closer to him. “I did! Where are you right now?” “Constance and Sophia are meeting at Cinderella’s tomb.” “Ooh! They’re such a cute couple, Constance and Sophia.” Cassie rested her chin on her hand. “Really? Well now I'm excited." I laughed a little, and Cassie gave me a confused look. “What’s so funny?” “Well it’s just that.. I’ve never really seen you express any emotion, it’s hard to tell what you’re feeling.. You don’t really wear your heart on your sleeve.” 

“Oh.” Cassie looked away. “I’ve never really been expressed that much.. Every now and then I might.. I don’t know why.” Gregory bit down on his bottom lip. “You know what. I’ll make it my mission to smile. One big bright smile!” Cassie blinked at him once more. “That’s.. Going to be hard Gregory.” “Well that’ll make the result all the more satisfying.” Cassie simply rolled her eyes. 

“Mr. Ramirez and Ms. Nightingale, can you please pay attention? Just because you have finished your homework, it does not mean you can talk.” The teacher spoke firmly, catching both of them off guard. They hadn’t heard her come in. “Sorry ma’am.” Gregory responded. Once the teacher had looked away, Cassie whispered to him, “Gregory Ramirez? That’s your name?” Greg nodded in response. “Yeah.. a nice lady adopted me 5 years ago.. I didn’t really have a last name until then.” Cassie nodded at that. “I was adopted too.. I was homeless for a while..”

Gregory’s heart skipped a beat. So she was adopted?! This was big! There could be a very real chance then that this could be his Cassie! “You seem very excited..” Cassie mumbled. “O-Oh.. well.. I’ve never really met anyone else who.. You know.. Was adopted like me.” He didn’t really think before adding, “I mean.. There was one girl..” he cursed himself once he said it. 

Cassie straightened when she heard that. “Oh.” She suddenly seemed much more interested in the conversation. “What was she like?” Gregory rubbed her neck, a slight blush on his face. “She.. looked a lot like you.. She was so brave, and she was my best friend..” “What was her name?” Greg hesitated, before opening his mouth to answer.

“Mr. Ramirez and Ms. Nightingale. Do I need to repeat myself?” The teacher suddenly asked. “No ma’am.” The two of them responded. “Good.” Gregory and Cassie didn’t talk after that, and Cassie didn’t ask about it after that, which was completely fine with Gregory. He didn’t think he wanted to talk about their friendship 5 years ago this early.

~

“You both are progressing quite well.” Roxy said, clearly impressed. “He found one sign that it might be your.. Carrots.” Vanessa said to the wolf. “It's better than nothing, night guard.” Freddy shrugged from where he was seated on the couch. “She has a point Vanessa.” Gregory went and sat down next to the animatronic bear, who patted him on the head. 

“Though, I'd say even if it isn’t our Carrots, Gregory hasn’t really hesitated when it comes to getting close to her.” Roxy was giving him a smug look. “Why do you even have a personality? You’re a literal robot..” Gregory asked the wolf irritatedly. She was really getting on his nerves with the teasing. “Hey look, I'm not the one who’s quite literally flirting with her!” “I'm not flirting! Mom, tell her!” Vanessa simply smiled. “I don’t know Greg, sounds a lot like flirting.” Greg glared at her, and pulled out his phone. “It is 5:57 pm. Now I know the exact moment when our friendship died.” Everyone burst out laughing, and Gregory eventually joined them. 

“But seriously Greg, just admit it we can tell you sort of like her!” “Oh for god’s sake I don't!” ~

“You’re awfully quiet today. Are you okay?” Gregory looked up from his textbook over at Cassie. He couldn’t stop thinking about how everyone in his family thought he liked this girl. Sure, she was cute, there was no doubt about it, but he didn’t like her.

Nope. Not at all.

So why did he get butterflies in his stomach with the way her attention was all on him? “Oh. Well.. Just studying.. You know.. For exams.” 

“We don’t have any exams until next month Gregory.” “..never too early to study.” Cassie rolled her eyes, her mouth moved up into what Gregory assumed was a half smile, though it didn’t look like it. It really was hard to tell. “Can’t really argue with that.” “Because it’s true and you know it~” She gently nudged his stomach, and Gregory giggled at that. When he looked back at her, the girl was staring blankly at him.

“Are you okay?” He asked, snapping Cassie out of her thoughts. “Oh. Yeah I am.” She then looked back down into her own notebook where she had been doing her homework, and Gregory swore he saw her blushing slightly.

They sat in silence for some time, until Gregory heard Cassie groan quietly. “Gregory..” She called. “I have a question.” He looked over at her, and she moved closer, placing her notebook on his side of the table, before pointing at one of the questions. “They want us to prove this, but I don't know how. How’d you solve it?” 

Gregory pulled out his pen and moved to the back page of her notebook. “It’s quite simple..” He said, before starting to explain how to solve it to her. Cassie listened with rapt attention, and Gregory really enjoyed it. 

“And that’s how you solve it.” He finished with a bright smile, looking up at Cassie, before blushing. 

She was sitting close to him.

Too close.

Their noses were practically touching.

She had her hand on his knee, Gregory hadn’t even noticed her touch him. 

Cassie seemed similarly flustered, gulping inaudibly before taking her hand off his knee and looking away to hide her blushing face. “Thanks for teaching me..” She mumbled, taking the notebook from him. “Don’t mention it, I'm just glad you know how to solve it now.” “You’re a great teacher..” He smiled at that. Cassie smiled a little too, which made Greg’s heart sing in joy. “I can see you smiling a little.. Guess we’re making progress..” The girl rolled her eyes, before taking her notebook back from him. “I suppose we are..”

-

[makerofmadness]

title here. another thanks to @umbrarkzoo for motivation seriously go check out their art.

Monty: Hello all, it is I, your favorite person. Glamrock Chica: Actually, Roxy is my favorite. Monty: Okay then, it is I, that bitch.

-

Balloon Boy: Fight me! Foxy, standing behind him and holding a knife: *mouths* Do not.

-

Freddy: If I die, my funeral will be the biggest party ever and you're all invited. The Puppet: "If" Golden Freddy: Great, the only party I'm ever invited to and he might not even die.

-

*after killing Phone Guy and then realizing he’s not the killer*

Chica: This is getting embarrassing. Bonnie: Getting? We’re already there!

-

Funtime Freddy: A party is a celebration of a life, bringing people together to let the guest of honor know how much they’re loved. Eggs Benedict has done so much for us. This is our chance to do something for him. Bon-Bon: By forcing him to have fun at a party that he doesn’t want to be at? Funtime Freddy: I knew you’d understand.

-

Michael Afton: No, this is not a mess. You know what I consider a mess? Ennard: Your life? Michael Afton: I- well yes, but-

-

William Afton: Life could be worse, Mike. Michael Afton: Life could be a lot better too!

-

*at a zoo* Ennard: What are they in for? Michael Afton: Ennard, this isn't prison. Ennard: So they can leave? Michael Afton: No, but- Ennard, pointing at a meerkat: I bet that one murdered someone.

-

*the TV is freaking out* Michael Afton: Don’t worry, you have to treat an electronic like you treat a patient on life support. *unplugs the TV, then plugs it back in again. nothing changes* Michael Afton: Yeah, that didn’t work with my brother either.

-

HandUnit: Helpful grammar tip: “farther” is for physical distance, “further” is for methaphorical distance, and “father” is for emotional distance!

-

Henry Emily: Where are you going? William Afton: Hell, eventually.

(moments before he killed Charlie)

-

Toy Chica I like wearing oversized sweaters. Not just because they're extremely comfy and cuddly, but because whenever the sleeves are really big, I get to flop them around and smack people.

-

Bonnie: It’s funny how well you and the Puppet get along. Didn’t she hate you at first? Freddy: The Puppet hates everybody at first. It’s her way of reaching out to people.

-

The Puppet: I swear to god I'm the only one here with a braincell. Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, and Mangle: ALL HAIL the keeper of the sacred braincell!

-

Michael Afton: My dad has a spiked collar. Michael Afton: *dog

-

Crying Child: Guys, there’s a monster under my bed and it’s really ugly. Nightmare Freddy under the bed: Honestly, fuck you.

-

Funtime Freddy: I WOULD DESTROY THE WORLD FOR YOU! Bon-Bon: Okay, can you do the dishes? Funtime Freddy: No!

-

Golden Freddy: Is this a good idea? Golden Freddy: Probably not. Golden Freddy: Do I care? Golden Freddy: No.

(UCN be like)

-

Monty: I'm going the fight the next person who insults Roxy. Roxy: I hate myself. Monty: Alright, square up.

-

Jeremy Fitzgerald: But what about Fritz? Phone Guy: Don't worry about him. Phone Guy: I once watched him fall down 5 flights of stairs, stand up, and keep eating his hotdog like nothing happened.

-

Sun: Five little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and… Gregory: Was diagnosed with mesothelioma. Sun: Mamma called the doctor and the doctor said… Vanessa: You might be entitled to financial compensation if he or a loved one dies.

-

Freddy: Thank you for not saying "I told you so." The Puppet: When you’re as right as I am, you don’t have to say it.

-

Monty: Gregory’s first detention, I'm so proud. Glamrock Chica: Whoa, back up. Why did he get detention? Roxy: Because he’s an idiot. Glamrock Freddy, terrified: They can do that??

-

The Puppet: Bonnie, I don’t think I can handle any more of your tomfuckery. Toy Bonnie: Oh yeah? Well I can keep going until you’re all tomfuckered out!

-

Fritz Smith: That's greatly offensive to my people. Jeremy Fitzgerald: College dropouts?

-

Toy Chica: Did you hear that!? Jeremy just threatened to destroy my lego AT-AT! Toy Freddy: ...You just threatened to kill him in his sleep.

-

Henry Emily: What the fuck is wrong with you?? William Afton: What? No good morning? Henry Emily: Good morning, what the fuck is wrong with you??

-

Pizza Bot: Now, the recipe calls for 2 shots of vodka. Pizza Bot: *upends the bottle*

-

Phone Dude: I’ve never smoked marijuana. I ate a brownie once at a party. It was intense. It was kind of indescribable. I felt like I was floating. Turns out there was no pot in the brownie. It was just an insanely good brownie.

-

Funtime Freddy, spraying a melted cutting board with a tiny water gun: We gotta cool this bitch down. Cool it down. Funtime Foxy: I actually just put the cutting board in the oven... Ballora, visibly confused: Okay, so he decided to put the cutting board in the oven? Funtime Freddy, spraying Funtime Foxy: You FUCKING DUMBASS! Funtime Foxy: Dude, I forgot- Funtime Freddy: OH MY FUCKING GOD! We're trying to make Chicken Alfredo right now, and you fucking MELT the cutting board in the oven at 400 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!? Michael Afton: *Watching in complete confusion while trying to process this whole situation.*

-

Gregory, trying his first ever cup of coffee: I am ENERGY! Phone Guy, an avid coffee drinker, on his twelfth cup of the day: Someone slap me awake or I am literally going to fall into a coma in ten seconds.

-

Gregory: I woke up and chose VIOLENCE. I WILL COMMIT ARSON AND BURN EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND!!! I AM ANGRY- Glamrock Chica: Awwww, you’re so adorable! Give me a hug~ Gregory: Wh-What? nO, yOURE SUPPOSED TO BE SCARED OF ME! TREMBLE BEFORE MY WRATH- Glamrock Freddy, recording: This is so cute.

-

William Afton: What is your favorite mythical story? Henry Emily: The Story Of My Will To Live. William Afton: I don’t think I’ve heard of that one before.

-

*The gang responding to being stabbed by a sword* Freddy: Rude. Bonnie: That's fair. Chica: Not again. Foxy: Are you gonna want this back or can I keep it?

-

Henry Emily: Wow, great work on the Halloween decorations. Where did you get the fake skeletons? William Afton: Fake?

-

Toy Chica: My assistance will be an act of beneviolence. The Puppet: ...Don’t you mean benevolence? Toy Chica: No.

-

Jeremy Fitzgerald: Who knew getting in trouble would be so impossible? Michael Afton: I gotta give you credit, Fritz. You make it look easy. Fritz Smith: Years of practice.

-

Michael Afton: It's called cauliflower, not ghost broccoli. Crying Child, eyes wide: I know what I saw.

-

Toy Freddy: Okay happy campers! If you were a fruit what would you be and why? The Puppet: I'd be a tomato because no one accepts me as part of the group. Toy Freddy: ... The Puppet: ... Toy Freddy: OKAY HAPPY CAMPERS-

-

Vanessa: The next time I open up to someone, it'll be my autopsy.

-

Freddy: Just be yourself. Say something nice. Golden Freddy: Which one? I can't do both.

-

Jeremy Fitzgerald: Hey, can I get a sip of that water? Fritz Smith: It’s not water. Jeremy Fitzgerald: Vodka! I like your sty- Fritz Smith: It’s vinegar. Jeremy Fitzgerald: …What? Fritz Smith: It's vinegar, PUSSY.

-

Freddy: What are you eating? Golden Freddy: You wouldn't like it, it's really salty. Freddy: I like you, don't I?

-

Gregory: My stomach growled super loud in French. Gregory: I would like to clarify, my stomach did not speak in French. It growled during French class. Monty: Bonjour. Roxy: Le growl. Glamrock Chica: Hon hon hon, feed me a baguette.

-

Toy Bonnie: Advice of the day kids, if you ever meet someone who calls Gatorade flavors the actual name of the flavor instead of just the color then they are a certified nerd. Bonnie: Yeah but you have to specify, frost glacier or cool blue? You can’t just say blue because there’s more than one blue. Toy Bonnie: Blue and light blue, nice try nerd.

-

Funtime Foxy: Standing next to sunflowers always makes me feel weak like ‘look at this fucking flower. This flower is taller than I am. This flower is winning and I’m losing.’ Michael Afton: Wow, you are not ready to hear about trees.

-

Chica: The greatest trick the devil ever played was getting me banned from an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. Bonnie: Why’d you get banned? Chica: Touched the rat. Bonnie: … What rat? Chica: Chunky Cheese.

-

Circus Baby: I was born for politics. I have great hair and I love lying.

-

Circus Baby: Ballora, we tried things your way. Ballora: No, we didn't. Circus Baby: I did it in my head and it didn't work.

-

*Everyone is playing a board game together* Freddy: I will put 'A' down to make 'A'. Chica: I will add onto your 'A' to make 'AT'. Foxy: I will add onto your 'AT' to make 'RAT'. Bonnie: I will add onto your 'RAT' to make 'BIOSTRATAGRAPHIC'. Foxy: *flips the board*

-

Chica: When I met you I thought you were a real bitch. Toy Chica: What changed your mind? Chica: Oh, I still think you’re a bitch, I’ve just grown to like that about you.

-

Toy Freddy: What if the person who named Walkie Talkies named everything? Toy Freddy: Pregnancy tests are Maybe Babies. Toy Bonnie: Socks are Feetie Heaties. Toy Chica: Defibrillators are Heartie Starties. Mangle: Nightmares are Dreamy Screamies. Balloon Boy: Stamps are Lickie Stickies. The Puppet: I hate you guys so much.

-

Sun: Let’s write Gregory a friendly note, shall we? Dear... Incompetent... Dumbass...

-

Foxy: That was a joke. Say ha. Bonnie: Ha. Foxy: Now do it again. Bonnie: Ha. Foxy: Congratulations, you are officially the life of the party.

-

Bonnie: When I first met you, I did not like you. Toy Bonnie: I'm aware of that. Bonnie: But then you and I had some time together. Toy Bonnie: Uh-huh? Bonnie: It did not get better.

-

William Afton: God has let me live another day and I'm going to make it everyone's problem.

[malikmata]

Notes from a Brown Boy - Kansas Diaries

*Author’s Note: Some people’s names have been changed to protect their identities

The rain was the first thing to greet me when I landed in Wichita. Overhead the gray clouds loomed, shadowing the farmland that yawned in the distance. Distance. At first glance, the city seemed like one long stretch of prairies and cracked parking lots, occasionally punctuated by billboards of grinning injury lawyers and lit up restaurant road signs.

If you spend enough time here amid the crumbling old buildings, watching the weeds sway in the vacant lots, you’ll feel the slow, inevitable creep of dread or something like it.

It’s easy to feel lonely here.

But, if you’re receptive enough, you’ll run into many friendly folks. Sometimes too friendly.

For example: During my first week, I went to Freddy’s, a local fast food chain, and ordered a crispy chicken sandwich with fries. The cashier, a young woman with glasses and short blonde hair, suddenly started confessing her fear that her 8-year old chihuahua wouldn’t live a long life.

“I still think of him as a teenager,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s a chihuahua. They live long lives.”

Out here, in the most middle-of-the-road cities, you sometimes get a chance to show an act of passing kindness. While waiting in line at one of the hip, new cafes downtown, a place called Milkfloat, a tall elderly gentleman recommended which coffee and pastry to get.

“My wife says this place has the best cold brew in town.” Afterwards, grabbing his pastry and coffee, he wished me a good day. Most folks here always do and you better hope it comes true. Because here, like elsewhere, a day is filled with ordinary heartbreaks.

I will simply call her “Tita.” She works as a tailor at a department store, the only tailor working there, hemming and tapering racks full of suit pants under fluorescent lights. The nature of the job requires exact measurements and a keen eye for detail. She works hard, often skips lunch, and comes home dead tired. Her husband is recovering from 4 broken ribs after a car repair job went awry. Nothing can be done but wait until he gets better.

They live in a languid suburb on Wichita’s east side, a street with few sidewalks but plenty of lawn.

And noise. Plenty of noise. The neighborhood sits next to a car dealership. The skies overhead rumble continuously with airplanes and thunderstorms. Dogs bark at anyone who gets too close. A pickup truck blasts a corny country song as the cicadas and frogs belt out their lonely mating calls. Occasionally, a child’s laughter rises above it all.

Gossip is one of the great pastimes in towns like these. Even if you shut yourself up in your home, stories trickle in.

The neighbor across the street shot himself in the head.

The elderly couple that used to live next door got committed to a nursing home.

A fellow around the corner is on his third attempt to grow weed.

A college student starves himself morning to night so that he can save money for college.

Down the street, a kid lifts weights and punches the heavy bag hanging on his front porch.

Here, dumb luck seems, more so than in the big cities, the providence of God.

A man told me he got a job installing new carpets at a friend’s house. He was in desperate need of money, having sent most of it to his mother back home, who proceeded to gamble it away. When he ripped out the old carpet, he found a bundle of $10,000 dollars just lying there. His co-worker said, “We should split it.”

“No, no, we can’t take it.” the man said. He gave the money to his friend.

Sometime later, he went to the casino and couldn’t stop winning jackpot after jackpot. He brought home close to $16,000 in one night.

“So, if you do something good,” he told me, “God will remember that.”

Many people have come to live and die here, all of them wrapped up in the melancholic churning of faded ambitions and familial obligations.

Some people here have found something that returns them to the placidity they once felt in their youth. Sometimes that’s enough to keep them going.

For example:

I met Phil Uhlik, the namesake of the music store on E Douglas. He heard me playing an old Martin acoustic in one of the rooms. He shuffled in slightly hunched over, wearing a blue paisley shirt and brown shorts. He looked at the sunburst guitar in my hands and said, “It’s got a little beauty mark there.” He pointed to a small nick just above the sound hole. “All girls have beauty marks.” He pointed to his cheeks and smiled.

Uhlik started this music store 51 years ago and enjoys every moment of it.

“When you go to work for Boeing, that’s work,” he said. “But this, it doesn’t feel like work.” He motioned to the instruments all around him.

“How’d you get started?” I asked.

“I started off playing one of these,” he said, taking one of the accordions off a nearby shelf. As he strapped it on, all the years seemed to disappear. With a big crooked-teeth grin, he breathed life into the old accordion, his hands dancing up and down the keys. The smile never left his face as we bid farewell to each other.

I wish everyone in this world were as lucky as Phil.

I’m always seeking indie bookstores when I travel. Eighth Day Books provides much needed shelter from the summer heat. The shop was built 33 years ago and used to be located about half a mile east, in Clifton Square Village. About 17 years ago they moved to their current location, a 1920 Dutch-style colonial house on the corner of E Douglas and N Erie. Its blue trimmed windows peek through the foliage of neighboring trees.

When you walk in, you’ll see shelves of books on Christianity and Theological studies, most notably in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. I’ve never seen a bookshop with a section dedicated to Iconography.

Wichita, despite its size, feels like a small place. And with that cramped spaciousness, you’re likely to run into someone you may remember or who may remember you. Here I ran into my girlfriend’s 8th grade English teacher. A bald, bespectacled man with a gentle demeanor. After a bit of catching up, he said to us with a smile, “I hope all your dreams come true.”

The short story writer, Raymond Carver, once wrote: “Dreams… are what you wake up from.”

Wichita is a land that hypnotizes you; it makes you dream, dream of something beyond the miles of strip malls and airplane factories, beyond the shocks of wheat and windswept plains, beyond the doldrums and ennui. But it also shakes you awake, reminds you that you’re in it, that you better stop dreaming.

I’m not the religious sort anymore, having survived the regime laid down by my Catholic parents. But there is something enthralling, maybe even inspirational, when I look at the rows of beautifully painted portraits of saints and martyrs. Such solemn faces surrounded by golden halos. According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, such paintings transcend art; they’re supposed to be windows through which you can glimpse the divine. They remind me of my grandparents with their judging eyes and moral seriousness.

My book haul for the day:

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

The Diary of Anne Frank

Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries by Marina Tsvetaeva

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector

In that last book, I found this lovely little passage:

…”in the Revolution, as always, the weight of everyday life falls on women: previously--in sheaves, now in sacks. Everyday life is a sack with holes. And you carry it anyway.”

From Earthly Signs, P. 40

According to the 2019 United States census bureau, 15.9% of Wichita's population lives below the poverty line. That’s higher than the state average, which hovers around 11.4%. That’s not the lowest nor is it the highest in the country. As befitting its location, Kansas is right in the middle.

The minimum wage in Kansas is still $7.25 despite efforts to increase it to $15. When Covid-19 hit, city and service workers bore the brunt of the impact. You can keep all your empty slogans like  “We Love Our Frontline Workers.” Congratulate me all you want for my hard work but where’s my pay?

When you see that business here has returned to normal--people freely walking around without masks, no longer socially distancing--it still feels all too strange; we spent an entire year under lockdown. There’s still a pandemic by the way.

Loved ones fell ill, died alone, hooked up to ventilators in closed off hospital rooms. I believe every interaction now carries the weight of all those deaths. My family, like so many others, didn’t escape unscathed from the pandemic. My grandpa, Amang, caught Covid. Since he was an elderly citizen (and suffering from emphysema to boot), he was among those considered most at risk. We all feared the worst. Somehow he survived. The doctors called him a “trailblazer.”

Now, with businesses back to 100% capacity, I’m afraid that, just like the 1918 Flu epidemic, the past will fade like a nightmare upon waking. But it was so much more than that; it was an avoidable tragedy.

If you want to know what this pandemic has done to people and their livelihoods, is still doing to them, take a ride through downtown.

Things were already going bad before Covid hit. Back in 2004, the writer Thomas Frank wrote,

“There were so many closed shops in Wichita… that you could drive for blocks without ever leaving their empty parking lots, running parallel to the city streets past the shut-down sporting goods stores and toy stores and farm implement stores.”

What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, P. 75

What led to all this blight? Frank attributes the decline to:

“the conservatives’ beloved free market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for smalltown merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place.”

-P. 79

The same story happens in a lot of places. A megacorporation keeps eating everything around it and leaves nothing else at the table.

The people are left hurting, a pit in their stomachs, and some asshole somewhere profits off of it.

While at the DMV, I overheard this:

“You have a good day now,” the security guard said.

“I’ll try my best,” a woman said.

My girlfriend heard them too and laughed.

“You really do have to try your best in order to have a good day here.”

At some point, we hit the town with a couple friends: Monica, and her boyfriend Will. Both are musicians trying to carve out their niche in a place that, on the surface, seems apathetic to creative pursuits.

It’s impossible to not be captured by their energy. As soon as we walk into their house, Monica, with her dark blonde hair draped over her shoulders, reached in for a hug. Will, a tall and bearded fellow with a bear-like presence, also went in for the hug.

“Ready to experience some Wichita nightlife?” Monica asked.

What is the nightlife here like? A group of high school punks wanted to fight us over a couple movie theater seats. Bored kids play rounds of “Chinese Fire Drill” at stop lights. I heard a nazi biker gang rolled into town at some point during my stay. Regular things like that.

At a low-key bar downtown called Luckys, I met a guy named Cory. He told me how he met a 15 year old kid loitering here, looking lost and forlorn.

“I don’t know what kind of advice I can give you but I’ll do the best I can,” Cory said.

This is the spirit I’ve often come across during my stay: A sort of slightly intrusive compassion. For a cynical Californian like me, the behavior seems a little strange, maybe even a little annoying. But I’ve come to appreciate the candor of it.

“Guaranteed we’ll know half the people here,” Will said.

Right away, he shook hands with the bartender—a high school friend of his—and asked him how his band was doing. Afterwards, we sat down and talked. Talking, after a year of pandemic lockdown, has become a lost art to me. But a little alcohol loosened the lips and suddenly I talked as though I’d known these people my whole life.

Will sipped his whisky on the rocks and told me:

“If everything in this world is meant to break down eventually, then any act of creation becomes an act of defiance.”

It may sound naive but to me, it’s true. I think about the words of the writer, John Berger:

Compassion defies the laws of necessity. To forget yourself and identify with a stranger has a power that defies the supposed natural order of things.

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 179

Making art has to be, in some way, a compassion act, because it involves letting the environment and the people you meet speak for themselves, allowing a collaboration.

“When a painting is lifeless it is the result of the painter not having the nerve to get close enough for a collaboration to start… Every authentic painting demonstrates a collaboration.”

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 16

You need to open yourself up, feel what someone is saying behind their words, and hopefully, feel what they feel.

Art, like Compassion, is defiant.

Among the 4 or so Asian markets here, you can find all the ingredients you need to cook up something good. During my first week, I stopped at a place called Grace Market. Like a lot of small Asian markets, it’s family run. A father from Taiwan. A mother from Korea. The son usually helps out when he can. Today (June 23), On this warm Wednesday morning, the son is manning the cash register.

“You’re from California? I’m from there too,” he said.

“Where at?” I asked.

“Sacramento. How about you? So Cal?”

“Nah, Bay Area.”

“Funny. That’s where my parents met.”

“Small world.”

On a different day, we met the father, a jovial man who never fails to say hi when you walk in. He came here over a couple decades ago from California, doing work for the US Army in Garden City. Once his service was over, he decided to stay in Kansas.

“I think you know why,” he said.

More and more young folks these days are leaving California. The high cost of living is presumably what’s driving this exodus. I told him I was also thinking of leaving the Golden State, as much as I love the place.

“Well, a town like this has a lot of potential if you want to save money,” he said. “If I tried to start this business in California, I don’t think I could’ve done it.”

The summer heat can, with the suddenness of a lightning flash, give way to thunderous storms. Speaking as someone from California, whose home has gone through excruciating periods of drought and wildfire, these nightly downpours are a startling yet relaxing sight.

The distant boom of thunder in the distance reminds you of how much of our lives depend on the weather, how small we are in comparison, how we are never separate from the goings-on of nature. The rain doesn’t come down lightly here. At night, it smacks and drums against the window pane with all the force of an animal trying to get inside.

But I don’t find myself frightened by it so much as awed by the combined power of wind and rain colliding against our rickety old house.

Kansas lies in the Great Plains, where layers of cool and warm air often combine into a low-level jet stream. Unimpeded by any natural obstacles on the wide flat plains, the wind roars across the expanse. Thunder growls over the prairie. And lightning flashes on the horizon in a fearsome red tinge.

The storm rages throughout the night, the only source of light in an ocean-sized plain.

“In general, the gods of the Wichita are spoken of as "dreams," and they are divided into four groups: Dreams-that-are-Above (Itskasanakatadiwaha), or, as the Skidi would say, the heavenly gods; and (2) Dreams-down-Here (Howwitsnetskasade), which, according to the Skidi terminology, are the earthly gods. The latter "dreams" in turn are divided into two groups: Dreams-living-in-Water (Itska-sanidwaha), and the Dreams-closest-to-Man (Tedetskasade)”

From The Mythology of the Wichita, P. 33

If you go downtown, you’ll see a sculpture called “The Keeper of the Plains.”

It’s almost 9 o’ clock when I get there, so large crowds have gathered to watch the ring of fire lit around its perimeter.

The statue was designed by indigenous artist and craftsman, Blackbear Bosin. Born in Cyril, Oklahoma, but living much of his adult life in Wichita, Kansas, Bosin was of Comanche and Kiowa descent and almost entirely self-taught as an artist.

When you come upon the Keeper of the Plains, standing tall on the fork of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers, you can’t help but feel a mix of admiration and sadness. It’s a striking statue, especially when set against the beautiful orange and lavender hues of the setting sun. But monuments like these end up reminding you of the Wichita peoples who were killed, displaced, driven from their land, and left to die in reservations, forgotten. The tribes that once lived here along the southern plains still show traces of their culture but now, you’ll see it mostly as a memory in a museum or as art hanging on the walls of a library.

I learned from a video by the Wichita Eagle that the last speaker of the Wichita language, Doris Jean Lamar, died back in 2016. It must be indescribably lonely to be the last speaker of a language. There is no one to have a conversation with, no one to whom you can confess your hopes or your regrets. But in the video, Lamar, even knowing that she is the last speaker, expresses hope that future generations will know what the language sounded like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ScPkN_xGRI

Is forgiveness even possible when injustices are still committed today against native peoples everywhere?

Not enough can be said about the skies here, which seem at times so brilliantly marbled with peach and lavender colors that you begin to walk with your head perpetually craned upwards.

It’s this aspect, the overwhelming sense of the sublime, that will probably stay with me long after I’ve left Kansas.

I think again about the nature of dreams. It isn’t such a sin to dream about things, about things that haven’t happened yet, and about things that have happened. To quit dreaming seems too cynical, like admitting from the outset that everything is screwed, that you should stop trying.

During my stay here, I’ve met many people who aren’t so irony poisoned yet, people who are achingly sincere and kind. They haven’t stopped trying. There isn’t much room for cynicism here. I appreciate that a lot.

Farewell to you, Kansas, you and your clumps of cumulus and vast fields of cows and grass. I’ll see you again.

Check out Will’s music! It’s gloomy, melancholy, and LOUD!: https://teamtremolo.bandcamp.com/album/intruder

[art-donaldson]

heard you're having a bad night so tell me all your feelings about kaz and inej

thank you lulu 💞

i have so. many. feelings. about kaz & inej. i’m gonna put it under the cut because i know this post is about to get long

tl;dr: kaz & inej’s dynamic is one of the most interesting and one of the best i have ever seen. seriously, they’re one of top ships now. no one is doing it like them, they are the moment!!!

my first impression of them was from the show (i didn’t read the six of crows books until after the show) and the minute kaz said she’s one of a kind and that no one is like her, i was drawn to their dynamic. that whole scene is general was quite the introduction to their dynamic, especially with the window and how kaz turned around and then turned back to the mirror and without turning around again, he knew inej was behind him (“it was as if once kaz had seen her, he’d understood how to keep seeing her.”) and it was just a wonderful introduction to their dynamic and to inej’s character and it shows why she’s called the wraith

episode 2, kaz says inej refuses to kill and we actually see that!! we see her struggling to kill the conductor. and it’s because of how devoted she is to her faith. BUT THEN IN EPISODE 5, SHE KILLS FOR THE FIRST TIME. IN A CHAPEL. TO SAVE KAZ’S LIFE.

THIS BRINGS ME TO THAT ONE FREDDY AND AMITA INTERVIEW where amita talks about inej’s struggle to kill & how her first kill is important to both inej’s character arc and kaz & inej’s relationship. she basically said that to inej, kaz was worth saving, worth the kill. and freddy talks about how kaz has wanted to believe that inej could be his right hand woman, that she can kill if needed, but if she can’t do it, she can’t do it. BUT THEN SHE DOES KILL AND IT’S FOR TO SAVE KAZ’S LIFE!!!!! it’s such an important and defining moment for their dynamic, and it’s also so defining for inej’s character cause now she has this internal struggle. she’s so devoted to her faith and the saints, but she committed this awful sin and how does she reconcile with that? she didn’t want to kill, but the circumstances forced her to, and that dilemma sets up such a key struggle inej deals with in the books, and i hope it’s explored more in the show.

okay so let’s talk about kaz for a second. prior to episode 5, he wanted to believe that inej could be his right hand woman (as freddy puts it) and he’s not sure if she’ll be able to fulfill that role. he’s still learning to trust her at this point. AND WHAT DOES HE DO? HE PUTS UP THE CROW CLUB AS COLLATERAL SO EVEN IF THE HEIST FAILS, INEJ COULD BE FREE FROM TANTE HELEEN AND THE MENAGERIE. he knows how much inej wants her freedom, so he puts up the one thing, the ONLY thing, he has to offer in order for inej to get her freedom either way. essentially, he risked it all for inej, not even sure if she’ll be able to fulfill the role he needs her to fulfill. BUT SHE DOES FULFILL THAT ROLE. SHE SAVES HIS LIFE. SHE TAKES A LIFE TO SPARE HIS. and in episode 5, when inej is like “i... i killed him.”, kaz tells her to look at him and tells her “you saved my life.” and i feel like this is something they both need to hear. for kaz, it’s a sign that he can fully trust inej now. for inej, it serves as a reason for taking a life; it’s almost like a justification: she killed to save kaz’s life

ik this post is getting way too long and i have like a million more thoughts because i haven’t even talked about them in the books but there is one more thing i wanna add: kaz and inej are opposites when it comes to their mentality and mindset, and they shouldn’t be attracted to one another, but THEY ARE.

kaz is almost an embodiment of everything inej hates. he’s greedy, selfish, he only does things if there’s something in it for him, something he can gain. he’s ruthless and vengeful. he’s able to kill without hesitation or second thoughts. and yet, inej finds herself having feelings for him. and i think this is because inej still manages to see the good and has a heart of gold. she knows kaz is all these bad things, but he’s still the boy who saved her from a terrible and awful situation. (“for all his selfishness and cruelty, kaz was still the boy who had saved her. she wanted to believe he was worth saving, too.”)

and kaz is not hopeful like inej is. he’s more practical and realistic. he tends to see the worse more than the good. he literally got the name “dirtyhands” because there’s no sin who won’t commit for the right price. but yet, he has these deep feelings for inej. inej, who is devoted to her faith, sees the good, has a heart of gold. she’s like an embodiment of everything kaz had to get rid of to survive. he couldn’t see the good when jordie died. he couldn’t be this idealist that inej is when he was fending for himself on the streets. he was forced to become this twisted and cruel person, and he knows that he’s everything inej doesn’t like. (“He needed to tell her … what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn’t pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he’d begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near.”)

anyways, i have so many thoughts about them and i barely scratched the surface, but i think this is a good place to stop

[trashyswitch]

The Grumpy Ol' Bunny

Springtrap's physical body under the animatronic suit, is the biggest mystery to fill the animatronic's thoughts. It's so much a mystery, that Foxy and Freddy have tried to capture him to open him up and look. But whenever they try and get some answers, Springtrap scares them off with his creepy, grumpy nature.

Soon, Bonnie and Foxy join forces with Chica and Freddy to find out just what he is, and what his insides are truly made of without issues.

This idea sounds pervy, now that I think about it...but, it's not! I swear! It's just curiousity. It's like a couple kids breaking a toy of theirs, to figure out how it works. Only, this toy is alive, and an angry equivalent of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. XD 

I would like to credit @fivecoins for inspiring me to write this fanfic. HI! 👋

*DISCLAIMER* A few cusses. That’s all though.

Springtrap is a very...strange being. He smells like mold, ashes and soap, and has quite a few holes in him. What his endoskeleton is made of, is also a mystery to the other animatronics. Why does the man have red knots on his ankles? Why is there red rope on his endoskeleton? Why is part of his ear missing? Is he hiding things in his body? What IS Springtrap? What they do know however, is his attitude. He's somewhat rude, has very little of a filter for his thoughts, and often comes across as a grumpy old man. Foxy would even say he's got the attitude of 'an old Janitor'.

But, that hasn't stopped him from trying to learn more about him.

Well actually...the truth is, it has...a lot...

But, not anymore! Foxy and Freddy had set up a trap to lure Springtrap over to them. Chica and Bonnie had joined as well, looking at the plan.

"I'll keep throwing stuff at the surrounding area and making noise to keep him interested." Chica offered.

"Okay. Try not to hit him. He'll only get angry if you hit him." Foxy told Chica.

"Right. We don't want that. Though if he does end up getting hit, we'll have to continue while he's angry." Chica replied.

"Right. Freddy?" Foxy pointed at Freddy.

"I'll grab him when he comes close." he told him.

"And Bonnie?" Foxy asked.

"I'll start investigating! I really wanna know." Bonnie explained.

"I'll help with the investigating too." Foxy added.

"Okay! Let's get this started-"

"What are you doing...?" Someone said behind them, interrupting Freddy. All 4 of the animatronics jumped and yelped in surprise. Foxy fell onto the ground, while Bonnie quickly got rid of the map.

"Hiiiii Springtrap, buddy old pal..." Chica greeted as un-awkwardly as possible, giving him light elbows to the his arm.

Springtrap narrowed his eyes. "Are all chickens idiots, or is it just you?" Springtrap asked.

Chica narrowed his eyes back at him, and decided to do the kidnapping himself. Chica picked up Springtrap and wrapped him into a big hug. "HUGS FOR THE GRUMPY BUNNY!" Chica declared.

Springtrap's eyes widened. "WHAT?!" Springtrap yelled, squirming around. "LET ME GO, YOU DUMBASS DUCK!" Springtrap yelled.

Freddy frowned. "Awww...I wanted to capture him." Freddy whined.

"you can hold him if you want." Chica told him, holding the animatronic out.

"Oh gosh...NO! DON'T YOU DARE! CHICA, PUT! ME! DOWN!" Springtrap yelled, squirming more and more frantically as Freddy walked up to Chica and Springtrap.

"Here you go. One salty Springtrap, coming your way." Freddy teased befre handing him over to Chica. Chica placed his cupcake down and grabbed onto him with his hands.

"Thank you Freddy" He replied. "Is this comfy for you?" Chica asked Springtrap.

Springtrap started squirming right away. "YOU'RE GONNA SQUEEZE MY ENDOSKELETON OUT OF MY BODY! LET GO OF ME RIGHT NOW!" Springtrap ordered.

"Wow! I don't think I ever realized that Springtrap's a toddler!" Chica reacted.

"I am NOT!" Springtrap shouted back.

"Hmm...giving me sass? That's definitely childish behaviour if I've ever saw it." Chica joked.

Freddy, Bonnie and Foxy were giggling and laughing at the funny scene in front of them.

"Now, to answering the burning questions going through all our heads: What are you even MADE of?!" Chica asked.

Upon hearing the question, Springtrap whined and threw himself backwards in annoyance. "Why are you guys OBSESSED WITH WHAT'S INSIDE OF ME?!" Springtrap shouted. (Pocket, the author of this fic, who's looked up tons of pictures on the subject: "SCIENCE!")

"Because it's so different compared to the rest of us! It's...foreign." Bonnie explained.

Springtrap let out a whiny cry. He was not in the mood for this!

"So first off: What does your skull look like?" Foxy asked, before poking the top of the bunny mask with his hook.

"It looks like a skull, alright?" Springtrap huffed.

Bonnie started looking around the suit for a button to remove the mask. But...there was no buttons. Nothing around to let it go. "There's no buttons anywhere." Bonnie commented. "Can I try pulling it off your he-"

"NO! DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT PULLING MY MASK OFF. I may be an animatronic, but I can STILL FEEL SOME THINGS!" Springtrap warned, growing worried and nervous that Bonnie was gonna try pulling the mask off.

"Okay! Okay, I won't!...I'll just look inside your mouth." Bonnie replied, before opening up the spring Bonnie jaw.

Upon looking inside, Springtrap had a purple skull, with a second mouth inside! "Hi." Springtrap spoke with the inner mouth.

Bonnie shrieked in surprise, closing the jaw and jumping back. "UM...Why is there a SECOND MOUTH?!" Bonnie asked. "And WHY IS YOUR ENDOSKELETON HEAD PURPLE?!" Bonnie asked.

"Purple? Seriously?!" Freddy asked, looking inside the animatronic mouth region. Sure enough, there was a bit of purple showing up inside the animatronic. "Whoa...That's not right." Freddy reacted.

Springtrap sighed. "It's a human skull. I was a human before I got trapped in this suit." Springtrap explained.

"OOooooohh..." all 4 animatronics reacted all at once.

"So you're a human animatronic?" Freddy clarified.

Springtrap sighed, but nodded. "Yes." he replied.

Chica lifted Springtrap up a little bit. He started looking at Springtrap's insides through all angles of the holes in the back of the suit. Springtrap awkwardly attempted to protest, not feeling very comfortable by how he was handling it, but also feeling thankful he wasn't getting hurt in any way.

"Lift him up more. I wanna check something out." Bonnie suggested. Chica nodded her head before lifting Springtrap up. Bonnie grabbed his ankle, and started checking out Springtrap's calf and foot. "Huh...your foot is covered with metal, but it looks like there could be a foot in here." Bonnie told them.

Springtrap threw his head back, annoyed by all this. "It's a boot. Of COURSE I had feet in here! But both of my feet shattered when the springlocks broke through them." Springtrap explained.

"Wait...did your body possess the suit after you died?" Chica asked.

Springtrap looked around with his eyes half open, growing bored as he was getting examined. "Uh huh." Springtrap replied.

"Wait a second...How did you know he died?" Bonnie asked, removing his one hand from Springtrap's cyborg foot.

"He got crushed by the machinery inside the suit. Of course that would kill a human!" Chica replied.

"She's right." Springtrap added in an uninterested tone.

"Huh..." Bonnie muttered. "Wait, you said you can feel some things, right?" Bonnie clarified.

Springtrap's eyes were beginning to close. "Yyyyyyup." Springtrap replied.

"Are you able to feel this?" Bonnie asked before poking the top of his foot.

Springtrap's eyes widened for a moment, as he was woken up by a poke to the foot. "Yup. You successfully woke me up." Springtrap replied.

"Okay. Are you able to feel this?" Bonnie asked, before lightly massaging his foot with one hand.

Most of Springtrap's body just melted at the touch. He let out an almost silent sigh as a small smile showed up on his lips. It felt amazing to feel a massage like that. "Mmmm hmmm...Just keep doin' that." Springtrap told him, leaning his head back as relaxation took over his body.

Freddy and Foxy observed the scene with curious eyes. They've never seen Springtrap so relaxed and content like this before! It was so new to them!

Bonnie's own face began to perk up into a curious smile as he continued to massage his foot. He moved his thumb closer to where the ball of Springtrap's foot could've been. He started pushing and wiggling into the spots under the toes, located on the ball of his foot. He started pushing underneath Springtrap's big toe, and worked his way to the middle of the ball grip.

Springtrap's mouth widened and showed off his teeth, and pulled his arms towards his chest a little. "Hehehe...Ohokay...cahahareful Bonnie, it tickles." Springtrap warned him casually, leaning his head against Chica's chest as a pillow.

"Tickles?!" Bonnie exclaimed, retreating his fingers.

"It tickles?" Foxy clarified.

"You're ticklish?!" Foxy exclaimed, unable to believe such a weird fact. Springtrap's eyes widened as he realized his horrifying mistake.

"Uh-Wait! I wouldn't say 'tickles' per say, I prefer the term 'sensitive'." Springtrap explained.

Bonnie rolled his eyes and laughed at the stupid attempt to cover it up. "Sensitive, ticklish, same difference." Bonnie replied before wiggling a single finger on the ball of his foot. Springtrap gulped and attempted to pull his foot away from Bonnie, but to no avail. Bonnie was too strong for him. So, he tried kicking him with the other foot. But the moment the other foot came flying towards the bunny, Bonnie would only temporarily switch feet and tickle the flying foot until it pulled away from him again.

Springtrap was stuck in a tickle trap. But he was determined to win. Springtrap tried to kick as hard as he can, and pull his foot away as quick as possible so he could lessen the tickles. But Bonnie ended up just dropping the bound left foot, and grabbed the kicking foot instead! The ghost tickles on his left foot were still making him giggle, and Bonnie was now tickling his right, dominant foot! He was losing the fight very quickly. Springtrap struggled to breath properly without silent giggles taking over, and his left foot was too weak to do much kicking damage to Bonnie.

"Chica! You're holding his upper body, right?" Foxy asked. Chica lifted him up the slightest bit, to show fox his hand positioning: On the sides of his chest. "Try tickling his armpits!" Foxy suggested. Chica's eyes widened as a small, eager smile grew onto his beak.

Springtrap's eyes widened in horror. "WAIT! NO, PLEHEASE DON'T! WHAT HAHAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?! WHAHAT HAHAPPEHENED TO MASSAGEHES?!" Springtrap yelled, his laughter starting to show up the littlest bit more as his foot was tickled.

Eager to get him laughing a little more, Chica used both of his index fingers to tickle the inside of both of his armpits. This move would end up breaking the cyborg animatronic.

"NOHohohohoho! Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahands ohohohohoff!" Springtrap broke, giggling and squirming as 3 separate spots were tickled.

a huge smile spread onto Freddy's face as he heard Springtrap laugh for the very first time. He covered his excited smile with his bear paws. "Oho my gosh! Springtrap, the animatronic infamous for being a dick, can actually laugh! Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming!" Freddy reacted.

"If you're dreaming, we must be dreaming the same dream!" Chica added.

"Yohohohou guhuhuys ahahare ahanimatrohohonihics! Yohohou cahahahan't drehehehaham!" Springtrap told them through his giggles.

"Since when?! How do you know we can't dream?!" Bonnie asked with a smirk.

"Yohohohou're rohohohobohohots! Rohohobohots dohohon't dreheheam!" Springtrap replied.

"Well listen here, you uncultured cyborg! I'll have you know, that we in fact CAN dream! And we have very strange dreams!" Bonnie told him. "Well...at least I do..." Bonnie admitted.

"I do too!" Freddy admitted.

"I dreamt about a bunch of dinosaurs playing soccer!" Foxy admitted.

"I had a dream that a witch was giving rich people explosive money." Chica told them.

"I had a dream about a flooded kingdom, that needed a huge vacuum to suck the water out." Bonnie explained, stopping his fingers to let Springtrap breath a little.

Springtrap's giggles quickly died down. "Yohohou guhuys hahave the weheheheirdehehest dreheheams..." Springtrap admitted.

"You think? How about you?" Chica asked, stopping his fingers as well.

Springtrap took a moment to start properly breathing, before answering him. "Nohope. Not that weird. The weirdest dream I ever had, was about me running a farm, and all the farm animals kept shouting profanity's at me." Springtrap told him.

Foxy laughed at that. "That's kinda funny, actually. Just a bunch of chickens chasing you down and screaming: 'GIVE ME BACK MY EGGS BITCH!'" Foxy joked.

Springtrap laughed as well. "Yeah, or a horse just donkey kicking you from behind, and saying: "Sorry about that. Just wanted to make sure I can still kick your ass." Springtrap added. Chica laughed at the joke, as well as Freddy.

"But enough talk...Are you ticklish anywhere else besides the feet and the armpits?" Chica asked.

Springtrap's eyes widened at the mention of tickling, and his squirming started right back up again. "NO! No, I'm not. Why would I be ticklish anywhere else?" Springtrap reacted, attempting to fool them.

Chica giggled evilly. "You're not fooling anybody. Now come on-" Chica started tickling under his left armpit with his index finger, "Where else are you ticklish?" Chica asked. Springtrap squealed at the sudden ticklish feeling under his armpit, and continued to yelp and laugh as he squirmed away from the single, yellow finger. "Are you ticklish on the belly?" Chica asked, signalling for Freddy to come over and try tickling his belly. Freddy walked up, took a moment to 'crack' his fingers outwards, before wiggling his fingers teasily at the green-looking animatronic. Springtrap fell into a puddle of nervous giggles just from looking at the fingers, and looked away from them.

"I'm gonna take this as a 'yes'! I think someone has a very ticklish belly." Freddy replied, before looking around Springtrap's belly region.

"F-Freheheheddy, dohohon't! Plehehehease dohon't!" Springtrap begged. Holy crap...He wasn't even being tickled yet and he's already a giggly mess!

"He doesn't really have much of a stomach area..." Freddy explained, before reaching his index finger into the the open area above the hips. "But he DOES have a spinal spot right here-" Freddy poked the lower spine that showed itself in between the open area between the chest and the hips. Springtrap shrieked and fell into high-pitched laughter, that quickly began to die down. Freddy gasped and smiled at Chica. "Well what do ya know?! Jackpot!" Freddy declared.

"NOHO! NOT THERE! OH GOSH! NOT THE SPINE, NOT THE SPINE, GEHET AWAHAHAY FROHOHOM MEHEHEHEHEHE!" Springtrap begged loudly.

Despite the begging getting more frantic, Freddy kept going. He gently placed his finger on the spine, and wiggled his finger on it for only a couple seconds...

"AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! STAHAHAHAHAP IHIHIHIHIHIHIT!" Springtrap shouted loudly! Freddy smirked, and wiggled his finger on the spine again. "HAHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! GEHEHEHET AHAHAWAHAHAHAY FROHOHOHOM THEHEHEHEHEHEHEHERE! HAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEHEHE!" Springtrap howled as he kicked and squirmed as much as he possibly could.

Freddy removed his finger for good this time, and let the man breath. "Wow! I think that's your worst spot yet!" Chica reacted.

Springtrap was breathing somewhat heavily, trying to take as big of breaths as he could to make up for the oxygen he had lost. But despite the breathing struggles, Springtrap nodded his head.

Foxy really wanted a turn next. So, he walked up to Chica and looked around to see where else he may be ticklish. He knew that certain spots existed, and some were much worse than others. He wanted to make sure he chose a calm, more giggly kind of tickle spot. So, the fox attempted his neck. Foxy wiggled a finger onto the side of Springtrap's neck, just for a test run. Though the wiggling did spawn a couple little giggles and a little hand to push away, it didn't grant him the desired effect. So, Foxy went for another test spot: the ears.

The question that Foxy had, however, was if Springtrap could feel his bunny ears. So, Foxy tried running a finger up and down the front of the ears. "Can you feel this, Springtrap?" Foxy asked.

"Feel what?" Springtrap replied.

"My finger against your ear. I'm guessing you can't feel this?" Foxy clarified.

"Nope. My ears are separate from my head." Springtrap replied.

"Okay." Foxy reacted. Next, Foxy tried the back of the ears. "Can you feel the back of the ears being touched?" Foxy asked.

"No. I have no nerves up there." Springtrap replied.

Foxy nodded in understanding. Funnily enough, the words 'I have no nerves up there' stuck with Foxy for a few minutes. This was just enough time to help Foxy come up with a new theory. Foxy brought his fingers to the bottom of the ears, and scratched right at the base of the ears and the top of the skull.

To Foxy's surprise, Springtrap squealed and shook his head to try and shake the fingers off his ears. Foxy only went for the other ear however, and smiled widely when Springtrap broke into a fit of high-pitched giggles. "Hehehehehehehehehe! Ohohohokahahahahay, mahahahaybehehehe I cahahan feeheeheel sohohohomethihihihing ihihin thehehe ehehehehears..." Springtrap admitted.

"Hmmm...Good to know." Foxy reacted, continuing to scratch at the base of the ears. Springtrap attempted to remove his fingers with his hands, but Chica was way ahead of him: the evil animatronic chicken tickled his armpits everytime he lifted his arms! This caused his arms to crash back down, and his giggles to increase into laughter.

It was quite adorable for Freddy and the others to see Springtrap like this. Who knew such a grumpy animatronic like Springtrap, would end up hiding such an adorable side of himself? Turns out, Springtrap had lived his whole life as a human AND an animatronic, with this kind of side to him!

Chica seemed to be enjoying Springtrap's giggly side as well, as evident in her coos and teases. "Look at this cute little bunny we have in our grasp! So stuck! So trapped! Unable to do anything except for laugh, and squirm in our tight, tickly grasp!" Chica teased like a mother would to a bratty toddler.

Springtrap threw his head back and whined in between his giggles. "Nohohoho teheheheheasihihing! Plehehehease nohohoho teheheheheasihihihihing. Ihihihihi'm gohohohonna dihihihihihihie!" Springtrap begged.

"Oh wow! Not only can you grow flustered from a little teasing, you can also speak bullshit?! That's incredible!" Foxy reacted, pretending to be surprised as he only increased his scratches.

"HahahahaHAHAHAHA! FOHOHOHOXYHYHYHYHYHYHAHAHAHAHA! NOOOOHOHOHOHOHO! EEEEEEHEHE!" Springtrap shouted, growing more and more flustered the longer it went on.

"A man who can speak bullshit as fluently as you can, deserves a reward of even MORE tickles!" Foxy added. "Hey Bonnie! You wanna help out?" Foxy asked.

"I'd love to!" Bonnie replied as he lifted up Springtrap's foot again. Bonnie started wiggling his fingers everywhere he could reach on the single foot.

"NAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! NAHAHAHAHAT MYHYHYHYHY FEEHEHEHEHEHEHEET! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Springtrap squealed as much as he could.

"But why not? Your feet are such a fun spot to tickle! So many different spots to travel! Here-" Bonnie wiggled his finger on the inner arch. "Here," Freddy moved his wiggly finger to the outside of the foot. "Heeere-" Bonnie dragged his finger to the heel and started drawing circles. "Even here!" Freddy declared, wiggling his finger under his toes.

"BAAAHAHAHAHA! Hehehehehehe! NOOOHOHOHOHOHOHO! EEEEEEHEHEHAHAHAHA! NOHOHOT THE TOHOHOHOHOHOES!" Springtrap shouted, reacting differently to the different spots before squirming and squeezing his toes. No matter how much he tried to stop it however, Bonnie's finger was still able to wiggle its way in there, and tickle his toes back open! It was driving Springtrap insane that he couldn't do anything to stop his finger from tickling there.

Springtrap attempted to kick his foot again. But to Springtrap's surprise, Bonnie caught it! "Hey Freddy! There's a spare foot for you to tickle. You wanna take it?" Bonnie offered.

Freddy smiled. "Why I'd love to!" he replied. Freddy picked up the foot, and wiggled a couple fingers on Springtrap's foot.

"OOOOOHOHO NOOOHOHOHOHOHO! HAHAHAHAHAHA! FREHEHEHEDDYHYHYHYHY STAHAHAHAP!" Springtrap begged.

"I barely started!" Freddy replied.

"Here, Freddy. I'll stop this foot for a bit, so you can get a turn." Foxy offered.

"Aww! Thank you Foxy." Freddy thanked before wiggling his fingers on Springtrap's inner arch.

"HehehEHEHEHEHEY! COHOHOME OHOHOHOHON!" Springtrap laughed.

"Come on? Come on what? Come on, that's all you got?" Freddy asked.

"NOHOHOHO! THAHAHAT'S NOHOHOT WHAHAHAHAT IHIHI MEHEHEANT!" Springtrap yelled, hoping and praying he wouldn't make the tickling worse.

"How dare you question my ability to tickle! I'll show you!" Freddy declared. He wiggled all 4 of his fingers all over the foot, where he could reach. Springtrap screamed and fell into a huge pile of cackles. "There! Having regrets yet?" Freddy asked, becoming unusually competitive.

Springtrap only continued to cackle and add squeals and snorts in between! The animatronic was DYING and he couldn't stop his own demise! "IHIHIHI'M SAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SAHAHAHARRYYYYHYHY! STAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Springtrap shouted. The animatronic couldn't even finish his words at this point! All he could do, was laugh and squirm in Chica's grasp. But to Springtrap's surprise, he didn't feel tired! Like, at all!

While Springtrap tried to process that thought, Chica had noticed his struggle to properly speak. So, she spoke up herself. "Alright Freddy...let's give him a break." Chica advised.

"But I didn't get very long to tickle him!" Freddy reacted.

"You put that upon yourself. The more you tickle him, the less time you get." Chica told him. Freddy frowned, but stopped his fingers to let him breath.

Springtrap managed to calm himself down quite quickly, and soon realized something that explained everything: He's an animatronic now! He didn't need to rely on oxygen to live anymore!

"Springtrap? Are you okay?" Chica asked.

Springtrap snapped himself out of his thoughts. "I'm alright...I'm actually fine!...I guess I don't need to breath, which is nice to be honest." Springtrap explained. "I guess this also means my lungs are useless." Springtrap added.

"What is it like being able to breath?" Foxy asked.

Springtrap looked over at him and leaned his chin against his hand. "It's...an automatic thing my body can do by itself. It's like having 2 balloons in my body that fill with air and let the air out." Springtrap explained.

"So if you don't need to use your 'lungs' anymore..."

"I can keep tickling you without any problems!" Freddy declared before resuming his tickling fingers.

"BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! NOHOHOT MYHYHY FEEHEHEHEHEET! AHAHANYWHEHEHERE BUHUHUT THEHEHEHEHEHERE!" Springtrap shouted at him.

"But why?" Freddy asked, stopping his fingers.

"Be-behehecause ihihi'm nahahat aha fahahan ohohof beheheihing tihihickled ohohon myhy feehehehet." Springtrap told him.

"Well, where DO you like being tickled?" Freddy asked.

Springtrap couldn't help the wide, wobbly grin that filled his face.

"Uuuuuuhhh..." Springtrap muttered, looking away awkwardly. Freddy waited for a few minutes to see if he would answer him. "My..." Springtrap attempted to get it out, but it was hard to.

Freddy smirked as he rubbed his chin. "Am I gonna have to guess?" Freddy asked, wiggling his fingers eagerly. Springtrap giggled and shook his head. "Fihihine! There is a body part that everyone has, except for Chica." Springtrap hinted.

All of the animatronics (apart from Springtrap) looked around at the differences between them and Chica.

"A tail?" Bonnie guessed.

Springtrap shook his head. Upper body." Springtrap hinted.

They went back to trying to find differences. Pretty quickly, something clicked into Foxy's brain! "Ears!" Foxy yelled, pointing at Springtrap's ears with his hook.

Springtrap smiled. "You won. You got it right." Springtrap replied.

Freddy just laughed at Springtrap's stupid little trick. "You could've just said it!" Freddy told him.

"I know, but...I couldn't. Everything in my brain was screaming 'Don't tell them'. So, I made it fun." Springtrap replied.

Freddy smirked and walked up to him. "Oh! Well Springtrap, I hoped you enjoyed your fun. Because now...it's my turn!" Freddy declared before wiggling his fingers on Springtrap's lower ears. Springtrap squeaked like a mouse, and bursted into high-pitched giggles for a while.

Yup. This was worth it. This was worth the extra time spent. Though Springtrap doesn't like to show off his happy side very often, the tickling seemed to have encouraged a more...playful side of Springtrap to arise and take over. Though it was only a start, it was still better than the angry, grumpy old janitor that previously took over his personality. Though Springtrap didn't end up automatically falling into another playful mood, he did get tickled and teased a little more by the fazbear family. When he was being too rude, an animatronic was bound to show up behind him and poke him a few times to get him giggling. Sometimes, Springtrap would test the limits and end up in a full-blown tickle fight! And to make matters worse for Springtrap, the other animatronics were not cyborg like he was! So, they couldn't be tickled back! How unfair!

But the animatronic band's favorite times, were when Springtrap started testing their patience on purpose! All of the playfulness in the Pizzeria seemed to have given Springtrap a little bit of a mischievous streak. When they would tease him, he would learn to tease back. Which to his surprise, actually worked! Especially when they weren't expecting it! Little known fact; animatronics can be flustered when teased enough. And soon, the teasing had turned into full-on competition! When they warned him he'd be tickled, they had to be serious about it and go through with it or else he would call them bluff! Thankfully though, the competitiveness would end up backfiring the moment all 4 of them had pinned him down and tickled him down to a puddle of giggles.

So...Springtrap got used to being the victim of the tickling most of the time. Though it didn't always start off with playfulness and straight up giggling, his brain would quickly catch up and make him feel happy. And that's all he needed to feel okay with the new, playful companions.

[stovetuna]

Imagine Steve/Avengers walking in to Tony entertaining two soldiers in the common room and being really confused because Tony??? Despises the military??? But then find out that those two soldiers are actually from the “fun-vee” way back in IM 1 and Tony’s fitting them with prosthetics.

ahhh this has been stuck in my head for DAYS anon! I don’t necessarily agree with the assessment that Tony hates the military, per se (doing business with the military and the military industrial complex, however, and all that that toxic shit entails, definitely yes), BUT it’s such a heartbreaking/warming concept I had to run with it! I think I got it right with Air Force vs Army, but the movie was kinda vague—I’m going off of the fact that the driver said “I’m an airman,” which you would not say if you were in the Army.

and since the airmen (and woman) Tony was traveling with in the Fun-Vee are canonically deceased, I thought I’d have Tony do something…well, Extremely Tony™ to compensate…

(::whispers:: also we’re just gonna pretend that the Bucky-killed-Tony’s-parents-revelations of Cap 2/3 aren’t a thing in this vaguely alternate MCU universe. la-di-da, la-di-da…)

***

It’s not surprising to walk into the Avengers common area and see Tony Stark working on something no one can quite comprehend. That’s par for the course, really, as commonplace as days that end in Y. Machines, phones, tablets, watches, the toaster after Hulk pressed the cancel button a little too hard—they’ve seen Tony futzing with just about everything that exists in the Tower (and some things that don’t—couldn’t—exist anywhere else except where Tony is). 

What the team isn’t expecting when the elevator doors open onto the communal floor that sunny Tuesday afternoon is a living room scattered with men and women in various states of modest undress, all of whom immediately pivot in place to take stock of the new arrivals. Three men, one woman, and in the middle of their protective circle is Tony, eyes blazing with the same thrill of invention he often gets in the lab, a pair of needle-nose pliers clenched in his teeth.

Steve in particular notices the way Tony looks, because he’s developed a bad habit of doing that over the past year and change, and he’s kind of helpless at this point. Tony’s backlit by the afternoon sun, preoccupied with whatever he’s doing with the strange woman’s arm to distraction, and Steve can’t be judged too harshly—anyone with eyes would drag theirs over the exposed muscles of Tony’s arms, the shift and flex of his shoulders, the firm taper of his waist, the pronounced curve of his a—

“Are we, uh, interrupting something?” Clint has to shout to be heard above the music blasting from all corners of the room. 

Tony looks up from his work and waves his free hand, the one that isn’t wrist-deep in what looks remarkably like a prosthetic arm. He makes a ‘cut it off’ motion to his neck before taking the pliers out of his mouth while FRIDAY lowers the rock music to a dull background hum. 

“Hey! Sorry, I tried to keep it to the lab, but these guys wanted to see where the Avengers hang out, and I couldn’t say no.” 

Steve tears his eyes away from Tony (who should really work the sweaty-and-disheveled-mechanic look more often) to take in the others in the room with him. It’s a panorama of people, and the first thing Steve notices, besides their more obvious differences, is how comfortable they all are with each other, to the point that walking in on this moment feels invasive, almost rude. 

The four are all of remarkably different builds and backgrounds, not a similarity between them: an African American man, no taller than Steve was before the serum, sits on the couch; a white man, thin as a rake and twice as tall, is reaching for a glass of water on the coffee table; an Asian American man, whose shoulders are somehow even broader than Steve’s, stands rigidly next to Tony, arms folded across his chest; and the lone woman, whose glossy black hair is wound tightly in a bun at the back of her head. Steve notes the beautifully elaborate Native American tattoo covering the expanse of her shoulders and upper back. 

Then Steve notices the high-and-tights, the form-fitting, drab beige shirts they’re all wearing, the combat boots lined up behind the loveseat, and he realizes, much like he did with Sam that morning in DC, oh—these are my people.

“Ah, well, welcome to the octagon!” Clint says with an easy smile, stepping forward to shake hands and say hello like a normal human being. Natasha gives Steve one of her looks before she and Sam follow him into the living room—I don’t know any more than you do.

Bruce, Wanda, and Vision stay behind with Steve to let the first wave through. Steve watches his teammates greet the airmen without fanfare, welcoming strangers into their private midst like it’s routine. 

“Didn’t know y’all would be around, else we would’ve stayed outta sight.” 

Sam laughs, clapping the sitting man on the shoulder. “Dude, if Tony told us you were here, I would have come downstairs and bugged you, myself.” 

“Sure, PJ—you just wanted to see what real Air Force muscle looks like,” the man grins, flexing his barrel chest hard enough to strain his shirt. Sam guffaws and gives him a friendly punch to the shoulder, which the man returns in kind with a fist to the kidney. 

Clint is already deep in conversation with the redheaded beanpole, who talks so fast it’s dizzying; Natasha is standing next to the third man, keeping her eyes forward, and together they watch Tony disappear back into his work, muttering things back and forth to each other, so quiet even Steve can’t hear. 

“I think all is clear,” Vision says smoothly, drifting forward with Wanda, who is visibly fascinated by the woman’s tattoo until she steps into the throng and sees something that makes her face fall. 

Steve moves forward, curious and worried in equal measure. Bruce is hot on his heels. 

“—I mean it’s crazy right? It’s crazy, Tony Stark, Tony Stark calls us up out of the blue one day and says ‘You’ll be waiting six months to a year for a decent repair job, let alone a complete replacement, and I owe you guys, come on by Avengers Tower—”

Redhead is gabbing excitedly, gesticulating like Tony does when he’s in the mad depths of an invention binge. Steve sees the glint of metal and hears the whir of mechanisms working smoothly together in tandem and realizes both of the man’s hands are prosthetic. 

“Oh man! Oh, man! Captain, sir, wow, it’s—fuck, shit, my mama would kill me for swearing in front of you, fucking—shit, sorry, fuck—ah, damn it!”

Steve smiles and introduces himself—Corporal Bill Levee, apparently, is just as talkative up close. For all that his hand is made of metal, his grip feels remarkably, tangibly real. 

While Bill goes back to talking compound bows with Hawkeye, Steve looks at the man on the couch. Sam and Vision are now sitting on either side of him: both of his legs end at mid-thigh, and in their place are what look like brand-new metal limbs, designed to match his proportions exactly. The metal is dark, shiny, beautiful. He looks thrilled. He looks even more excited when Steve approaches, leaps to his feet and doesn’t even balk at the fact that Steve is a head and change taller than him and a superhero—he just steps right up to Steve and jabs him once in the shoulder with a grin. 

“Captain Rogers,” he says, and sticks out his hand. Steve shakes it. The man points a thumb at himself: “Captain Freddy Harrison. A little after your time, sir, but an honor to meet you regardless.”

Bill is still talking a mile a minute behind him; Freddy sits back down on the couch and lets Steve continue his “Captain America Meet-and-Greet” but makes him promise to come back and swap stories, which Steve does, happily, even as his mind whirls. How does Tony know these people? Why are they here? Where did these prosthetics come from? 

Bruce has joined Natasha, standing apart from the rest to talk to her and her new friend. Steve stops to say hello, as is only right, waiting until he’s entered the man’s line of sight to do so. Only then does he realize that the man has no line of sight, because both of his eyes are prosthetic. 

“I’m not completely blind, Captain,” he says, voice low but good-humored. Next to him, Natasha smothers a smile behind her hand. 

“Steve, this is Sergeant Daniel Kwon,” Bruce offers. The sergeant smirks and extends a hand—the eyes in his sockets look incredibly lifelike, but don’t move even a fraction of a millimeter. They gleam, still, with an uncanny sense of knowing. Steve has a sneaking suspicion they see more than enough and match his original eyes perfectly. 

“I’ll still make an exception in your case, Sergeant Kwon,” Steve replies, shaking his hand, “for not saluting a ranking officer.”

Dan chuckles under his breath.

“Let’s see your battlefield commission and then we’ll talk rank, sir,” he says. 

“Ugh, men.”

Steve turns around, and there’s Tony, flipping shut a panel high on the woman’s left arm with a smile. He pockets the pliers and drags the back of his forearm across his glistening forehead. Somewhere in the back of Steve’s mind, a saxophone is blaring. 

Honestly, the intrusive thoughts he could deal with, but the fact that Tony looks this good after hours of hard labor really isn’t fair. 

“Seriously, barely two minutes in and you military guys are at it like frat bros at a kegger.” Tony looks sidelong at the woman, who rolls her shoulders with a pop and a groan. “How do you manage?” 

“Easy,” she says, “I let them drink until they pass out and then I run back to the women’s barracks with all their clothes so they have to walk across the TOC butt-naked.”  

“I think we need to compare our respective strategies,” Natasha says, taking Wanda’s arm on her way to greet the other woman. “This is Wanda; I’m Natasha.”

The woman turns to face them. Her features are striking in a way that makes Steve think of old friends from the war, men he met on those rare occasions he had leave. He’d listen to Native American Code Talkers tell stories of land and legacy and home, stories older than anything Steve had ever known. He’d never been so humbled. 

“Delores,” she replies, shaking their hands. “But please, call me Del, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Steve looks at Tony, who giggles—giggles—and mouths ‘Umbridge.’ Del must have ears like a bat, because she smacks him smartly with her prosthetic arm and Tony yelps before devolving into outright laughter. Steve could watch and listen to Tony laugh—that big, gut-wrenching cackle Tony thinks is unattractive but Steve thinks makes Tony look like happiness personified—all day. 

The conversation devolves quickly from there, and within a couple of excitable minutes, the airmen are eager to get a look at the Avengers’ game room. They pile into the elevator, talking animatedly over each others’ heads, placing bets and picking teams as the doors close. 

In their wake, Steve’s ears are buzzing, and he realizes with a jolt that he’s now alone. With Tony. 

It happens often enough that the fact itself isn’t jarring, but something about being alone with disheveled-frazzled-happy-sweaty Tony sets Steve’s nerves on high alert. Tony is loose-limbed and relaxed, moving in and out of Steve’s space as he picks his way around the living room barefoot, looking for discarded tools. 

“There you are,” he coos at a tiny device that looks remarkably like a laser pointer. Knowing Tony, it’s probably a real laser. He pockets it, assumably to put away later (or fish out of the laundry at the last minute). 

“Who are those people, Tony?” 

“Friends of friends,” Tony replies. Steve also knows Tony well enough to recognize his I am being deliberately vague voice when he hears it. 

“Uh-huh.” Steve sits on the arm of the sofa, legs stretched out in front of him. “And who are they really?” 

“Who wants to know?”

“Me,” Steve says gently, scratching his palms with dulled fingernails. “They’re strangers, and they’re in our home. I think if you were in my shoes you’d want to know.” 

Tony stoops to pick up and pocket what looks like a dissected nine-volt battery. Steve kind of wants to ask, but he’s too distracted by Tony’s ass in those black Levis to ask any cogent questions. Seriously, he wonders, are those painted on?

Only when Tony sighs, and quite heavily, that Steve realizes this was more than just a friendly house call (of sorts) on Tony’s part. He watches Tony stand up, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows bright with the glow of sunset, and admires the way Tony suits the view so perfectly. He looks good all the time, but like this—skin burnished gold, brown eyes honeyed by the light—he’s something else. Someone Steve wants, desperately, but like most things in his life, knows he’s not allowed to have. Tony Stark is beyond him in so many ways. Reaching for him seems futile, so Steve stays on the ground, and looks. 

Tony fidgets nervously with a mini Phillips Head screwdriver, twiddling it in his long, clever fingers as he stares out the windows at the city sprawled out beneath them. 

“They’re from the same company as the guys in the convoy I was with when I—when they—” his voice sputters out before he can say the words. Steve doesn’t push. He doesn’t say anything. He just waits for Tony to gather himself. It’s one of the hardest lessons he’s had to learn about Tony Stark—sometimes it’s better to let him get a handle on himself, rather than jump in and try to handle Tony for him. It doesn’t change the fact that Steve wants nothing more than to hold his hand, now that it’s hanging at his side like its string was just cut. “A while back I dug into Air Force records, talked to Rhodey, got some names. Five people died in the hit that was meant for me. I figured, the least I could do was find five of their closest buddies who needed help.” 

Tony glances back at Steve—the little smile on his lips could break Steve’s heart if he let it.

“And I’ve heard you talk about how convoluted the VA is when it comes to services and benefits and whatnot. I figured, my tech probably took their limbs, I should cut out the middle man and give them new ones, myself.” 

Something in Steve’s heart shifts irrevocably before kicking into a whole new gear. By the end of the sentence, Steve knows he’s going to do something incredibly rash, the only question is when. 

Funny—ten minutes ago he was coming back from a team exercise, prepared to give Tony a friendly but firm talking-to about missing it, and instead here he is, breathless, heart racing, sitting and listening to Tony talk humbly about fixing people because he knows it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s the least he can do. And isn’t that the wildest understatement Steve’s ever heard? 

As if anything about Tony Stark could ever possibly be least. 

“You built them all those prosthetics?” 

“Top of the line!” Tony smirks, saluting Steve with his Phillips Head. “Nothing more high tech in any of them than a heart rate monitor and some other odds and ends—no rocket launcher eyes, don’t worry. I kept my baser urges in check with these.” 

“It’s good,” Steve blurts out, too loud and too fast. Tony inhales sharply, fingers clenching around the screwdriver hard enough his knuckles go white. Steve feels his face go hot and groans. “I mean, what you did—what you’re doing—is good, Tony. It’s really generous of you to do that for those guys.” 

Steve crosses his arms across his chest to make himself feel safer, more contained. If he doesn’t, who knows where these ridiculous feelings might go. He feels silly enough as it is, blushing and stammering while dressed in his uniform, sans helmet. Even Tony’s probably wondering why he’s wasting his time talking to a red-white-and-blue fossil when he could be downstairs destroying Clint and the others at pool or showing the airmen around the tower, giving them the bells-and-whistles tour. 

Tony looks at the floor, away from Steve. Steve feels it like a physical thing, Tony pulling away, retreating, wanting to hide. Amazing, how a man who almost literally wears his heart on his sleeve still thinks he doesn’t have one. 

“Yeah, well,” Tony mutters, “it’s good practice, anyways.” 

Steve’s thoughts grind to a halt. 

“Practice for what?” 

Tony starts moving around, shuffling back and forth across the living room floor, looking for something that probably isn’t there. Steve knows when Tony is avoiding eye contact with him—it happens often enough. 

“Just a pet project, nothing major. Hey, have you seen my cable knife anywhere?” 

“Did you leave it on the floor? Tony…”

“I know, I know, the only thing worse is Legos, but I was busy! You can’t blame me for—OW FUCK!” 

Like a shot, Steve is up and holding on to Tony so he doesn’t hop backwards into the glass coffee table. One arm wrapped around his back and the other hand on his bicep, Steve steadies Tony as Tony searches underfoot for whatever hurt him. 

He comes up with a magnet the size of a dime. 

“Ha,” Tony wheezes. “Speaking of Legos.” He drops it into his pocket along with the laser pointer and whatever else is in there and hangs his head. Rubbing his brow, Tony says: “God. I could sleep for a week after today.” 

Steve keeps holding Tony. He should let go, but opportunities like this so rarely present themselves. Plus, Tony feels so good under his hands, strong and warm and just small enough to envelope in a hug if Steve let himself, if Tony wanted him to, and Tony does look dead on his (adorable, bare) feet…

“What else have you been working on today? This pet project?” 

“Hah?” Tony breathes, still wincing slightly from stepping on the magnet. “Oh yeah. For Bucky, when you find him. Ow, motherfucker, that hurt…”

The thing about being in Tony Stark’s presence is, it’s so easy to lose the plot. Tony’s mind moves faster than Steve could ever hope to match, mentally or physically; he’s always one pace behind, catching up. It’s fine, though; he actually kind of likes it, being challenged the way Tony challenges him, delighting in the push-pull of their banter and debates, the way Tony teaches him about science and tech and the 21st century without being condescending. Steve gets to a point where he thinks he knows Tony, how he operates, how his brain works—then moments like this happen, and it’s like he’s sprinted smack into a brick wall. 

“What?” 

“What?” 

“Bucky, you said—are you designing a new arm? For Bucky?” 

Tony seems to notice their position at that exact moment. Steve feels him blaze with heat where his hands are touching Tony’s bare skin. 

“Uh. Maybe?” At Steve’s look, Tony bites his lip and sighs. “Fine. Yeah, I am. Can you blame me? The thought of Sputnik wandering around the tower with that Cold War-era paperweight hanging off him when I’ve got brand-spanking-new, finely-tuned StarkTech all but ready to go? Perish, Steve, perish the thought.”

Tony is smiling up at him from his place in Steve’s arms, relaxed now, almost leaning into him, and all Steve can think is, he belongs here. 

“What’s that face?” Tony asks, curious but still smiling. He pokes Steve in the middle of the forehead with a cheeky grin. “Keep frowning like that, your face’ll stick.”

When, apparently, is right now. 

When Steve reaches up and takes Tony’s hand, he gets to watch Tony’s thoughts run into the wall, for once. 

When he weaves their fingers together, he gets to watch Tony’s mouth click shut and his eyes go wide. Super-hearing means he can count the beats of Tony’s racing heart without having to feel them. Steve’s telegraphing every movement, every feeling, as much as he possibly can now that words seem to have escaped him. 

He must manage okay, because the look that passes over Tony’s face is the same one Steve’s seen in the mirror a thousand times since the day he realized he was halfway in love with Tony Stark: wonder, one part lost, one part found. 

When he leans down, slowly, Steve gets to watch Tony’s beautiful eyes flicker and shut. He counts the dark lashes where they rest on Tony’s high cheekbones, breathes in his smell and listens to the shudder in his exhale before drawing him in for a kiss that draws everything else to a quiet, blissful blank.

When Tony pushes his fingers up into Steve’s hair, scratching lightly at the nape of his neck, Steve drops his arms around Tony’s waist and pulls him in close with a soft groan. He’s warm and messy and still holding that damn screwdriver, but he kisses Steve soft and eager like it’s the only thing he wants to do for the rest of his life, folds himself into Steve’s embrace like he wants to build a home right there in his arms. 

One day Steve will tell him he already did, a long time ago, and it wasn’t the least of anything. 

*** 

more fics on AO3!

[hideawayintheimaginationworld]

I am Machine: Chapter 12

It was going to be a tomb for him, for the others. He didn’t know how long he had been in this darkness, he was looking around, it was a sea of cries for help that were unanswered, it made Alec uncomfortable in the sense this was like a graveyard, he noticed some of these Lonely Freddy's were quiet and very still, it appeared they died.

It was dawning on him now that would most likely happen to him, to the rest of them, they would die and no one would realise they died.

That would be the end of his story.

Trapped forever with no escape.

This place was a wasteland just about.

Suddenly Alec heard something from outside, his eyes looked up, he heard something rattle.

Light poured in as the lid was lifted up, Alec wondered if someone else was being thrown in, but instead, he saw a man peer in, he made a disgusted face but reached in with his gloved hands, something unexpected was happening.

The man was grabbing some of the Lonely Freddy's and pulling them out, Alec was unsure why that was happening, disposing of them with fire or something?

The last one was grabbed..... Was Alec.

He was shocked the man lend down, reaching his hand down and grabbed his wrist, lifting him out, Alec was exposed to daylight again, which made his eyes slightly hurt, he blinked away irritation and looked around.

Alec was placed in a cardboard box among the other random five that seemed to be chosen. He watched the man pull a key from his pocket and re-locked the dumpster.

The man then stepped over and lifted up the box, walking away with the box, Alec looked to the direction he was walking and saw he was walking back inside the pizzeria, the door open. It suddenly occurred to Alec at that moment.

“Hey! I'm not a Freddy! Can you help me??” He spoke.

The man seemed to not hear him, Alec was positive he spoke as loud as he possibly could, he thought it was still possible he couldn’t talk, none of the other Lonely Freddy's next to him seems to talk.

Alec watched the man take the box into a strange room, a room with several desks, locked cabinets, and another man there, working on a robot that Alec vaguely remembered.

The robot was sitting on the desk, both eyes black and vacant, with the appearance of a bear that looked different to Freddy, its fur was black, Alec saw a red hat and bowtie on his neck, he tried to recall his name but it didn’t come to him in that time.

The man put the cardboard box down on one desk and went to tap the other man on the shoulder.

The one working on the black bear stopped and turned to the man, “Oh Wayne, you got them as I asked?” The man asked.

Wayne had nodded and pointed to the box. He stopped working and walked to the box, he peered in and pointed his finger at each one, “Six... I'm honestly so angry that bloody employees like Mel, Terry and Garry think it's okay to throw them out when they start acting strange, seriously I can fix them in a jiffy!”

“What? Were you talking just now?”

Alec noticed that tone spoke quite emotionless.

The man who looked at them turned back to Wayne, “I was just talking to myself, Wayne! You know how I am... You can go now if you want!”

Was that guy Wayne deaf? Is that why he couldn’t hear him?

Wayne had walked off, the man turned and shook his head, “I’m telling Mike about this, it's ridiculous! These things still work they're just... A bit filthy... Suppose I'm cleaning up... Lefty can wait for a while... I can’t understand his requirements...” He looked at Alec, “Great, stale vomit... Well, I guess I need to soak and scrub you up.”

He pulled on white gloves and lifted Alec up like a toddler, Alec kept absolutely still as he removed from the box. He saw the man had a name tag and read it.

Benedict.

Must be a mechanic of some sort, he was repairing that bear in the room.

Alec was put into a bucket, Benedict pulled off the black hat on his head and yanked off the bowtie, he looked up to see Benedict had grabbed a white bottle, he then splashed something on his head, he had to resist the urge to shiver at how cold it felt.

Benedict then started scratching at his head then moved it further down, at that moment Alec realised this was some sort of strange bath, Benedict was scrubbing a special soap mixture into the fur.

After a few minutes of scrubbing and manipulating his “body” in strange ways, Benedict sat him down in the bucket.

“Alright, need to leave you for a few minutes, let that set in.”

When Benedict looked away, Alec looked at the “hands” he had now which were covered in soapy bubbles.

He was not going to get used to the fact that this wasn’t a nightmare.

“Oh no, this one hasn't got an eye, like you huh Lefty?”

The man was talking to himself, kind of stupid but Alec didn't make that judgement known.

Alec heard the door open.

“Hey Benny!”

“Hi, Jeremy!”

Someone else entered the room.

“How long until Lefty can be back on stage?”

“I've set his systems to reboot.... He should be up and about within.... It says 10 minutes...”

“Good.... Good....”

“I'm also fixing up some of these discarded Lonely Freddy's...”

“Oh god, the staff are finding stupid reasons to dispose of them... I know some do stop working but about 40% of them can be fixed.”

Is that why Alec and some of the others had been picked out? They were going to be put back out in the pizzeria? Alec suddenly had awful flashes of toddlers pulling on his limps like a toy, he hated how he was treated by them... But he guessed this was how they treated every Lonely Freddy.

“Hey, Jeremy... I wanted to ask... About the policy of co-workers dating?”

“Well... Just as long as it doesn’t interfere with work... Why?” He asked.

“I'm interested in asking out Lewis.... I've been told he has had male partners before... So I feel less anxious about asking him out.”

“Well go ahead and ask Mr Music Man if you can duet.”

Alec kind of tuned the conversation, he was thinking about what would be next, he couldn't see a future where he went home at this point unless he did something to make it known he wasn't a Lonely Freddy.

“I will! When I get a second...”

“Don't make that second so long... It might be likely Lewis could find another love interest if you don't pluck up the courage to ask him!”

“Yes... Yes... I know....”

“I was told we had a ripped Yarg Foxy a week ago? Was it fixed up?”

“Yep, fixed it in 10 minutes for a sweet little girl named Hazel, she was so polite and talkative! I rarely get to talk with children when I'm working... She was slightly upset though, about her older brother she told me, his name was... Um... Alex... No, it was Alec, yes Alec was his name. I felt bad for her, clearly, this Alec character doesn't realise he has an amazing sister. Apparently, she wanted the toy for him.”

Alec felt ashamed of himself, for everything, not just that, but for so many other countless things. Hazel just wanted to be his friend and he was too stupid and paranoid to see that, he thought they were a problem but he was the problem.

“Fan of Foxy, I'm not surprised, most boys like Foxy.”

“Well, he's cool. I like the original though, I mean.. Rockstar Foxy is good but the original was amazing.”

“I understand what you mean, Mike is a fan of Foxy also. I see him usually looking at the pictures from back in the day, he uses to work as the nightshift in one of the original places years ago...”

“Kids go nuts over Foxy....”

Alec slowly stood up, peering out of the bucket, he saw Benedict and Jeremy having a conversation, this body appeared to move easier now, his movements were stiff before but he found now they were much better, it was like his self conscious had adjusted to this body, which he admittedly didn't want to adapt to a body that wasn't his and would never be his.

He saw the bear on the desk slightly moved his hand.

“Anyway, I need to go start working, have a good day!” Jeremy smiled and left.

Benedict nodded, he had turned his head one way then turned back.

“Hello there! You still work little guy?”

He was talking to Alec, no doubt, his eyes were on him, Benedict walked over to him, “I bet being in that dumpster was pretty scary huh? Dark place...”

Was he searching for a conversation? Alec didn’t feel like talking honestly, he knew this guy wouldn't treat him as a human.

“Let's wash the soap off, I think the smell should be gone by now....”

Benedict pushed Alec down so he was sitting in the bucket again. He then abruptly splashed cold water on him.

“Cold!!!” Alec screeched unintentionally nearly jumping out of the bucket.

“Sorry cold water is the best...” Benedict lifted him out.

Not too long after, he had been dried off and placed on the desk.

“Alright... Let's try some basic tests, Hello there!”

“Hello?” Alec responded sounding unsure, he did actually hear his voice and Benedict seem to react, frowning when he spoke.

“Why does its voice sound so peculiar?..... Eye colour is also incorrect...” Benedict asked, “Okay, try this... Tell me who you are.”

Alec looked around, a bit uncomfortable, he couldn’t understand anything, he was in a strange place in a strange body.

“What's wrong?”

“Why did I do what I did? I made a mess of everything...”

Benedict looked even more confused, “How did you, Fred?”

Hearing that name made Alec nearly cry, it was like he lost his identity as a person and had become a mindless machine, “I'm not Freddy!!!” He shouted not wanting to hear the name ever again.

“Benedict! We need help immediately!!”

Benedict got up from his seat and left the room.

Alec looked around this place, he thought about Benedict's confusion, he sees me as factory reject probably, he thought, starting to feel sick.

“I’m watching you, demented little bear your days are numbered.”

Alec shivered, he was supposed to be alone, who just spoke then?

He looked around and his eyes fell on that black bear who had somehow moved his head towards him, his eyes were black voids but he seem to stare straight at him.

Impossible! He thought, These things can’t move on their own accord! Somebody must be controlling it!!

The bear just stared at him, Alec had the strangest feeling, a sinking gut feeling like this robot should be avoided. Alec got off the desk, and ran outside the room, he turned to make sure the robot wasn’t following him, but he hadn’t turned back in time and he hit directly into something.

“What the? What’s your hurry?”

Alec had smacked into one of the robots, he looked up, oh god it looked so much more bigger and scary than it should.

And it was Chica he struck, she wasn’t even a threatening animal!

Alec wanted this nightmare to end! But there didn’t seem to be an end in sight!

“What's going on?” Freddy had approached them, and with that, Alec was outnumbered.

“This one ran into me. Dunno why, they don’t run,” Chica replied.

“Maybe we’ll ask Lefty about it... can you come with me for a minute?”

Alec wanted to say no, but he just shook his head. He was gripped by fear and being outnumbered wasn't helping.

“Why does this one have green eyes?”

“Lefty!” Chica yelled out.

Alec didn’t like the idea of being around these robots, they had looked around with their eyes away long enough that Alec ran off from their view, he saw the door to the back rooms was open so he ran though there, he decided at that moment no one would see him ever again if they couldn't see who he really was.

“...I thought the voice was you, but it sounded very different.... I was scared of you... But I’m not scared of you anymore...”

“I’m glad to know that Alec, because I’m not scary... I was built to help kids, not give them nightmares.”

“This still.... is kind of like a nightmare... it feels like one... but I can’t wake up.”

“I think reality can sometimes be the worse sort of nightmare, because you can’t wake up from it.”

“That's.... that’s really true actually...”

They both heard thunder, Lefty looked up at the celling, the garage was unlit but his eye and Alec's eyes had reacted and turned into a beam of light, it was like a flashlight beacon of yellow and green, the feature was useful to see. Lefty looked slightly irritated by the sound, “Dam it that bloody storm is not letting up... It's probably well pass midnight now...”

“Lefty?”

“What is it?”

“I’m actually scared that I can’t go back,” Alec admitted.

“I know it's really scary... Just know whatever comes next... I’ll help you, whether that be talking to your parents, or even confronting Lonely Freddy.”

“I see both of those as bad ideas honestly.”

“We need to keep all the options open at this time... I am aware Lonely Freddy will not give up without a fight and I hate to imagine what could happen if you accidentally get caught up... as I said... if he realised you were still alive and there is a chance he can be stopped, he would want to kill you... I have little doubt he is beneath killing... but I will protect you from him.”

Alec's ears lowered, “I... I want my life back... this isn’t what I want.”

Lefty gently ruffled the patch of fur on his head, “Rest assured, I'm not letting Lonely Freddy get away with what he did... I know the body you are in feels like a cage but I will break this curse, your story is not over and I will help you fight for your happy ending.”

Lefty has vowed to help Alec get a better ending....

To be Continued...

First Chapter | Previous | Next

[fandom-necromancer]

Five Nights at Jericho’s

And here the second Halloween short! This has been prompted by the amazing @sparklingrainbowdragon! I only know the game from one Let’s Play, I hope it’s enough XD Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | AU: Five nights at Freddy’s

A lot had been going wrong during the revolution. Hell, a far lot more had been going wrong before the revolution, too. But it was only after it that the true extend of just how much had been going wrong had been unveiled. After androids had been granted their rights, the first instinct for them was to seek refuge in numbers and safe who they knew was in danger. How many androids of New Jericho had become vocal about abusers, about literal prisons for their kind and the extend of brutality they faced had even managed to touch Gavin. Far too long he had seen how that kind of treatment ended. He had seen the crime-scenes, he had found the dead bodies and he had interviewed the survivors. They had been human, yes, but now that the DPD helped New Jericho in finding lost friends and saving who could still be saved, he was told the same things over and over again:

‘They… They helped me out of there. I- I wanted- I couldn’t- I left them behind to get help.’ ‘I don’t know if he was still functioning. But I was dumped somewhere and there were a lot of partially assembled androids. Please, if they can be repaired, we need to help them!’ ‘She… We fled together. I love her. But we had to split up and couldn’t find each other again. I last saw her by the docks. But… Please, you have to find her!’ ‘My android. I tried to hide him. But my neighbours found out and took him away from me. I don’t know where they brought him.’

It changed something in Gavin. Androids weren’t in any way different to humans. They faced the same problems; they had the same fears. And that realisation made him seriously regret how he had acted in the past. A part of him still told him he wasn’t like these faceless persons he heard of. He had never abused someone. Had never hurt someone. His attitude wasn’t the best, but he had never done anything like it. But he had thought about it. And to the very least he had pointed his gun at Connor. No, he hadn’t abused someone, but he hadn’t exactly made their life any easier.

He needed something to ease his mind, something to repay what he owed them. That was why he ended up volunteering at New Jericho. He was human, so there wasn’t much he could do when most of their residents were afraid of his kind. But eventually he was given the task of watching a warehouse. The androids inside were all deactivated and waited for repairs. Until they would be able to though someone needed to watch the warehouse. Android parts were traded at high prizes and a warehouse full of apparently dead androids was a gold mine. A few night shifts on his free days wouldn’t hurt, he thought. Not like he would have much going on anyways.

-

Gavin sat on his chair feet crossed on the table. His coffee cup was steaming next to him, the aroma filling the small room. He was constantly switching in between texting with Tina and watching the feed of the surveillance cams in front of him. He had made it a habit of his to patrol around the warehouse every other hour not to fall asleep and had just come back from one. Not a person in sight and no disturbance at all. He glanced at the android bodies again. They were leaned against the walls, neatly standing there and waiting for the day they would be woken up again. The longer Gavin stared at the screens, the creepier the whole situation became. At least they had their eyes closed. It made it easier pretending they were just mannequins instead of living beings just… waiting for their time to come.

Gavin sighed and reached for his coffee.

>Alright Gavin gotta go! >Hope you have a cosy n8 with the zombots!

Gavin chuckled and send her a few barfing smileys followed by a “Good night”. Now to the boring part of sitting alone in some office for the rest of the night.

When he looked back up again from a game on his phone, he had to do a double take. Then his heart skipped a beat. Were this… Were this android’s eyes open? ‘Oh hell no…’ Gavin had seen enough horror movies not to dare look away from the screen. But at some point, he did have to blink. And there: The previously open eyes were shut again. ‘Phck.’ Gavin quickly pulled up Tina’s texts again, frantically typing in the hopes she had just told him she would be off to bed to scroll through shit posts in peace before sleep. The sentence wasn’t completely typed in as Gavin glanced up and would have nearly fallen off his chair.

The android had moved.

Broken arm at his side, the android had turned and looked into the camera out of one icy blue working eye. Oh no, oh no, oh no…

>Tian, if im ded tomoewrr call the polife! >address is

He looked up again and saw the android that had stared him down had vanished from the feed. Shit. Gavin put the phone away and flipped through the different cams. Not a trace of the android. But when he had circled back again, another android had moved. One that couldn’t walk and crawled across the floor. Gavin hadn’t seen it moving, but it was staring at him. And slowly the shattered hull plates distorted into a crooked grin. Oh, phck this, seriously! The one time Gavin had agreed to do something nice and promptly the universe punished him for it!

He would have loved to just shut off the feeds and pretend all was right, but maybe this time not knowing was worse than the alternative. The next time he had to blink the android was gone again. Okay. He had to remain calm. Two androids on the loose, knowing someone was watching. He tried to keep his breathing slow and deep, but it didn’t do jack shit. He stood up from his seat and stared at the camera feeds. Another one was gone and another one, the creepy one with a broken jaw, was moving. Gavin was seconds from fleeing the building as he heard a noise. Then the lights went out with a crack. Gavin stood in total darkness, his heartbeat leaping into his throat. Someone had cut the power to the room. Not only the light had died suddenly, the cams were gone too. He knew the fuses were just outside the door. But he really didn’t want to go out there. Not when four and possibly more androids were on the run with only the knowledge from before the android revolution to go off of.

He finally worked up his courage and moved around the table, hand outstretched to feel his way to the door. He tried to unlock his phone with one hand and used the screen to light the floor a few feet in front of him. He reached for the cover of the fuse box and ripped it open to find the right lever. He pushed the fuse back in and immediately the lights flashed on. Gavin slammed the cover shut again and froze as he saw a figure at the end of the hallway. It was the one-armed with the blue eyes. Why did it have to be the most intact? Why? Gavin cursed, but his flight instinct set in as the figure began moving towards him. He ran back into the surveillance room and pulled the door shut behind him. For a moment there was only his heavy breathing and the door in front of him. He was safe. The bot wouldn’t be able to break through solid metal after all.

He turned around and stood face to face with two androids. It was the one that had previously been crawling over the floor held up by the one with the broken jaw. ‘Hello’, they said simultaneously out of broken mouths, voices distorted by static. Gavin screamed in shock. They would get him. They were in the room and Gavin wouldn’t be out fast enough to escape. So, he could only press against the metal door and hold up his hands in defence. He waited for the first blow to hit him and pressed his eyes close.

It didn’t come. Instead the door in his back gave way and he fell backwards into three strong hands, that pushed him back into a standing position. By now, Gavin was shaking all over, but the fact that he hadn’t been killed yet made him open one eye. The two androids supporting each other had backed up a bit and the two in his back had moved around to join them. The one-armed with the blue eyes stepped towards him, offering a hand. ‘Hello, I am RK900, this is Ralph’, he pointed to the one next to him. ‘And this is Ralph and Daniel.’ The three others gave him an awkward little wave.

‘W-What do you want?’, Gavin asked, not daring to take the hand the RK900 still held out for him. ‘We have been woken up. Tomorrow we will be repaired. We wanted to thank you for keeping an eye on us.’ Gavin stood there dumbfounded and managed to lean his back against the table not to collapse. ‘We are sorry if we scared you’, the one introduced as Jerry added. Gavin sighed, adrenaline now vanished from his systems causing him to feel nothing but exhaustion. He rubbed his forehead. ‘Are you alright?’, the RK900 asked. ‘The cameras don’t record sound, this was the only way to reach you.’

Gavin groaned and took out his phone to give Tina the all-clear first. ‘Yeah, I’m alright. I suppose I just watched a few horror movies too many…’

[amandajoyce118]

Agents Of SHIELD S7E01 “The New Deal” Easter Eggs And References

In the season seven premiere, most of the team ends up in 1931 New York thanks to some time travel shenanigans. We love shenanigans, right? The is the last season premiere ever, and it’s bittersweet, but I’m diving right in.

As always, if you don’t remember this from the last few seasons of me writing up Easter eggs (posts are tagged aos easter eggs if you want to read old ones), this list assumes you have seen the episode. There will be spoilers.

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Again, spoilers. Turn back now if you don’t want them. Okay? Good.

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The Episode Title.

It’s a reference to FDR’s political work. I mean, Coulson even references it and says the episode title in the show. I kind of love when show’s do that? This show didn’t used to, but they did it a lot more the last two seasons, so maybe it’s a thing now.

The Title Card.

I feel like it’s unfair to call this an Easter egg, but if they didn’t put a 1931 timestamp on the top of the episode, the title card could have told you what era the team was in. Whoever was in charge of designing it did a great job making it look like a classic film title card.

Faceless People.

Okay, so the chronocoms erase the faces of the people they wish to resemble. This isn’t really a thing in the comics, but there is a character called “Faceless One.” He happens to be an alien who wants to conquer Earth as well, but is basically a big yellow ball with legs, so I doubt there’s any connection other than the cool effect.

Coulson’s Data Flood.

Okay, we get that literally everything Coulson says when he’s not talking to Daisy, Mack, and Jemma are quotes from previous seasons, right? Good. He even downloads the information on Ghost Rider, his own death, last season, etc.

Deke Has A Workstation.

Okay, not an Easter egg, but I think we need to take a moment and appreciate that Jemma built Deke a workstation and Fitz left him the tool we saw way back in season five. Why? Because Deke never feels like he belongs and he wants so badly to be close to his family, and now, we see that they thought of him while upgrading their ship. He has a place. And it’s right next to Jemma.

Elena Is Quarantined.

That’s because she was infected by the shrike in season six, not because the writers are psychic and knew there would be a massive epidemic going on when the show premiered. (Sorry, typed that before I realized Jemma was going to actually say it in show, so it’s staying in.)

Gemini And Koenig.

Gemini is actually a pretty popular name/codename in Marvel Comics, so it being used as, supposedly, the code name for the person in charge of the speakeasy made me laugh. It’s much more likely here that the bartender didn’t react wrong to the use of the word, that it’s used to weed out pretenders, hence the double barrel shotgun he affectionately calls the twins. I also like that it’s a tease for a Koenig appearing since we initially thought the Koenig siblings were twins and it turns out there are too many for us to count at this point (not really, I’m exaggerating, but great that grandpa or great-grandpa Koenig looks exactly like the modern day Koenigs. I mean, come on, they’re clones or something, right?).

“It’s not exactly your first time being separated by space and time.”

Okay, look, if you have to keep inserting meta humor into a show about how often you separate your main couple, maybe you should stop separating your main couple. (Yes, I know, Iain de Caestecker had another job he was working on in seasons six and seven, but seriously, it’s not funny. Your audience is tired of it.) I mean, to be frank, Fitz is one of my favorite characters in the show, but I didn’t really miss him in this episode? That might sound bad, but I don’t think they needed to comment on him being gone so much considering Jemma told them at the end of season six she didn’t  - and couldn’t - know where he was.

Wilfred “Freddie” Malick.

Daisy explains who he is, but look, it’s the father of Gideon Malick, the same Gideon who became the leader of Hydra after a broken SHIELD (and the Avengers) decided to squash all of its heads, the same guy who got Ward interested in visiting an alien planet where he ended up as Hive. He’s, like, ancient school Hydra, not just old school Hydra. What doesn’t make sense here is that they’re saying the SSR forms in response to Hydra. Technically, the SSR forms, and then they learn about Hydra, unless I’m misremembering, which is totally possible.

The Substance.

So, I gotta wonder… what’s in the test tubes? The earliest we go in the MCU is Captain America, which is still a whole decade after the events of this episode. Prior to that, Hydra experimentation did create the Red Skull, but… still not sure what’s in the tubes. I don’t really have a frame of reference from the comics to speculate either since Hydra was into literally anything and everything. 

New York.

Okay, so I’m curious if anyone knows where they filmed their 1931 New York scenes. I have questions. Because they use the same couple of blocks for all their outside scenes, which makes me think it’s a studio backlot (which would definitely help keep the script quiet) and they’re going to use a different part of the lot next week. A friend asked me if I thought it was the same as the one used for Captain America when he’s in Brooklyn in his first movie. Cap’s first movie’s Brooklyn scenes were filmed on a Universal Studios lot where they had New York building facades and street signs. If you’ve been to the theme park, you basically know what it looks like without the 30s/40s dressing. I think it’s the same lot, and I say this because I actually kept thinking that they used the set pieces Disney used for The Newsies movie in 1992 while watching the episode. Do you know where that was filmed? On the Universal Studios backlot’s New York street set up right after it was renovated in 1991. Huh.

So, Mark Kolpack basically answered this on twitter when discussing VFX. They filmed their New York street scenes on the Warner Bros. backlot, not the Universal one, so I guess the people in charge of designing the set pieces did a great job because they look pretty much the same.

This Picture.

This boxing poster was shared by Jed Whedon on instagram. Honestly, I didn’t spot it in the episode, but that could just be because I have a small television screen and I can’t read the signs unless I pause on a computer and zoom. I have bad eyes, guys. Sorry. Usually signage is something I spot on a second or third watch, but according to Whedon, this is set dressing in the episode somewhere. Probably on the street the characters walk down multiple times. 

Let’s break down the names. Kitson is George Kitson, a story editor, writer, and production assistant on the show. He wrote this episode, and, actually, next week’s episode. The planet Kitson was also named for him. Titley is Craig Titley. He’s a producer and writer for the show, probably best known for writing “4,722 Hours” at this point. Brown is such a common name, but I’m going to guess it’s for Garry Brown who has directed a handful of episodes and is also a producer on the show. Bell is, I’m thinking, Jeffrey Bell, one of the producers and writers on the show. Tancharoen is for Maurissa Tancharoen, one of the showrunners, or you know, maybe her brother, who has directed several episodes (including this one!), or her father, who is in charge of transportation to sets. Gierhart is, I’m assuming, Billy Gierhart, who has directed a lot of episodes of the show, though I don’t think he’s directed any since 2017. (If you look at the matchups, it ends up being writer vs writer, producer vs producer, director vs director when you assume the Tancharoen is Kevin.) It says there are four main events though, and only three are listed?

Not sure if the October 15 date is intentional, but if it is, that’s the day “Eye Spy” aired in season one? Steve Roger’s mother dies on October 15, but in 1936. Not sure if that’s even canon since it’s in a promotional comic, not in anything on screen.

I’m sure there are more, and if you guys spot them and tell me, I’ll add them in. If I notice any on a rewatch, I’ll add them in as well. Who’s looking forward to the time traveling this season?

[elceeu2morrow]

NEW DIRECTION Louis Tomlinson on why he’s not ready to make up with Zayn Malik and how fatherhood made him grow-up fast

Beth Neil  2 Feb 2020, 0:01  Updated: 2 Feb 2020, 3:06

Back then he didn’t appear to be a natural frontman. He wasn’t one to hog the spotlight, nor did he seem remotely interested in competing with the magnetism of Harry or the vocal range of Zayn.

“There were times I struggled to find my place in the band,” Louis admits today.

But it’s often the quiet ones you’ve got to look out for.

Behind the scenes he was very much centre stage: Louis was the mouthpiece, constantly fighting the boys’ corner and acting as chief negotiator between band and management.

“Being from Doncaster,” he says, “I’ve never had a problem with telling anyone ‘no’.”

On top of this (and perhaps most significantly), in the six years that the band were together after finishing third on The X Factor in 2010, Louis diligently racked up more songwriting credits than any of the others, hinting that a hard-working and ambitious young artist lurked beneath the surface.

Indeed, while he might be the last of the band to release a solo album (four years after they announced their hiatus, breaking several million hearts in the process), the result suggests that Louis, having held his nerve and bided his time, might just prove to be the dark horse.

“There was a while when I was worried I was getting left behind – some of the boys are on to their second album now,” he says, taking a draw onthe first of several cigarettes. “At times, I’ve been swimming against the tide, working out who I am. I was trying to find a way back into the industry, thinking of it mathematically rather than going off feeling and emotion.”

He’s referring to collaborations with Bebe Rexha and Steve Aoki in 2016 and 2017 respectively, which, although successful, weren’t where his heart lay. With Kill My Mind – the exhilarating ’90s-inspired opening track of the album Walls – he sets his stall out with a clear departure from anything he’s done before.

Walls is about regret, reflection and ultimately, hope, and feels like Louis, who sings in his still-broad Doncaster accent, has finally found his voice.

“I’ve always wanted to be autobiographical and honest. And in the last six months the songs I’ve written and recorded are of a better standard because there’s an honesty there,” he says.

Honesty certainly characterises the album, sometimes devastatingly so. There’s no escaping the fact that Louis, 28, has faced unimaginable pain over the last few years.

First losing his mum Johannah Deakin, known as Jay, in December 2016 to leukaemia, and then his sister Félicité, who died last year aged 18 following an accidental drug overdose.

The lyrics to Two Of Us, written about his mum, include intimate details about Louis’ experience with grief.

“It wasn’t until after I’d written it that I realised how much vulnerability I’d put in there,” he says. “When I first performed it… I had fans coming up to me in tears telling me their stories, and that’s not something I’ve ever had before. And to do it on that level about something so delicate… It was really cool to take something so dark and make people feel like that.

“I had to get a song like that off my chest. It was difficult writing about things that felt trivial compared to what was going on in my life. There was, I think, a necessity to write that song before I could move on creatively.”

Understandably, Louis won’t talk specifically about Félicité. But when asked about how grief has shaped him both as a man and an artist, he pays tribute to Jay.

“I think it’s a credit to how my mum brought me up that I have a resilience,” he says. “There’s nothing I want less than to have people feel sorry for me, so having that mentality has helped me through the hardest of times.

"I’ve also felt a real support system through my fans. I’d always felt it on a lower level, but when it’s something so impactful and life-defining, I really did feel it from them.”

Days after Jay’s death, Louis appeared live on The X Factor to perform Just Hold On with Aoki.

He was clearly in pieces and it was hard enough just watching, but somehow he held it together, presumably thanks again to that resilience.

“Sometimes it’s fight or flight,” Louis explains. “And the way I was brought up and because of where I’m from, I only see one option in that situation. I also wanted to put myself second and do it for my mum.

"That moment was bigger than me and it was actually incredibly liberating. It used every bit of strength and power and I look back on that performance as one of the proudest moments of my career.”

He says he tends not to suppress emotion and is able to share his darkest points with those he’s closest to.

But as the eldest of Jay’s seven children (five girls and two boys), he also feels a huge weight of responsibility towards his younger siblings and hasn’t had any professional therapy himself.

“No, no, nothing like that. That might be down to a bit of Northern pride, but I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders and that drives me. I’ve got siblings who look up to me and I’ve got my grandparents as well. So all those things keep my head screwed on.

“My mum had a massive influence on me and I lived with a lot of sisters in the house, so I do find it easier to speak about my emotions. But I’m also from Doncaster, where to be a guy is to be tough and traditional and I feel like [there are] times where pride kicks in and I just say I’m all right.

"I’m lucky that I’ve got good people around me who I can trust and who I can be completely vulnerable with and say how I feel. Nine times out of 10, I don’t bottle things up. I wear my heart on my sleeve.”

[below the cut is the rest of the unedited article - including Eleanor, Freddie, 1D]

His model, blogger and politics graduate girlfriend Eleanor Calder, 27, who Louis first got together with back in 2010 during the last week of The X Factor (“before it got manic”) has been a crucial part of the stability he’s needed through such sadness.

“She’s been amazing. With any monumental time in your life you need people who understand and love you. She makes my life easier.”

In 2015 they split up for nearly two years during which time Louis became a dad to Freddie, now four, following a brief fling with LA stylist Briana Jungwirth.

The track Too Young is almost an apology to Eleanor for that period (“I’m sorry I hurt you, darling… I cut you off cos I didn’t know no better”), but Louis says the time apart taught him some tough lessons and has made them stronger.

“I think we both agree that we needed [that break]. I was too immature for a relationship of that seriousness. But I had to learn that and be an idiot first.

“A lot of young men won’t understand until they have hindsight. The responsibility of meeting someone you could spend the rest of your life with at 18 is too much for most immature men. I was very immature at that → age and didn’t understand the feelings or importance.”

He and Eleanor guard their privacy ferociously and very deliberately haven’t made themselves a public couple. They don’t go to places where they’ll get papped or post pictures of each other on social media.

“Me and Eleanor have been together ages and I don’t have a lot of private photos for myself,” he says. “Even on a night out there’ll be some f**ker taking my picture and it goes everywhere.

"So those moments to ourselves are special. It’s the same way I look at Freddie. Do I wanna show him off and tell the world how amazing he is? Yes, of course I do! But I know he’s amazing and he knows that and that’s what matters.”

He dotes on Freddie (“I cherish my time with my boy”) but admits the unplanned pregnancy was a wake-up call.

“Yeah, it was unexpected and I had to grow up very quickly. It was another one of them moments – being faced with the reality of a situation and having to step up. It was a very maturing time in my life.

“And, again, I’ve kind of got between two headspaces. I’m the responsible dad and brother some days and other days I’m still the reckless idiot chav I used to be. I’m still trying to work out a happy medium.”

Absolutely no one could have predicted the global phenomenon that 1D became, least of all Louis, Liam, Zayn, Niall and Harry themselves.

They sold 20 million albums worldwide, earning over £40million each, but the pressures of fame were, at times, intolerable. Louis says they were only able to keep their heads screwed on because they had each other.

“You can never be prepared for that. It was such a head f**k. But we grounded each other so the minute one of us acted like a d**khead one of the others would say: ‘Stop being a d**khead’. I see people in this job surrounding themselves with superiority and they lose the concept of the real world.”

He remembers doing a shoot with the band for Pepsi over in the States with American footballer Drew Brees.

“This guy was like a god and we were insignificant when he was around, which we understood. But I’ve never seen anything like it. Every sentence that came out of his mouth he’d have an audience of hangers-on in hysterics.

"These people were so far up his arse and he didn’t have one good joke. He had no banter! I still hang around with my boys from Doncaster and I hear real stories all the time, which helps me understand the world that unfortunately I don’t get to see. Having empathy with people and a connection with the world is imperative for any songwriter.”

Harry Styles recently said that he never touched drugs during his time in the band (although he’s made up for that since), because he didn’t want to “mess it up”. Louis smiles as he confides that he can’t say the same.

“All I’ll say is that I did my fair share and enjoyed my time in the band. It’s right what Harry said and it was smart of him, but I definitely had a lot of fun in the band. I was always aware of how amazing the opportunity was, but also enjoying the moment for what it was. I lived like anyone else my age – the difference was that I was in One Direction.”

He’s in touch with Harry, Niall and Liam “sporadically” (we’ll come to Zayn shortly), but they’re all on very different paths for now.

“If we all went to a pub tomorrow it’d be like we’d never left. The enormity of what happened in One Direction creates a massive bond and we’ll always have that.

"There have been times when we’ve done each other’s heads in. There might be something I say in an interview that bugs Liam or vice versa, but we all know what each other is like and we can call each other up and say sorry for being a d**k. We’re like brothers.”

But that’s not necessarily the case with Zayn, who quit in 2015 and with whom Louis has had a turbulent relationship since. He was hurt when Zayn was the only one not to turn up at the X Factor studio to support him through his performance after Jay’s death, despite promising to be there.

Then there’s Zayn’s apparent repeated digs. In one interview he branded 1D’s music “generic as f**k”. There’s a difference between making a break from the past and dismissing it completely, and it’s a line Zayn perhaps hasn’t always managed to walk.

“Hmm,” agrees Louis, cautiously. “Other than maybe Niall, there is no one who is prouder of the band and the songs we created than me. But while what I did with One Direction is relevant, it doesn’t define who I am and I don’t struggle to make that dissociation.”

Does he think some of what Zayn has said has been disrespectful?

“Yeah, I do. But I can understand it. We have a lot of situations where we’re sat in interviews and if you’re in a certain mood you might run your mouth. The older you get the more you can tell if these things actually carry any malice or if they’re just a prod in the back. That’s life, innit? Sometimes people chat s**t and that’s the reality.”

He’s not ruling out resolving their differences in the future, but there’s no olive branch on the horizon.

“No, but I’ve not actively tried. We’ve all got a lot on our plates and there might be a day where I wake up and think: ‘OK, I want to right that wrong’, but not yet.”

After being in his company for a while, it’s not hard to see why Louis was 1D’s driving force backstage. He’s thoughtful, articulate, open and self-aware, but there’s a steeliness to him and the requisite pop-star swagger, which doesn’t seem to spill over into arrogance.

He’s based in LA these days, to stay close to Freddie, but “Donny” will always be home. He says comparing the two places is “literally chalk and cheese” and it’s taken him time to “come round” to living in the States.

“It’s taken a while to get used to spending so much time there. I feel like I’m very British at heart.”

And that is reflected in his music, which is heavily influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, The Smiths and Oasis. In fact, the title track and latest single Walls sounds so similar to Oasis B-side and fans’ favourite Acquiesce that Louis’ manager flagged it as a potential issue.

“These kinds of things happen. There are only so many melodies you can write and if you listen to a band all the time like I do with Oasis…”

Anyway, says Louis. He had to make a choice.

“I was ready to risk it, but everyone said we should get in touch with Noel [Gallagher] so we did. Often the industry, and especially Noel’s world, can be a bit snobby and say: ‘F**k you you’re not using this song’. But he was really cool about it, signed it off no problem and although I’m sure he’s not happy about this, I f**king am, I’ve got a writing credit from Noel Gallagher on my album. That is some sick s**t so I’m buzzing.”

Is he nervous about going it alone? “I think I’ve got a good record so I’m confident. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t little bit nervous – there’s three and half years work gone into it so there’s a level of anticipation.”

The most overwhelming emotion though, is relief.

“Because it’s taken such a long time. I’m excited to go on to the next phase of my career.”

Louis Tomlinson’s new album Walls is out now.

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Whip It (The Eighties Blasts Collection, Part 3.)

Description: Jim Hopper died as a hero. But with that, one certain problem rises up - who will now lead the cops of Hawkins? Hopper thought of that - he decided to write a letter, naming his niece, nineteen-year-old student of Indianapolis police academy, Y/N Hopper as a sheriff deputy in a letter. But anybody in the town doesn’t have a clue that being a cop in Hawkins is way more dangerous than it might seem.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Hopper!Reader (eventually) - the story is more driven by the relationships in the gang.

A/N: I am dead from the inside, soulless and tired, but I have another chapter for you. ♥

Warnings: None really, just Jim Hopper being paranoid.

Word count: 2.3 K

Tagging: @charmed-asylum​ (So u have smth to read before Mount Everest comes back, bby girl. ♥)

Master list: The Eighties Blast Collection

To say it without cursing too much, you needed to say that your day didn't start the best - just as Nancy’s hit off. You didn't exactly oversleep - you were just on time to put something on, grab some snack and to drive into sheriff’s office exactly on time. But your, to be exact, Hopper’s uniform was still wet when you put it over a long-sleeved black tee with a white short-sleeved one put on it. You almost weren't able to put your jeans on or to tie your own damn shoes. 

“Okay, check your bag before you go!” - Nancy yelled at you from the car when you stood in the cabin’s doorframe. You took the bag off your back and took a quick look into it - Hopper’s old sheriff’s badge, your car and cabin keys, your purse and some water in a bottle with a leftover sandwich. Quickly, you locked the door and ran into the car, stuffing the uniform’s lower hem into your pants so it didn't look like an American flag.

“Okay. So here's the game plan - I'll drive you to your college and then you'll pray for me to make it on time." - You mumbled when you started the car's engine. Whip It by Devo was yelling all over the place as you left the driveway.

"You can do it. Half of an hour is a good time to make it on time." - She assured you with a smile as she steadier the mirror to do her make up some justice. You drove the roads like a mad man, making Nancy to be pushed into her seat. She was giggling. You were overreacting so much for such a bull. You could make it exactly on time.

Quickly, you dropped her off, it was a wonder that you didn't push her out of the car. She was waving at you while you drove off, sweating like hell. For an October day, it was somehow too warm. When you jumped from your car in front of the local police office, it was five minutes before your shift was about to begin. Nervously, you tried to fix your messed up hair before walking into the office. You didn't look like a cop - the only thing that made you at least appear like a cop was Hopper's uniform shirt.

His trousers were too loose for you. Nervously, you walked in and stopped in front of an old lady's table. You looked her into the face. - "I'm miss..." - You reached out your hand to her, but she stood up and said your name before you had the chance.

"Young miss Hopper. Right on time. Nice to meet you, I'm Flo. And I hope that you don't have your uncle's habits. I'll go with you through the paperwork today, honey." - She got off the table, waving at you to follow her. You furrowed while you tried to actually breathe. Jim's habits? What the... - "So you still study the academy, right?"

"Yes, yes I do." - You nodded and walked into the office full of policemen chilling around. One was playing solitaire, another one was just smoking. They were in blue shirts. Does that mean that you'll have to give Hopper's shirt back? You hoped not. Flo made you sit behind a table, sitting next to you.

"Alright, were you eighteen, love? I need to know since you'll be possessing a gun." - She asked and put her glasses on. Flo really knew what was up - she helped you with completing the paperwork that needed to be archived, the paperwork that she needed to send to your academy - and she was also angry that you're practically underage. You knew that you'll have a full-time job here along with the studies and even tho, it was scribed off as a practicum.

If you were a good cop? Flo didn't actually care a single bit since you weren't 21. But you could possess a gun, you got your own registration number and they will make your own identification card. Then it was the time to talk to the new police chief - mister Stanford. He wasn't there for too long, yet they told you that Standford is a fair and normal guy.

It was a slim man with short brown hair, glasses and a good physique. He looked kind but strict - you liked those types. They made you do your work, but they still were nice to you somehow.

"Miss Hopper." - You smiled at him, a bit sorry about your outfit. Flo brought him a black coffee and she made you a tea, so you slowly sipped from your cup.

"Freddy Stanford. A pleasure to meet you, miss Hopper. Jim was very proud of you." - He leaned back to his chair and put his pen next to his notepad. - "No matter what they say, Jim was a good guy and a good boss. I heard correctly, he was your inspiration to study police academy?"

"Yes sir, he was. Jim and I were very close and I loved the idea of helping him out one day since the very first summer I saw him working here." - You nodded with a small smile. That was the truth - Jim wasn't always a chief, but since he was, you knew you wanted to be there.

"Getting on a police academy in your eighteen, right after finishing high school? That's very impressive. Want to tell me something about that?"

"I just... Worked hard and studied. The truth is that my family background isn't the happiest, so it was the motivation as well, sir. And I think that Hopper sent them a letter too..." - You said quietly a motioned your hand. Yeah. Hopper did his best to help you with getting to the school. But there was another story - your father and your mother. You never wanted to visit them ever fucking again.

"Still, it's very unusual. You're only nineteen, miss Hopper and you were named a deputy. That's a big responsibility. Are you sure that you can work on such a position?" - Stanford asked you seriously. He had a point - being his deputy was a serious job. You had to be there on time, you needed to do what you'll be asked and you will have to be able to do teamwork and solo when needed.

It could be too much for a nineteen-year-old.

"With all the respect to Hopper, and with all the respect to you... I am not overly fond of having you as my deputy. I do trust that Hopper had all five together, but he obviously didn't count on dying so young." - Stanford caught your hand to his palm when you looked at him, biting your lips nervously. You felt the urge to cry, so you gulped it down.

"I took this opportunity to show my respect to my uncle, sir. I want to do this job, it... This means everything to me right now. Trust me that I'll do my best and I'll ace all the subjects at the academy, sir." - You took your hand out of his, sitting straight.

"I see and I respect your decision since you have the permit from your academy and we saw the document Jim wrote. Right now, you look just like your uncle, miss Hopper. You really can't deny your family genes." - Stanford chuckled. That made you smile again and it made the urge to cry go away. - "But let's seal a deal. Before finishing your studies, you'll be working mainly on administrative, like documents and etc. I don't want you near any dangerous or life-threatening event, alright? After that, we can talk about it again."

You nodded. There was an office full of policemen. And if your chief's wish was to keep you at the office, you couldn't really protest. You were good at shooting and your hand-to-hand combat wasn't the worst, but orders were orders.

"I have a question, sir..." - You leaned in and pointed at your uncle's shirt. - "Can I have it on? It's the last thing that is remaining me after he's gone. If it's violating the codex in any way, I will leave it home." - You asked in a tight voice and Stanford took a deep breath in. It was the sheriff's shirt, yeah, but on the other hand, he knew it has emotional importance for you to have it on you when you'll be working. It will mean that you remember Hopper. And Stanford found it important and nice.

"You can keep it. It is unusual, but I would say that this whole situation is, right?" - He smiled and sipped on his coffee. Then you gave him Hopper's badge. It was the golden one he had on his shirt while he took every single photo in his uniform with you. You had a collection of Polaroids with Hopper, big photos and small ones. And you were almost hysterical when he didn't want to put his damn shirt on.

"That's his badge?" - Stanford took it between his fingers, watching it intensely. He took a deep breath. - "Keep it too. It will be our secret - you can have it at home, but you won't wear it." - He truly was a kind man. Or at least to you and at the moment. You nodded and the first tear fell off your eye. You couldn't express your appreciation out loud - they let you take the position Hopper always dreamed of you to have, they let you have and use his stuff, you felt... Grateful, to say at last.

The first few days... Maybe even weeks were seriously about paperwork and paperwork only. Just as Stanford told you. Flo were glad that you at actual food - not only donuts and that you didn't smoke indoors, so she gladly made you coffee.

Over the time the other policemen acknowledged you as well - there was Anderson, who was a serious cop to say at least and he took you completely serious with you as well, sometimes helping you with correcting the old files and papers. Then you had Cooper, the one who was playing solitaire all the time. He was a funny one. The last one was a young cop as well. His name was Franklin. It was nice to see them taking you completely serious, to respect you as another Hopper continuing with the occupation.

In the morning Flo always made you a cup of coffee and you worked on the files you left on the desk, Jim’s old cases that needed to be administrated, slowly getting into the year 1983. You held the file in your fingers for a while - it was the infamous Byers file.

You knew what was going on. It was a weird case to say at least. Hopper never actually told you what happened to Will, he was always mysterious when you asked. The only thing you knew was that the Byers case was a case that shook the whole Hawkins, definitely turning it upside down. A missing kid. And there was definitely more than what the papers said. It said that they actually found his dead, drowned body nearby Hawkins which seemed... Surreal to say at least. You went through the papers with a frown before you got to the last one. There was a short sentence written down with a red marker -  Do NOT trust them. It is a lie

You put it back onto the table, resting your head to your entwined fingers. Who could know what happened? Joyce? No, she won't tell you anything since it happened to her own son. Jonathan? No, he didn't even tell you what happened to Jim.

Maybe you could ask Nancy or Steve. Yeah. When you're done with that day's work, you should go to Wheeler's. So you put the file away and went to police archives to search for Wheeler's household number. You impatiently drummed your fingers when your phone called the number.

Nobody picked up for at least a minute.

"Karen Wheeler on the phone?" - Woman's voice freaked you the fuck out all of a sudden. You looked away, facing the window to look outside on the rainy weather.

"Hello, Mrs. Wheeler. It's Y/N Hopper." - You told her slowly.

"Oh, I see. Hi, Y/N. What do you need? Something happened to my kids?" - She asked horrifiedly. Yeah. The news spread quickly since everyone knew almost everybody in the town. So young Hopper being back in the town and now is a cop? Every single soul was aware in your first week there.

"No. Not at all. I just... Eh... This is kinda awkward. I was just thinking if I can have a sleepover at your place? I'm all alone in that cabin for weeks and I haven't talked to Nance since I came." - You mumbled. Your eyes were still glued to the papers in the file - there was Will Byers's photo, they tried to send Joyce to a psychiatrist, there was a lot of shit to go through.

"Okay? Okay. Sure, yeah, you can sleep at our place. I'll be glad to see you after all those years. I can prepare that chicken you always loved so much." - Karen said excitedly. You were at Karen's and Ted's sometimes as well when you were young and Nancy wanted you to stay the night. It didn't happen that much, you were hanging out more at Jim's and Joyce's, but Karen was always nice to you as well.

And yeah, you loved her chicken with honey. He was a great cook and a good mom.

"I'll come around eight? Can I?" - You asked and scratches the back of your neck. Karen just laughed lightly, just as she used to normally, and told you yes. Then she hung up on you.

The kid who got missing in the woods. That was the first time you secretly took papers from your work without your boss knowing. And you didn't have an idea that it certainly isn't the last time you're doing that.

[nightcoremoon]

I love horror, I just have impossibly high standards

anyway some of my favorite is the kind that is totally normal from the start, there's nothing off kilter or weird, everything is fine. it's mundane. but then maybe something strange happens and it's less mundane, maybe it's more colorful or lively. but it's not like it's scary or anything. maybe it's a little left of center but it's still fine. life goes on as normal.

but then suddenly it's not fine.

and it recontextualizes everything up until now and you realize oh my god it wasnt mundane at all, it was just pillars of foreshadowing and you realize this is the most terrifying thing you've ever encountered.

maybe it goes on with the weird scary shit and things resolve themselves later, but that gives you time to breathe and get accustomed to the horror.

maybe it just ends. maybe it's just suddenly "surprise, shit is fucked!" and then ~fin

that would be ideal. like, in the sixth sense, you find out Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, you see him making peace with his death, and then the movie ends. except without all of the overreliance on shock horror and the visually disturbing (for the 90s) shots of the entire rest of the everything.

but if the twist happens at the halfway point and things stay absolutely horrible for a while that's also good, like coraline. started off pretty normal, got a little weird, and then suddenly boom ITS HORRIFYING OUT OF NOWHERE.

a perfect example of the last line twist would be the girl with the green ribbon on her neck. aww the boy likes the mysterious girl and they fall in love and get married, really normal the entire way. and then oh surprise HER HEAD COMES OFF. simple yet effective.

I don't mind if it starts out the gate with being seven levels of fucked. dead space 2 opens up with nicole, narratively speaking just moments after she end jumpscares you in the first game, so we're already off-put. then 60 seconds in we see isaac in a straitjacket being questioned and in the background there's flashes of being on the ishimura and nicole's ghost walks up to you and slavsquats and her eyes light up and she whispers, then SUDDEN WHITE oh cool it's ok look it's franco from dead space ignition that's cool aww he's saving Isaac oh wow it's a really creepy atmosphere OH MY GOD IS HEAD IS GETTING STABBED AND HIS FACE TURNS INTO A GODDAMN ZOMBIE HOLY SHIT THEYRE EVERYWHERE RUN BITCH RUN CHAOS LOUD MUSIC BLOOD GUTS FEAR QUICK MASH THE A BUTTON OR DIE!!! oh everything is quiet now. good job you survived, now walk down the corridor to the next intense scary part. lather rinse repeat.

I like horror when it's well executed or creative and not schlocky and relying solely on savini's gore or unnecessary carnage.

friday the 13th is like, oh wow that person just got an axe in their forehead, I sure am quaking in my boots. oh wow the tall stuntman picked up a sleeping bag and slammed it into a tree, this sure is realistic. oh the scantily clad teen girl is running slowly through the forest while cain hodder slowly walks towards her, and he somehow catches up and stabs her with the machete. wow the effects sure look like foam core and wax got cut in half and is squirting ketchup everywhere. the music is sonically engineered to force my pulse to increase and I guess this is horror? oh look someone else got murdered. oh look another murder. I'm sure glad we spent the first 45 minutes of this movie getting to know the shallow garbage characters before they all get merced. wow crispin glover sure does know how to shake his head when a prosthetic attached with fake blood is on his head. oh look a dead body with arrows in it, the scream queen is piercing my eardrums, I guess this means I should be scared too. yawn. it's so fucking boring just watching people die over and over again. at least the later installments were either hilarious or batshit crazy. punching a dude's head clean off was the funniest thing I've ever seen in a movie given the context, and JASON GOES TO SPACE is the dumbest shit in any film but that's what makes it awesome. it had a stupid fucking robot fight. yet everyone hated it, so they rebooted it and surprising literally nobody it was the same shit but with more cgi so it looked even less real (not that it did in the first place). yet this franchise made hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales alone. nowadays there are people who see hockey on tv and ask "why the fuck is that guy dressed up like jason voorhees".

tell me why a free swedish gold source mod with blocky graphics and muddy textures and the worst lighting engine in 20 years and some bad questionable design choices in an almost direct ripoff homage to silent hill 2 and resident evil 2, crammed with bugs and bad collision and hard crashes if you die in a specific level while holding a flare which you literally need to always have lit because that's the mechanic the entire level was built around, by a team of like 6 people (half of whom were the voice actors and navmesh modelers), is still one of the best and well-crafted pieces of horror media I've ever consumed, while trash like the fucking craven-less elm street remake gets its dick sucked by everyone else because OH WOW ITS SO SUBVERSIVE AND EDGY AND GORY WOW COOL THIS IS REAL TRUE HORROR!

of course I'm approaching this from a purely american lens. japan's horror is phenomenal. mainly because it's not built around buckets of blood and literal pig carcasses and abusing actresses and actual rape scenes (although it's funny that people are totally okay with all of the graphic murders because killing people is okay and indulging in torture porn is fine but oh, god forbid a film shows something skin-crawlingly uncomfortable for the sake of making you feel disgusted and wanting a cold shower, no, the line is drawn there, you can stab a naked girl with a power drill or drop a chainsaw on her body and that's fine but if a snowman slams her body into a wall while his carrot nose is inside her hoohah that's when it's going too far? seriously? whatever I've beaten this dead horse). but eurocanadamerica's obsession with gore porn in horror and blumhouse's shitty jumpscare factories have reduced it to just... loud noise, stabbing, loud noise, stabbing, lather rinse repeat. this is horror now I guess.

nobody takes coraline seriously as horror. nobody takes the green ribbon seriously as horror.

the monster chasing you isn't horror. it's terror. horror is when you step on a bear trap while the monster is chasing you. the monster chase without the bear trap has no impact, it's just "watch this person fear for their life and die". yeah, if I wanted to watch a snuff film I'd look outside of mainstream markets. "oh but if it's just a movie it's not real" so says the people who suicide bait cyber bully and harass teens who ship a 17 year old with a 19 year old, or two people who work with batman, all over fictional alleged pedophilia and incest. because it's all bad unless it's violence. only sex is bad but not violence.

the violence cannot stand on its own. it needs to have narrative purpose. resident evil, all of the zombies and monsters were bioweapons being manufactured by a corporation. silent hill and cry of fear, all of the monsters are just the embodiments of the protag's inner demons. dead space, the batshit crazy religious cult wants to turn everyone into the undead since that's their idea of heaven, and you have to fight them and stay alive so you can prevent the universe from getting omnomnommed by the blood moons. f.e.a.r., a little girl with some psychic powers is studied, tortured, abused, and :/ raped (at least you don't see it) and she naturally responds by lashing out at the ones who hurt her and trying to reunite with her baby, who is... you! (spoilers).

what is the plot of friday the 13th? dumbass kids get drunk and have sex and let a little kid go missing and his mom has a psychotic break and starts killing them all, then they kill her and the kid kills more people and then he kills more people and then he dies and comes back and kills more people and then he dies so someone else starts killing people and then jason comes back again and kills more people again and he gets arrested and they try to execute him but he won't die so they cryogenically freeze him until he kills people in the future, and in a different timeline he kills people and fights freddy krueger. it's pointless. popcorn. drivel. there is no narrative purpose, it's just murder for murder's sake. and that's scary???

like I said. impossibly high standards.

I love horror. but holy shit is a lot of horror bad.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

8x02: Details and Themes

Morning Everyone! Today I’m going to go over details from the episode I didn't mention on Monday, and some themes I saw running through the episode (which might also end up running through the entire season or at least 8a).

Details:

In the first scene with the Saviors, there's some kind of belt or possibly dog collar on the table. The woman, Mara, also calls her people "fishies." Oceanside reference? When she got on the walkie talkie, she calls three people. The first two don't answer. The third one does. (Once again, lots of threes in this episode.)

At one point during the fire fight, we see a 101D on the building in the background. Kind of interesting as this was episode 101.  

It occurred to me Morgan's "I don't die," might have actually foreshadowed the deaths of Freddy and Andy. I think so mostly because of what Lennie James said on TTD. He said in the moment, Morgan was trying to warn them to stay away from him, because he doesn't die, which means people around him might. They did. I know a lot of people think it's foreshadows his death, and it still might, but it definitely foreshadowed the deaths of the two men he said it to.

Dwight's Note:

It also mentions "Browning." That's a type of gun Dwight is telling them to look for. The interesting this is Beth's knife (the one that's been missing since S6) was also a browning. It's looking more and more like symbolically, Beth is the weapon they're searching for. It's also very interesting that, for right now, the weapons seem to be missing.  

Oh, for the Xs? There were two sets of 8 Xs each. Kind of interesting.  

Someone suggested not everyone might understand what I meant when I said Shepherd was a big deal. Remember there was an Officer Shepherd at Grady, played by Teri Wyble? She's one of many of the Grady crew who've put suspicous things on social media in past months.  

Here's another cool detail I missed but @wdway caught: the ceiling above Daryl is broken and open in this shot. 

It looks very similar to the ceiling here in Still. 

Remember my Hole in the Roof Theory? Check it out HERE. Because we've seen this during key episodes and sequences around Beth and her arc, this gives me tons of hope that this situation with Daryl is about Beth and will lead to her.  

Female Room  

Wanted to give some screenshots of this room. Originally I thought the little red flowers on the pillows were lady bugs. They're not, but I'm still side-eyeing them. 

Lots of candles on the tables and a covered (hmm, could that be “hidden”?) lamp. Three of those big ones can be seen, but two sets of three hanging on the wall in sconces. Then there are those red/green curtains.

Gracie’s Room

I wanted to look more closely at the baby's room. @wdway caught this picture. 

We're pretty sure the back of the chair, seen in the mirror, is painted with three hanging POSSUMs. *coughs Beth*. Now that I’m looking, I think there’s also an eagle with spread wings above them, much like we saw on the wall in Still. 

There’s also a yellow truck of some kind. There are many animals in the mural on the wall and in the mobile hanging over the baby's head. I mentioned on Monday the dog and the frog, both of which are Beth symbols we've seen before. Others we could read into, but most I can't connect specifically to Beth's arc. The tiger could = shiva. Various meanings for lions and elements. One super-interesting thing is that the 8th thing on the mobile is this: the same symbols we saw made by the Scavengers when they surrounded TF in the junk yard. Hmm.

Rabbit  

This has been circulated a lot in the past few days. I'm sure many of you have seen it. As far as I'm concerned, we're looking at a few distinct possibilities here. Remember that we’ve seen the rabbit motif around Beth a lot. (X)

1. Possibly this little girl is Gracie rather than Judith. If so, it's possible certain spoilers I posted about HERE are wrong, and Judith may die. Let's hope not.

2. The little girl in the flash forward could still be Judith. Maybe Rick takes care of Gracie too, and Judith is just playing with Gracie's doll. Gracie's in another room or with someone else.

3. Maybe Gracie dies (Gimple alluded to something ominous on TTD) and Rick takes the doll and gives it to Judith.  

4. Could be purely symbolic. I actually like this option the best. Why? Because I think it makes a great case for Beth. By showing the rabbit in the dream/flash forward with the girl we'll assume for the moment is Judith, it creates a statement about the relationship between Rick and Judith. Judith is Rick's daughter, but not biologically. They went out of their way to tell us that last season. He just began caring for her and now she is his daughter. If the same is true of Beth and Gracie, the doll could symbolize that. Another sheriff (the new one in town) is taking care of Gracie and is pretty much her parent, or will be, even if the child is not biologically hers. Just a theory. And a head canon. ;D

5. @Brynn_81 (IG) also suggested it could be a link to Sophia. I've talked before about the "missing girl" theme that connects Beth and Sophia. Remember Sophia had a doll Daryl found in the river. I think that option has a lot of promise as well. Will be interesting to see if Daryl actually picks this doll up out of the crib. The river he found Sophia's doll in in S2 could feasibly be linked to Oceanside.  

6. Then there's this:

They COULD be lying purposely about this being Judith, but I kinda doubt it.

The thing is, we have pretty good evidence that the Old Man Coda isn't reality any more than the picnic scene was. It's Rick's vision of a perfect future. I don't think we should necessarily take the stuffed rabbit's presence as entirely literal. Just my two cents.  

As far as the handcuffs Daryl found, @thegloriouscollectorlady pointed out that, in order to get out of those cuffs, the person's hands would have to be small. Merle cut off his hand in S1 because it was the ONLY way for him to get out of the cuffs. Men generally have bulkier hands than women. The blood shows that whoever it was probably scraped up their hands seriously pulling them out of the cuffs, but they managed it without lobbing off a limb, right? It just stands to reason the prisoner was either a woman or possibly a young person/child. Though honestly most young people/children would be too intimidated by the situation to break out.  

And yes, if you hadn't figured this out yet, we're hoping the person who was in the cuffs and who possibly stayed in the Happy Room is Beth. She escaped/is missing and, though they don't realize it, is probably the "weapon" Rick and Daryl are searching for. Hopefully. ;D

Another thing we discussed was Sherry's pregnancy test in S7. It was negative, and obviously not enough time has passed for Sherry to have had a baby. I'm not saying she's the mother. But it may have been symbolic of something. I think it was a necessary element in 7x03 for Daryl to completely understand the situation between Sherry, Dwight, and Negan, but even so. We often see symbols operating on many levels, and I think it also may have foreshadowed this arc. That one of Negan's other wives got pregnant at some point, perhaps? That he's hiding a baby who would come into the narrative? Will probably make more sense as we go along.  

Horse Picture

I think this is pretty well-circulated too. I totally missed it and @katkhaos pointed it out to me. We see the picture taken from Hilltop in this shot. Why is that important? Horse Theory. Black horse = Daryl, white horse=Beth. The taking of the picture was obvious a purposeful plot device, since it was totally necessary for Simon to confiscate it. What are the chances it randomly shows up in this shot a handful of episodes later? If white horse = Beth, I think someone's about to stumble upon her.  

Episode to Episode Parallels

So here's something we talked about in the Safe Zone, and most of the credit for putting it together in a cohesive way goes to @katkhaos. It occurred to us how many parallels there are between S8 and S1. Yes, we already knew that. I don't just mean with symbols and repeated sequences/shots. I mean episode parallels. Check it out.  

Episode 1x01: Rick at gas station and meets Teddy Bear Girl.

Episode 8x01: Rick and Carl at gas station. Repeated shots. Meets Teddy Bear Girl (same actress).

Episode 1x02: Rick meets Morales in Atlanta.  

Episode 8x02: Rick meets Morales on the 4th floor of the Savior's compound.

Episode 1x03: Rick meets Daryl. Morales is there.  

Episode 8x03? 

Obviously Rick and Daryl already know each other this time around. But I think it's interesting that Daryl specifically wasn't present when Rick first saw Morales, to "echo" (Gimple's word) season 1. We didn't see Rick, Daryl and Morales all in the same place until 1x03. I'm assuming the same will be true in 8x03. Daryl's not far, after all. It's just a matter of time before he sees Morales too.  

Another thing to take into account? Episode 3 is where Rick reunites with Lori and Carl. A.k.a the sheriff reunites with his long-lost family after a journey to find them.

So I'm gonna throw this out there. I know I've said pretty strongly I think she'll return in episode 4. I still think it'll be an important episode because of the Alone head stone, and she may still return in it.  But I'm cautiously hopeful about episode 3. We have a lot of things pointing to it, and then there are these absolutely perfect episode parallels, the callbacks to Merle, etc. I won't be bummed if we don't see her this week (not any more than with any other time we haven't, anyway ;D) but I think it's a real possibility. *fingers crossed*

What @katkhaos suggested is that, especially as Gimple said the things about episodes 1-4 melting our brains, maybe the plan was always to parallel 8x01-8x04 with 1x01-1x04. Episode 1x05 is when TF gets on the road and goes to the CDC + leaves Jim behind. All of episode 6 is with Jenner at the CDC. Episodes 1x01-1x04 revolve around Rick waking up, finding his family, reunions, and Merle going missing. It'll be very interesting to see what episodes 8x03 and 8x04 bring us.

Re-Watching, I noticed this picture. During his fight with the savior, this cabinet ended up across the door of the Happy Room. That’s super-suspicious to me. Again, I think maybe Beth was staying in this room at some time. The first thing this reminded me of was when Daryl pushed the shelf over-top of Noah in 5x06, and he became trapped, with a walker trying to get through the door to get him. The other thing it could parallel to is Shane pushing a bed in front of Rick’s hospital room door. If that’s the case, you can see how this might parallel Beth and be a S1 callback.

Themes:

I noticed several times throughout the episode, various people mentioned things about how their friend or comrades weren't there, but would be soon. It was said several times by the various groups. @thegloriouscollectorlady and I also talked about how Rick and Daryl climb up to the fourth floor of the building. Now, there were a lot of parallels to Grady here, just in terms of the building/spatial layout. They climbed up an elevator shaft. It definitely wasn't on the ground floor. They were searching through lots of hallways and closed or locked doors. (We saw lots of keys and locks at Grady.) 

But Beth was kept on 5th floor of Grady, not the fourth. I'm wondering if this is part of the same theme: Almost there, but not quite. If Beth is running around here somewhere (like she was in the cuffs or staying in the Happy Room, it might also explain (symbolically) why she's not there. Why everything's empty and Rick and Daryl haven't found what they're looking for yet. They're almost there. Almost to where someone will return, but not quite yet. I don't know if this is just a theme for this episode, or if it will keep going for a handful of episodes.

The other theme had to do with confidence. There was a lot of talk of confidence or the lack there.  There was all of Ezekiel's talk and speech to Carol about being confident, even if you were faking it. We saw this theme in actions too.  

It specifically showed Freddy shaking before they opened the doors, and then he was killed. And then there was Eric. There were several times in the first part of the episode where Eric got this determined look on his face and did something brave, like shoot more saviors or provide cover for the others in his group. As time went on, things got worse. Francine was killed and Tobin was shot in the shoulder, and Eric started to look very scared. It was only after his lack of confidence took hold, that he was shot.  The idea is that confidence is more likely to win out, and usually does. When people give into fear, they're more likely to be injured and/or killed.

I actually really love this theme because there's so much truth to it. If you know anything about the law of attraction, you'll know what I mean. It's definitely something the writers are pushing this season. It actually goes hand in hand with other themes I've mentioned before, such as characters not actually dying until they accept their own deaths. Anyway, just really interesting.

One final thought from @bluesandbeth about Morales being alive. She said it's obvious Gimple doesn't like loose ends. If he just HAD to tie up Morales' story line, then Beth's must be driving him nuts. Even if we're totally wrong and she isn't alive, at the very least we'll have to see those missing 17 days/unexplained scenes at some point.  

But @bluesandbeth was reminded of Abraham's line in 6x06 (major Beth-symbolism episode). "Loose ends make my ass itch." Kinda thinking Gimple penned this line with an evil grin on his face. ;D

Okay, that's it for today. Anyone have anything to add?

[inkyardpress]

What to read based on your favorite scary movie

For some of us, fall means the start of horror movie blockbuster season at the theater, and if you are anything like us you love to be spooked from September 1 until Halloween. Here is what you should read next based on your favorite scary movie:

1.       If you loved Annabelle: Creation read The Ravenous by Amy Lukavics

If you loved being seriously creeped out by a little girl who dies tragically and comes back as something other during Annabelle: Creation, you will want to pick up The Ravenous right away. Bonus points if you love zombie flicks, because rather than a demonic doll, little Rose Cane comes back with a hunger for human flesh, and her sisters will do anything to keep her fed.

The Ravenous comes out September 26. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

2.       If you loved Split read Jek/Hyde by Amy Ross

We barely recognized James McAvoy in Split as he shifted from eerie little boy to menacing matron in the blink of an eye. If you loved trying to keep up with his many personalities, then Jek/Hyde is the book for you. Lulu has feelings for her BFF, Jek, but when both of them seem to get too entangled with the dangerous new bad boy in town, Hyde, she wonders how deep their relationship goes, and their dark secrets will soon have her worried for not only Jek’s safety, but her own.

Jek/Hyde comes out October 3. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

3.       If you loved Scream read There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

Do you live, breathe and need all things Scream? Relive classic moments like the call coming from inside the house not to mention a high school with a mounting number of dark secrets and an even higher body count in There’s Someone Inside Your House. The students of Osborne High are dropping like flies and one of them knows why.

There’s Someone Inside Your House comes out September 26 from Dutton Books for Young Readers. Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

4.       If you loved Paranormal Activity 3 read The Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics

If you loved the slow building atmospheric creepiness and the killer plot twist of Paranormal Activity 3, The Women in the Walls takes you on a similar creeptastic ride. Lucy lives in a Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods, isolated from almost everyone except her distant father and her cousin Margaret, who might be slowly going mad. But when Lucy starts noticing strange things happening in the house, and her dead mother’s voice whispering from the walls, she’s about to uncover a dark legacy that has haunted the women in her family for generations.

Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

5.       If you loved The Ring read The Rattled Bones by S. M. Parker

The Rattled Bones is a story about Rilla Brae, who is haunted by ghostly visions and the siren song of a girl drawing her to a mysterious island steeped in dark history and a tragic secret. Sounds like a similar story about a certain girl in a well, and we all know how that one ends! If you are up for the scares, you will love the haunting atmosphere of this read.

Add this book from Simon Pulse to your Goodreads shelf!

6.       If you loved The Village read The Beast Is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale 

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village is a lot of things, but this dark fairy tale definitely has its scary moments, which left us shocked. The Beast Is an Animal has the same uncanny feel: an isolated village with a strict way of life, a mysterious mythology about the beasts that may or may not roam the forest, far too many dark secrets and, just maybe, an unexpected twist or two of its own.

Add this book from Margaret K. McElderry Books to your Goodreads shelf!

7.       If you loved The Blair Witch Project read Hellworld by Tom Leveen

Abby’s mom went missing five years ago while filming in a “haunted” cave for her reality show. Since then her life has fallen to pieces, driving her to revisit the cave where her mom and crew went missing to discover what really happened there. Abby thinks she’s investigating a haunting, but what she finds is so much worse. The themes of ghost hunting and searching for missing relatives in a remote wilderness give major The Blair Witch Project vibes, so read with all the lights on.

Add this book from Simon Pulse to your Goodreads shelf!

8.       If you loved The Exorcist read Daughters unto Devils by Amy Lukavics

If you couldn’t tear your eyes away from Linda Blair’s chilling performance in The Exorcist, you’ll rip through this sinister web woven by Amy Lukavics. Amanda Verner’s family hopes to start over when they move from their small mountain cabin to the vast, lonely prairie, but there are legends of an evil soaked into the land that causes people to go mad. And after what she experienced last winter, Amanda is not sure if the evil is in the land or deep within her soul.

Add it to your Goodreads shelf!

9.       If you loved A Nightmare on Elm Street read Dreamfall by Amy Plum

While Dreamfall doesn’t focus specifically on a man with knives for fingers, it is a book about your worst nightmares come to life. After a failed experiment, Cata and six other teen patients are trapped in a shared dream world where they are hunted by creatures born of their worst nightmares, not unlike how Freddie Kruger jumped from dream to dream wreaking havoc and murder in the 1984 film classic.

Add this book from HarperCollins to your Goodreads shelf!