may I please request a Luffy x fem reader, where the reader went out on a mission with Usopp and he actually did something pretty brave and when they got back to the shop Usopp kept talking about how brave he was but everyone thought he was making it up until the reader started boasting about how awesome he was and then Luffy gets all jealous that the readers attention was on Usopp. It’s kind of a weird request but I thought it would be cute. Thank you :)
I love this idea! It’s so cute, thank you for requesting my self indulgent friend~ This ended it up fairly gender neutral, sorry, and it takes place some time post time skip. Hope it satisfies!
X...X...X
Don't Forget Me!!
Even when he shouldn’t have any reason to, Luffy gets jealous of Usopp.
Tags: fluff, minor jealousy, established relationship
WC: 1.4k
X…X…X
He wouldn’t shut up about it.
Of course, Usopp was in the habit of never shutting up about anything. Normally this was a source for most of Luffy’s fun. Since the moment Luffy met Usopp, he’d thought his loud absurd lies were the funniest things he’d ever heard. He could listen to Usopp talk about just anything, and be laughing most of the time.
Today though, he’s not so amused. The sound of chatter is loud on the deck of the Sunny, full of everyone’s voices except his, which is highly unusual.
They’d just stopped off on an island, where you’d decided to head off with Usopp to hunt around town for tinkering supplies and probably to eat. Luffy’d thought about inviting you to walk around with him while Nami, Franky, and Sanji actually worried about making sure the ship had plenty of food and munitions, but you were gone before he could ask.
He'd started off the day a little grumpy, because of that. You always made visiting these small little island communities entertaining, quick to see fun things that he would have looked over. Even if it was just a shiny rock in a puddle somewhere! He wouldn’t see something like that if you weren’t around, so what was he supposed to do with himself all day?
He started off by lingering around Zoro for a bit, before they parted ways outside some half broken-down tavern. Zoro stayed so he could drink every patron there under the table, while Luffy headed outside of town.
He wandered around for a while, singing to himself, sometimes whistling, and spent all afternoon bug chasing until he caught the biggest shiniest beetle and kept it tight in his hand. He’d been gone for hours and hours—all the shopping was probably already done (though he wasn’t really thinking about it like that)—and just knew the crew was probably waiting for him. And by the time he arrived back at the ship, he was right.
All the Strawhat’s had reunited only a few moments before, but none of them were paying attention to him as he arrived. He could hear Usopp talking from halfway down the pier, and picked up speed, practically flinging himself aboard. He was eager to share what he’d been up to, and hear what everyone else was too, but first he wanted to show off his prize.
But Usopp was already telling his story. He had a boot up on a barrel, and was flexing his arms, proclaiming—as usual—that he was the bravest man on the seas and had finally proved it. No one would believe what kind of day he and you had had, he declared, nor how he’d been the one to save it. It was an amazing adventure, completely unbelievable, and, of course, he wanted to share.
Everyone rolls their eyes, each doubtful. If what Usopp said was always true, the sun would fall out of the sky because he wasn’t there to hold it up in the morning.
They all blow him off… until you speak up.
“No, no, you wouldn’t believe it! Usopp was incredible.” And you sound all in awe, while Usopp nods along, “There was this guy in the market selling the weirdest widget and—”
Everyone turns to you, including Luffy, to hear what kind of real tall tale you could possibly be telling, but his smile falls as you continue. Sure, it sounded like long-nose had been brave, setting them off on a chain of events which had them running around on an adventure that ends up with Usopp actually defeating some brown-noser and saving the town.
The story instantly doesn’t matter to him.
That tone, is supposed to be saved. It’s how you talk about him around the decks or to the people you meet as the Sunny sails the Grand Line. With stars in your eyes, and that mixture of awe and gratitude that would make anyone well proud. Usopp certainly does look it, he hardly ever has a reason to be so genuinely prideful, and he’ll milk it for this moment and a million more.
The “captain” slumps, not even bothering to listen to the one-time Usopp has actually managed to do something incredible. Normally, you’d be quick to find Luffy if it appeared like he’d entered one of his moods. This time, he wanders off, but you don’t follow.
Of course not, he thinks, you’re too busy with your new favorite.
You and Usopp do get along, you both like fixing things and testing out new contraptions. There’s a sibling sort of rivalry between the two of you, as you were always trying to outdo him and he you. Or, at least Luffy thought it was a sibling-like rivalry. But using that voice on Usopp, and looking so happy to be by his side…
He was totally stuck on the stomach retching sick feeling that came with seeing you there, and instead of next to him.
Even if he was usually a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, there were times where Luffy could be caught with a frown and a sort of depressed fog that had him slumping over his favorite seat and staring at the sky for hours on end. Usually, you’d be quick to notice and drag him back into the sunshine. But see, that was the problem.
You were still with Usopp.
While he mopes, the happy, proud, chatter continues. Eventually, they’ve hit the water again and the sun is setting, and Brook playing violin across the deck is a soft pleasant sound, that follows the rhythm of the boat as it sails off into the empty, vast ocean.
He shouldn’t be so surprised when you finally come by to check on him, but he is.
“Hey, Loof.” And you sound so chipper. He looks up, lethargic, and so pathetically upset. He’s a dramatic man in a dramatic mood, especially with the way he sluggishly moves, like his limbs weigh a million pounds.
“Hey.” He says, though he’s looking high above your head instead of at you.
“Luffy, what’s wrong?”
He puffs out a cheek. “Nothing…”
You don’t believe him, having already suspected why he’d wandered off. His attempt at being blasé only confirms it.
Creeping up a little closer and right next to his ear, your cutting right to the obvious accusation. “Are you jealous?”
He snaps, “No!” But even the tips of his ears go pink. How did you know that so quickly???
“You are!”
He slides off the lion head and waves his hand over his head. Stomping off, that doesn’t stop you from following after, laughing again in a way that only makes him blush harder. “Nah-ah. I am not. Nope. Not at all. Couldn’t be me.” He raddled off, trying and failing to seem nonchalant.
You dart forward, sticking your head over his shoulder and landing a quick peck on his cheek. He freezes as your breath ghosts across his ear.
“Luffy, don’t be mad at me.” You bid, “Usopp and I had fun today, but that doesn’t have to be the only fun. We can spend some time together, just you and me.”
He bristles at first, but pauses when your voice tilts. Now that voice, the one that’s a little darker. That’s the one that’s actually, just for him. The kind of tone that makes his heart beat skyrocket. The one that reminds him that he’s picked you, and you’ve picked him.
“Dinner’s not quite ready,” you add, just as teasing, “and I just saw Franky leave the crow’s nest…”
He blinks once, then all that tension he’d been holding onto melts away. Of course, you’re not replacing him. How could someone even replace him?
And he’s not giving you a second chance to change your mind!!!
“Meet you there!” He zooms off before you can finish the sentence.
Your laughter is left in the dust as he heads to the ‘meet up zone’ before you can say a word more. You’ll follow after in a few minutes. Mostly to stick your head around and make sure that you guys will actually be alone up there. Luffy never really cares about what other people do or do not see about your relationship, but you do, and you plan on making up for making him sad--without interruption.
You sigh, and smile to yourself. Sometimes he’s a handful, but you’re happy he’s your handful.
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Guys guys I'm cooking with a new one I think you'll like
Humans are space ants.
Now hear me out, this came to me when I was coming up with a couple alien species for a story, and I decided I wanted to base their behavior and social systems off of bugs I like. Like I have a reptilian species who are inspired off of Preying Mantis, and an amphibian species inspired off of Wasps, and the two fight a lot because I like watching those Mantis and Wasp fights on YouTube lmfao.
Anyway, back to my point, I was like "wait so if every alien species has social behaviors similar to a bug species, which one would be humans?" And my friends and I came to the conclusion that we would be ants.
Ants are a highly eusocial species as they rely on communal structures to survive, just as we do. One of the biggest reasons humans were able to evolve was because we were secure enough in our communities that we could put energy towards building and creating instead of survival.
They have agriculture, they can literally farm fungus (specifically leafcutter ants) and keep aphids as livestock for honeydew. They have division of labor, have complex communication systems (one of my favorite human facts is how much of our communication is nonverbal and we literally evolved features like eyebrows and crying for no reason other than communicating.)
They engage in warfare with other ant colonies and sometimes even keep slaves or captives. They'll sacrifice themselves for the good of the group, they engage in nursing and care for their young, they have waste management systems. Things like the death spirals ants can go down where they follow each other into an endless circle until they die reminds me of human cults, echo chambers, fear mongering, mob mentality, etc. Ants can lift 10+ times their bodyweight, and while humans can't do that much in comparison (it's thought to be 5-6 times in extreme scenarios) I feel like since people love talking about adrenaline surges, that could be comparable.
In my story, humans aren't the smallest alien species but they are among the smallest, compared to species based on Mantis and Wasps and Spiders and Beetles. One human against an alien is kind of nothing, but imagine a swarm? Have you seen those videos of ants completely covering and demolishing a much bigger predator? They can take fucking snakes for Christ's sake. Imagine what we could do if we were focused on collective organization instead of individualism? Humans that are able to work in a flawless group like ants do are insane in their communication and collaboration skills, it's the ones that insist on doing their own thing that often fucks the system up. We have hand gestures and facial expressions for a reason people lmfao.
We have a huge range of galactic sapient species who are known for various different skills and traits that are impressive at best and terrifying at worst. We have some with multiple limbs that are excellect climbers and are skilled at weaving intricate traps. We have some that are huge yet quiet and made for prime hunting scenarios. We have some that are parasitic and have built-in sharp bioweapons. And then we have humans, who are probably known for their sheer size in population, their intricate survival methods outside hunting, and their communal behavior that allows them to take opponent's 5x their size with the right coordination.
Anyway I feel like there's so much potential for this. If anyone wants to add on with their ideas feel free.
Written based off of @slowburnlover's prompt of Mel losing her glasses :)
Disclaimer: do I think Mel is this near-sighted in canon? Probably not (her glasses would be super distracting) but as someone with extremely overgrown eyeballs who basically walks around like a headless duck without corrective lenses, I employed ARTISTIC LICENSE so that she has a great reason to hold onto Langdon’s arms!
(I am so kind)
Also, Penny wearing glasses and being very weird is canon to me
***
Frank was taking his new role as seeing-eye human very seriously.
Mel's glasses, the hinges useless, were in her hands. Her last patient had a very brisk reflex. So brisk his leg rammed her face and kept contracting over and over like a rattleback. He'd been referred to neurology; Mel kept talking, more to herself than to him, about possible diagnoses, one after the other, her face drawn. Hyperreflexia in middle-aged men had a tendency to end badly.
Frank had not realized how bad her vision was. Probably he should have guessed: the thickness at the edges of her lenses, the way she never worked without them. Took them off to clean them on her shirt, yes, but never for more than a few seconds. Becca wore glasses too, he reminded himself. A family history of needing corrective lenses.
“Um, thanks, Dr. Langdon,” Mel said. Her eyes were looking nowhere in particular. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“I'm honored. I think in my previous life I was someone’s guide dog."
Then more softly, for her only: “That was a joke. A bad one.”
She grinned. “No. It’s good.”
Without her glasses, new details emerged. Detached earlobes. A mole under her right eye. Faded freckles over the bridge of her nose. Dark circles too, even though she was always saying she didn’t need much sleep. He wondered, privately, if she had ever had the chance to know the difference.
“I normally bring an extra pair to work,” she admitted, her brows turning inward. “I broke those a few weeks ago. Becca found an opossum trapped in the dumpsters at Middle Hill and we undertook a rescue mission.”
She flinched. “Not without casualties---my glasses, I mean, not the possum.”
“I haven’t had the time, or, well, the money, to get another backup pair.”
“Becca and I both have really high prescriptions, so we’re technically at risk of retinal detachment,” she continued. Her mouth tightened.
“Not that it’s a huge concern,” she added quickly. “I think the last statistic I saw had us at ten times the risk.”
“How much do you know about the ontogeny of myopia?” She was gaining momentum now, her voice rising with excitement.
He knew myopia was more common now. He knew outdoor light, or the lack of it, played a role. Human eyes had not evolved for childhoods spent indoors, bent over smartphones and tablets and all the other troublesome devices he advised weary parents not to let their children use. (They had been a no-screens household. It was becoming a battle, and he and Abby were on the losing side, especially now, no longer a united front.)
But he also really liked to hear Mel talk. He considered it therapeutic.
He started walking her down the hall, slower than he normally would. Partly because he was concerned she would run into an IV cart, partly because it gave him more time with her. He had not seen much of her that morning, not really, with the way cases had unfolded.
Her hand wrapped around his bicep a little tighter than was comfortable. He didn’t object.
He told her about Penny. She’d been acting strange lately---stranger than usual, anyway. Sometimes he had to remind himself she was real, his own flesh and blood, not some fairy child laid at his doorstep four years ago, possessing all of Abby’s quirks, and his, put together.
She would cry over bugs. Red-hot tears of compassion.
Now every invading cricket, every beetle, every spider, had to be scooted under a cup and taken outside. (Some of these creatures were probably ill-equipped for the outdoors, but he wasn’t sure she was ready for that conversation.)
She had also taken a special liking to dogs, which was not unusual for a child her age. What was unusual was her need to know every breed and what it was, in her singsong voice, made for.
Some dogs were easy: retrievers were made for retrieving ducks from the water, German shepherds made for presiding, eyes always watching, over flocks of sheep, cattle dogs made for, well, biting at the heels of cattle.
But then she’d inevitably ask what a goldendoodle was made for and he’d stumble.
What was a goldendoodle made for?
Theirs, as far as he could tell, had been made for digging holes in Abby’s flowerbeds and chewing up remotes.
Last month he’d caught Penny holding her cherished copy of Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds so close to her face he was afraid the pages would cut her lids.
A hastily-scheduled appointment later and Penny was wearing glasses. She looked like an indignant librarian. For an hour, at least. She took them off and said I don’t like them in a voice that filled him with both awe and fear.
Mel smiled while he told her all this. A real smile. He did not think Mel smiled to be polite. He was not convinced she was capable. Whatever she felt was always floating near the surface, ready to be brought out.
He got carried away sometimes, talking about Tanner and Penny: Mel was one of the only people at the hospital, other than Donnie, enthralled with his firstborn, whose eyes didn’t glaze over at the mention of his kids.
Her face scrunched up in thought.
“I didn’t want glasses either, when I was a kid. I claimed I could see just fine. Until Becca got them, and in fancy pink frames to boot. Then suddenly I was very much aware of my visual deficiencies.”
Frank laughed at this. Maybe Tanner would need glasses too and solve the problem.
“Does she ever watch Arthur? There’s a whole episode on the subject.”
They passed Dana and Robby. “What is this, a conga line?” Dana muttered, but her mouth twitched as she said it. Robby’s face was undecipherable. Reflective, if Frank was being generous. Plotting new ways of making his life miserable, if he was not. Hard to know, these days, which side to err on.
He kept moving.
“So, Mel, does this guide dog pass muster?”
“With flying colors,” she said, smiling, her eyes fixed on his mouth.
written for @steddie-spooktober Halfway to Halloween pop up event!
rated G | 2,832 words | on AO3: halfway there (fully smitten) | prompt: half-o-ween
meet cute, modern au, flirting, steve harrington is simultaneously super charming and on his game AND easily flustered
Steve would do anything for his kid siblings.
He would.
It’s just…
“Why’d it have to be this Saturday?”
“Because that’s the halfway mark?” Dustin says as if it was obvious, rolling his eyes for good measure.
“Oh you’ve got to–” Steve scrubs a hand down his face; Yeah. fine. That makes sense. It is called the ‘Halfway to Halloween’ craft fair. “You don’t even like crafts.”
“There’s going to be more than just crafts.” Dustin says, again, like it should be obvious. “C’mon Steve, even Max wants to go. Like, actually wants to go.”
Steve looks over at the Max in question, gazing up at him with her usual scowl on her face.
“She doesn’t look like she wants to.”
“Yes she–”
“She does.” she says.
“See??” Dustin gestures excitedly towards her.
Steve sighs again. Of course she’d want to go, she’s always been all about that spooky crap.
He looks down between the two hellions he’s so proud to call his siblings.
Internally.
Internally he is.
He sighs again, turning away from where they’d corralled him at the end of the hallway.
“C’mon Steve where’re you–”
“I gotta call Angie,”
“But–”
“I have to call off our date, dingwad!"
Dustin insisted that they be there right when the fair opened at 10 am, but after a syrup incident at breakfast and a couple bathroom breaks, their two hour drive to the 4H grounds the show was being held at, turned into two hours and 45 minutes, landing them in line at 10:10 am.
They waited their turn to pay the entrance fee, Dustin bouncing on his toes the whole time, and as soon as the bright orange bracelet was on his wrist, he was off.
Surprising Steve further, Max was right on his heels, scanning seriously over the first line of vendors.
“You shits better have your phones on you!” Steve calls after them, getting offhanded waves in return.
He watches them go a little on ahead, sliding between the already hearty crowd much easier than he would, then turns to look at some of the vendors’ wares himself.
It was not a great place to start paying attention, to be completely honest, the racks and tables filled with all sorts of stuffed animals with bloody gashes, exposed broken bones, and dangling bloodshot eyes..
His shock must’ve been fully apparent because the bearded man behind the stall table guffaws at his expression.
“S’not for everyone, kid. I get it.” he says when Steve apologizes.
There are people selling their collections of movie memorabilia, specialty indie costume companies selling their scarily (ha) detailed rubber masks, some folks are selling crystals, some are selling crochet, some have tiny taxidermied mice..
It’s honestly kind of overwhelming.
He stops at one end of this barn (the second in the grounds’ row of five that were full up for the occasion), leaning up against the open double doors.
He’d originally been concerned about the cool cloudy weather, thinking it’d be too cold to be walking around outside like this, but a lot of vendors had space heaters plugged in behind their booths, and there were so many people bustling through and around the space that the wide open doors were a blessing to his already sweating brow.
Taking advantage of his spot out of the flow of people, he opens his phone to check on where the gremlins were (two barns down already what the hell??), when Dustin’s text comes through.
He puts his phone back in his pocket and continues on.
The next booth he comes to is another with taxidermied things, though these are all bugs. Different beetles, bees, and butterflies pinned into shadow boxes.
For some reason, he gets kinda stuck at the display of colorful wings. He’s never really liked bugs, never had a strong opinion about butterflies, but these things are… seriously beautiful.
Some he remembers the names for without having to look at the little tags the vendor wrote up for them; Monarch for one, and he knows this blue one is an Emperor Butterfly from that Animal Crossroads game Max got him hooked on for a while a couple years ago, and he’s inspecting the pattern of greens and oranges on another when he feels someone brush up against him.
Suddenly aware of how long he’s been standing in front of the display, probably blocking a whole bunch of others from getting to look too, he glances back, stepping out of the way with a “Shit, sorry!”
“No worries man, I can look just fine from right here.”
Steve’s busy looking down at his feet to make sure he’s stepping around the boxes stored under a nearby display table, “No, really, I just got caught up looking at them;” he finally gets his feet in a safe spot, and turns to the newcomer, “They’re all really–”
He’d made the mistake of looking up at the source of the voice, and now his own is stuck in his throat.
Steve’s a sucker for all things 80s, the aesthetic (a new word introduced to him by Max) at least, and this guy looked as if he was plucked right out of time and delivered to him on a shiny silver platter.
A mess of dark frizzy curls, deep dark eyes, ripped skinny jeans and some sort of band tee under a leather jacket and denim vest..
Even the sun decided to point out how much of a simp he was about to be over this guy, choosing that moment to break through the clouds outside the doors and give hot 80s metal guy a hell of a glow.
“--pretty.”
Hot Metalhead smirks and ohjesusfuckingchristhehasdimples.
“You’re not too bad yourself, big boy.” the man says, and Steve swears he can feel the other man’s gaze trail over him. “You got a favorite?”
He gestures back to the display of bugs, and Steve shakes his head clear, “Uh.. The orange one maybe, the Monarch? But this one is really cool.” he points to the green/orange one.
Hot Metalhead nods, “The Madagascan Sunset Moth, that one’s my favorite.” then he levels a smirk at Steve, “Seems you’ve got good taste, pretty boy.”
Something kicks to life behind Steve’s ribs, and suddenly he feels completely back on his game. He slowly drags his gaze over the other man, lingering on his lips (chapped, but perfectly pouty even in their smirk), “Seems like I do.”
Steve meets the man’s eyes, and he opens his mouth to say something else when they’re broken from the moment by none other than Max.
“There you are! Do you ever check your phone?” she gripes, pulling him out of the booth
“What–Max?” A rock sinks into his stomach, “What’s wrong?”
“I need your help picking something for Lucas,” she puts her hands on her hips and it’s like he’s looking in a mirror.
The rock rolls out his stomach with the roll of his eyes, and turns to say something to Hot Metalhead, but he’s already a couple booths away, bending low over a table of books.
“You can flirt later, I really need your help!”
Sighing, but figuring he can find Hot Metalhead later, he follows Max to a bigger movie memorabilia booth in the center of the next barn over.
Eventually, they settle on two gifts for Max’s “He’s not my boyfriend nor do I want him to be.” boyfriend (“He’s not my boyfriend, Steve! Urgh, you’re the worst.”): a Freddy Krueger sweater, and a jersey boasting the Haddonfield Butchers, with the last name Myers and number 78 on the back.
“Are you sure that’s not secretly for you?” Steve asks, clocking the reference immediately. He had, afterall, been made to sit and watch Halloween close to a zillion times over the course of he and Max’s foster journey together.
“No, it’s for him. It's something I like fused with what he likes." She reasons.
“Sure, sure,”
Max wanders off again after that, and so does Steve, scanning the crowd for messy brown curls as he scans the other vendors.
Eventually, he comes to a booth covered in pins and earrings.
He immediately thinks of Ms. Hender– Claud— Mom when he sees all the earrings, and starts looking through the spinning racks, snapping a picture to send to the goblins as he does
“Find something you like?”
Steve glances up, one of the two ladies manning the booth has stood from her chair, the strawberry blond with the ponytail, smiling brightly at him. A pair of cigarette earrings hang from her lobes, one new and one half burnt down.
“Yeah, sorry, I was sending a picture of these to my siblings,” he picks up the fangs, “Our mom would love these.”
The woman holds out a hand and he passes the set to her, “Awesome, let me get them bagged up for you!”
“Do you want a different color?” The other woman says, looking through a basket of what looks like even more pairs of earrings; she’s a dirtier blond with a choppy bob and freckles.
“Another color?”
“Y’know, black, orange, purple, glow in the d–” that’s when she looks up at him, “Steve Harrington?”
Steve’s brain goes into a jumbled state of ???????????
“Uhm, yeah? How’d you–”
“You went to my high school!”
A rock plunges into his gut, “Oh, uhm.. I’m sorry? I don’t–”
“You dated Tammy Thompson.”
He feels his face pull into a cringe, “Yeah, that was… yeah.”
“She was on American Idol!” the strawberry blond says.
Steve finds himself laughing, “I don’t know how she made it, she sounds like a muppet when she sings.”
“She does!” She laughs at the same time Choppy Bob says an indignant “She does not!”
The rock is back, “Oh, sorry.. Was she a friend?”
Ponytail laughs again, saying “No,” at the same time as Bob but continuing on with “Robin here had a biiiig crush on her.”
Bob, Robin apparently, goes all splotchy, “Shut up Chris!”
Chris just waves her off, “Oh he’s fine, he’s one of us, did you not see his pin?”
Steve looks down at his own chest, Max’s gifted bi flag pin glinting up at him from his jacket, then back up at the two; the lanyard around Robin’s neck jumps out at him, striped in pinks and oranges and whites, and Chris has what looks like one half of a heart in colors matching his pinned to her sweater.
“Huh.” Robin says, looking perplexed, “Who’da thunk?”
“You’re telling me.” Steve jokes, finally getting Robin to smile back at him.
Suddenly, and at the same time another potential customer comes into the little stall behind him, Dustin comes out of the woodwork to tug at his arm, “Finally, there you are! Stop flirting and come with me, you gotta see these cars!”
“Whoa, dude! Chill out for a second, okay? I’m trying to pay the nice lady.”
“Well hurry it up dude,” he mocks, “They’ve got the Ghostbusters’ hearse back there!”
Dustin squeezes very impolitely past the other person in the booth, and Steve turns back to Chris, “Sorry, brothers you know?”
“He’s got a point, the Ghostbusters one is pretty impressive,” She says as Robin accepts his $10 bill for the jewelry, and passes him back a small bag and a card, “I wrote our cell numbers on the back, we should all meet up again sometime!”
“Course! I’ll let you know how my mom likes ‘em, yeah?”
Steve squeezes out the stall and Chrissy picks up her phone.
Dustin was right (what’s new?), this last building is packed full of hearses of every shape and size.
A 1940s era one, a slightly newer model painted entirely in matte black, one with a padded coffin hanging half out the end for people to pose for pictures in. But the real star of the show, at least according to Dustin, was the one for one remake of the Ghostbusters’ white one.
Steve follows him down the row, pausing at the hood of the replica to take a picture of the giant slime ghost plush in the passenger seat, then on to peer into the cab.
He was still inspecting all the old dials in the dash through the open window, when someone says, “See something you like?”
“I was told by a very reliable source that yours was the one to beat.” Steve says, taking in the shockingly low number of miles on the odometer, “And I gotta say, still having the original dials in the dash is pretty cool– Hey! It’s you!”
The guy leaning his weight onto the car’s roof with one hand grins, “Hello again, your majesty.”
“Majesty?”
“You liked the Monarchs, remember?” Hot Metalhead pushes himself up off the car and offers Steve the same hand, “I’m Eddie.”
“Steve.” he breathes, taking Eddie’s hand in his.
Eddie shakes his hand once, his fingers calloused and warm, “Well, King Steve, what brings you all the way to my neck of the woods?”
“I heard there was a super special hearse back here so I had to come see it for myself.”
“Good eye, Stevie”
“Only if it’s easy on ‘em.” he says, starting to get his normal voice back, “‘Easy on the eyes’ y’know?”
Eddie just laughs, “Yeah big guy, I got it.”
Steve’s face is on fire. He clears his throat, finally letting Eddie’s hand go. He notices a familiar pin on the front breast pocket of his denim vest that he hadn’t noticed before, this one striped in shades of blue, green, and white, the opposite half of Chris’ pink, purple, and blue one.
“Oh, hey! You know Chris?” Eddie's face flashes into confusion, so Steve clarifies, “She’s got the same half heart pin as you…?”
“Chrissy you mean? Tiny? Ponytail? Bangs?”
Steve shrugs, “That sounds right.”
“Has a girlfriend about yay tall? Freckles?”
“I mean, she didn’t stand up..”
Eddie considers him for a moment. “Nope. Never heard of ‘er.”
Oh god he’s a dork.. Steve’ll never survive this.
“D’she send you over here?”
“Kinda? Dustin wanted to see the cars anyhow so..” he holds his arms out at his sides, “Here I am.”
“So this curly-haired menace is yours then?” Eddie asks, turning to stand at Steve’s side and gesturing to where Dustin is talking with a balding man at the end of the car, “He’s been talking my Uncle’s ear off each time he’s come by.”
Steve nods, “Him and the redhead who’s… around here somewhere– there!” He points out Max as she heads outside into the sun, making her hair glow bright, “She’s my foster sister, Dustin’s mom took us both in about a year ago now, she was really great to take us in together, even with me being ‘aged out’ and all.. I wanted to make sure she had something stable going forward y’know? And I really don’t know why I’m telling you all that but.. There it is..”
His face is going to be permanently red at this point, but Eddie doesn’t seem to mind his rambling, looking at him with a mix of amusement and something else in his expression. “You can tell me whatever you want, whenever you want, Stevie.”
“Is that your way of asking for my number?” Steve asks on impulse.
Eddie laughs, “You give me way too much credit Stevie, I’m not even remotely close to that good of a smooth-talker,” he reaches into his back pocket and produces his phone, “But no way am I passing up the opportunity.”
Steve smiles and takes it, entering his information into Eddie’s phone, “Apologies to your uncle by the way,” he says as he sends himself a devil face emoji from Eddie’s cell, “Dusty can get to be too much sometimes. I hope he’s not giving you too much trouble?”
He hands back the phone as his own chimes in his pocket, taking it out and passing it to Eddie.
“Not at all; Wayne’s more than happy to talk about anything to anyone who’ll listen; He’s already told me everything he knows.”
“Don’t you mean ‘taught’?”
“Not in the slightest.” Eddie grins at Steve’s laughter, punches something into his phone and passes it back. “There you go, big boy, one brand new phone number just for you.”
Steve looks down at the screen, ‘super hot sexy metal deathlord eddie 😈🤘’ is at the top of his message screen.
He looks up at Eddie, who just waggles his eyebrows at him; Steve rolls his eyes, but can’t keep himself from smiling. “Perfect, thanks.”
“No problem…” he mimes looking down at his phone, “‘steve’.”
“Oi! Can you two flirt your way to the gut trucks, or are Dusty and I gonna have to get some grub ourselves?”
The two jump apart at Wayne’s words, both their cheeks burning (brighter in Eddie’s case).
“Yeah, yeah, shut your yaps, we’ll go get something.” Eddie grumbles, striding off toward where the food trucks are parked, pulling Steve along with him.
if you don't have one around you at this time, this is a real thing that happens in my area every may!! and it's on the 10th this year!! all of the things mentioned are things i've seen at my fair; my own pair of vamp fang earrings are truly a favorite pair of earrings i own :o)
spiderweb divider from @saradika-graphics! vampire earring pic is from this etsy listing!
there will also be a part 2 to this tomorrow, LINK HERE!
In your general appreciation of nature, I am curious about your take on this - do you believe nature has reached "peak complexity"?
There was a time without flying animals. There was a time without land animals. There was a time without vertebrates, without segmented exoskeletons, without fur, without feathers, without complex social structures, without eyes. There was a time without plants, or any kind of photosythesis. There was a time without multicellular life.
But at this point, do you feel nature on planet Earth has evolved all "milestones" there are (and from now on, all additional complexity will have come from civilization, one way or another)?
I mean in terms of potential, assuming for a moment "nature" of some kind still exist during the next billion years or so.
Yes or No would be enough (lol), but of course spec evo ideas would be even cooler!
Nah I think there's absolutely infinite things nature could evolve some day that we can't even imagine. You really never know. Like it's 100% biochemically possible for something to "breathe fire;" there just has to be a sequence of mutations and the right competition to gradually make it happen, possibly starting with something that sprays boiling hot compounds like a bombardier beetle.
I could also imagine a whole class of animals evolving like the modular people from All Tomorrows, because we already have Siphonophores. It's just a matter of something evolving to be a colony that can also come apart and keep functioning.
I'm also obviously obsessed with the concept of a creature that weaponizes its own little symbiotic bugs, since I've used that a million times. Like maybe millions of years from now, a descendant of sloths will have upgraded from being full of moths to being full of tiny wasps? And then what if that's so effective they actually start diversifying like crazy and there's a whole era dominated by mammaloid wasp nest beasts ranging from grazers merely cleaned and guarded by their insects to predators who hunt with their assistance.
Plant/animal physical symbiosis is also another thing that's not really taken off outside a few insects. Why shouldn't a plant some day decide it likes growing on some kind of animal's body? It's not a plant, but lichens grow on a species of weevil. It's so rare there aren't even photos, but I swear I saw video of one on BBC when I was a kid:
What if a moss adapts just to the shell of some big reptile and eventually the reptile starts to derive sustenance from it too?? Over time what if this evolves into basically real life Bulbasaurs, where the animal part can be sustained off sunlight? It'd just have to slow its animal metablism way, waaay down to meet the plant halfway. Maybe it hibernates for years and years at a time or spends decades developing like a cicada and then it emerges in pure mating mode, using up all the food it conserved as its flower finally blooms.
I know most of my examples are now elaborations on something that's kind of almost already begun happening somewhere but you get the idea.
Furthermore you never know if all life as we know it will die out one day while there's still a couple billion years left of the planet's physical existence. Then a whole new line of life could evolve that we can't conceive of at all, from the ground up. Like crystalline mineral trees that start talking to each other with laser light. Or maybe only bacteria are left but for some reason bacteria develop what they need to start sticking together and building a new kind of multicellular organism. What the heck would an equivalent to "animals" look like if the ancestor was a bacterium????? Holy fuck I'm mad I won't see it. Fuming and seething actually. This is the worst thing ever. Why am I doomed to die on regular animal planet with google bots and disney remakes. I wanna see salmonella animal planet. It's not fair.
Sorry fer bein' gone so long again -- art block hit me like a truck over these last few months an' I ended up spendin' several days straight only playin' games. Guess I needed a break ^^;
But I'm briefly back again with a li'l WIP:
I'd yet to draw Bardock an' Gine fer my AU, so here they are along with their sons :3
Took some inspiration from Gine's canon appearance in Super an' messed around a bit so that one statement I'd read on a wiki was slightly(?) more accurate. (Genuinely, how does Goku's eyes look anything like his mom's in canon? I don't see it. An' don't even get me started on her hair-)
I also added a tiny detail that y'all have definitely noticed I've been drawin' on Raditz specifically. Every member of the Bardock family have snaggleteeth!! It felt so wrong only givin' Raditz a snaggletooth, so I thought, fuck it, everyone in his family should get them, too. I just really love snaggleteeth, chat ....
An' don't get me started on their accents, either. I refuse to believe they're not all hick. Gine, I imagine, pro'lly got one a' the thickest hick accents known to Saiyan-kind. My Gine would absolutely call everyone "sweetheart," "honey," "darlin'" -- the whole shebang. She's stupid sweet fer sure.
I'm gonna yap about these bastards (/aff) a li'l bit more ....... do fergive me if I don't make any sense -- I'm very tired (I may come back an' fix stuff later, too, so I apologise fer that, as well)
My Bardock's personality is very in-line with his Z counterpart. Very gruff, prideful, and overall not a very good father. His relationship with his oldest was honestly kinda shit, to put it bluntly. And he didn't even know he'd eventually have another son, let alone from the same woman as before. He was rarely around thanks to him always having been on missions to conquer new planets for Frieza. Overall, he wasn't a great guy. But ... maybe Gine's softness had rubbed off on him over the years ... he wouldn't admit to that, though. No way, never.
And so, Gine was left to raise Raditz by herself. And, being the absolute GOAT that she is, she did a damn good job at it. Yes, some of what she taught Raditz may be "lost" due to time, but there's still small signs of her kindness and gentleness she'd taught him. As well as a fierce protectiveness of his baby brother, as much as he refuses to admit out loud. She also happened to have a similar excitement over bugs and loved telling Raditz about all of the ones that were on Planet Vegeta, as well as the bugs she'd seen on other planets back when she was still in the Army. (If she were to say what her favourite bug was, she would likely pick the one that's like Earth's rhino beetle.)
I'd say "Raditz mostly takes after his father," but this isn't true. Not entirely, at least. After Planet Vegeta is destroyed, Raditz's personality is warped. To protect himself, he starts behaving more like Vegeta, Nappa, and whoever else he comes across in the Frieza Force: Cocky. Prideful. Unnecessarily sarcastic at times. And, despite being terrible at it, a liar. Refusing to be seen as a weakling, a young Raditz would lash out and attack whoever dared refer to him as such -- even if it landed him in a Medical Machine by the end of it. This lashing out would stop at some point when he grew to be almost equal in height to Nappa, but the insults aimed at him never did. Having been born to two low-classes, and the ease at which you could cripple him simply by squeezing his tail, the title of "Runt" would soon follow his name.
And Kakarot? Where to even begin. No one outside of the Saiyan Trio knew his name. No one knew he was still alive and well on Earth. Nappa didn't know. Vegeta didn't care to find out.
But Raditz?
He knew. He knew his little brother had to be alive. After all, he could still clearly remember that conversation he overheard all those years ago ...........
I'm a really big fan of insects, but I live in a city! I used to live near the woods with all kinds of cute bugs, but now it's difficult to find much beyond the occasional silly grasshopper or trash-loving fly. The only thing interesting we get is cicadas in the summer! I dunno what else there is here in northern Texas..
This is all to say that I really appreciate your blog! I love being able to see silly bugs!! I'd also like to ask, do you have any bug finding tips? I'm certain where I live isn't completely devoid of cute creatures, so they gotta be hiding somewhere! If you ever go bug hunting, where do you search? :))))
Hello :) Certainly you can find bugs in cities, though it can be more difficult obviously and you're not going to find the diversity you might outside of the city.
Some places to look, though - during the day on sides of buildings, often the side facing the sun, and around window sills. These are especially good places to look for jumping spiders, but also some true bugs and beetles will congregate there to warm themselves. Look at the same places at night rather than during the day and you'll see different friends, often orbweavers and moths if there's a bright light on the building. Any lights around entrances or patios or balconies will attract friends. Hanging a white sheet outside and shining a bright light on it can attract all sorts of dudes if you want to get that into it. Different lights attract bugs better, so that's something you'd need to look into first.
Look in landscaping around buildings, especially if there's mulch or rocks or lots of plants. If you can do it without getting in trouble or causing any damage, lifting landscape rocks or edging bricks that line walkways will almost certainly reveal some critters - mostly isopods, snails, slugs, millipedes, and centipedes, but sometimes wolf spiders or other cool fellas. Obviously just be very careful when replacing the rocks so you don't squish anyone. Digging around in mulch or leaf litter is a good way to find the same pals.
In landscaped areas around buildings with flowers or in small city parks, check the tops of flowers and all over the stems and on the undersides of leaves during the day - but be thorough, take your time and look very closely, you'd be surprised who's hiding in and around flowers that aren't immediately noticeable. This is almost always how I find things like crab spiders and ambush bugs, but of course you'll also find all kinds of flower beetles and plant-feeding true bugs. Seed bugs, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, froghoppers/spittlebugs, etc can all be found on flowering plants, or mantises if you're lucky. The taller/denser/weedier the area is, the more pals you'll likely find, assuming it hasn't been sprayed with pesticides.
In addition to the friends crawling on those plants, you'll likely find some pollinators flying around them. Bees and wasps and butterflies of course, but also lots of different flies - especially hover flies and long-legged flies, which are small but super pretty up close and fun to watch.
On trees pretty much anywhere, look all over the bark of the trunk, especially underneath any pieces of bark that are lifting, or on/under any fallen branches.
And of course water attracts all kinds of bugs, either to live in, drink from, or hunt near. Runoff ditches on the sides of roads are often full of all kinds of different bugs, but it may be difficult to get close enough without getting your feet wet. Stagnant water will tend to have different bugs than fast-moving water does, so check out both if you can. Sitting near the water and just looking into it is a good way to spot lil friends creeping around in the muck on the bottom or skating around the surface. If your city has a lake or a river, docks and piers are a great spot to find spiders, especially at night, and of course during the day dragonflies and damselflies will be near water, too.
Hopefully that was somewhat helpful! That was just a brief overview of some of the easier places to look, but if you're observant enough, you'll find friends literally all over the place.
