#Good thing spite is what got me over the worst of my ed

[flowercrown-bard]

I am once again pissed at diet culture. I just watched three tiktoks in a row. how to cook dairyfree. How to meal prep without carbs. How to make healthy snacks without sugar. I keep getting (and stupidly clicking on) those articles that are like "ten things you shouldn't eat if you want to lose weight" and "why xy foods are bad for you" and wouldn't you know it last week i got recommendated articles that said those specific foods were super healthy and great for weight loss and now i should "never eat" them?? Is there any food we're still allowed to eat without being made to feel guilty?

[hazzascul]

TW: mentions of the word fat, fatphobia, mentions of self harm (sh).

I have a toxic relationship with food.

I was in denial about it for a very long time but I've decided it's about time that I admit it without any ounce of shame, so I can move on and better myself.

I come from a family of fat (I'm not using alternate words coz I think it's unnecessary) people. Right from my great-grandparents, my family had always been overweight. Naturally, so have I.

It's not like I was a lazy child, I used to go to sports for 2 hours per day and plus used to (still do) practice classical dances, both of which require hefty amounts of energy. It was definitely not easy. My mom introduced me to it, not because it was her passion or anything, but because she thought I was overweight. I wasn't.

I was a scrawny kid, with barely any mass on my bones, but ofc baby fat was a thing and it seemed like it never went away for me. So from a very young age, I was forced into sports and was told that it was because I needed to lose weight, not to be healthy.

Since then, I've hated exercise. Of course I did, because the intention of doing it was not right.

Food was and has been my comfort ever since. It has been my entertainment, my fav pass time and I just overall love eating. I'm a proper foody.

But just like cigs, pot, drugs and alcohol, food can be an addiction too. I realised that very recently.

Yk that feeling, when people told you to not do something and you did exactly just that? Yup. My mom told me not to eat much food and I did the exact opposite. Out of spite.

What wasn't a problem before, became a problem now just because of that. I gained way too much weight for my height. I was bullied at school for it. I lost the will to exercise because it was forced. I lost the countable friends I had at the time because people are stupid.

At home, it was even more toxic. I was young and I didn't really understand the intentions of my mom, but I grew apart from her. I used to steal money to buy junk food.

I think I have mommy issues (severe) but that's for another time.

My relationship with food and exercise turned more and more bad. I ate out all the time because I couldn't at home and even tho I was doing a lot of exercise, I guess the junk just overpowered it and I continued to gain weight.

I really really struggled (I still very much do) that I had to be different from people my age. That they could eat just as much as me and wouldn't gain shit. That was also one of the reasons why I ate out all the time. It was with these fake friends that didn't really care about me. I trailed around them like a lost puppy, it was pathetic really.

It was so so unfair that I had to stop myself from eating fancy, yummy stuff and eat veggies instead. I hated the fact that I had to spend my evenings exercising when my friends would go hang out (my mom didn't allow me to bunk).

I was too young. Still am, I think. It was hard.

Then lockdown came and everything stopped. I got into yoga and I genuinely liked doing it, but it doesn't really help with weight loss, it's a very slow process. Those two years I stayed at home, I gained over almost 15 kg.

I was put on strict diets, at times, all I had in a day was coconut water. I was forced to go out of my way to cut myself mountains of salad and eat that much without complaining. I couldn't go out and it worsened. I was depressed during that time. I didn't / couldn't focus on studies, I was always thinking about my weight and I was addicted to reading books. So that's all I did.

My academic performance was way too severely hampered because of it. Everything was closing down on me and during my worst time, I sh-ed.

I'm ashamed of it. I thought I was stronger. It made me feel worse than I'd ever done before. I was spiraling down a rabbit hole and I didn't know how deep it was.

I've been clean for a good amount of time now, but I feel it creeping up again.

I'm in a transition phase of my life and it's catching up to me. I've been binging again and my thoughts seem to be getting darker everyday. It's so much harder to not sh again.

Fortunately, over the years, I have somewhat learned how to control my diets without going crazy about them and have actually kind of fixed my relationship with exercise. I walk at least 5km everyday without fail. I've learned how to control myself and my body.

I've learned so much about myself through it and that's the only good outcome of it.

I thought speaking here will help and it kind of is. I'm an empath and I like to help people. It brings me satisfaction knowing people feel better because of me.

I'm working on bettering myself. To be healthy.

Nowadays, the internet has over generalised having/ being massively over weight or obese. I genuinely think we should promote and push people to keep a healthy weight required for their health. I get that it's not that simple and it's a very sensitive topic for everyone.

One thing is sure:

No one should be bullied for being overweight. They can't always help it. You don't know how far they've come or what their mental health.

Sometimes, your words could cause more harm than you could've ever imagined.

I'm here so by sharing my story, you can feel somewhat heard and seen. You're not alone. I know how it feels.

If you ever wanna talk, I'm here.

I love you, if you haven't heard it in a while.

You're worth it and nothing is worth hurting yourself for. I understood it the hard way. Pls don't make the same mistakes I did.

If you like me, live in an environment where therapy and/ or counseling is looked upon, talk to me. Or anyone. But talk because it helps tremendously.

My best friend came into my life at a crucial time, which couldn't be more perfect. She has helped in so many ways, she doesn't even know and I don't know how to put it into words.

I'll be your best friend like mine is for me. I'll listen to you rant.

I love you, I'm here.

Sleep tight, good night❤️

--

Remember that these are my opinions and I never mean to offend anyone, I'm just trying to help myself and others, I hope you can understand.

[miss-choco-chips]

Bird Watchers

It was something like an open secret in Gotham, that even though all it’s heroes were open to help no matter the situation, each one of them had a special affinity to certain matters.

For example, children from all districts knew to yell for Nightwing if they found themselves lost and scared. Small business owners often painted little Oracle symbols on their doorsteps, to warn away possible thieves with the knowledge that Gotham’s cryptic hacker had their eye on them. Working girls would send a quick prayer to the Red Hood before seeing their seediest clients; and as such, knew who to call for if things took a turn for the worst.

And Red Robin… well. His was a very specific bunch.

---.---

Warnings: depression, suicide attempts, overdose comic-typical violence (discussed, not explicit). Hurt-comfort all the way, baby. There’s also one scene, with the redhead, that I copied from the comics.

(it’s almost 2 am, I wrote half of this in one go, don’t @ me for mistakes. I’ll edit tomorrow. Maybe.)

---.---

The first time he stopped a suicide, he had just turned thirteen. The suit still felt wrong, too loose in all the places where Jason’s bigger presence would have been a better fit. Too small, too brainy, not brash enough, not good enough.

He would never think himself worthy, but he was all Batman had. There were no other candidates, not ones he could have thrown the job at without risking Bruce’s identity, so he’d have to make do.

But even so, he had been gaining a little confidence over the past few months. His training with Shiva, and Dick’s and Bruce’s focus on making him as ready for the streets as humanly possible, had ensured he never encountered a situation where he couldn’t handle himself, or get back up in time to avoid any casualties.

Except for right now.

“Hey! Don’t do it, please!”

Yeah, maybe yelling at the man precariously balanced on the edge of a how many feet tall building wasn’t his wisest moment. He’d berate himself later. Now was freak out time.

Said man stumbled for a second before regaining his footing and turning to look at Tim. He couldn’t be more than forty, with a bit of an overgrown beard and tired eyes. He had something clutched in one hand, tanned and calloused from work, the other over his chest, probably due to the scare of having a bat suddenly appearing behind him.

“R-Robin…”, he gasped, shook out of whatever reverie he was going through for a second. “W-what… I mean, why are you…?”

‘Okay, Tim, breath. Can’t call B, he’ll notice, get startled and jump. Can I catch him if he does? My grappling hook is made to withstand more than my weight, but if I can’t handle the strain of swinging us both to safety…’

He couldn't risk it.

“Good evening, Mr…?”

Surprise and good manners made the man automatically answer, “Ed. Ed Harrinson.”

Encouraged, Tim took a tiny teeny step forward. Ed’s entire body shock and he leaned backwards. Tim froze, fear keeping his breathing and heartbeat hostages for the time being, stopping the first and kick starting the second.

“Mr Harrinson, I’d like to ask you to step away from the edge? I’ll call an ambulance for you, and…”

“No!”, the man screamed, suddenly over his surprise, a look of determination trying to masquerade his obvious exhaustion. “If you call an’one, I’ll jump.”

Tim wisely kept the ‘you were gonna do it anyway’ to himself. He nodded slowly, hands emerging from the confines of his cape to show Mr Harrinson the lack of a communication device.

“I won’t, then, but may I come closer? Please?”

It was on the last word, high pitched and wavering, that the man cracked. With wary demeanor, he waved him over, pointing to a patch of rooftop a little far but close enough for Tim to feel comfortable- or as comfortable as he’d get, in these circumstances.

As he approached, he could feel the man analyzing him. The little gasp when he stood by his side didn’t go unnoticed.

“You are… smaller than I imag’ned. Too small for a bat. My boy’s taller than you” he mused, likely to himself, but Tim grasped onto that bit of information and clutched at it with both hands, desperately.

“I’m short compared to my peers, so maybe I’m the same age as your son. How old is he?”, he asked, in his most conversational tone. Fear still had a grasp over both his lungs and heart.

Something in the man’s face shifted.

“He… he just turned fifteen.” Older than Tim, then. Ed continued, “He’s… ”, in a second, the sadness was replaced by pride, “he’s grown up p’tty well, if I say so m’self. A fine young man, that kid. He’ll go places.”

For a beat, Tim tried to imagine his own dad here. As much as he’d hate to see Jack in Mr Harrinson’s place, he couldn't help but wonder if he’d be talking about him the same way Ed spoke about his son.

He… didn’t think so. If on the verge of death, thoughts about his son would probably be the farthest from his dad’s mind.

“You sound like you love him very much. He’s a lucky guy” he said sincerely, a tendril of hopefulness still twisted around his stomach. His hands weren’t shaking any longer, finding solace in the fact that the man in front of him didn’t look like he was about to jump right that second.

Mr Harrinson’s face fell.

“Got served an’ unlucky hand, with an old man like me”, his eyes went back to the abyss, to the empty, poor litten streets below them. “Go ‘way, kid. Leave m’ be. Notta business what I do. Gotta do this f’r my kid.”

Fear came back, full force.

“I- Sorry, but I can’t help but think about your son”, he blurted out, the only bit of information he had about the man was his only tendril of hope. “Someone who loves his child as much as you seem to must be a good father. A father that… would be missed dearly, if lost so young.”

Mr Harrinson looked even more devastated. Tim was doing this all wrong, wasn’t he?

“There’s no other way t’ keep’im safe!'' he yelled, and for a minute Tim thought he had decided to jump then and there. Instead, he dropped to his knees, hands to his head, paper still clutched in one fist. “They’ll get to him if I don’t! Once I’m dead, they’ll just leave’im alone!”

Tim crouched next to him, tentative.

“Who is ‘they’, sir? Maybe I could help…”

Ed was already shaking his head.

“Nay, they said not to go to the bats. Kill my boy, they will, if I do. Seen them offing others for less, so I believe them.”

“Ah, but I’m too short to be a bat, am I not?” he smiled, wobbly at best but sincere. “Besides, who’s gonna tell them you spoke to me? I”, he gestured to his mask, “know how to keep a secret.”

He considered for a beat, before tired shoulders fell, defeated. He offered the slip of paper towards him, unseeing eyes on the street below.

Robin read the note carefully, noting the sloppy penmanship and cheap paper as well as the message itself.

“Mr Harrinson…”

“I know”, he whispered, “I know working for the Black Mask wasn’t my best idea. But m’boy needed to eat, and the landlord was gettin’ impatient. And now, for whatever reason, boss wants me dead. And if I make ‘im dirty his own hands, he’ll dirty ‘em twice and send me with my son for company to the other side. Felix is too young, and he’s good. Can’t let ‘im pay f’ his old man m’stakes, ya hear me?”

Tim thought his words over carefully.

“Mr Harrinson… I don’t think this comes from Black Mask himself”, for one, Blackie wasn’t one to avoid blood on his gloves, nor to send such a shitty note. The man lived for the drama, like most A-listers did, and he’d never forgo the aesthetic of an expensive peachment and beautifully worded threat. Also, if he wanted this man gone, he would have put a bullet in his head the second he clocked in; and if it were revenge he was after, he wouldn't have gotten a warning note but his son’s head sent to him instead.

He folded the paper and put it into one of his multiple pockets, free hand going to the man’s shoulder.

“I know Black Mask’s M.O, mister, and this is not it”, no need to spook him further by describing what it was, though. “Probably just a colleague who wanted your position, or has a grudge for whatever reason. And that, I can help you with. If you work with me on this one, we can both make sure Felix has his Dad making breakfast for him tomorrow morning, and all the days after that. After all”, he smiled, no longer uncertain now that he had firm ground to work with, “your son is going places, and he’ll have to be well fed to reach them, right?”

Mr Harrinson’s smile must have had magical properties, Tim thought. There was no other explanation for the way it returned his breath back to his body.

---.----

The next time he saw a jumper, a few months later, he was slightly more ready for it. Bruce had congratulated him on his work with Mr Harrinson, and the subsequent raid they could make on one of Black Mask’s warehouses thanks to the man’s information, but Tim hadn’t been satisfied until he had read every single mission report on the batcomputer about attempted suicides. And succeed ones, too. Need to know what went well and what didn’t, after all.

So when he saw the fifty-something woman crying on top of a tower in City Hall District, he didn’t almost-crash in his attempt to get there in time. He landed softly, making just enough noise to let her know she wasn’t alone, but careful to not startle her.

“It’s a little cold up here, Lady. If you’d like, I can walk you home?”, he tries for cheeky, despite the cold fear nesting in his stomach like a grumpy, spiteful bird.

The woman, sitting by the edge, turned her head to look at him. The movement called attention to her long, strawberry blonde hair, neatly braided, and her pretty diamond earrings. The face under her perfect make up was gaunt and pale, tear tracks cleaning paths of skin to his trained eye.

Despite him interrupting what probably were very private thoughts, she smiled at his approach, kind and polite. It didn’t reach her eyes, but the intent to put him at ease was generous enough.

“I may be a lady, but any adult worth their salt would insist on walking the young child home, instead of the opposite. Besides”, she patted the rooftop under her,” I live here, so it’s not a long walk at all.”

Tim stepped closer, carefully.

“May I sit?”

“I could use the company for a bit”, she accepted, head turning back to the city below.

They sat there for a few minutes in silence, before Tim’s soft voice broke it again.

“Is there anything I can do to help convince you not to do it? Please?”

The lady smiled. “You are a very sweet boy.”

“That’s… not an answer. Can I at least know why?”

“Won’t it torment you, in the future, if we speak now?”, she asked a question of her own, turning to face him again. Despite her words, there was nothing but kindness in those deep green eyes. “If you don’t know me, I’m just another one who jumped. If we talk, I’m afraid I might stay with you long after I’m gone. You are too young for that kind of weight.”

Tim swallowed. 

“That’s easily solved, Miss;”, Dick’s rule of thumb; if unsure, always call a lady Miss before Mrs “don’t do it.”

She spared him a long, meaningful look, and he slumped over.

“Not my best, I know, but I’m kinda freaking out now?” She wasn’t like Mr Harrinson, no motive he could see, no strand to pull and unravel her pain. “Please, just… why?”

She patted one of the hands gripping his own knee. His other hand rushed over hers, sandwiching her cold, slim fingers between his gloved palms.

“There’s nothing left for me. I have a nice job, live in a pretty side of town, have friends, and still… it feels so empty. So… Meaningless. Why even bother?”

Tim chewed on her words silently. He was way out of his depth. A tangible, physical problem? He could solve those, no biggie.

Depression, though… that was a different giant to tackle. Was he even prepared enough to?

A strong gust of wind made the lady with braided hair shiver. Without thought, Tim unclasped his cape and draped it over her slim shoulders.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, head tilted like a curious woodland animal. Tim felt strongly protective of her, of this kind, sweet lady, who said she had it all, except the one thing that mattered to her.

“I’m used to it”, he shrugged. “This suit is very warm, but cold air often trickles down from the neckline and… well. Gigs of the job and all that.”

The lady tutted, frowning for the first time since Tim arrived.

“That won’t do, young man. You need a scarf. The nights will only get colder from now on.”

He shrugged again.

“I just… don’t have the time to buy one. And I had one, but… There’s these kids who often hang out by the park, and they were so cold, I just couldn't swing by and ignore them. So I gave them my scarf to share between them. I’m just kinda bummed that I don’t have more to make sure they all stay warm.”

The braided haired lady hummed for a second.

“Well… I knit”, she started, carefully. “I don’t have children or grandchildren to give my final products to, so they’ll go to waste after I’m gone. If you’d take them out of my hands, you’ll do me a favor.” 

Tim wanted to say no, unwilling to make this any easier for her, but the chance of getting her away from the edge was enough to quell his voice.

She went and came back within minutes, a big cardboard box balanced over her shaky arms. He rose to help her, meeting the woman halfway through the roof, a good distance away from the abyss.

“This red one would look good with your suit… oh, and the green one, to keep with the theme! Or maybe the yellow one… Shame pink would be such a bad fit for your colors, because that wool is the best I worked with…”

Tim’s hand carefully took said carf out and looked it over. There were about six others in the box.

“I could take this to those kids I mentioned before… It’d still not be enough for all, but more to share between them means less cold.”

She hummed again, looking at the unfinished projects on the bottom of the box.

“If… If you give me a few days…” she muttered. “I mean, I’m in no rush”, a hand vaguely gestured towards the rooftop’s edge. “I could spare a few days finishing those, and you could take them to these kids you spoke about… and maybe, I can help make a few children less cold with this silly hobby of mine.”

Elated beyond words, Tim nodded vigorously, waxing poetry about her work and about just how excited little Ellie would be with this soft, pretty pink scarf.

His patrol route could use a few detours, after all, if that meant keeping Braided Hair Lady away from her roof.

---.----

He was just returning from a late supply run when he bumped into The Cats.

It was in an alleyway, a block off from Mrs Eloise Denvarow (formerly known as Braided Hair Lady). The older woman had caved after three months knowing each other, of Tim passing by her apartment once every other night to pick up her baked goods or knitted masterpieces, to distribute between street kids and working girls, and told him her name. It was said in passing (“Stop with that ‘Lady’ thing, honey. It’s Eloise”), as if lacking importance, when in reality it meant the world to him. Sure, he’d already known, having run a background check on her the minute he came back to the cave after stopping her from jumping, but there was that implicit vow between them, that she wouldn't tell him her name and jump, wouldn’t make him carry its weight on his shoulders forever, so it was… it was a promise, on her end, a reassurance, and Tim wasn’t even embarrassed that he cried in her arms like a baby for ten minutes.

So here he was, a month after that, still riding that high, when the desperate call from below caught his attention.

There were two teens on the dirty ground, nested among cracked bottles and old newspapers. The girl was lying in the boy’s arms, with him screaming for help.

“Robin! Thank fuck!”, he almost sobs, arms visibly tightening around the girl. Tim wants to ask how he knew to call for him, and if the proximity to Mrs Denvarow’s place was luck or not.

But it wasn’t the time to ask.

The girl was pale, which only highlighted the bruises on her face. Someone with a big fist punched her. It doesn't seem likely, considering just how distraught the other kid is, but he checks his hands just in case; fortunately, too small for that kind of damage.

She’s also breathing erratically and, when he puts a gloved hand to her neck, he realizes just how crazy her pulse is. 

Fear Toxin? Except Scarecrow is still in Arkham as far as he knows, and even if he had gotten away recently, he needs time to develop his precious chemicals. Joker’s Venom and Mad’s Hatter drugs don’t have quite this results, and Ivy doesn’t usually attack street girls just for kicks; they are also too far from her usual turf for her to be a viable suspect.

So, that leaves very few choices.

“Overdose?”, he ventures a guess, hand already fumbling through the pockets on his belt.

The other boy sobs harder, nodding while looking down at the girl in his arms. Tim gently takes the girl from him to position her straighter, to help her down the vial he finally found in his belt. It was supposed to help flush out any chemical in a few minutes, tops; they usually used it when a new type of Crazy Criminal Drug made its way to the streets and they didn’t have the time to properly prepare an antidote. It was strong, and vicious in its path to devoid the body of any and all external agents, which was why it wasn’t a preferred method; who’s to say the civilian in need of a flush isn’t in some important medicine? The Big Flush, as Dick calls it, lacked any kind of finesse or discrimination.

But it was their best shot right now, so there goes nothing. 

There’s silence while they watch the girl’s progress. He doesn’t bother asking if he called for an ambulance; they are obviously minors, probably homeless, and even if the Wayne Foundation takes care of children’s hospital fees, they’d avoid it to keep themselves out of the foster system.

But then, the kid kept talking.

“I… I found her near Grant Park. I… I didn’t know what to do, so I dragged her here. She/” and then he breaks again, hands grasping one of hers, as if letting go meant he was giving up on her and he couldn't bear it.

“Grant Park is only five blocks away,” Tim thinks out loud, mind already a mile away “and Moench’s Row illicit night clinic is about the same distance from there as this place. Why did you bring her here?”

“She… Alley… Oh, her name’s Allison, by the way. And I’m Thomas. Tom.” Introductions, miraculously, seem to do the trick here and calm him down. “Nice to meetcha.”

Tim’s not deterred by his toothy grin, but he has to admit he’s kinda cute. Like, stray cat cute.

Huh. Alley, Tom, cat… Yeah, that checks.

“What happened with Allison?” he presses softly, one arm still keeping Alley up and against his chest, the other hand on her pulse point, taking note of the way the heartbeat seems to be stabilizing. The puking fest was gonna start soon.

“She… It was on purpose.” Tom confesses, eyes going clouded for a while. “She tries to not be home, yknow? I met her in kindergarten, and even then she’d try to hide behind the teacher’s desk in hopes they’d forget about her and close the building with her inside. Anyway, we pretty much live on the streets these days, and Alley… she’s very depressed. I convinced her to see someone a while ago, even stol/ I mean, earned the money for it myself”, he’s quick to correct, eyes glancing up to see if he was smooth enough to cover it; which he wasn’t, but Tim was in favor of letting that small one go, “and they gave her a prescription for antidepressants. She’s been kicking it down the road, but she’s gotten a lot worse and I wouldn't lay off her case about it, so she sneaked back home to get some money from her folks to pay for it.”

By the way the kid looks at her bruised face with unmeasurable guilt, Tim knows she didn’t go unnoticed.

“And… I don’t know. We were supposed to meet up by the Commerce Street Highway, but she was late, so I walked around for a bit and… I saw her there, on a bench. She was/ she was still conscious then, and she told me… she said ‘these aren’t what the doc gave me, but they took the pain away all the same’.” Again, Tom chokes on his own emotions. If he had any free hands, he’d try to put one on his shoulder for comfort. “I don’t even know what she took, or where did she get it from!”

Tim has heard whispers of loan sharks and drug dealres camping toghter by the Fashion Distric, just north of Grant Park, so he can make an informed guess as to how that happened. Also, he now knows what he’ll do the rest of the night, once these kids are safe.

When Tom has gotten a grasp of himself, he pushes again.

“So, why did you bring her here?”

He shrugs, a bit abashed.

“Well… I mean, everyone knows about how Mrs Denvarow is the one giving clothes and food away, and that you help her distribute it. Well, not everyone, but… you know, the street kids. We flagged her building with a yellow skull and everything.”

A yellow skull grafitti, Tim’s mind translates, is the street equivalent of a ‘don’t fuck with this place’ sing. A sort of protective sigil. He wonders how he missed it.

“And… This is kind of your thing, right? So I figured you’d be better prepared to deal with it than some overworked clinic that might even not have enough free equipment to help us. Good think I did, too” he gestures at his friend, whose face is now looking flushed; a sign both of growing health, and of the upcoming puke. Tim’s quick to turn her so her back is to his chest, head tilted down just in case.

As if rehearsed, Alley chose that exact second to empty the contents of her now flushed stomach. Tim would need a sample of that, to catch the responsible dealer.

Tom held her hair away from her face while Tim kept her steady, and she blinked bearily at them after it was done, still not completely lucid but a world away from the girl she was ten minutes ago.

“She’ll still need a hospital.'' Tim informs Tom sternly. The boy had taken his friend in his arms again, softly rubbing her back to help with the uncomfortable ache leftover after puking your guts out. “The Moench’s Row clinic should be able to help with any side effect, but she’s safe for now.”

He nods, thanks Tim again and again and politely refuses his help to take her to the clinic. They part ways, both parties probably thinking this would be the last time they saw each other.

Still, their situation sticks with Tim during the rest of his patrol, and he decides to stop by the clinic, just to check on them. His knuckles still ache from the absolute beating he delivered to the ones who gave Alley the money and sold her the drugs, so he’s in better spirits and hopes to spread it to the kids.

Alley is awake when he visits, and her shy, little smile is enough for the rage inside of Tim to die down. The bad guys dealt with, the civilians safe, everything in its proper place.

He sleeps a bit better that night.

---.----

He almost doesn’t see him. 

Actually, he probably wouldn't have, deeply lost into his own head, had the guy been anything other than a redhead. That exact shade of  orangy-brown auburn, that he would have to pick up from his workbench at Titan’s tower after Bart had decided to ‘keep him company’ during his all-nighters. 

It was ironic, how now he would give anything in the world to have those same strands of hair fucking up his experiments, if only for the impish, ‘please-don’t-kill-me-I’m-an-angel’ smile he would receive in exchange.

“Hey”, he greets, landing softly at the man’s right, sitting a few feet away from him, too tired to even stand up on common ground. “What’s happening?”

He shouldn’t be doing this. He really, really shouldn’t. His own mental health was less than stellar, and even thinking about it made him feel worse. He didn’t deserve to feel bad, not when civilians were in the hospital after his latest fuck up, Cass was missing, Cassie barely hanging in there, the family a mess with Damian’s lovely introduction, and… well. Every other person he knew…

Point being, there must be someone else, in a better inner place, that could speak to this guy. But since no one seemed to be patrolling this route, Tim could only hope to stall him long enough for a more capable vigilante to show up.

The guy looks startled, then angry. He has green eyes, he notices, under the glasses. Not sure why that sticks to him.

“What are you doing here? You’re not going to try to stop me, are you? You’re not going to swing down and catch me in mid air or something, are you?”

He seems defensive, but Tim notices a bit of hesitancy. He has worked with less.

(He wishes he had more energy to do more with what little he has)

“No. If I did, what’s to stop you from doing it again later, or tomorrow? I can’t be with you every second.  If you want to do this, you are going to, no matter how much I don’t want you to. And I don’t want you to, just so we are clear.”

The guy still looks suspicious, but he hasn’t taken that last step forward, so… a win?

“I just needed to sit down for a minute. ‘been thinking about all the ways I’ve screwed up lately, and…”

Auburn-hair deflates a little, turning away from Tim to examine the night sky. “Well, that makes two of us.”

The bat signal lights up the night. His newfound companion looks at it, then him. “Do you need to get that?”

“Nah. Batman will, and if he needs help he’ll call me.” Tim shrugs. He needs a coffee-power-up. He needs to sleep. He needs for his loved ones to not be dead.

He needs to see if there’s anything he can do for this guy.

“So, do you want to tell me why you’re doing this? So someone can go to your family and friends to let them know?”

After all, if it was him who did it (and… wasn’t that food for thought?), he’d like Bruce and Dick to know why. To not… to not blame themselves.

Redhead looks annoyed again. Uh. A short fuse, this one.

“Don’t try any psychology, or try to make me feel guilty about hurting anyone… this isn't about anyone but me.”

He shouldn’t say it, but… “That’s pretty naive,  but whatever. Tell me anyway.” He smirks a bit, then “Unless you’re in a hurry or something.”

He hears the guy (he really should ask his name) as he tells his story. A cold, clinical part of his mind recognizes the symptoms described almost unconsciously by the guy as depression. He would know, after all. The other part of him, the part that made him Robin, that made him human, discarded the label; there was much more to this guy than his illness, and he would treat him like it.

“So here I am,” he finishes, now sitting side by side with Tim, both their legs hanging above the bustling city. “Now’s when you tell me how stupid this is. That other people have much bigger problems, there’s hunger and war, and I’m weak because my problems are nothing next to stuff like that.”

Tim thinks of a father, desperately thinking his death would save his son’s life, when in fact it would have only made it worse. He thinks of a woman, so full of love and warmth, looking into the abyss and feeling empty inside. He thinks of a couple of kids, one hanging to life with nails and teeth, the other hanging to her just as fiercely.

He thinks about himself. About looking at a future version of himself, hating what he sees, and deciding to drown the bud before it can even flower. He thinks of sickly green water, of cloning equipment in a laboratory, of a phone falling to the ground after delivering him with more bad news.

He’s still in a bad place, still probably not the most capable person to be doing this, but a part of him is sure this is the right answer. The only answer.

“No. Your problems are worse than anyone else’s, because they are yours. I’ve... felt bad like you have, and some pretty bad things have happened to me.”

Red hair looks as tired as Tim feels, so it’s a surprise that he has enough energy to glance at him worriedly, hand stretching a bit in his direction in a half-formed attempt to comfort.

“You guys make it look so easy, swinging around, having fun… Things get bad for you, too?”

Tim looks down, and smiles. It’s a sad, bitter thing. He thinks about parents lost before ever connecting to them, about a girlfriend going away, a sister lost to the madness of their lives, about two best friends gone, one even dying in his arms. 

He gives no details. Doesn’t talk about it all, just shares a little bit of himself. It’s only fair, after hearing about this guy’s demons. Misery loves company, doesn’t it?

“So what do you do? How do you deal with it?” the guy asks when he’s done, looking at Tim by the corner of his not-very-dry eyes.

Tim forces himself to remember. “One of the things I’ve learned is that it gets bad for everyone sometimes, Superman, Batman… everyone. I remember that I’m not alone, that things do get better. Sometimes on their own, most times when you work at them. And when I have trouble remembering those things, I find people to talk to.”

Most of those were dead, but Tim is hit with the epiphany that not all of them are. He still has people. He still…

“And you’ve got people like that? That you can talk to?” asks the guy, tone both worried and hopeful. Tim stands up, does his best to look calm.

“Yeah. Your folks, and old friend, even a trained counselor you’ve never met before… someone who has a totally different perspective because they’re not as close to your problems as you are. Maybe they give you advice, and that’s great… or maybe they just listen. Sometimes, that’s all you need. Anyway, that’s how I deal with it when things suck. And it works. Want to come down from there and give it a try?”

The guy gets back to his feet, as Tim watches from behind. Having been in this situation before, the fear grabbing a hold of him isn’t new, but it's different. He thinks he's too worn down. It takes the edge off of any emotion. 

Except hope. Hope still hurts like a sharp knife when it’s snatched away. He prays it won’t be, right now.

Green eyes (Jason- that’s who they reminded him of) look down, deep in thought. Then he turns, smiles at Tim. There’s hope in him too.

“Yeah, why not?”

They get down together. He gives him a few numbers and they have breakfast together. The guy promises to call his English teacher, at least. Tim promises himself to call his brother.

At least, he still has Dick.

---.----

He’s been putting off doing his rounds since he came back, he knows. But…

It changed him, a bit. Going around the world, dealing with his grief while staying on his toes, ready to break down one second and having to field off attacks from all sides the next, with the Demon’s honeyed whispers echoing in his ear and mind. 

He’ll never tell anyone, just how tempting it had been. How much he had wanted to reach for that offered hand. To lay his head on someone’s shoulder and let the responsibility bleed from his.

Tim will never tell anyone, but he’ll always know. And it’ll always make him hate himself a little bit more.

So, he’s different now. And he’s scared- that the people he gave hope to, that he talked with, that he could never stop thinking about, even halfway across the world- that they won’t like this new, worn down him.

That Mr Harrinson the Good Father, Braided Hair Lady and her sweaters, the inseparable Stray Cats, the girl with the bright yellow cardigan, the kid with the scarred wrists, the woman with beautiful star-like freckles that she’ll hopefully pass on to her baby, the gentle giant man with calloused hands, the petite but fierce young teen with defiant eyes and dead name, the soft spoken girl with the loudest laugh, auburn-haired boy and his hopeful and sympathetic green eyes… and so, so many more. They all knew him, maybe not at his best, but certainly better than now. The boy that kept them from jumping had been a bright, magical Robin. The teen that came back to their city was dark, weary Red Robin. It felt kinda like he had cheated them, returning this broken version of himself to their doorsteps.

But he had to go check on all of them. Even if Cass (and it was such a relief, that even after he lost everything else, the return of his sister could at least be a speck of light in the mist of misery surrounding him) had promised to do so, there were so many of them… and she couldn't possibly remember everyone, all the time. And if anyone had fallen through the gaps… if anyone had stood on a rooftop, waiting for their Robin to save them, only to think ‘nobody cares’ as he didn’t show up…

Tim gets sick only thinking about it. If it did happen, then he needs to know. He has to carry their names with him, that’s the least he can do for failing them.

So he’ll go check on them… anytime now. Soon. The moment he gathers enough energy to climb back to his feet and get his grapple hook out.

...The city looks full of life, beneath him. Like it feels the return of its Knight. The end of the internal quarrel among it’s vigilantes, that almost tore it all apart. The relief in Nightwing, the hesitant peace in Red Hood, the mellowing of Robin.

(He was feeling poetic tonight, in the worst ways)

Maybe it also feels Red Robin’s emptiness. Maybe that’s why it's so lively down there, like the ground is calling to him, just as it did when Ra’s broke the window with his body.

He thinks... he won’t have to check on anyone, if he jumps. And that way, there will be no name to carry with him to his grave.

“Robin!”

“Stop!”

“Don’t do it, please!”

He startles. Hadn’t even noticed when he got to his feet, nor that one of them was hanging over the abyss. The fact that he wasn’t alone on that rooftop any longer hadn’t even breached his usually perfect spatial awareness.

They didn’t call for him, but the voices sounded distraught, they were close, and he was a former Robin, so he turned around, tired, but with obedience and service too ingrained in him to consider denying help to whoever it was.

It turned out, he wouldn't need to go make his rounds any longer. His rounds had come to him.

There were… too many people on this roof. It was way too crowded.

“Robin!”

It was one voice now, not a mixture of them, so he could identify the one yelling his former alias. Allison broke from the mob of people (and there were more still, filling in from the open rooftop door, like a never-ending stream…) to run to him, looking like she might have just jumped into his arms, if not for Tom clutching her hoodie to stop her a few feet from him. Good move, considering he was still balancing precariously on the edge.

“Alleycat?” he whispered, a little blown. She looked so different (magenta looked amazing on the tips of her hair, and she totally pulled off that lip piercing), but he’d recognize those eyes anywhere. He’d been so relieved, when she first opened them after that dangerous overdose.

“We were so fucking worried, dude”, came from Tomcat just behind her, still gripping her hoodie (still keeping her safe; some things never change).

“I…”

“Where were you?” Maddie, not longer yellow but still wearing a cute cardigan, stepped up too.

“I’m… I’m not Robin”, he blurts out. They… knew it was him?  It… like, obviously there was a new Robin, Damian was (still, but probably not for much longer) smaller than him, but to immediately know that he was…

“Yeah, no shit. I’d know that long hair and noodle limbs of yours anywhere, kid. Known you too long to be fooled. And the new kid’s really trigger happy with that lon’nife of his... You’re still the Robin I prefer, and fuck if I understand the name passing you heroes do” Mr Harrinson spoke from the back of the crowd, one hand clutching his kid’s shoulder, the other arm around…

“Braided Hair Lady?”

Eloise smiles at him, soft and warm as ever, a little shy when his eyes go to the arm hugging her close and back to her. He recognizes some of her handmade scarfs around the necks of plenty of people on the roof. 

“I… wasn’t aware you all knew each other.”

A petite young teen steps forward, walking until they were shoulder-to-shoulder with the Strays.

“Most of us met through the app, and then introduced the others. There’s more, of course, but not everyone could meet here. Samantha’s baby was born just two months ago, so she chose to stay home, but we promised her pictures, so you’ll have to say cheese soon birdboy. Also, I found my name. I’m Cal.”

Allison’s smile broadened and she sneaked an arm around Cal’s waist.

“They are the new Straycat. Calico cat’s are the cutest shit ever, aren’t they?”

Well… Having someone as badass as Cal watching Tom and Alley’s back would sure make Tim feel a lot better about both kids being out in the streets. 

Were they still on the streets? He’d need to find out and fix that, soon.

Then it hit him. “What app?”

Auburn-hair smiled from his place, at the front of the crowd just behind the Cats.

“Felix over there,” he pointed over his shoulder at Mr Harrinson’s son, who smiled shyly at Tim, eyes shining in gratitude and admiration like they always did when Tim did his rounds and checked on his dad, “defended you in a GothamHeroes forum once. Some bratty douchebag was complaining about you landing over his car or something and this kid went for his fucking troath.”

“I was in that chat too,” spoke Tom, smiling a little too savagely for a kid that sweet. “He tore the idiot to shreds, speaking about how you saved his dad’s life and took it upon yourself to make sure he was still okay even weeks after you met. I mentioned how you saved Alley and Mrs Denvarow, we exchanged numbers… then we met Cal during one of our rounds handing out Mrs D’s scarfs and food. They were weary of everyone else, but trusted us because they heard you talk about the clothes and baked goods... And Cal’s friend Gina worked with Samantha on the streets and told them about her story...”

“Soon, it seemed like people personally saved by you were just… popping out of the snow like daisies” Blair laughed, and it was still the loudest, brightest noise. The night seemed a little clearer, the air a little fresher for it. “Felix made his own private chat and added us, and we added everyone else we knew… The word went around about it, and more and more people joined in…”

“It’s really a wonder how you had any time to fight crime, seeing how often you were apparently comforting jumpers on the roofs” Ailbert, still as gigantic and gentle as always, raised a hand from the middle of the group. He had a little girl on his shoulders, probably the baby niece he had taken in after his sister’s death. 

“Then the new kid appeared and Gotham went to hell on a basket, and no one saw you around any longer”, Elijah, wrists no more scarred than the last time he saw him, his arm tangled with Maddie’s, went on. “We were… well, we were a bit confused.”

“Speak for yourself, Cal jumped Red Hood one night, held him at knife point and demanded to know what the fuck happened to our Robin. We were like, zero chill.”

“Sorry, they did what?” Tim was definitely in the twilight zone now. 

“No thoughts, head empty, only murder”

...Tim needed to give Jason a quick call. Also sign Cal up for anger management. And probably, judging by the way both Alley and Tom were looking at them, get one of the adults to give them the talk.

Mrs Eloise smiled at him, and like always it served to calm his nerves. That woman was a different kind of magic than Alfred, but magic indeed. “Anyway, dear, what matters is that we were worried about you. And then this incredible young man, Aaron,” she waved at him, and he winked one of his green eyes in response, “suggested we kept in closer contact with one another, so anyone who spotted you could inform the others.”

Aaron shrugged, his auburn mane of hair bobbing with the movement. “It just seemed like it’d be easier to have an alarm set up, since messaging everyone would take so long… and then someone suggested making a map of Gotham so we could have clearer routes for the kids handing out Mrs Denvarow’s stuff… and someone wanted a shared blackboard to write theories on where the fuck you were with others… and a few demanded a space to share photos, possible sightings or old selfies with you… It kinda spiralled and I thought it’d be less of a chaotic mess if I made an app that could do all of that, instead of all of us using multiple apps for the different fixtures everyone asked for… Since this is Gotham, we also added some Rouge Alarm for whenever a criminal was set loose. It helped keep us safe, and if we knew when crime was happening, we could pay attention to which heroes answered the call…”

“And then, you fought that firefly guy the other day”, Felix said, still by his dad’s side, still looking as awed as ever when looking at tim. “I was in the crowd, and I recognized you within a minute.”

“I don’t really understand technology that well, and the group chat was such a mess that day” Ailbert lamented, but he was still smiling. They all were.

That hit Tim then, hard. 

They all looked so happy to see him. To have him back. They had been waiting for him to be back, banded together to make sure they’d all know when he did.

“You looked so sad the last time we saw you” Blair added softly, sadly. “And… when you saved Aaron, you told him about such sad things…”

Elijah winced “And I heard the Midnighter fell from Wayne Tower a few weeks ago, but then he was never seen around again, and your suit looks kinda similar, so that was probably really you… and, that fall…”

“We were very worried” repeated Eloise, but her eyes didn’t lose their warmth. “But you’re back now, and we can keep track of you and each other now, so it’s all good. It’s wonderful to have you back, love.”

This was an out of body experience.

Something must have shown on his face, because Cal snorted.

“We adore you, you dumbass. You are our hero.”

Alley smiled. “You are our Robin.”

Tim fell into her arms, and away from the roof’s edge. The rest of the crowd was upon them in seconds, all eager to pat his back or joke about the cowl hiding his hair from their hands.

He met eyes with Aaron, over Alley’s shoulder. He looked like the hope Tim had helped plant in his heart all those months ago had flowered, and the petals filled his heart.

(He was feeling poetic tonight, in the best ways)

“You should download the app too, so you always have someone to talk to. Look it up. It’s called BirdWatchers, because we’ll always look up and out for you. Because when we wanted to jump, you lended us your wings to fly instead.”

It was like this fucker wanted Tim to cry.

“Welcome home, Red Robin.”

[mypoisonedvine]

Cake By The Ocean | frat!Chris Evans x reader

summary: fraboy au.  college parties.  beach shenanigans.  blame @ballyhoobarnes​

warnings: fingering, mention of oral sex (m receiving), overstimulation, verryyy light dub con if you squint??

shitty moodboard provided by me c:

Chris was the worst thing about mixers, hands down.

Honestly, you hated everything about mixers.  Your sisters were at their most annoying, magically transforming from educated, classy women into the most desperate of ‘pick me’ girls, clinging onto any Zeta guy they could get their hands on.  What bothered you wasn’t that they flirted with the guys, it was that they dumbed themselves down to do so.  That plus an overcrowded house, shitty drinks from plastic cups, and having to clean up everybody’s mess the next day, and you really just did not want to go to another co-ed event.

But Katie M. and Katie B., the sorority president and vice president respectively, decreed in their all-knowing power that every soror must attend five night-time events a year and you had procrastinated so hard that you had to attend every single one in May to avoid getting kicked out.  The scholarships were too good to lose. 

That didn’t mean you had to mingle, though; you were happy to hide in a secluded corner and look like you were doing something important.  In this case, it was stacking and unstacking cups.  Hopefully nobody watched you long enough to notice that you weren’t actually helping set up the drink table.

But of course, he had to show up.  He had this instinct where he could sense you minding your own business and enjoying your life, and he just had to appear and annoy you.

“Hey,” Chris’ voice wafted to your ear from behind you.  You felt his hand slip onto your waist loosely.  That was all he had to say to you?  ‘Hey’?

You ignored him, mainly because you had absolutely no idea what to say.

“Bein’ cold isn’t gonna keep me away,” he informed you, leaning in closer.

“Do you have any other suggestions then?” you frowned.

His mouth was so close to your ear now that you could smell the booze on his breath.  “Been thinkin’ about you.  I know you’ve been avoiding me.  But it hasn’t made me forget.”

“Me either, sadly,” you groaned.

“I know you get wet when you think about it,” he purred.  “I betcha think about it at night, remembering how good it felt to just let go--”

You spun around and pushed him back.  “Chris, everybody makes mistakes.  Like when the Nazis invaded Russia in the winter.  Or when your mom decided to keep it after your dad put on the condom wrong.  Or, worst of all, when we got drunk and had sex over half a year ago.  It’s okay!  Accidents happen.  But it’s best to leave them--” you rested your hand on his shoulder, giving your best comforting-but-stern look-- “in the past.”

“The best mistakes are made at least twice,” Chris grinned.  “How do you think I ended up with a little sister?”

In spite of your desperate attempt not to, you cracked a smile.  At least he could take a joke.

“Go enjoy the party,” you suggested, “talk to any of the other girls-- I bet a lot of them will find your offer more appealing.”

“I don’t wanna talk to them,” he frowned, “I wanna talk to you.  You’re interesting.”

“And they’re not?”

“I would never diss your sisters,” he raised his arms, “but you’re definitely my favorite Delta.”

“You have strange taste,” you shuddered.

“That I do,” he nodded wistfully, “that I do.”

~

You were cooped up in your room, surrounded by open text books and uncapped highlighters.  A final on Monday meant you needed to prepare all weekend.  You didn’t even look up when you heard a knock on your door; you just called out that it was open so they could come in.

“Good news!” Katie B. beamed as she popped her head around the door.  “Zeta invited us to a beach party tomorrow!”

“Why do you think that’s good news for me?” you wondered, furrowing your brow in confusion.

“Uh, because away events count for two night-time events in your attendance calendar?”

Ehh, you didn’t need to study all weekend, right?

~

Hoping to get your boost on your attendance record but disinterested in actually participating in any meaningful way, you decided you were going to tan, mainly because it utilized two of your greatest talents: laying down, and doing nothing.  After a hefty layer of sunscreen was applied to whatever your bikini didn’t cover, you settled in on the little rubbery chair with your over-sized sunglasses and some bluetooth earbuds to jam with.

The sun warmed your skin until you felt so relaxed that you honestly considered falling asleep.  Thankfully your earbuds blocked out the sounds of Zeta-Delta partying down the beach, even when the volleyball game got a little rowdy.  

Sadly, you were pulled from your relaxed state when a shadow blocked your sun, and you hesitantly opened your eyes behind the dark plastic of your shades.  Squinting, you saw his tattoo first, and you knew it was Chris come to taunt you.

“You’re blockin’ my rays, Evans,” you frowned.  

He spun the volleyball in his hands, smirking playfully.  “I came over here to ask if you wanted to play.  It’s shirts vs skins.”

“Let me guess, you always play skins?” you quipped, quickly scanning his muscled torso which was so cruelly exposed.  Did he have to look so good?  Did it have to remind you of the way those muscles flexed as he was thrusting--

“Unfortunately for me, I bet you always play shirts,” he chuckled, interrupting your train of thought just in time.  “If no volleyball, how about a swim?”

You pulled out your other earbud and put them back in their case, realizing he wasn’t going away any time soon.  “Chris, tell me, what is it that makes you think I want to be anywhere near you?  Seriously, tell me, so I can stop doing it.”

“Sure, right now you’re acting pretty icy,” he explained, kneeling down in the sand beside your chair, “but I remember when you couldn’t keep your hands off me… when you got on your knees for me…”

You wanted to interrupt him but your throat was suddenly too dry, and your thighs were clenching together.

“When you begged me not to stop…” he continued, leaning closer, his hand grabbing your knee suddenly, slowly trailing up your thigh.

“Chris,” you whispered, just under your breath-- but it turned into a gasp when his arms wrapped around you and he picked you up.  “Put me down!” you yelped.

“I think you need to cool off, babe,” he grinned.  “A little water might do the trick, huh?”

Your screams of protest were lost to the wind as he started running, effortlessly carrying you to the water’s edge.

Soon, he was knee-deep and you were pulling yourself up into him as you tried to avoid the water.  “I swear to god if you drop me,” you began.

“I won’t, okay?” he assured, slowly calming down as you let your legs hesitantly reach past the water’s surface.  It was cold at first, but then it was relaxing against your heated skin.

As he set you down in the water, his arms naturally slid to your waist, and yours to his shoulders.  And then you were looking up at him and it felt way too right.

“Um, the… the water feels great,” you mumbled.

“Yeah,” he agreed in a low, husky voice, “yeah, feels amazing.”

Those words in that voice brought back some specific memories.  

He was so much taller than you that when you were doggy-paddling to stay afloat, he could still walk somewhat normally.  But you didn’t expect him to walk behind you, or wrap his arms over your torso.

“Chris?” you gasped a bit.

“Shh,” he soothed, placing a soft kiss to your ear, then your neck, “you don’t want anyone to hear you.  Then they might look over and realize what we’re doing.”

His hand moved lower, over your stomach and finally to the top of your bikini bottoms.  You shivered, biting your lip as you tried to process everything that was happening.

“Tell me you want it,” he requested, his voice making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.  “I know you do but, I need to hear you say it.”

“I want it,” you whimpered, “please.  Touch me.”

You felt his smile against your neck as he slipped his fingers under the fabric, instantly finding and teasing your clit.  Your hips bucked a little, disturbing the water around you.  He rubbed it so softly that you would’ve thought you wouldn’t be able to feel it at all, and yet somehow it was making your entire body jolt with pleasure.  

“Calm down baby,” he chuckled, “don’t act strange or somebody will see.  And we all know how much you want everyone to know that you want nothing to do with me.”

You whimpered a little, but realized that a small group of Deltas was about to walk by in the water.

“Act natural,” Chris instructed softly, knowing that the water would obscure what you were doing, but you’d forgotten what natural even meant.

“Hey guys,” Parvati smiled, and Gia waved at the two of you.

“Hello ladies,” Chris greeted back with a nod of acknowledgement; you sheepishly smiled and waved, trying to ignore the way Chris’ fingers were moving against you.

You figured they would question why you were sitting on Chris’ lap in the water, but they were oddly accepting of it.  Maybe they were just wondering what took you two so long.

The second the girls were out of earshot, swimming further into the water, Chris started moving his fingers even faster.  

“You’re such a dirty girl,” he chuckled darkly, “getting fingered in front of your friends.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” you defended.

“I distinctly remember you begging for it,” he teased, quickly pulling you a little lower into the water so he could grope your breast.  He reached under the triangle of your bikini to get a better feel of it, tweaking the nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“Fuck, Chris,” you moaned softly.

“Feels good?”

“Yes,” you sighed, “so good, fuck…”

You instinctively tried to push his hand away as your orgasm approached-- it was too much, too strong, and you weren’t sure you could take it.  He’d learned to keep going anyways, otherwise you’d never get off.  And damn if you didn’t secretly love the way that he was too strong to push away.

“Go ahead,” he purred, “let go.  Come for me, babygirl.”

You bit down on your lip as the pleasure reached its peak and crashed, your body spasming as he held you close with his free arm.  “Chris, I’m coming,” you whimpered.

“I know baby, I know,” he groaned, “keep going.”

With his fingers still rubbing firm and fast on your clit, you honestly thought you could scream.  Instead, you grabbed his arm like your life depended on it, your head falling back onto his shoulder.

“Stop, stopstopstop,” you pleaded for mercy, and he granted it as his hand slipped from your bikini bottoms.  “God, you wear me out,” you sighed with exhaustion.

“That’s the goal,” he smiled.  

You moved your hips back only to feel the hard shape of his cock pressing into your thigh; you grinned.

“Well, I should probably leave you to your volleyballing,” you announced, standing up and starting to walk away.

“Wh-- I can’t play like this!” he protested, noticeably staying crouched in the water-- you knew that with what he was packing, he had no chance of hiding his boner in those tight swim trunks.  Plus, when they were wet, they would probably cling to it so tight that little would be left to the imagination… why were you salivating all of a sudden?

“Just act natural!” you encouraged him as you continued to walk towards the shore.

[watchyourbluesturngolden]

songs that make me think of vampy and why

this is for drea and leyla ONLY thank u

daylight- taylor swift "i don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you, i don't wanna think of anything else now that i thought of you" bc vampy loves her so much he only wants her 😔 midnight love- girl in red "I know I'm the last one you try to call but I always give in to give you it all" "your silver is my gold" bc miss chiropractor treated him terribly but he loved her with everything and would have gone back to her no matter what watch you sleep- girl in red this one is obvious: bc vampy watches bloodbag sleep :) also "the scar on your spine, you fell off a roof when you were nine" is all appreciating the tiny details about someone and that is definitely something vampy would do :( paper rings: taylor swift "i hate accidents except when we went from friends to this" line without a hook- ricky montgomery "oh baby i am a wreck when i'm without you" bc vampy loves bloodbag so much he just wants to be with her always 😔 dead girl in the pool- girl in red this one is kinda weird but i feel like bloodbag is gonna die at some point and then vampy will just be like "theres a dead girl in the pool (or wherever her corpse is laying slfjskldfjkldsj) i don't know what to do" and then he's gonna make this face

bad habits- ed sheeran bc he was just slutting around before he met bloodbag demons- imagine dragons dont make fun of me for this I KNOW but fr it's vampy renegade- taylor swift "you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody" he needs bloodbag 😔 starting line- luke hemmings i can't really explain this one but it's like how you always talk about how his happiness is overshadowed by the fact that he's a monster or whatever million dollar bills - lorde "theres nothing i want but money and time" and vampy has literally all the money and time :) solar power- lorde this is harrys hot girl anthem idk happiness- taylor swift "there'll be happiness after you, but there was happiness because of you" this is him reminiscing on miss chiropractor i wanna get better-bleachers "i didn't know i was lonely til i saw your face" "I didn't know i was broken til i wanted to change" come on 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 good 4 u - olivia rodrigo this is his fuck u song for miss chiropractor my tears ricochet- taylor swift "if i'm dead to you why are you at the wake" it's ironic innit 😌 what a feeling- one direction "what a feeling to be right here beside you now, holding you in my arms" please 😔 "everybody needs someone around" 😔😔😔 "but i can't hold you too close now" bc he has severe attachment and commitment issues :) all you had to do was stay- taylor swift "had me in the palm of your hand, then, why'd you have to go and lock me out when i let you in" omg miss chiropractor really hurt him 😔 king of my heart- taylor swift "and all at once you are the one i have been waiting for" bloodbag @ vampy 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 cruel summer- taylor swift "I love you ain't that the worst thing you ever heard" bc he knows getting close to bloodbag will ultimately only lead to pain for everyone involved "i don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you" bc he can't tell bloodbag everything about him even tho he probably wants to :( thank u next- arianna grande this is weird BUT if miss chiropractor hadn't fucked him up so much he never would have met bloodbag tear in my heart- 21 pilots again don't make fun of me for this I HAVE AN EXPLANATION "you fell asleep in my car i drove the whole time but that's okay i'll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine" if bloodbag fell asleep in his car he would definitely do this :( shape of you-ed sheeran "now my bedsheets smell like you" his room probably smells like honey and lavender all the time now and he's probably foaming at the mouth constantly cowboy in LA "let's skip the club, lets skip the crowd, i wanna take you on a date" bc they both hate clubs!!!!! "I'll hold your hand I'll hold the door bc that's how i was raised" he's a gentleman 😔😔😔😔 & burn- billie eilish "i'll sit and watch your car burn with the fire that you started in me, but you never came back to ask it out" idk for some reason this has vampy and miss chiropractor vibes take me to church- hozier religious trauma babes 🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼 speechless- dan+shay "i'm speechless, staring at you standing there in that dress" love 😔 yours- russel dickerson "i came to life when i first kissed you, the best me has his arms around you, you make me better than i was before, thank god i'm yours" SCREAMING AND CRYING AND SHAKING tolerate it- taylor swift "i know my love should be celebrated, but you tolerate it" MISS ******** DIDN"T APPRECIATE OR CELEBRATE HIS LOVE MIA- anarbor "thinking about my life and everything i did wrong along the way"😔 lay low- josh turner for when bloodbag and vampy go to a cabin in the woods for a week and just love each other 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 who can save me now- anarbor "you stabbed me in the back" this one is pretty literal LSKFJLKSJFLKDSJ "you could have at least been kind enough to let me turn around" ouch 😔 dopamine- anarbor "i'm hooked on your dopamine" vampy and bloodbag ugh lie to me- 5sos this give me vampy and ******** vibes "i wish we never met, cause you're too hard to forget" "while i'm cleaning up your mess i know he's taking

off your dress" bc she probably cheated on him while they were together 😔 and he would have stayed with her if she told him she loved him, even if he knew it was a lie 😔 cotton candy- yungblud it's just a happy song with good vibes like bloodbag and vampy currently have :) small talk- niall horan i don't even have to say anything here pillowtalk- zayn "so we'll piss off the neighbors" chappy 9 vibes dancing with our hands tied- taylor swift "i loved you in spite of deep fears that the world would divide us" vampy rn 😔 once in a lifetime- one direction vampy will live a million lifetimes but he will only ever have one bloodbag 😔 holy ground- taylor swift "tonight i'm gonna dance for all that we've been through but I don't wanna dance if i'm not dancing with you" they've come so far omg 😔 since we're alone- niall horan "you can show me your heart, if you put it all in my hands no i swear no i won't break it apart" crying if i could fly- one direction "for your eyes only i'll show you my heart" rollercoaster- bleachers again i can't explain it but it makes me think of him 😔 so long- niall horan "so if we knew all along why did it take so long" good question bestie current location- LANY "i need your current location to be my current location" they're idiots in love and want to be together all the time 😔 why dont we go there- one direction "hey i don't want you to be the one that got away i wanna get addicted to you you're rushing through my mind i wanna feel the high i wanna be addicted" well hes already addicted to her blood so might as well like you lots- LANY bc they both have issues and can't say love lmao too much to ask- niall horan vampy though wanting love was too much to ask of miss chiropractor 😔 walking in the wind- one direction this one just has his vibes man 😔 heartbeat- carrie underwood "dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat" bc vampy is obsessed with listening to bloodbag's heart (fan behavior if you ask me) idfc- blackbear this is vampy and ******** bc "tell me that you love me even if it's fake" city of angels- 24kgoldn "i sold my soul to the devil for designer" yes this made me laugh the woods- olivver the kid "waking up in the middle of the woods" "don't you wanna get out of here, out of the woods" flashback to when he was dead in the woods oop "you brought me down to the river, and you pushed me in, hoping that the white rapids would challenge my ability to swim" bc... she's a murderer omg this verse is talking about leaves and i'm freaking out it fits 100% this is crazy "You pick up two handfuls You tell me they're all dried up & dead You know that's nothing like us We'll live forever instead" just a little bit of your heart- ariana grande vampy bc he loves so deeply and completely that he will give all of himself to someone even if they won't do the same my strange addiction- billie eilish bc he is addicted to her blood :) cross your mind- niall horan this is vampy and ******** "love the way you hurt me and it doesn't even cross your mind" "leaving me in pieces (literally lmao) but i swear it's worth it every time" everywhere- niall horan that scene where vampy smelled some perfume or soap or something and it made him think of bloodbag 😔 everything makes him think of her now 😔 "swear it's hard to think it's hard to breathe when you're in the air" put a little love on me- niall horan "you're the only one i need" 😔 bend the rules- niall horan VAMPY AND ******** ALL THE WAY "i'm not saying that you're lying but you're leaving out the truth" heartbreak weather- niall horan "all of my life i've been sleepwalk living, running around the same bars i've been in, it can be so lonely in this city, but it feels different when you're with me" bloodbag and vampy 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔😔 mr loverman- ricky montgomery "i miss my lover man" vampy is probably dramatic like this all the time now that they're official 😔 bad blood- taylor swift again, just for the irony 😌 vapor- 5sos "i want to breathe you in like a vapor i want to be the one you remember i want to feel

your love like the weather all over me" they're so in love like this 😔 catch fire- 5sos "all my life i've been waiting for moments to come" he's been waiting for bloodbag his entire life 😔 beside you-5sos "i wish i was beside you" they want to be together all the time 😔 black and white- niall horan "that first night i was standing at your door fumbling for your keys then i kissed you" ARE YOU KIDDING ME not in the same way- 5sos this is vampy and ******** just bc they were so toxic lkfjskldfjsdlkjf lonely heart-5sos "and i haven't slept in days" lmao ghost of you-5sos "my feet dont dance like they did with you" thinking about when vampy danced for bloodbag and what if they break up 👁️👁️ why wont you love me- 5sos vampy at ******** 😔 he just wanted to be loved 😔😔😔😔😔 fool's gold- one direction "i let you use me from the day that we first met" "i know your love's not real, but that's not the way it feels" STOP IM SAD last first kiss- one direction "let me be your last first kiss" i want them to be together forever 😔 truly madly deeply- one direction "foolishly completely falling and somehow you kicked all my walls in" bloodbag really snuck into his heart huh 😔 fireproof -one direction "nobody saves me baby the way you do" ugh 😔 long story short-taylor swift "clung to the nearest lips long story short it was the wrong guy" (or in vampy's case the wrong vampire) gold rush-taylor swift "and the coastal town we run around has never seen a love as pure as it" bloodbag and vampy are all i want 😔 no judgement- niall horan bc vampy would never judge bloodbag 😔 daddy issues- the neighborhood again im not even gonna say anything here new angel- niall horan "the touch of someone else to save me from myself" this is vampy 😔 god is a woman- ariana grande vampy after he brought bloodbag home the first time something like this- the chainsmokers "just something i can turn to, somebody i can kiss" ALL VAMPY WANTS IS LOVE sweater weather- the neighborhood idk this song makes me think of him all of me- john legend "all of me loves all of you all your curves and all your edges all your perfect imperfections" KSFLKSDJFKLDJSFLJSDKLFJDSKL i like me better- lauv "i like me better when i'm with you" she makes him a better person 😔 sex- eden "oh no, i think i'm catching feelings" vampy when bloodbag went on a date with someone else half a heart- one direction bc bloodbag completes him 😔 theyre so disgusting 😔 only angel- harry styles "turns out she's a devil in between the sheets" woman- harry styles vampy when she was on a date with someone else bc hes a jealous moron temporary fix- one direction this has chappy 1-2 vibes a.m.-one direction when they first started falling in love and he wanted to be with her more often 😔 something great- one direction "i want you here with me like how i pictured it so i don't have to keep imagining" through the dark- one direction just all of this song 😔 happily- one direction "you know i wanna be the one who holds you when you sleep i just want it to be you and i forever" 😔 electric love- borns "i can't let you go now that i got it" canyon moon- harry styles they're just happy like this rn 😔 sunflower vol. 6- harry styles "kiss in the kitchen like it's a dancefloor" "mouth full of toothpaste" when they brushed their teeth together 😔 adore you- harry styles obviously

[b-rainlet]

Gotham for the fandom ask thingy.

(I ran here so fuckin fast you have no clue)

Hello anon! :D I will answer this now, so you don't have to wait any longer but also....this would be very nice to answer through gifsets...(maybe when I am feeling up for it).

For now, have this:

(It's not proof read because I just sat at this for several hours and I don't wanna look at it anymore).

Favourite Male Character

You mean...besides the obvious answers?? :D

Ngl, it's S2 Jerome. I love that little twink with his parental issues and his tragic backstory and I wanna see him happy. There's a reason I have a bunch of AUs where he ends up having a family (mostly in the form of Lee as his Mother) and gets some actual help instead of being ostracized for being a mentally ill person snapping after years of abuse.

(This also ties into my very strong feelings regarding the fact that nobody actually helps the people at Arkham. And I don't mean the main villains there, I mean all the inmates who get treated like shit and are left behind on the regurlar (remember in S2 when Arkham was about to explode and nobody was talking about evacuating the inmates???? I do).

Other than that, one of my faves is also Jonathan. Which may be a little surprising because I barely talk about him but he was my favourite character throughout the show and he had way too little scenes.

(Kinda telling that the characters I latched onto are both helpless teens who were fucked over by the people who were supposed to protect them and can both trace their villain origin story back to Jim Gordon not caring enough about them lmao).

But the cast is big and varied enough that I actually like everyone? Butch, Zsazs, Penguin, S1 and 2 Ed, Jervis, Harvey, Jim......I like them all!!

(Special shoutout to 514A too, he was soft and baby and I wanted to keep him safe and sound really desperately).

(Another special shoutout to Barnes!! I didn't expect to like him when I first saw him, given he looked like he was gonna be mean and stoic and all, but I ended up really liking him and his story!)

Favourite Female Character

Let's just pretend Ecco doesn't exist for this answer ajdkaskaslj.

I fell in love immediately upon seeing Ecco but all! the women! are so!!! good!!!!

I especially have a soft spot for the side characters. I mean, upon first watching I got attached to Alice (even though she only features in two episodes lmao), and also Kristen Kringle - who isn't talked about much within Fandom, but she was pretty and her and Ed were actually quite cute but then she had to die for him to become the Riddler which was...pretty much telling us from the beginnning 'The woman here die to advance the men's plots'.

Barbara was also a big surprise to me because I figured she'd be the female love interest and nothing more but!! her and Jerome were the best thing in S2 and also the most entertaining thing about the Maniax Plot. (In several ways, I think I had the most fun watching this show during S2 , it was just. Good).

Also upon being in this Fandom and thinking about certain characters a bit longer I also really like Vicky Vale. And Montoya. And I wish they had kept both around for longer.

(I also wish they wouldn't have made Vicky a love interest for Jim. Or Sofia. No love interests for Jim except Lee and Barbara please).

Also Selina!! I love both Selina and Tabitha with all my heart - which may also be surprising because I barely ever talk about Tabby but I contain multitudes aklskddsm, and while I like sharing my horny thoughts about Ecco, I also love to think about Tabby and daydream about her being happy and exploring her (and Selina's) issues with showing weakness and affection and their strong loyalty regarding people that they trust.

I just.....women. Women good.

(Women also deserve to have more character than just being somebody's love interests and I have enough wips that completely sideline the guys to focus on the woman instead lmao).

Least Favourite Character

I don't have many characters that I hate??

I generally tend to instantly love everybody unless they are specifically made to be unlikeable. (I also spite-like characters who are hated for petty reasons, I just have a lot of love in my heart and not much energy for hate lmao).

But there were characters who annoyed me while I was watching.

For one, I think Gotham has a variety of super entertaining villains, but the main villains of each season tend to be....boring.

Safe for Strange they all kinda fell flat for me. Theo. Kathryn. Ra's Al Ghul. His Daughter. Mostly because their plotlines were less exciting than stuff like Jerome's carnival or Mother and Orphan's Hotel of Horrors.

Or their motives seemed a lot less understandable than the ones of the other Batman villains who pretty much always come from a place of suffering and abuse and break/snap under the pressure that's put on them (continuing this take of Gotham creating its own villains by leaving behind - mentally ill - people that need help, which I think is very true to most - if not all - Batman villains).

And then you have some characters that simply suffer from the fact that the show was cut short - which is pretty much any and every S5 character that had way too little screentime, but in this specific case means Jeremiah.

Because I disliked Jeremiah a lot while watching.

Without wanting to step on anybody's toes, him and Nygma are probably the two characters on this show I ended up disliking the most.

Mostly because Miah felt like a very cheap copy of Jerome and to this day I think it was a bad idea to replace Jerome with him, since Jeremiah - to me - seems like a super flat character.

Maybe if we had gotten him without meeting Jerome first, just having a Joker character introduced in S4, maybe I would've adored him, who knows.

But in comparison to Jerome...no. Just no.

(I will spare you from any longer rambles, but I think if you follow me, I talked about the ways Miah is lacking for me before).

My made up version of Miah though? I love him.

With Nygma it's even worse because I adored him. I instantly liked him. I was 100% behind him right up until the godawful Isabella plot happened and then it just all went to shit so quickly, I couldn't stand seeing him on screen anymore.

It's surprising that I didn't stop liking Oswald but to me, Oswald pretty much stayed the same while Ed became all bitter and hard and I just miss dorky S2 Ed you know?

It actually got so bad, I completely turned my back on Nygm/obblepot as a ship because I was so severly disappointed and I barely talk about Ed because I just can't stand what they did with him.

(Another victim of bad writing).

Favourite Ship

I'm just gonna stick to canon ships because I don't ever shut up about my Fanon ships so you probably know which ones I love the most :D

There isn't much romance going on within Gotham if I think about it - apart from Jim - which I definitely prefer. You wouldnt guess it from my blog, but I am not a fan of too shippy stuff because in most cases it just means sex scenes and I can live without those. I want action! Blood! Dead People! Not a two minute make-out session between two bland characters!

I gotta admit that Ed and Lee have some cute scenes and I would definitely ship them if I didn't dislike S4 Ed so much (S2 EdLee tho?? Yes).

Also I thought Jim and Lee was okay and Baby Batcat was quite cute at times but mostly I don't care about the canon ships.

I do ship Barbara and Jim though :D

I remember right before they hooked up in S5 I was like: 'I wouldn't mind if they got back together' and then went 'yay!' when they did and I wouldn't have minded a little more 'Will they?? Won't they??' between those two and them just having the mother of unhealthy relationships on this show.

(Also Jim/Barbara/Lee poly relationship but we can't have everything).

Favourite Friendship

So many good relationships on this show!

I need to rewatch the show soon because I probably already forgot about most of them but from the top of my head: Oswald/Butch and Oswald/Zsazs

Which were both then done dirty lmao. One by having Oswald be overly petty (one of the few times I was like...Pengy...wtf...) and the other by passing up the obvious opportunity to have Zsazs find out who really killed Falcone and just...letting Oswald and Victor never interact again. 

Then of course Ivy and Selina which also gloriously fell apart. Just like Ivy and Oswald. 

(Gotham isn’t the best when it comes to maintaining friendships). 

And the biggest and most grandious friendship of them all: J Squad. 

(Who have too little scenes together honestly and then also simply fell apart after Jerome died. Consistency who?)

Favourite Quote

I don’t know, I don’t have many quotes in my head from the show. Me and my niece mostly reference: “Yeah, that’s a spoon.” - “IT IS ALSO A FORK!!1!!!”

Also: “Gotta Go! Gotta Go! They’re after me and the Scarecrow!”

(There are some dialogue blurps I have written down somewhere because they are inspriration for gifsets but in order to be able to just recite some of them from Memory, I would have to watch this show way more obsessively). 

Worst Character Death

I don’t even gotta say anything do I? :D

But I think the character death that actually made me cry was Jerome’s first death. I clearly remember crying because...he just wanted recognition! And praise! And instead he was used as a pawn and betrayed by someone he idolized and he was only 18! My poor little meow-meow!

Seriously, the only things that make me cry on this show: Jerome’s first death, any and all mention of Bruce as a baby - told by an emotional Alfred, any and all Bruce/Alfred interaction at all and Solomon Grundy. 

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment

I seriously need to rewatch this show, it’s been so long :D

But I remember being pretty excited for the J Squad Team Up - because I was like ‘If I were Jerome I would definitely work with Tetch and Scarecrow since they’re also in Arkham atm’ and then he did!!

And I also distinctly remember in S3 that I was close to falling asleep right when they scene came on where Oswald realizes his feelings for Nygma and let me tell you - it caught me so off guard, I was awake instantly lmao. 

(I knew that people shipped them but I was so used to mlm ships being popular when they only have a handful of scenes and are platonic friends that I didn’t expect them to actually have a possibility of being canon). 

From then on I was super pumped for them to deliver on that ship but well....we all knew what happened asnksnndk. 

Saddest Moment

Aside from the already mentioned scenes in the character death column, the scene where Bruce leaves and Selina runs to the airport. I always liked Selina but she wasn’t a priority character of mine (much like Bruce isn’t) but then that scene happened and in an instant, I felt super protective over her. 

She is now my baby. My daughter. My beloved wife. She deserves everything and most importantly she deserves better than Bruce Wayne. 

(Coincidentally that was also the scene where I decided I don’t care much about Bruce asldjkjlj. I absolutely adore early seasons Bruce though). 

Favourite Location

There are so many different locations, I don’t think I can adequately answer this with my spotty memory :D

But I always loved the few episodes where Alice features, because I love how her scenes are shot so probably the little carnival Jervis prepares for her.

Also!! Jeremiah's church!

Or Commissioner Loeb's secret house (Especially the Attic).

There are a lot of cool locations, I gotta gif some of them soon :D

[aion-rsa]

How TCM Resurrects Plan 9 from Outer Space for Ghoulish Table Read

https://ift.tt/3rnt3hu

UFOs are often visible, but not always. Sometimes they make noise, sometimes they are silent. If you’ve never seen a flying saucer, that is proof they are everywhere. This is one of the many amazing things we learn in TCM’s upcoming table read of Ed Wood’s masterwork, Plan 9 from Outer Space.

We once laughed at the horseless carriage, the aero-plane, the telephone, the electric light, vitamins, radio, and even television. But it took a while to get the joke about Plan 9 from Outer Space. Written and directed by Edward D. Wood Jr. in 1959, it was a little-known independent film with a direct line through directors who carried on the DIY-filmmaking spirit like John Cassavetes, Melvin Van Peebles and John Waters. The Cult of Plan 9 began when Ed Wood was posthumously awarded a Golden Turkey Award for Worst Director of All Time in 1980. Though this has been disputed.

Turner Classic Movies is the go-to channel for prestigious films. You can always count on a showing of The Treasure of Sierra Madre or The Public Enemy, or Citizen Kane. But top prize in the Golden Turkey awards carries its own prestige.

“This isn’t ‘Plans One Through Eight from Outer Space,’” Jerry Seinfeld proclaimed at the Chinese restaurant in a 1991 episode of Seinfeld. “This is Plan 9. The one that worked. The worst movie ever made.”

The SF Sketchfest presentation was adapted for the stage and virtual stage by former The Simpsons writer, and self-proclaimed Ed Wood superfan, Dana Gould. He and his Stan Against Evil co-star Janet Varney have been acting in live staged reads with a revolving cast of eager comic actors for over three years. The Zoom production also features Kat Aagesen, Bob Odenkirk, Bobcat Goldthwait, Oscar Nuñez, Deborah Baker Jr., Maria Bamford, David Koechner, Jonah Ray, Paul F. Tompkins, Baron Vaughn, and Gary Anthony Williams. The miniature visual effects, which are by no means just cardboard cutouts, were done by Mike Carano, and the sounds of musical accompaniment came out of Eban Schletter.

Laraine Newman is the narrator. She brings Gould’s adapted stage directions to such vivid life they can reanimate the dead, which is a key element of the actual plan at the center of the cult movie. Originally titled “Grave Robbers from Outer Space,” the film marked the last appearance of Bela Lugosi, who had also acted in Wood’s 1953 feature Glen or Glenda.

Lugosi’s footage for Wood’s unmade film “The Vampire’s Tomb,” was repurposed for Plan 9. Lugosi died of a heart attack on Aug. 16, 1956. To complete the film, Wood cast his chiropractor, Tom Mason, who in spite of his professional familiarity with the human skeletal structure, somehow believed he could mask the fact that he was much taller than the horror icon by pulling his cape over his face.

The table read of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space is part of TCM’s Classic Film Festival weekend, which runs through May 9. For easy comparisons, the original film will air directly after the event. Dana Gold and Janet Varney spoke with Den of Geek about refurbishing the low-budget cult classic, and how, like their predecessor, they proudly spared every expense on its new décor.

Den of Geek: I watched the table read a second time while playing Plan 9 in another window, and I just have to say, recreating those sets must’ve cost a fortune.

Janet Varney: Yeah, just like it cost Ed Wood a fortune.

Dana Gould: That’s the genius of, of Mike Carano. All those things were this big. You can see, I have the Bela Lugosi statue and the saucer. What he did was so amazing, and it really brought [the production] up to be better than it had a right to be. When Janet and I discussed doing this on Zoom, we were like, “Well, how do we take the limits of Zoom and turn them to our advantage? Why is it on Zoom?” By doing it, one, it allowed us to get a cast that we might not be able to get. Got people in different places. Maria Bamford was in Minnesota. Bob Odenkirk was in Vancouver. So, we could get people that normally we couldn’t get. Doing it in black and white helped. And then what Mike Marano did, it made it something unique.

Janet Varney: I would just also add, as a tribute to Ed Wood, we’ve never had anyone that we’ve asked to do the show who hasn’t wanted to do the show. Whether or not they’ve been in town for the live version, every person that we love that we’ve asked to be a part of the cast at one time or another is like, “Oh, my God, I need to do that. I want to do it. When is it? Please say it’s not a date I’m out of town. Please say it’s not. Will you ask me on the next one?”

Everyone knows this movie. And the idea of getting to step into its shoes in any kind of iteration is really exciting for every single person that we’ve ever asked.

Dana Gould: And it’s great to see how different people play different parts. Joel Murray plays the General different than David Koechner plays the General. Bob Odenkirk plays Eros differently than Patton Oswalt plays Eros. It’s always great. And Janet and I, we don’t want to know what you’re going to do. Just do it.

For this production, you assembled the all-star team. But were you ever tempted to use the same kind of players Wood used: wrestlers, tap dancing accordion players, chiropractors, and radio psychics?

Janet Varney: That’s a great question. I feel like we also have pretty good access to all those folks. So maybe that will get the next variety version. Because our friend, Jim Turner, is just about to do a fundraiser for the kind of variety acts who have been struggling in this last year, because of the many myriad things that they do.

So, I actually love that idea, Tony. And you’re right, it would be a totally different experience. That’s an interesting idea too, because we do come at it with a bunch of people who love the movie, but there’s also some major winking going on, as all the comedians and actors try to lean into being: “It’s my first time on stage, maybe my first time saying words,” really playing that up.

In the future, do you hope to see this performance eviscerated on Mystery Science Fiction Theater 3000?

Dana Gould: That would be great. If they did this.

Janet Varney: Especially because Bill and Kevin have done it. They have been in our production of Plan 9. Bill had been what Laraine [Newman] did. Bill did the narration at a show, at SketchFest, and it was great.

Dana Gould: I would like to see Jonah making fun of himself.

Janet Varney: Yeah. Let’s get meta. Our fans can handle it. Fans of MST3K can handle it. Plant 9 fans can handle it. Everybody could handle it.

I know I’m paraphrasing Seinfeld, but as the person who’s trusted with Plan 9 and all that comes with that, did you get to see the first eight plans from outer space?

Janet Varney: And are you allowed to talk about it if you did?

Dana Gould: Exactly. What were they?

Janet Varney: So many questions.

Dana Gould: So many questions.

Were the first eight plans rejected?

Janet Varney: Or were they all executed? And I use that word purposefully. Were all of those plans executed and they didn’t have great results?

Dana Gould: That’s a drunk man at a typewriter, “Plan 9 sounds good.” I remember showing Plan 9 to somebody who’d never seen it before. And they turned to me afterwards and said, “Did he not have any friends he could have shown this to and gotten notes?” He didn’t have those kinds of friends.

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What are some of your favorite mistakes from the movie?

Janet Varney: Oh, God. I was going to say Dana had mentioned that the first time he saw the movie was on a video cassette that Tom Kenny and Dan Spencer, and Bobcat Goldthwait showed him. And I was actually going to ask, did you think it was the tape glitching at the end when the monologue goes from, blip to [makes a noise]? And you’re like, “Wait a minute. Back that up, hold on. Is somebody going to fix this?”

That’s definitely one. That’s a spectacularly new, weird problem in a movie that was not a consistent problem. So, you’re like, “Wait, how did that happen one time, in this very, very overt way?” So good.

Dana Gould: From the very beginning, it’s like the first time you saw William Shatner do “Rocket Man.” I remember, I had a party at my house, and I was working on The Ben Stiller Show, and everybody was there. And back then, there was no YouTube. You would just have these cassette tapes with all of the weird stuff that you had collected on it, like the farting priest and all these weird things that you had, and “Rocket Man.” And I remember showing “Rocket Man” at this thing and Bob Odenkirk just shouting at my television, “You’re a grown man. You’re a grown man.”

I always thought Shatner gave the same line reading for “Mr. Tambourine Man” as he did for “Kahn.”

Dana Gould: Yes, he did. He did. He had a couple of tricks, and he used them. Yeah. There’s one direction he doesn’t get a lot, “You want to just try one big? You want to just see how it goes?” “Take the chains off and let it rip?”

Was some of the background music in this reading, especially the oxidation bit, inspired by The Simpsons?

Dana Gould: That’s all Eban [Schletter, the musical accompanist], you have to ask Eban. But again, that’s great, especially the Solaronite song. Necessity being the mother of invention, that is a brutal chunk of dialogue for anybody, a thankless, brutal chunk. And every time I give it to Paul, I say, “I’m apologizing ahead of time. I give it to you because I don’t want anybody else to do it. Because if it was anybody else, it would be death.”

Eban came up with that. And we were just like, “Maybe we can break this up. Maybe there’s a way to break this up.” And then Eban came up with that kind of thing. And it is one of those things that I love, that it’s like a mutant. It’s grown into its own weird thing to solve its inherent problems. You can’t describe it to anybody. It’s just like, you have to see it.

I used to remember describing Kevin Meaney, the comedian. I used to just tell people, “I can’t describe what he does. You just have to see him, but then you’ll know. You only need a minute, and you’ll get it. But I can’t describe it to you.” That’s really a good analogy.

Laraine Newman, I believe, steals this as the narrator. How much of that is improvised and how much of that is written by you? Because I know that you wrote the stage directions.

Dana Gould: It’s written, but Laraine, I call it “newscaster flat.” Laraine knows how the notes need to be played. It’s like the Wrecking Crew, you have a guitar behind you. I don’t know what Tommy Tedesco is going to play, but I know it’s going to be good. I don’t know what Carol Kaye is going to play, but I trust it. It’s the same thing. It’s a murderers’ row, and I wouldn’t have the gall to tell them what to do.

Janet Varney: It takes a very specific kind of confidence as a performer to be that deadpan. It’s such a specific skill. And it’s a skill, I think, born out of a type of bravado and expertise that’s all just tightly contained in this tiny space, where she’s not trying to sell any of it. And that is the genius behind what she does is just letting it lay out there like that. I mean, it’s hard.

When you have something that you know is funny and you would be laughing yourself, if you were listening to someone else read it, it’s so hard not to want to sell it. Like, can I make this even funnier? And she’s like, “No, I need to take it all the way back, to the back of the house just like, who me, who me? I’m just reading these things.” And it’s just so brilliant.

Dana Gould: This is a person that did sketches on live television with John Belushi and Bill Murray. So she definitely knows where her center of gravity is.

Janet Varney: That’s right. Well said.

Dana Gould: And yeah, again, unflinching. And that takes, as a performer, just like a little inside baseball, a lot of control and to really, to have control of your own ego, to know that I’m going to get what I want by stepping way back. I mean, Sterling Hayden is the only person I’ve ever seen blow Peter Sellers off the screen. And he does it just by, he’s like a statue, but there’s so much weight to it.

In the original movie, I love the “Criswell Predicts.” So I wanted to ask, Janet, do you get asked to do bathroom readings?

Janet Varney: I would if asked, I would love to. That’s one of the things that’s great about Ed Wood in general too, is just having this a sort of fascination with the occult and that kind of thing. And the way that it fits into camp is so appealing. And so, yeah, I would very happily jump back into some bad psychic practices if I could. Hopefully, I will someday.

Dana Gould: And an unerring dedication to Wicker furnishings.

Janet Varney: That’s right. Always that. Paula and her wicker.

Because the table read is done during COVID and everyone feels an immediacy to Zoom calls, were you ever at all concerned about an Orson Welles’ scenario, where the residents of San Fernando Valley will believe they’re under attack by flying saucers from outer space?

Janet Varney: If only.

Dana Gould: Yeah. That’s the least of our problems out here. I don’t know when you visited last time, but the walking dead, they’re around.

The table read of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space airs on Friday, May 7 at 8pm on TCM. Plan 9 from Outer Space airs at 9:30pm.

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The post How TCM Resurrects Plan 9 from Outer Space for Ghoulish Table Read appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2Rxjm4a

[freezing-kaiju]

a stupid stubborn sort of vow

an AsuRei fic, 1.5k words

Summary: After an emotional confrontation between Asuka and Hikari over the latter’s moving away, a confession goes badly and  Rei finds herself having to comfort a miserable Asuka, her sworn rival. Vows are exchanged, of a sort.

(au detail: modern au, set during community college, no evangelions, au to be named soon)

It was precisely 7:32 PM, Friday, a mild September night. Rei left her window open, as ever. She didn’t have a particular fondness for the night air; she was indifferent, as she was with a laundry list of things.

That list was waning, though, thanks to the person who was now occupying her thoughts, as she did jarringly often nowadays.

Asuka Langley Soryu. Her rival. Nemesis. Adversary. Enemy, opponent, opposite... match, even. The first time Asuka declared she hated her, Rei had expected their petty rivalry to stop in a month. Asuka’d move on to the next annoyance, the next thing to be furious on, and Rei would be left behind as ever, ready to proceed on her way.

But Asuka stuck. Through third grade, fourth, fifth, all of middle school and now two years of high, Asuka was a thorn in Rei’s side, and Rei a thorn in hers. Rei supposed Asuka was, aside from her brother, the closest thing she had to a friend.

And Asuka loved to argue.

So the duo whiled away the nights over the years making up a host of feuds. Any topic that came to mind, Asuka’d take a stand on, Rei’d pick something opposing and stick to it as much as Asuka stuck to hers. 

Asuka loved pop music, the kind she could dance to. Rei picked classical, the only kind she listened to. Asuka preferred magical girl anime, Rei decided she prefers shonen. Asuka argued the best fruit was apples, Rei countered with pomegranate. Sometimes they’d spend a whole evening trying to come up with what to fight over and end up dozing off side by side on Rei’s bedroom floor.

Tonight though... well, tonight, Rei hoped Asuka wouldn’t come. Not that she didn’t look forward to another bout with her, of course. But, well...

She put her book down for a moment, marking it with one of Monday’s completed worksheets, and picked up her phone. No texts from Asuka. She tapped the contact regardless, and stared at their brief exchange from that afternoon.

Asuka: sayin googbye 2 hikari 2nite Asuka: *goodbye, FUCK Rei: Ah. Asuka: leave the window open ncase i fuckup Rei: I will. Good luck. Asuka: fuck u wonder girl Asuka: dont need ur luck Asuka: seeya, h8 u 4ever Rei: You too.

Rei treasured those interactions. But she knew Hikari was more important to Asuka. Sometimes, when they went on hikes to out-endure each other or exploring abandoned buildings to see who chickens out first, Asuka’d ramble about how long she’d had a crush on her best friend. How much she wanted to kiss her, hold her hand, how she was sure Hikari’d be the one to always stick with her, the one she could spend the rest of her life with.

Needless to say, Asuka had been pretty pissed about it. And paranoid, and stressed, and panicked, and above all sad. Rei knew by now how to tell apart the various shades of anger on her emotional palette, but the past week had seen a roiling blend of all the worst.

Rei placed her phone back down on her desk, an island in the void of mostly empty space, and picked her book back up. The Horse’s Song, another in her carefully organized shelf of nondescript books. So far it failed to provoke anything, but the clipped pace and strange dialogue kept her attention well enough. Asuka would tear the book a new one, if Rei convinced her to read it. She’d save that idea for another topic-less day.

Seven pages further in, a sound split Rei’s concentration. The clang of someone tripping over that bucket Shinji still hadn’t found a place for. A scream of “FUCK!” Hard footsteps on the grass.

Rei put aside her book, turned her chair to the window and placed her hands on her lap.

After a few moments and a series of loud slams, Asuka’s hands slammed onto the windowsill. The paint on her nails was chipped. She groaned and slowly lifted herself up, eyes fixing right on Rei’s. Her expression twisted into her customary glare, but wavered, unable to stick in its natural state. Her makeup ran like a storm drain down her face, blue eyes red from crying, hair clips barely holding on. Her cheek bore an unexpected bruise.

“I’m here.” Rei softened her monotone, hoping that the sentiment overcame her blank expression. Evidently it passed muster; Asuka’s glare shifted slightly, her grimace twisting into a sweet sneer.

“Yeah, I can— Ugh,” Asuka grunted as she clambered the rest of the way through the window, “I can see that, Wonder Girl.” She kicked off her shoes and flopped back-first onto Rei’s bed.

“Your makeup’s running.”

“I know.”

“You were crying.”

“I know.”

“You have a bruise.”

“I KNOW!” Asuka snapped, bolting upright. “God, you really are a robot, you know that? ‘Scanning rival, injuries detected, initiate snide remark protocol’. Ever thought about talking like a person? Asking what’s wrong?! Or hell, maybe I’m lucky you’re a robot in a meat suit, any rational human would’ve slammed the window on my goddamn hands so thanks for being a freak I guess!”

Rei paused for a moment, weighed her responses, and settled on, “I trust you too.”

Asuka took this about as well as a sucker punch. She gaped, eyes wide, balled fists going slack.

“You— wh, what even, I’m— what?!”

“The bruise,” Rei veered the subject ninety degrees, “where’d it come from?”

“Wh— oh.” Asuka covered her cheek with her hand, staring pointedly at the nothing on Rei’s walls. “...Hikari.”

“You fucked up?”

“No!” Asuka snapped. “...well, I did, sure,” she admitted with a glower, “but so did she!”

“How.”

A miserable smirk cracked across Asuka’s face. She spread her hands as if to announce exactly what wasn’t up her sleeve. “So, picture. Me, helping lug all her stupid luggage into her dad’s car. Hikari sticks behind, looking up at me, class-prez poise and a shy little grin on her, okay, gorgeous face. I’m trying not to cry. Turn to her, about to ask if she’s gonna keep in touch.”

Rei nodded, eyes focused on Asuka’s. 

“And...and, like a stupid jerk, she fucking— she kissed me!” Asuka said, with the same level of incredulity as someone discovering they’re an elf. “She kissed me, and she said that she l...lov...lo...” Asuka sputtered, “liked me!”

“Oh no.” Rei could already tell where this was headed.

“And being me, I just had to panic. I don’t remember everything that happened, it was kinda a blur! But I remember...my hands were on her shoulders and I was...god, I think I was begging her not to go.” She tch-ed. “Pathetic of me. Disgusting, really. No wonder she clocked me.”

“Liar.”

Asuka gave Rei an utterly withering look, but Rei continued. “You aren’t pathetic. Or disgusting. You’re Asuka. Those words aren’t compatible with Asuka.”

Asuka’s look softened instantly; Rei could see the beginnings of tears prick her eyes again. “Goddamnit, Wonder Girl. No, you know what? Get over here.” Asuka patted the spot next to her on the bed. Rei obliged, leaving her chair to nestle in just close enough to not upset Asuka. To her shock, though, she felt Asuka’s fingers ghost along her palm... then grasp it like a lifeline to her last hope of salvation.

“Wonder Girl. Ayanami. ...Rei,” Asuka began, and Rei could tell her teeth were gritted. “You and me. Our whole...our whole rivalry. How the fuck long are we gonna keep this up?”

“When you stop caring,” Rei said instantly, the response one of the few she never thought she’d need but prepared for the sake of it. “When I’m no longer useful. When it doesn’t matter to you.”

Asuka’s answering laugh was the hollowest Rei’d ever heard.

“Right then. Then... then I’ve got an idea.”

Rei tilted her head and Asuka took it as her cue to continue. “What if... what if we swear on it?”

“How?”

“Easy, stupid. Here, I’ll go first.” Asuka scoffed, then put on her most arrogant affectation and proclaimed, “I, Asuka Langley Soryu, promise to forever be your rival, your foe, your most trusted enemy, to hate and to keep. I swear to follow you, Rei Ayanami, to the end of the world, through thick and thin, of spite and sheer devotion.”

Rei hummed for a few moments in response. “...I, Rei Ayanami, promise to forever be your rival, your foe, your most trusted enemy, to hate and to keep. I swear to follow you, Asuka Langley Soryu, to the end of the world, through thick and thin, of spite and sheer devotion,” she parroted back, meaning every word with her whole, dull, robotic heart.

Rei knew Asuka would never let her see it, but she could feel her smile radiating out at her. 

The two girls laid there, for what could have been a minute or an eternity (but was precisely eighty-seven seconds). 

It was a vow they both intended to keep.

[blurrypetals]

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare - blurrypetals review

originally posted oct. 18, 2017 - ★★★★★

[re-read for my Greatest Hits Bookshelf Tour 2017] Deepest breaths. This is where it ends and it begins. This book is one long, beautiful, masterful love letter. It's a love letter to Dickensian literature, a love letter to Victorian London, a love letter to adventure, to heartbreak, hell, it's even a love letter to love itself. And who doesn't adore poring over every last word of a love letter, written exactly for them? Out of all the baker's dozen of Shadowhunter books I decided to reread this year, this was the one I was the most excited to revisit after I finished City of Bones. I couldn't wait to get back to Will, Tessa, Jem, and company, but that came sooner in Clockwork Angel (and in City of Heavenly Fire for two of those characters). I was ready to get lost in the sea of beautiful misery that was this book and I was not disappointed. From start to finish, this book has the stakes as high as they will go, pushing its readers' emotions past the point where it's unbearable, so we must cry about it, stretching its characters so thin they break and it is glorious because then we get to watch them piece themselves back together, to grow stronger for it all, and, best of all, get a happy ending--or, in Tessa's and Jem's case, a happy ellipsis. I've stayed up late countless times, desperate to finish a book I'm engrossed in; we've all done it. Tessa and Will did it, I'm sure, being the book lovers they are. Ususally, however, there is a certain time for me that's just too late to stay up past and that time is 5:30am. I've never stayed up past then to finish a book and I've definitely never stayed up late just to reread a book...until now. I stayed up until 6:15am finishing this book last night/this morning. There were somewhat ulterior motives for this, though. I knew this book was going to make me cry and make my cry hard. I've been rereading every last bit of these books at work, at my brand new job. I'm also feeling extra vulnerable and emotional because it's that time of the month. I knew I could not read the last chapter and the epilogue at work. No way. So I finished my daily writing as quickly as possible and set to finishing the book...and, yeah, I'm glad I did what I did. I wept relentlessly over the pages of the epilogue once again, almost definitely leaving tear stains next to the same tear stains I left there in 2013. It was so, so much more painful this time, knowing it was coming, but that made the light at the end of the tunnel that much brighter for me. Will Herondale isn't dead, not really, never for me, and certainly not for his wife, children, grandchildren, friends, and parabatai. I will always be able to revisit him and his for years to come, and his wife and parabatai are living a happy life together, not in spite of him, but because of him. We also have The Last Hours to look forward to, where he'll doubtless be even weirder and more wonderful than before, because like a fine wine, I'm sure he got better with age. And that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever read, three people who love each other so much that they live for each other, live on for each other. Ave atque vale, Will Herondale and The Infernal Devices. Until we meet again. Thank you for the love and wisdom your words have imparted upon me; I will never forget them and I will doubtless be revisiting them again and again for many years to come. Ave atque vale mei carissimi. Ave atque vale Hail and farewell, my dear friends. Hail and farewell. Tiny aside: Daniel Sharman was absolutely FANTASTIC as the narrator of the audiobook. He was able to give Will and Cecily (and their parents) Welsh accents, differentiated beautifully between York and London and American accents, read with perfect amount of emotion, soft spoken when it was sad and romantic, loud and bombastic when things were high energy and action packed. He was so, so, so good and I'm so glad he was cast to read this book. Definitely my favorite of all the Shadowhunters books (and I've heard them all now, even through all this musical chairs malarkey of almost never having a good narrator twice; Ed Westwick is the only good one one who narrated two books, though he only co-read City of Fallen Angels with Molly C. Quinn, the worst of all the narrators, and Clockwork Prince with Heather Lind, who was very very good) next to Morena Baccarin for Lady Midnight. It's very frustrating, having a new narrator almost literally every book, but Daniel Sharman was excellent and I'm so glad he was brought in for this particular book.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Arr, me mateys! I may have work to do in the day, but I consider myself a wee fast crewman! They even ran out of work to give me so I finished the day with long hours to spare. And since I got the time, ye bet I decided to use it to explore new depths of Ninjago with Skybound!

Okay, I won’t do that for the whole post. But honestly, I thought Skybound was...decent, but does have some drawbacks from how ambitious it was. Let’s just go through it.

-Jay...hmm. Two minds about him. His arc at the start of the season (lasting about halfway) was clearly intentional and setup for his later redemption, and his character after that point is the best kind of Jay. And the reason for said start of season funk does make sense (unlike Home). On the other hand, yeah, the first half is pretty much Jay at his worst with bits sprinkled in to remind you that they still remember his good side. It’s not like giving him that sort of flaw is bad, but it pretty much dominated his entire character for that duration so at some point you just want to punch the little git. Also his parent arc is a bit undercooked, but he’s got plenty elsewhere so that doesn’t really bother me, especially when Ed and Edna ultimately get to have the crucial pep talk.  -Nya has a similar problem to be honest, although part of hers was also fabricated by Dareth being an absolute dick at the start (despite his moment in season 4). After that, it was fine for her up until she starts the whole fucking thing by being stubborn in such a perilous situation. And then halfway through they calm it down and make her realise she’s taken it somewhat overboard. Once that halfway point crosses it’s a lot easier to get behind the both of them, but mileage may vary on how much you can stand before then. I did like the lunchtime scene though.  -Zane doesn’t get much this season, but I did like his sass, it was a good check. Otherwise, not much happening with him aside from one scene that people immortalise due to how out of character it was for him, but since that has zero consequences I just brush that off as a one time gag. Pixal had like two scenes but they were both great scenes for her.  -Lloyd had more going for him this seasons than prior ones at least (even Possession), but he was still on the more bland side. I think every character got an attitude increase in this season though. Seriously, even the one-scene characters. But let me tell you; Lloyd Garmadon is no Rex Fury, that’s for sure.  -Cole and Kai...I think were on some substance or other during this arc, at least at the start. -Kai has Project Arcturus’ issue of playing his vain side up to the point where it’s actively jeopardising the mission (and actually could be considered as much responsible for starting the whole thing as Nya), but at least this time they reign it in to turn it into something of a clever tactic. And of course this is all absent when he’s freed from the Sword of Souls because Kai typically gets characterised into two modes at this point in the show. -Cole has a similar thing. I mean, eating tools...what? It’s mostly comedic and not that detrimental to begin with (aside from him straight up ditching Jay at the theme park. Not out of spite or anything, just because the plot wanted an extra minute I guess). Then Kai gets trapped and suddenly his character is all about being Jay’s best friend, which in of itself is fine until it again gets way heavy-handed about it. I’m assuming that the writers just wanted any potential remnants of Cole and Nya as a pair to just die (hence why he has no reaction to Jay revealing things about the caves despite Jay’s worry over it, and why this is the season he starts really taking potshots at Nya), but surely Versus was enough on its own combined with Jay and Nya’s arc in this season? Plus the ghost thing is almost entirely wasted this season, only serving a point where his invisibility comes into play (oh, and I guess a threat when he walks the plank).  -Despite the much bigger cast of characters, they don’t really get to do that much. The standouts are easily Soto (who’s just funny throughout), Dareth (who despite having a really bad start with being a misogynist for no reason, gets much better when he comes in second time) and Ronin (who I guess was still a writer darling at this point). Anyone else? You might get a moment for some of them (mainly Misako and Echo Zane), but eh. It’s a shame because Jay set up the ninja replacements like it would be this shining moment for them, but not really, and they just end up as fight fodder. And being a gag for hating Jay for being annoying despite him not doing anything to at least a couple of them. Also because of my other LEGO interests, every time I see Ronin whistle for the R.E.X, I expect the Rexcelsior to just come down and crush everything. That would have been a bad time for Kai and Nya.  -One thing I didn't mention in Possession is how the villain and lackey dynamics are developing into something actually worth investing in (beyond the tension between Pythor and Skales), and Skybound takes it even further. This is the first season where the villains are just as investing as the heroes, and I like how its a slow burn from Nadakhan and his crew having comradery, to Flintlocke slowly realising that Jay was telling the truth, to him and Dogshanks playing key roles in the final confrontation. -Speaking of which, Nadakhan was an interesting villain. I don’t like him as much as Morro, but he’s still got plenty to him. What I find most interesting is how the Jay seasons like to play parallels with the villains, what with Nadakhan being a reflection of Jay’s romance thing and Jay using his abandonment to find a way to connect to Unagami. Also the fact that he doesn’t even seem to care that much about doing evil in Ninjago at first. He does evil stuff, and they’d certainly need to find a way to fix Wu and Misako’s situation, but it’s just as a means to get home. Once he finds out that home is just about to die? He loses the plot entirely, and that’s fun to see.  -Ironically, the interactions I liked best this season were the more understated ones. For example Jay and Zane’s conversation early on (which doubles as foreshadowing to Zane’s demise) was really nice for characters who don’t usually get time to speak to each other one on one, and I wish more of the interaction in the season felt as natural as that in the first half. As a bonus, it wasn’t even wiped out at the end so that conversation still happened! -Yeah, plot. The story was interesting once we got to the Sky Pirates, not quite as engaging as Possession but it was clearly aiming at more individual dynamics than looking at the whole group and it definitely managed to balance that with the actual story and giving the villain perspective. The framing arc was less interesting, if only because even for this show everyone suddenly turning on the ninja without giving them more chance to defend themselves is laughable at this point. And as for the ending...eh, I’m ambivalent on it. Jay and Nya’s arcs remain no matter what so at least that stuff stuck around (by design). But you do lose the existence of the other Sky Pirates who made a good chunk of the good stuff. I guess the other biggest thing you lose is all the scenes where Cole reaffirms that he is Jay’s best friend, but he can do that in future seasons and not just drop it because they’ve settled the score on the love triangle...right? -Once again, it felt like a pretty dry season in terms of tone. I think this is a running theme. -At least the annoying slow-mo seems to finally giving way. It was used twice. One was random, the other was thematically appropriate. 

Overall, this season can be described as “heavy-handed”, moreso than any other story-heavy season so far. When it’s in this mode, it’s pretty annoying even if not terrible. But it still has elements to keep it going, and ends up in a pretty good place. Definitely comes down to individual taste on how much of said elements you can stomach, so I’m not surprised it has a marmite reputation. Out of the non-Possession story-heavy seasons I’ve seen so far this is the better one, but it’s still below S1 and S2 for me. 

Next time, I will not be doing a season. The writers seems to want to end Cole’s ghost arc and that’s exactly what they’ll do in Day of the Departed.

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Part 22

“Oh, that,” he said, glancing at his right shoulder as he sat back against the chaise. “That’s nothing.”

She chuckled sardonically. “Feels more like something.”

Ansgar’s muscles trembled for a split second at her touch on the sensitive, raised and smooth skin, in spite of the barrier of his linen shirt between. He covered her exploratory hand with his, stilling her.

“Tell me. Please.” she implored.

He squeezed her hand, but did not pull it away from his ruined arm. “I nearly lost everything that day,” he began. “My brother, my own life, and I thought, when I came out of it all… I thought I’d never play piano again,” he smiled sadly, “as cliche’ as it sounds.”

“What happened?” She shifted on the chaise, her legs still over his thighs, but she curled up beside him, replacing her hand on his arm with a pillowing of her head. “Tell me as much or as little as you want.”

He took a deep breath. “I trusted her, trusted this… person,” he sneered, “with my company. She was the director of finance, so… in charge of the money, of the financial direction of my company. And well, she got greedy, decided that… for whatever reason I wasn’t living up to her expectations as a CEO, I don’t know, but whatever it was, she… well, let’s just say she attempted to defraud me out of a lot of money. And beyond that,” he paused, swallowing down a wave of renewed anger, a reminder of the fury and furious ire he’d felt years ago. He took a heavy breath and squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable.

“It’s okay,” Joline whispered, placing her warm hand gently upon his cheek. “You don’t have to – “

“No,” Ansgar clipped, licking and wiping his lips. “It’s in the past. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

He nodded, a small, tight-lipped smile crossing his face.

“Can you continue?”

“Yeah,” he huffed, and then took a deep breath. “She arranged for… no, that’s not right… she outright murdered my VP of field ops - a very good friend of mine. Murdered him so that she could pocket the proceeds of a key employee insurance policy she took out – and she took it out in my name, with my bank account information and a mockup of my signature.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “And when the police investigated it, of course the motives all pointed back to me. She not only tried to ruin my business, not only took the life of someone close to me, but she tried to frame me for it.”

“Shit, Sgar.”

“Yeah. Shit. Shit is right. Anyway, long story short, we… meaning Magnus and I - he was still a detective at the time, and he was on the case - we caught up to her. Figured it all out. She didn’t like that, not one bit, so she shot my brother in the shoulder but not before she ran me off the road. My car, well, Magnus’ car with me driving it, flipped three times before I landed in the median off the E4. Pretty spectacular, really. Ball of flame and the whole nine yards.” He grinned, but the smile did not reach his fiery eyes.

“Oh my God!” She gasped and covered her mouth with a shaking hand. Her eyes went wide and her brow furrowed in concern. A coating of saline appeared over her irises, sluicing down to form a single tear from the canthus of her right eye. “Ansgar….”

“I’m fine now, obviously,” he said. “I somehow managed to walk out of the wreckage, but not unscathed. Two broken ribs.” He lifted his ruined shoulder. “And that. Compound fracture of the humerus and a dislocation that they couldn’t reduce in the ED. Worst pain I ever felt in my entire life. Had three surgeries on that puppy. I could barely lift my arm for months. Spent nearly a year and a half in physio before I could move my fingers properly or even lift that hand to the piano again.”

“Wow,” she huffed.

“Yeah,” he said. “I can’t go very long without playing, so it drove me a little mad for a while. A friend of mine told me about this episode of an American TV show where the chaplain in an army base told a wounded soldier about this piece composed for one hand. I did some research, and found a few pieces - Prelude Opus 9 by Scriabin, one by Ravel, and some by a more modern composer called Theodore Edel. I played a lot of that Ravel piece and a lot of Edel’s music for a long time.” He laughed. “Not my favorite composer, not Philip Glass, but at least I was able to play.”

“Did you play it for anyone?”

He shook his head. “I don’t play for other people, typically. I play for myself,” he confessed. He lifted his hands from her thighs and considered them, flexing his fingers as he turned his hands over, back and forth, his head bowed, his gaze distant and glassy upon them. “It’s… it’s my sanity, my… my meditation, if you will,” he declared. “It’s my way of starting the morning, my way of decompressing, of distancing myself from reality for a while without drugs or alcohol or the like. Well,” he chuckled, “one of my ways. I have others, one of which you’ve already experienced last night.”

“Well, then,” she took one of his hands in hers, once again taking up the study of the lines of his fingers, the plane of his palm. She raised her eyes to his with a wry smile, her gaze half-mast and flirty. “I like the way you decompress.”

Ansgar opened his mouth to speak, leaned in with his eyes hooded, to hopefully initiate a session of stress relief, when the doorbell rang.

“Ah, shit. That’s crap timing.”

“Who’s here?” Joline frowned.

“Dinner’s arrived,” Ansgar gently moved her legs off his lap and unfolded his own, stretching slightly as he stood. “I’ll go let them in so they can set up. Stay here.”

“Oh,” Joline pouted mockingly. “And here I thought you’d cooked for me.”

“I don’t cook.” Ansgar snorted derisively. “You don’t want me cooking for you, believe me. When the primal cells that became Magnus and myself divided in my mother’s womb, my brother sucked up all the gastronomic protoplasm for himself.”

“Really!?” she chimed, shifting forward on the chaise, her elbows upon her knees in rapt interest. “Are you saying, in your really, really weird way, that you can’t cook?” she wriggled further forward, her face lit up with a child-like excitement. “Do you mean there truly is something the great and mighty Ansgar Martinsson, the Lion of Stockholm, can’t do? I’m shocked!”

He laughed, and tipped his head in acknowledgement of her well-placed jibe. “There are many things I can’t do, my darling Joline. However, I’m far too arrogant to admit it.” He gave her an elaborate yet silly bow. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go show my friend the Michelin-starred chef where to prepare our meal, and criticize her sharply for not cooking the meat to my specifications.” He winked. “Or something arsehole-ish like that.”

“Go on then, you do that.”

He stepped quickly to her, bent and kissed her. He pulled back, his tongue snaking out to taste her upon his lips as he brushed his nose against hers, as he gazed at her, a soft, longing shape to his eyes. His look was as delicate as his touch on her cheek, as warm as the curved bow of his smile. “Be right back. Don’t move.”

At first, Joline obeyed. She knew better than to test Ansgar when he issued a command, but the story of his brush with mortality smacked of her present circumstances. With her mother as sick as she was, Joline considered every day with her a gift, a guardian angel on her shoulder.

As she crossed her arms on the rear of the sofa, she felt a twinge of gratitude for whichever guardian angel spared Ansgar on that day, the day he nearly lost his life, his arm and his brother. She enjoyed watching him walk away, the expansive shoulders, the slim waist, the tight ass, and the hard lines of his legs. Shallow, of course, she admitted to herself, but to her credit, she didn’t know him well. She appreciated his generosity with her nephews and naturally herself and her ambitious plans for the opera house.

But she had to wonder if he worked some angle that she couldn’t see or imagine. He was a business man, a successful one, and business men displayed unattractive qualities. Would those spill over into his private relationships?

Joline’s brain didn’t work in the crooked or the mischievous. She liked logic, and to a certain extent, rules and boundaries. She liked diplomacy, an acceptable outcome of compromise between disagreeing parties. She didn’t work in scheming. That could be why she couldn’t see who sabotaged her theatre on her watch under her own nose.

With a double kiss, Ansgar greeted, a svelte blonde woman in a pristine white chef’s coat. “Rose,” he said in a robust decrescendo. “Bless you and your stars for coming.”

“Martinsson, where the devil have you been? They revoked one of my stars because my best customer fucked off to parts unknown.” The wide eyed, rosy faced woman entered the kitchen as if she owned the place, a sous chef only a step behind, and set up without a single order from Ansgar.

“Bullshit,” he argued, a chuckle followed. “They would have awarded you another for feeding the rest of Stockholm.” He glanced over his shoulder in Joline’s direction to ensure she was still there, and winked at her.

She took advantage of his attention to point at her mobile and indicated one of the many doors to the wrap-around balcony of his flat.

Ansgar furrowed his brow briefly but nodded, granting her his permission.

Joline wiggled her fingers in a wave and crossed to the outside door. She overheard Rose talking enough for all of them, “You rung me to impress a date, huh? I’m glad for it, Martin—“ Joline slipped out before she heard anymore. She got the impression that Ansgar and Rose were old friends, and she might have known of his marriage. Joline didn’t want to hear any more of the other woman if she could help it.

Using her one touch dialing on her mobile, Joline phoned her mother.

“Dearest daughter,” Emelie’s voice sounded resolved, “Tell me you’re not ringing me on your date. You’re not mugged again?”

Joline stepped fearlessly to the railing, taking in the best view of Stockholm she’d ever seen. There was very little noise, only the warm summer breeze. “No, not mugged again, mama. Only wanted to hear your voice.”

“Feeling sentimental?”

“That must make me a shit daughter, huh?”

“Unwise.”

Following along the railing, Joline walked to keep her feet busy. “Only worried for you.”

“You’re allowed to live your own life, I don’t—“

“How are you, mama? I haven’t been there as much as I should.”

“Joline, it’s two days. You’re dating again, good for you. I’m hanging up now.”

And the line went silent. Joline smiled down at her mobile before pocketing it again. She could’ve predicted how that conversation was going to go and her mother’s response to a spontaneous phone call.

The horizon pulled her focus and she breathed in the familiar smell of Stockholm, seawater, barbeque and petrol. It wasn’t pleasant but it was home, conjuring memories of her childhood, of chasing her brother, trying to fit in with the boys. She caught sight of the opera house in the distance, filling with pride at being there and working at one of her favorite buildings in the city center.

Joline felt him, rather than heard, before Ansgar touched her. His hands attached themselves at her hips as he lined her body with his. She stood to feel all of him behind her.

“Did you find it? Do you see the opera house?” He curled his arms around her.

She nodded first, then pointed to it. “This is a breathtaking view, Sgar! I think I can see Lidingo from here.”

He buried his lips against her neck, earning a whimper for his effort. “Am I keeping you from–?”

“No, no… I’m happy to be here.” She breathed out, crossing her arms to hold him to her. “A quick phone call to-to… my best friend.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth.

“Tell me about her.”

Joline paused, figuring a way to tell the truth without revealing too much. It was against her makeup, her nature, but she didn’t trust him with her emotions. Her body, absolutely, but her emotions were fragile. “I’ve known her all my life. I’d trust her with my life, and she’d take the piss out of me for it. Quick wit, sarcastic and smarter than me.” She shrugged. “And I owe her a pair of Louboutins.”

“Surely, she’d forgive a mugging.”

“Maybe if I’d done it myself,” Joline laughed at her own joke. “She’s wicked, more wicked than me.”

Ansgar gave her notable lead, choosing not to dig beyond the vague, allowing her to determine just how much to tell him. He’d played her enough with her family that afternoon, he could draw it out and patiently wait her out. He turned it around to them and their evening. “How wicked are you, Joline?”

She turned around in his arms, treading the easy path of the intimate rather than the emotional. Hooking her arms around his neck, she shoved her lips into his, his will surprisingly pliant to her. She demanded and her answered the torrid press of lips and searing tongues. She scraped her teeth along his lower lip when she pulled back and ended the kiss. “Did you friend cook your dinner to your specifications?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Pity. I’m a bit distracted by that strap of leather that I was promised.”

Ansgar groaned, lifting her up to press his face into her cleavage, his teeth gnawing at her tender flesh.

Joline only made it far worse with her next statement. “I can think of better things to put in my mouth than food. I’m under the impression that men like that men prefer that as a stress reliever.”

“SGAR! Hey!” Rose’s voice cut through the distance. Her timing hadn’t improved in the fifteen minutes since she arrived. “You eat now, arse, or the salmon will crumble like bread crumbs if you wait any longer.”

[evacalderon]

E U O N I A : An Eva Calderon Playlist [ L I S T E N     H E R E  ]

WRITING CHALLENGE 001: PLAYLIST @parabellumrpg

I HAVE A DREAM | LILY JAMES (MAMMA MIA 2)

“I have a dream, a fantasy To help me through reality And my destination makes it worth the while Pushing through the darkness still another mile”

This song is the embodiment of who Eva is as a person. As one of the lyrics goes, “something good in everything I see”, this aligns with how Eva chooses to see the world and those around her. She sees the good in everyone and everything and does not judge another based on someone else’s opinion. She will always come to her own conclusion about someone and will not harbor ill will towards them unless they have done or said something that changes how she sees them. 

HERE COMES THE SUN | THE BEATLES

“Here comes the sun Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right“

Eva is the sun in this song that The Beatles sing about. If you looked Eva Calderon up in the dictionary the lyrics above would be listed beside her name. 

¿QUÉ SE SIENTE QUE ME GUSTES TANTO? | DANIEL, ME ESTÁS MATANDO  Translation: How Does It Feel That I Like You So Much?

“¿Qué se siente que me gustes tanto, amor? Que debo de aceptar que Tengo miedo de tu encanto ¿Qué se siente que me gustes tanto, amor? Que si un día tú te vas con alguien más Yo voy también”

Translation: “ How does it feel that I like you so much, love That I must accept that  I'm afraid of your charms How does it feel that I like you so much, love That if one day you go with someone else I go too”

This is Eva when she is in love with someone and the fear of giving her heart fully to them is very present because she does not know how receptive they will be. Will her love measure up to them/what they want or will they just be two estranged hearts held in beings. 

¡QUE BONITO! | ROSARIO

“Qué bonito cuando te veo ahí Qué bonito cuando te siento Qué bonito pensar que estás aquí Junto a mí”

Dedicated to @joaquin-aleman​. It is the song that the two danced to on the night that set two hearts beating in time into motion. Their first dance together and first kiss was done to this song. While that night did not end well, it ended abruptly, awkwardly and with so much unspoken, Eva will always associate this song with Joaquín. 

WITHOUT YOU | LESLIE ODOM JR. (RENT)

“Without you The ground thaws The rain falls The grass grow”

For Eva, this song means that the world keeps turning, life goes on and everything grows, but you don't without the people in your life who mean something to you.

FIRST MAN | CAMILA CABELLO

“I swear on my heart That he's a good man I know you'll stay up late Just waiting for me You held me so tight Now someone else can But you were the first man that really loved me“

Dedicated to Eva’s father. This song is all about telling her father that the man she is with is a good man and that it is because of her father’s unconditional, unwavering and unquestionable love she is able to be in love and have someone love her in return. It is all the love she has for her father and for him showing her how a man should love and treat her in one song. 

SHE USED TO BE MINE | SARA BAREILLES (WAITRESS)

“It's not what I asked for Sometimes life just slips in through a back door And carves out a person and makes you believe it's all true”

While Eva’s circumstances are different than Jenna’s they are both coming to terms with things in their life that did not go according to plan. Eva has to reconcile with the differences in how she thought her life was going to go and how it actually ended up. What she has to reconcile is that she always thought her parents would be in the same country as her and only a stone’s throw away.

HAPPY & SAD | KACEY MUSGRAVES  

“Is there a word for the way that I'm feeling tonight? Happy and sad at the same time You got me smiling with tears in my eyes I never felt so high No, I've never been this far off of the ground And they say everything that goes up must come down But I don't wanna come down“

This is the song version of the feeling of finally letting someone in again. The joy of the moment is washing over Eva, but she knows, deep down, she still might have to brace herself for the worst. 

TREAT PEOPLE WITH KINDNESS | HARRY STYLES

“Maybe we can find a place to feel good And we can treat people with kindness Find a place to feel goodGivin' second chances I don't need all the answers Feelin' good in my skin I just keep on dancin'”

The title says it all. This is one Eva’s motto’s, treat people with kindness, and she truly does her best to live by it. Eva would the human version of Kill Them With Kindness. This is also just a really great bop that Eva would blare in her home and dance to while cleaning. 

DANCE AGAIN | SELENA GOMEZ 

“Happiness Ain't something you sit back and you wait for Mm-mm, ah-ah Confidence Is throwing your heart through every brick wall Mm-mm, ah-ah”

This song is all about how happiness is something that must actively be sought out and that self-confidence is manifest by her casting aside all timidity. That is something relatable to just about everyone and especially Eva in her younger years and how she transitioned to just owning everything about her and dancing away her troubles. This is also another one of those songs she would get up and dance to. 

SOUTH OF THE BORDER | ED SHEERAN FT. CAMILLA CABELLO

“She got the, mm, brown eyes, caramel thighs Long hair, no wedding ring, hey I saw you lookin' from across the way And now I really wanna know your name She got the, mm, white dress, but when she's wearin' less Man, you know that she drives me crazy The, mm, brown eyes, beautiful smile You know I love watching you do your thing”

Honestly, this song is how I see the different men who have been with Eva and have loved her view her. It is a song full of sex appeal and I love it for her. This is her “sexy” descriptive song. This song, like others I have mentioned, are ones she has 100% danced to and just had fun to.

STUCK WITH U | ARIANA GRANDE WITH JUSTIN BIEBER

“There's nowhere we need to be No, no, no Imma get to know you better Kinda hope we're here forever There's nobody on these streets If you told me that the world's ending Ain't no other way that I can spend it”

This song is about being “stuck” with the person you love and how there is no one else you would rather be stuck with. I feel that it fits how Eva looks at loving someone else because you are suppose to love them in spite of all their faults. Being stuck with something isn’t a bad thing when it is them, that person that makes the world a brighter and better place. 

SUNFLOWER, VOL. 6 | HARRY STYLES

“Sunflower Sunflower My eyes Want you more than a melody Let me inside Wish I could get to know you” 

Honestly, this song I chose for her because of the title as I see her as a sunflower, always facing up towards the sun and following its path rather than drooping to the ground like other flowers in the world when the sun isn’t on them. I also chose it because it is a great song and maybe someone out there would use this song to describe them with her.

BARCELONA | ED SHEERAN

“And you and I we're flying on an aeroplane tonight We're going somewhere where the sun is shining bright Just close your eyes And let's pretend we're dancing in the street In Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona”

The song that gets her feet, hips and hands moving. This is the song that can come on anywhere and she will want to dance to it unapologetically.  

BE KIND | MARSHMELLO WITH HALSEY

“I know you're chokin' on your fears Already told you I'm right here I will stay by your side every nightI don't know why you hide from the one And close your eyes to the one Mess up and lie to the one that you love When you know you can cry to the one Always confide in the one You can be kind to the one that you love”

What this song gets down to is that Eva will always be there for those who believe that she should not be and that she shouldn’t love them. COUGH COUGH @joaquin-aleman. She will stay by your side every night.

[differenttriumphdragon]

My Best Cookie Votes and Why: Round 1, Part 1

Mint Choco: While Orange is nice and all, she's ultimately a pretty flat character...and not just in the literal sense either. Minty, on the other hand, has an actual backstory, for starters, plus he's not an absolute dick to his closest friend like his opponent is. Plus, Mint's implied romance with Cocoa is infinitely more satisfying than the Citrus Love Triangle that they do absolutely nothing with. (As a side note, I find it hilarious that the very first matchup is literally just Orange Juice vs. Toothpaste.)

Sea Fairy: I like Tiger Lily and all, but literally her only purpose in canon seems to be to never get told what anything is, which is extremely frustrating on the part of the other Cookies and honestly hits way too close to home. That, and her major character arc with Princess is NEVER touched upon, while Sea Fairy presumably actually managed to reunite with Moonlight.

Pilot: This matchup was essentially Good, Loving (probably surrogate) Grandparent versus Awful, Neglectful, Irresponsible Grandparent who is confirmed to have attempted to alter her granddaughter's DNA in order to change her personality. So yeah.

Pink Choco: Neither of these Cookies really stand out at all. I am a fan of Pink's Magical Girl theming, though, and honestly I'd rather see her on stage than Carol. Also, Pink's design is leagues better.

Walnut: I'll admit, she's just more endearing to me for some reason. Her power is more interesting (and I actually understand how exactly it's supposed to work), and honestly the idea of a little detective with a teddy bear assistant is just adorable. I'm still mad about Angel, but that's not exactly HER fault, now is it?

Dark Choco: DC is a compelling fallen hero character who drives the entire story of Ovenbreak with his disappearance. White Choco Cookie is French, and that's about it. Also:

How can you not vote for him when he promises you such important lore? (Granted, he calls you out for being vain if you pick him. Hey, any lore is good lore, pal! Also, I have long hair I need to worry about too!)

Purple Yam: Honestly, the fact that he actually questions the bad writing sold me on voting for him. He's also a genuinely good character despite his only emotion being anger.

Firecracker: I absolutely love her 80s arcade aesthetic, even in spite of her being way too young to have ever been to an arcade in the 80s. She genuinely wants everyone to have fun, too. Also, Marshmallow got Flame Bat and Celestial Star locked up for her Trial.

Squid Ink: To be honest, this was one of the tougher choices. In the end, I decided that Inky needed more love after what they've been through, so they got the vote. Sorry, Fig.

Roguefort: Devsis has a really bad habit this list of putting far more interesting recent characters against old characters with nothing really to them. I mean, yeah, Ninja's mysterious and all, but you've done absolutely nothing with him since not even LINE, but the defunct game Ovenbreak 2! Other than maybe change his name from Ninjabread, anyway. Hell, Tiny Ghost is more interesting than him, but even then newer players wouldn't even know that, since the one throwaway line hinting at something more was in a Cookie Quest, which were removed from the game entirely over a year ago. Roguefort is more interesting by default.

Vampire: Can I be honest for a sec here? I hate Pancake with a passion. He deliberately makes himself seem cuter to get his way. Based on his interactions with Cream Puff, he's just as cruel as his big bro, if not as outwardly aggressive. No, Pancake relies on psychological manipulation to get everything he wants, and the worst part is IT'S FUCKING WORKING. As we speak, he's stealing a Magic Candy from Devil, from Kiwi...hell, he's even stealing it from Vampire! And now he's dominating the polls, adding insult to debilitating injury. He's not even fucking cute. Yeah, I said it.

Pistachio: Soda has absolutely no personality other than surfboard. Do I even need to say more?

Peppermint: DE could be SUCH a good villain if Devsis could decide what kind of villain she even is. Also if they remembered she was a major villain at all.

Lemon: I'll admit, I see a lot of myself in Lemon. Mostly in feeling artificial and having basically no friends, ever. I honestly think I'd be in a much worse place if I didn't have a brother. Whip could be great if they did anything with the White Swan/Black Swan dynamic he has with Skating Queen.

Pitaya: I've always had problems with the "You can only eat if you work for it" mentality. First of all, you need food to get energy to work, and if you aren't fed, then how are you going to work hard for food!? Second, what if you're disabled or otherwise can't work? Do you just starve to death, then? It just sounds awful!

Cream Puff: She's trying her best.

Kumiho: ...I honestly don't remember.

Pomegranate: A genuinely good villain who stole the show with her introduction. She could've easily been a Knight of Cerebus if the writers cared enough.

Cyborg: Blackberry abandoned a child relying on her protection to chase after a man who didn't remotely need her help. Also, she hates Devil. Also also, Cyborg is cool.

Hero: If you've read Hellfyre Speaks, you can probably guess why I personally picked Hero. I'm just surprised at the popular vote; it seemed to me like Herb was way more popular! But I guess not? Or at least not with early voters.

Werewolf: He's far more fleshed out than Gumball by far.

Devil: Have I ever actually explained why Devil is my favorite? Like, sure, he's an asshole, but he's the fun, ineffectual kind of asshole you actually wanna root for that you see in cartoons; like, in shows focused on a 'villain' character's scheming, usually with a naive idiot going along with it and a very-much-ignored voice of reason. Like in Ed, Edd, n' Eddy, or Evil Con Carne. Devil also has a flair for the dramatic, a knack for 'evil' schemes, and even the perfect foil to play off of! He'd be an absolute goldmine when it comes to the more lighthearted antics between acts, but Devsis is apparently content to just haul up gravel.

Knight: I'll be honest, I saw Alchemist and immediately clicked the other Cookie without looking who it was. But this isn't a post about her, so let's talk about Knight. First off, he'd be the perfect antagonist to Devil; Devil goes full ham when acting out an 'evil' plan, while Knight takes everything WAY too seriously. He adores Princess Cookie but doesn't know jack shit about her, which juxtaposed with Princess's nonchalant rebuttals of everything he claims about her makes it hilarious in a kind of pathetic way. (Ex. Knight claiming that Princess would probably never eat Jam again, then Princess replying she could totally go for some right now to the exact same question.) He's delusional in a way that you'd feel bad for him if he wasn't so over-the-top about it, and yet at the same time he does have skills that match up with his headcanon of how things work, just not the reputation.

Matcha: Seems like the person who'd play both sides for her amusement. I'd keep an eye on her.

[bigskydreaming]

Thank you for the boosting and the donation! Got the rest of the rent there now, which let me sit down and whip out my first commission, yay! Someone who said they didn’t need to be credited asked me for 2K about the idea of “what do I think Dick’s opinion would have been of the Felipe Garzonas situation at the time.”

Which is a fucking awesome premise, and not one I’ve spent a lot of time thinking on, but it hit me right away....like, you know I’m always talking about how Jason and Dick have a lot more in common than most people think, IMO, and also that Dick isn’t nearly as incapable of understanding the impulse to kill as he’s normally assumed to be.....but thinking about Jason as Robin and whose side Dick would fall on that, if he’d been asked to weigh in....and given that he was still on iffy terms with Bruce and thus probably more inclined to side with the kid in his literal shoes, who he could remember being in certain ways, at certain times...

It made my mind jump straight to Robin: Year One, and how when Bruce fired Dick as Robin that first time, after the Two-Face incident, he kinda pinned the judge’s death on Dick, like as a direct result of Dick’s choice there...and this definitely affected Dick throughout the entire rest of the mini...which all culminated in him being trained at Shrike’s Vengeance Academy and literally holding a gun on Two-Face himself, having been ordered to kill him by Shrike, and wanting to...because of how Two-Face had so recently hurt him, and in Dick’s eyes...also been the direct result of his fallout with Bruce, the thing that made Bruce run away.

And so with all that in mind, here’s what I came up with. It’s open-ended, because my commissioner said they would rather me leave it unfinished if I felt there were more places I could take it, if other people wanted to commission further additions to it or I wanted to finish it myself later when I had time.....so here’s 2,695 words of Dick and Robin!Jason in the week immediately following  the Garzonas case. I got in a groove with it so went over the commission mark, lol, (I don’t charge extra for that, FYI, lol) but also I wanted to make sure I left it in at least a somewhat place for a break, rather than just in the middle of a thought.

This is definitely something I’d come back to on my own, just to finish it, no further commissions required, but like.....being able to use the commission to pay towards food or rent instead of waiting until I have the time and energy to bang out actual fic, like...definitely would make that a sooner rather than later thing, not gonna lie. LOL. I mean hey, I wrote this in the last hour. 

(Which also means its unbeta-ed, but they said that was okay and I think it still reads pretty cleanly as is). Anyway!

********

UNTITLED FOR NOW

The way Jason Todd warily eyed the device in his hand, one might think it was an instrument of great and terrible destructive power, rather than just…his own personal cell-phone.

To be fair, he was Robin, and pretty used to the idea that even the most unlikely of things could be used for evil in Gotham. It could’ve been stolen and replaced at some point by a henchperson of Mr. Freeze, and using it could unleash some kind of cryogenic freeze ray that would turn him into a Robinsicle. Mad Hatter could be up to shit again, and dialing the phone at this very minute might mean syncing it up with a remote radio signal that would override his natural brainwaves and turn him into Tetch’s mindless minion of like…doom and stuff. Or…or…

Or sometimes, even in Gotham a phone is just a phone, and Freud is still a dumbass. And neither of the above possibilities had anything to do with why Jason was being a giant freaking pansy about entering the last digit of the phone number he would never ever admit to having had memorized for months now.

Nightwing had said to call if he ever needed to talk. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t actually want Jason to call, right? Like, its not as if Jason had remotely been expecting him to do that, so its not the sort of thing someone did just because it was ‘expected’ or shit. He was pretty sure. Rich people manners were weird though. Had to factor that in.

But Nightwing had also even made a point to say not talking to people about stuff was Bruce’s problem and that Jason shouldn’t let it be his problem too, and even though months ago Jason had been a starry-eyed dumbass who was totally drunk on the Bruce is the Bestest Kool-Aid or whatever, ‘Wing had definitely known what he was talking about there. So maybe he’d get it, and having this conversation with him wouldn’t be. Like. The actual worst idea in the history of ever.

Deductive logic said that Jason was getting worked up over nothing and there was no rational reason for him to be this nervous about dialing a fucking phone number. And he’d gotten pretty good at the whole deduction shit, given all the work he and Bruce had put into training his mind to view the world through entirely new paradigms, so Jason was pretty sure his math on that checked out. But on the other hand, Bruce was a hypocritical asshat that Jason was currently not speaking to, so what the fuck did he know about anything?

Aaaaand he was back to square one. Well damn. This was excellent. Very productive. Good hustle out there, Jay.

Sighing gustily, Jason flopped back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to pretend he hadn’t gotten used to how luxurious and cushion-y his ridiculously expensive mattress was. He’d gotten soft, he told himself. Then he scoffed at the idea that the past year and a half of rigorous Robin training and patrols had made him less tough than the pipsqueak he’d been back when living on the street, getting his ass kicked by bigger and badder on the regular. That hadn’t been hardness, that had been bravado.

But it had gotten him this far in life, so maybe there was something to be said for it after all?

Ugh. Decisions were hard. He objected on principle. He also really wanted to understand why he was this nervous…if he could literally fill the guy’s shoes and kick supervillain ass as Robin, what freaking sense did it make that he couldn’t even call him up on the phone?

Maybe you just know better than to ask him questions you don’t really want to hear his answer to, a smug voice said in the back of his mind. It sounded suspiciously like Willis Todd, which was all kinds of weird and fucked up, cuz Jason was damn sure his abusive a-hole of a deadbeat dad had never said anything that insightful in his life.

Which meant it was his own screwed up subconscious - presenting in the voice of his not so dearly departed douchebag dad, no less - that had Jason reacting out of spite, entering the last number and hitting Talk, all while totally on autopilot. Because apparently we’re all making healthy life choices in this Chili’s tonight, Jason snickered somewhat hysterically while his phone rang once, twice, three times.

Ugh. Was he always this fucked up in the head and he just never noticed, or was it a side effect of running around rooftops in a cape. Inquiring minds wanted to know.

“Hello?” Someone said then, answering on the fourth ring. Jason sat bolt upright, his nervous humor vanishing as quickly and unexpectedly as it’d hijacked him in the first place. For all that he’d only actually interacted with the older man a few times, his voice was instantly recognizable. As was his slight confusion.

Right. Because why would Nightwing have the untraceable number of the latest burner phone Bruce had given Jason, when the ever paranoid Bat had him swapping out phones every freaking week? Duh, Jay.

“Uh, its me,” Jason said hastily, as if he could somehow catch up to and overtake the epically long ten second silence he let lapse before his mouth started making words again. “Jason?”

“Jaybird! Hey! What’s going on?” The older vigilante’s tone instantly morphed into one of surprised delight, so apparent even across the phone that Jason actually pulled it away from his ear and stared at it, as if that could explain Nightwing’s inexplicable giddiness. He’d literally only met the dude three times. Give or take a concussion he was forgetting about maybe? Weird.

Then again, the older man was a circus performer from birth. Might just be good at faking being super excited to hear from people? Whatever. Still weird.

“Uh, you said to call if I was ever having, I dunno, issues with Bruce I guess? So I kinda had a question? I mean, if you’re not busy or anything.”

Just one question? Willis’ voice asked snidely, echoing in time with the rapid tripartite beat of Jason’s heart. Since apparently everything Jason said was trying to come out with a question mark attached to the end of it at the moment. Ugh, fuck you, subconscious, Jason thought forcefully, even as he ransacked the recesses of his mind for that bravado he was thinking about earlier. It had to be in here somewhere…

“No worries dude, I’ve got time. Hit me!” Nightwing said cheerfully. His lighthearted cadences were so at odds with the sweat suddenly breaking out on Jason’s forehead, the younger teen couldn’t help but wince in anticipation of its inevitable change once he got his actual question out. This was a bad idea, he decided, way too fucking late for it to make a difference. He had a hunch Nightwing wouldn’t be content to ‘just forget it’ or whatever even if Jason chickened out now.

So he took a deep breath, shrugged and did what Jason Todd did best. Said fuck it, put pedal to the metal, and drove at full speed for the metaphorical police barricade that was his way of picturing all the things telling him He Should Definitely Just Not.

“Do you think I’m someone who could kill somebody in like, cold blood?”

Aaaaand there went the lightheartedness. Well, he’d definitely stone cold killed that, Jason thought grimly into the silence that followed.

“Huh,” Nightwing said at last. “You’re gonna have to give me a second to switch gears here, Jay. I was kinda expecting something along the lines of ‘how do I avoid Bruce giving me the safe sex talk.’”

Jason flushed and nodded jerkily, not that the older man could see it. Still, it’d been enough of a workout just getting to this point. He didn’t trust what might come out of his mouth next if he kept trying to force it. Thankfully Nightwing didn’t make him wait too long before continuing.

“I think anyone’s capable of killing somebody in the right circumstances,” Jason’s predecessor began carefully. Except that was not remotely what he wanted to hear. Or helpful.

“I’m not looking for platitudes,” Jason grit out, not angry at the other vigilante so much as the whole fucked up mess and his inability to think about anything else at this point. “It’s just a simple fucking question. You’ve met me, do you think like, I’d be capable of just killing somebody or not.”

“I’m not offering platitudes,” Nightwing continued calmly, as if he wasn’t phased by the younger boy’s interruption or sudden aggression at all. “And its not a simple question at all. Speaking from experience, most people wouldn’t think of an eight year old as a cold-blooded killer, but that’s what I could have been if Bruce hadn’t stopped me from killing my parents’ murderer when I first tracked him down. And yet that’s still totally different from when I held a gun on Two-Face barely a couple years later, about to shoot him because somebody else told me to, and because I wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me. Wouldn’t you agree those are two different situations and two different ‘kinds’ of cold-blooded killer? Context is kinda a big deal here.”

Huh. First off…what the fuck? Jason stared blankly up at the ceiling, trying to hurry up the processing functions of his brain because, again, what the fuck? He was like ninety nine percent positive none of that had been in the Dick Grayson Is The Greatest and Here Are All The Reasons Why brochure he’d had read to him every time someone new found out he was Wayne’s newest stray, and like. Uh. Yeah, that part would have definitely stood out. Because once more, with feeling:

“What the fuck?”

Oops. That hadn’t been supposed to be out loud. Bad mouth. Bad.

Nightwing just did a weird kinda half laugh half sigh combo. Rueful, Jason would describe it, if he were describing it to someone else, which it kind of felt like he was, relaying the conversation to himself now that it’d taken a hard right turn into the surreal.

“Blindsided you with that, huh? Sorry, should’ve figured neither of those are the kinda stories Bruce would want to share with you. Then again, I don’t really have any idea what Bruce has told you about me.”

“Not much,” Jason admitted. Which was a major source of irritation, if he was being honest. The much sung praises of Dick Grayson came from literally everyone he met except for Bruce. Who usually just got a pinched expression whenever Jason brought him up, and a rapid subject change that was not nearly as subtle as Bruce seemed to think it was.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Nightwing sighed. “I hope you haven’t put too much stock in anything else you’ve heard about me then. I’ll admit to a bad habit of enjoying my mystique, so secondhand hearsay tends to lose my best nuances.”

Despite himself, Jason’s lips curved up and he let out a rueful huff of his own. “I mean, this definitely isn’t where I saw this conversation going.”

The older man chuckled. “Thought I was going to just assume the worst and chuck the book at you?”

“Well. Yeah.” Jason shrugged, even though he knew it wouldn’t come across. “Bruce did.”

Nightwing heaved an exasperated breath. “Yeah, that’s kinda the thing about B. Sometimes, he’s great. Other times, he’s an ass. Its kinda an either or thing. He’s never really mastered the art of finding a midpoint between two extremes. Mostly because he’s never seen the point of aiming for middle ground.”

“Well its not like he’s ever really had to,” Jason griped. It just slipped out before he could stop it, leaving him feeling guilty for bad-mouthing B when he wasn’t around to defend himself. Especially since he knew Nightwing wasn’t the guy’s biggest fan these days. But he couldn’t deny it also felt good, in a way.

To his surprise, Nightwing just laughed. And not even in a malicious, spiteful kind of way, but almost relieved.

“God, thank you. You’d think that ‘hey, so my billionaire guardian kinda has entitlement issues’ would be a water is wet kind of revelation, but try saying something like that to pretty much anyone else…”

“And they look at you like you’re an ungrateful asshole?” Jason finished for him. Not that he’d ever actually tried saying that to anyone before, though he’d definitely thought it a time or two. But he could all too easily imagine the reactions he’d get, which was pretty much why he’d never gone so far as to speak the words.

“Yup,” Nightwing drawled, dragging out the p and popping it with emphasis. “And its not about being grateful or not, its just…there are some parts of everyone that just aren’t up for grabs, for other people to weigh in on or take charge of, you know? And a lot of people just don’t get that…because nobody’s ever tried it with them, or had to deal with expectations that…overstep, let’s call it?”

“Is that why you left?”

Jason winced the second it left his mouth. Too far. Definitely way too far, but he’d just gotten unexpectedly comfortable with the back and forth, and now he’d done the overstepping thing himself and was left with just dead air.

But ten seconds of heavy silence stretched into twenty, and went no further, as Nightwing sighed into his side of the phone again.

“The spiteful part of me wants to say it was more of a push than me just up and leaving,” he laughed again, but this time with unmistakable bitterness. “But even while that’s true, its not really the right answer to your question, because no matter how much of a clusterfuck that was at the time, its not…I mean, I knew at the time how to fix it. Where and how I needed to cave in order to make up with him and let things get back not quite to normal, but at least close enough.”

The pause wasn’t as heavy or tense this time, as Jason could almost sense the older man gathering his thoughts, trying to put them into words. He bit his lip rather than risk any more unexpected utterances escaping. This might not have been where he’d thought his phone call would lead, but now that he was here, hearing the answers to questions he’d wanted to ask for over a year and finding them almost comfortably familiar, he wasn’t going to risk distracting Nightwing or shutting him up for well. Anything.

“But it would have meant me caving. Settling in ways that I just…couldn’t. So in a way, yeah, I did leave, it was still my choice. And all of that was definitely a big part of it. I love Bruce, I do. I just couldn’t live with him anymore. Not without feeling like I had to give up my own autonomy and just be what he wanted. Or what he’d expected me to grow up to be, back when he first took me in. And as grateful as I am to him for that, I can’t honestly say I would have stuck around back then if I knew that was the price tag attached. I’m not…I don’t do well with people trying to force me to stick to one place, one thing. I was born on the road, you know? When I was a kid, I expected to spend the rest of my life living like that. Home was people. Not places. And so Gotham…its never fit me quite right, the way it does him, or even Barbara. Its not like I was miserable there, its just.”

“It wouldn’t have been your first choice,” Jason finished again, quietly. There was silence again for awhile.

“No. No, it wouldn’t have been. Not then.”

[scribblescrabblebabble]

RoyEd Week 2k19 Day 3

   Title: Seven(?) Days

Rating: T+

Relationships: Roy Mustang/ Edward Elric

Chapter: Day 3- (Fantasy AU)

Cross- Posted on AO3 and Fanfic.net links- Fanfic.net   AO3

Best quality reading will be through the links, not on Tumblr itself because I’m too lazy to do italics and shit right now. For @royedweek2019 ‘s RoyEd Week!

pasted late bc I have other work to do oops!!

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Roy had never seen the Great Hall so beautifully decorated; it was hard to tell where the school hall ended, and wintry palace began- the decorations were so wonderfully chosen! As he spun around with his dance partner, his long-time best friend Riza, the two other Triwizard Champions and their dates twirling similarly, Roy both admired the wonderful mix of glamour and dance and wished he wasn't dancing at the moment.

At least, he wished he was dancing with a different blonde, although Riza was definitely a close second choice. In fact, if he weren't required to take the first dance as a Champion, Roy probably would have shirked it off to go find Ed the moment he realized that his boyfriend's distinctive hair was nowhere to be seen in the crowd.

Over the snickers and awes of the crowd, supposedly assuming that Riza and Roy were something more than childhood friends, the blonde woman must have heard Roy's faint sigh, for she sighed as well and discreetly stomped on his foot as they changed direction, "Can you pretend for five seconds that you actually want to dance with me? I know it means nothing to you, but I tortured myself with wearing this monstrosity just because we're the center of attention."

Despite her disdain towards it, Riza looked quite stunning in her pale blue dressing gown, and Roy had just enough self-preservation to point it out before responding quietly, "It's not dancing with you that upsets me and you know it."

He knew that, even though he was half-assing it at best, they were still by far the best dancers out there, as years of ballroom dancing classes together would not be proven futile by their muggle parents.

Roy remembered the both of them receiving their Hogwarts letters and thinking it a big joke until two owls stampeded them in the park, and they looked at each other with such excitement that their parents knew their lives would never be quite normal again. His muggle mother had been at the school until recently, given a brief let-in to watch her only son compete in the dangerous Triwizard Tournament. Having never seen her son use magic before, it was a very… interesting time for her to watch him wave a stick at a whole-ass dragon and manage to stupefy it to unconsciousness (he chose to ignore his currently sprained and splinted wrist, and the several bandages that scratched against his shoulder and chest).

Back in the present, Riza rolled her eyes, "After this dance, you can go find him, I'm not stopping you. I think Jean's called dibbs on my next dance, anyways.

Roy smiled at the girl gratefully, and picked up the dance, noticing they were worryingly close falling out of step with the tempo of the spritely violins. After a few more laps around the dancefloor, the music finally died down to silence, and the audience clapped lightly, more eager to join in than pay mind to the current dancers.

Bidding Riza good luck with Jean, Roy quickly wove his way through the crowd, keeping an eye out for Ed. He found, instead, Al dragging a less-than-willing Winry out to the floor. The younger boy stopped when he saw Roy, and Winry sighed in relief.

"Roy, you and Riza danced so well!" He chirped.

"Thanks, Al. Hey, do you know where your brother is hiding? I haven't seen him around." Roy asked.

Al giggled, "Check around the food. He's probably afraid you'll ask him to dance."

"Well then, he's got a right to be afraid. Have fun out there." He turned from the betrayed look Winry cast him and started for the tables piled high with food. Ed's brother and closest friend (as well as Riza and Maes, of course) were practically the only ones who knew of his and Ed's relationship. Roy had no problem with making them public, but Ed had expressed his concerns enough for the other to hold off from straight-up snogging him in the halls. The blonde, for all his vivaciousness, was terribly shy about showing public affections, and didn't know how his fellow housemates would take his dating a boy- a Gryffindor boy at that!

Ed was nowhere to be found around the food, and Roy furrowed his brow in contemplation. He did see Lust, a fellow Slytherin classmate of Ed's, and decided to test his luck.

"Lust!" He called, and the aforementioned looked at him boredly.

"Mustang, what do you want?"

"Have you seen Elric anywhere?"

"The sweet one or the obnoxious one?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"The one you share a house with." Roy gave in a dead-pan, and Lust's unamused eye-roll did little to help him believe she would actually tell him.

"Well if you need to know, Envy said that he saw Ed on the staircase to the left of the Hall entrance reading.

Roy nodded, "Thanks, I guess." Lust shrugged and walked away.

Roy, thinking ahead, piled two plates with pastries and made his way out of the hall and to the left. He quickly found his boyfriend sitting on the second step, a book rested lightly between his bent knees. He looked up when Roy sat beside him, their legs bumping.

Roy handed over Ed's plate, which he took gratefully, "What're you doing out here? Already abandoned poor Riza to fend with Havoc on the dancefloor?"

The Gryffindor responded as Ed took a large bite of a particularly flaky little pastry the Beauxbatons cooks had prepared, "Riza quit on me. Said I was 'too distracted looking for you' to dance right."

Ed shrugged, "You know I don't like dances, shoulda guessed I wouldn't be in the ballroom."

Roy smiled lopsidedly, "Not even to watch me dance? I looked amazing out there; Al said so!"

Ed snorted, "First of all, watch your ego. Second, Al would tell the worst dancer out there they were great. Dances are just dumb, is all. Shouldn't just having the stupid tournament be enough celebration of inter-school comradery or whatever shit they're promoting?"

"I think it's sweet." Roy commented, not very forcefully. They'd had this same conversation hundreds of times, it seemed, "Either way, if you didn't want to be here so bad, why not just go up to your common room? I'm sure even the dungeons are more comfortable than these stairs."

"The Slytherin common rooms aren't just dungeons, I'll have you know!" Ed retorted, flicking a pastry he was holding slightly at Roy for emphasis, "They're actually very nice, it sucks you don't get to see 'em. I'm here because I didn't get to see you much after the challenge 'cuz of all the press commotion and shit." Ed frowned slightly.

The dragon challenge had been the day before, the three schools deciding that the dance and challenge should follow each other closely to 'lighten the mood' after such a frightening task. True to Ed's words, Roy had been swept away by several Prophet reporters following his close win (after his more serious wounds were treated first, of course). He'd been tired, bloody, and sore all over, so by the time they were done pestering him, Roy had barely the energy to fend off his mother's crushing hugs and frantic words. He had walked her back to the portkey once she was satisfied that he was safe until the next challenge, and from there went straight to his dormitory to sleep, Riza breaking the sea of students for him. The next morning, he had been wholly unamused to find his miserable face headlining the reports of the tournament.

He bit into his food, keeping a smile on his face in spite of Ed's fouled expression, "Well, you can see me all you want right now."

Contrary to Roy's intentions, Ed's face darkened further, "Until the next challenge."

"Ed, What's really the matter?" His proffered hand stung when Ed swatted it away, twisting in such a way to disturb several sore spots.

The Slytherin caught the other's wince, "THIS is the matter, Roy! Look at you, it's like you've been through a goddamn warzone or something! They carted you off the arena; I had to sit through two other dragon-themed ass-whoopings before I even knew you weren't dead. Your mom was in hysterics!"

Roy sighed, "Believe me, I know. I got her earful yesterday."

"At least she got to go down and see you immediately. I've barely seen you since Charms this afternoon, and that was the first time today!"

"So, you've been worried this whole time?"

Ed looked bewildered, "Of course I've been worried this whole time! I fucking lo… li… uh, care about you, you complete asshole!"

Roy, setting his plate aside, took Ed's plate quickly and ensconced the other boy in a tight hug, feeling the tension in the blonde's body coiled up in his shoulders. He relaxed a little in the Gryffindor's hold, huffing out a frustrated breath. When Roy felt a pair of hands gently wrap around his waist, he said, "I'm sorry I made you worry. If it's any consolation, I tried to find you after the challenge and at our meals today. I was too exhausted to really think yesterday, but when I looked today I didn't see you anywhere."

He could feel Ed rolling his eyes in his shoulder, and a second later he heard a muffled, "Had extra credit work in a few classes."

He hummed in response, and they stayed in their embrace for a while. Roy could feel Ed relax the longer he sat against the other, as if the constant assurance that Roy was there made his anxiety lessen. This said, it surprised Roy that Ed was the first to break the hug, standing up at the bottom step with a hand extended.

At the Gryffindor's confused look, Ed blushed, "Well, affection is sort of your thing, so I guess it wouldn't hurt me to dance, at least to make any lovesick Hufflepuff girls aware that you're unavailable." Roy sat, astounded. As far as he knew, Ed kind of hated public affection like this. Ed's blush intensified, probably because he knew vaguely what Roy was thinking, "I- I don't love this, but watching the challenge made me realize that I didn't want to waste my time across the room from you, watching other people try and get in your pants when I could just fucking suck it up and let myself have this, ya know? Shit, I'm embarrassing myself, just take my hand already, yeah?"

Roy grinned broadly, following Ed's orders. He led the way into the dance hall, noticing Ed stiffen when they were at the doors and Roy made no move to release his hand.

"Ed, you don't have to force yourself to do this if you're uncomfortable."

The blonde shook his head, "No, Roy, I want this. I want people to know we're a- a couple. This is a pretty good way to do that, right?"

His smile widened, "It's a great way!"

The brightness of Roy's smile caused Ed to smile as well, and they entered the hall to the vibrant sounds of an ending orchestral piece. They hurried to the floor before the next one started, and Roy had enough time to flash a wink at a confused but excited Al and Winry before the next dance began.

With Roy leading, there wasn't a chance they would mess up, and Ed seemed to trust their steps. Of course, he was flustered at first, glancing around at the other students too much (and sending dirty looks at Winry's smirk) and continually tripped up, but Roy got the other's attention back to him as the dance picked up with a gentle squeeze of the shoulder. Roy could feel eyes on them and heard quite a few girlish voices chirp their names, but he kept them out of his mind. He didn't care a bit about their judgment.

Once Ed was comfortable enough with the movement, he and Roy began chatting amid their dance, mostly about the other dancers.

"You know…" Ed mumbled, his sweet blush never having left his face, "You and Riza did dance very well together."

Roy laughed, "So you did see us! I didn't see you in the crowd!"

Ed mock-glared, "Well it's not because of my height, I know what you're thinking Roy Mustang!" He laughed a bit, "You probably dance better with her than with me."

"Well, I like dancing with you better." Roy murmured, leaning down to speak directly in Ed's ear.

"Oh, shush." Ed huffed, embarrassed. The song slowed to an end, and Ed pulled them off the floor with a small smile, "C' mon, we left our food on the stairs. I'd hate to waste it." His pull wasn't at all in the direction of the stairs, but to a table huddled away from the crowd, absolutely heaped with decorations and food. They could get some good privacy behind that heap…

Roy chuckled, Ed smirked, and they hurried to the table, not seeing the knowing looks of their friends and swelling gossip circles of those newly exposed to, possibly, the most unexpected coupling at Hogwarts.

~End~

[inkribbon796]

A Father’s Worst Fears

EGOTOBER 2019: DAY 23

Prompt: Spooked

Word Count: 1423

Whether or not it was genetic, Bim seemed to carry Wil’s lack of a fear of death. Which was as much of a good thing as it was a bad thing. Today they were at the mall because enough people in town had seen the boy and Dark needed to completely the theme. Besides, Wil wasn’t getting Bim new clothes, he was making sure the clothes he had were always clean. Dark, as Damien, was busy trying to find suitable clothes and turned around to ask Bim which color he wanted. And turned around to see that Bim was nowhere in sight.

“Bim?” Damien called out, checking the closest clothing rack. “Bim, come out now.”

Nothing. Bim was normally very prompt about at least looking him in the eye, but the boy was nowhere in sight. Damien pulled back the clothes to look into the racks. Dark refused to even think of panicking. Bim was just hiding, he was good at it, he just didn’t understand that a shopping mall was the worst place to play hide-and-go-seek!

After five minutes of looking, it surprised Dark that the first part of him to panic was his red soul, usually Damien’s blue soul was the first to spiral into panic mode. Either way, Dark was perfectly justified in his panic. Dark was the twisted king of Egoton’s underbelly. He knew what kind of horrible things could happen to a child like Bim who was too friendly and fearless for his own good.

So the one thing he knew he could not do is panic and advertize there was a missing child before he could chose to alert the authorities. Bim could just be playing, but that didn’t change the fact that Dark needed to find him and fast.

First course of action: call Ed. This way, if anyone tried to turn Bim in, he could find them, and strangle the life out of whichever unfortunate degenerate had found Bim before Dark could. Second, he needed to locate the boy, which was easier said than done. Wilford’s first parental obligation, as soon as the boy began displaying any time of ability or aura had been to teach the young boy how to mask it.

Dark had been proud of Wil’s forethought in protecting their son. Now, the entity wanted to strange the madman.

So, he’d need to do this one of two ways: the human way, or the way Dark typical got people to do what he wanted. He could switch back and terrify the entire mall into giving him Bim. But it would risk reigniting the search for the boy and if security had him, then they would call Silver or one of his motley crew to protect his son. But if they turned what appeared to be some random child over to Dark blindly, they were equally likely to report the incident to Silver or his friends, and a manhunt for the child would inevitably begin again. Dark might even lose Bim in the chaos.

With an inward groan, Dark decided on option: Number 1. He stayed as Damien, because Dark had walked in as Damien and went to the first store employee he could and explained the situation. After what was probably only five minutes felt like an eternity to a worried parent, security showed up.

“Yes, Sir, what seems to be the trouble?” one of the guards asked.

“I’m looking for my son,” Damien told them. “He’s got black hair, glasses, very friendly.”

“Daddy!”

Dark had the sudden urge to kill something, but held his form together. “Bim! Where were you?”

Bim was holding the hand of another store patron, who looked relieved to see Damien and security. He quickly let go of Bim as the small boy rushed towards Damien, immediately the entity began checking Bim over for a hair out of place, thanking security for their time. They left Damien alone with Bim and the good samaritan.

“Thank you,” Damien told him. “He got away from me.”

“I’ve got nieces and nephews, I know how it is,” the good samaritan smiled, then he smiled at Bim. “Glad I could find you so quickly.”

“Donsen,” Damien lied, holding an outstretched hand.

The man nodded, shaking his hand, “Name’s Mark.”

It took every muscle in Dark’s stolen body not to decapitate the man in front of him for merely sharing the same name as the cretin who had stolen so much from every part of the stitched together entity. “Nice to meet you,” Damien smiled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have to finish up shopping and then I have to take him home.”

“I thought we were getting ice cream,” Bim pouted.

“Not if you disappear again,” Damien’s smile fell and he glared at his little charge.

“Good luck,” Mark told him, both adults blissfully unaware that the individual in front of them was exactly the same person they’d tussle with on the top of a roof in less than a week.

Returning to the area they’d been at before, Dark kept much closer of an eye on Bim, hee got him into a fitting room to try on some clothes, and then the two left. Damien pulled Bim through the Void the instant he could and slipped back into his stable form, appearing in one of Dark’s warehouses, the shopping bags slung over his shoulder. Dark cracked his neck and glared at his son, the ringing that usually accompanied Dark’s existence starting to drone on. “You’re grounded Bim, I’m cutting your station time.”

“No!” Bim whined. “You can’t.”

“Do you even know what could have happened to you?” Dark roared, throwing the bags down. “You could have been taken from me!”

“I was playing hide-and-go-seek,” Bim argued back.

Dark’s ringing and glitching blue and red echoes shadowed him. “I did not agree to it, and we do not play hide-and-go-seek in a mall!”

“I’m going with Dad!” Bim shouted back at him, already going for the familiar phone in Dark’s pocket. Dark grabbed his hand.

“He is coming to the Manor, you are not going with him,” Dark ordered sharply as the two began to argue. A shrill wringing pitched in the air. Some of Dark’s hired goons nervously looking in on the two’s argument. Dark nearly broke one of their necks out of spite when they approached him too quickly.

Once both of them calmed down, Bim momentarily placate with a piece of candy from Dark’s pocket, but neither of them forgot the vicious argument they’d had mere moments ago, Bim followed Dark as he led him through the warehouse.

“Edgar!” Dark yelled, still angry at the situation with Bim, but most of his worrying was gone. He walked into what looked like a main break room mixed with a relaxed office. Ed’s office to be precise.

“I didn’t find him,” Ed spat, then froze when he saw Bim. “That him?”

Dark pulled Bim to stand in front of him. “I want you to memorize his face,” Dark ordered. “Because if anyone tries to bring him in to you, you are to kill them and call either me or Wilford. Am I clear?”

Edgar looked at Bim in concern, “Yeah, but are you sure you want me to call Wilford. I know you and him are close, but come on.”

“Do I need to repeat myself?” Dark growled.

“Yeah, loud and clear, your Royal Highness,” Edgar sneered. “He got a name or do I have to make one up?”

“He is my prince,” Dark introduced. “You and more importantly the men who work for you don’t need to know his name yet.”

“My name is—” Bim began happily.

Dark quickly slapped his hand over his mouth and ignored Bim when the boy vindictively began licking and biting his hand, fueled mostly because the boy was still frustrated at his father. “Excuse us, I have to take him home.”

“Right,” Ed agreed. “Good luck, I’ll pass the word around.”

Dark took Bim home after that, making sure to grab the clothing he’d tossed at the ground before the bulk of their argument. Wilford came to smooth things over after work, having to calm both Dark and Bim in the process.

After that Bim was allowed to go to the station after an apology to Dark, Wilford making sure to give Dark a soothing hug to calm the entity down a bit. Leaving Dark free to take his anger and frustration out on the multitude of projects he had to complete.