#I split from it! I was 100% sure I was actively dying! I was passing out every few seconds while seated!!! my blood pressure fucking tanked

[straydogged]

feeling very uh. elden ring lobster gif at my dr and pharmacy rn

[the-darkfactory]

A SICK GIRL.

This text was written and published in November 2018. This is the first time I translate to English. Hope it reaches those who need to read it most. Much love.

I was born dying. I was dragged from my mom's belly straight to the intensive care unit and spent a month in the incubator until I could breathe without machines. I was also born whole and no one ever told me that, one day, my mind was going to split in two.

I was very little when I first felt strange. Very strange. I was already 5’6 feet tall when I started my last year in primary school, finding clothes that fit me was torture. However, for my graduation party, I found a purple dress that seemed perfect. When I tried it on, under that all-showing light in the changing room, I felt fat. That was the first time I was disgusted by my reflection.

After a summer tinged with school farewell melodrama, I started high school. I spent most of my free time studying, listening to the Backstreet Boys or reading Harry Potter. At the end of the first semester, I got the best grades in my class. While everyone at home was happily celebrating, I made a pact with a friend: I was going to stop eating.

My thinness brought about new habits and what I remember the most is how cold I was: during school recess, my friends would go out to play and I would stay in the classroom wearing every sweatshirt I could find. It would take me forty-five minutes to eat an apple and before going to sleep, I would go over each food item I’ve had in the day and calculate the calories. I also learned that I had to get up slowly to avoid the dizziness that turned my room into a washing machine.

One day my family and I went to one of those “all you can eat” restaurants. After two sandwiches and a bit of cake, I started crying because I had an intense stomach ache, but it was all a premeditated drama I staged so they wouldn't make me have dinner. Two days later, my mom dragged me to a clinic. I had to take off my clothes and stand on an ice-cold scale. "You weigh 39 kilos," the doctor announced. "You're anorexic."

I was taken to a hospital that had a team specializing in treating people like me. We waited for hours until my name was called and I was met by an anti-anorexic army: a nutritionist, a clinical doctor, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and others I never understood who they were. They made my parents leave and Anorexia and I were interrogated. They asked us if we vomited, if we had thought about committing suicide and if we had ever been abused. When we talked about my parents' divorce, we burst into tears. Then they faced the back of two chairs and asked us to separate them according to how far apart we felt they had to be from each other in order for us to fit between them. We did it and passed the test: we knew we were tiny. The doctors said I was on the verge of hospitalization. I was a sick girl.

Once our relationship was made official, we went to the hospital three times a week. Long waiting, weighing, talking. We were forbidden to be physically active and we had to write down how much of what we ate a day. Mom sometimes comforted us and sometimes shouted at us. One night she yelled a lot because we had only had a piece of fruit for dinner, but how could I explain to her that eating made Anorexia hurt and so it hurt me too? We were sent to a psychologist we stared at in silence for an hour. We finished our junior year with straight As, enslaved at home and undernourished.

Anorexia and I did everything together. I would start a sentence and she would finish it. When I moved my hand to grab something, she was the one who forced my fingers closed, and if something bothered her, I did whatever was necessary to calm her down. One afternoon, we went cycling with our friends and we were carried on the handlebars so we wouldn't move. Everything was going beautifully until a sudden stop made us fall face first to the ground. We got up spitting teeth and blood. We broke our four incisors, skin came off our lips and we split the right side of our face. That night before showering, I stared at our skeletal, beaten up reflection. Days shy of my fourteenth birthday, I cried my heart out asking Anorexia what the fuck had she done.

I wanted her to go away. The only thing I could do to get her to leave was eat. Sometimes she won, sometimes I won. Once, she lost 100 grams and I went home after the medical check up feeling a killer urge. Another day, I gained 200 and that night she didn’t let me sleep. It was war. If Anorexia told me to hide food, I ran off to snack with my brother. If she hated sandwiches, I'd buy a dozen of my favorites. For every complaint of hers, a food bite of mine, and so, bite by bite, I filled her mouth with silence until I could no longer hear her speak.

I started my second year of high school with a seemingly healthy weight. I went to the hospital once a week. Eventually, I was told I could go once a fortnight, once every twenty-one days and, somehow, I stopped going altogether. I don’t remember how or when that decision was made. The only thing I do know is that during all that time I ate almost nothing from Monday to Friday and a lot from Saturday to Sunday in order to weigh more at the Monday check-ups. The thing was that once the pact between Anorexia and I had been made, she would try and talk to me every day. People didn't notice but I knew she was still there. We were still the best students, we lifted weights after eating a salad and we never got our periods. We were stopped on the streets to be offered jobs at modeling agencies and we realized that our bond had the aesthetic approval of society. I forgave her for all she had done and gave her, again, space in my body to grow.

When we turned seventeen, Anorexia changed. She screamed at me and didn't feel like doing anything. We quit the gym, gained weight and developed insomnia. One drunken night, we came home and went straight to the kitchen. We opened the fridge and devoured, on our knees, all the leftovers from dinner. We then shoved our fingers down our throats. That's how Bulimia arrived.

Bulimia was fiercely hungry. My cheeks, arms, and chin grew like a fatty bubble. I was disgusted by my body and I got dressed in the dark. I stopped studying, I couldn't concentrate on anything else. At prom I had two drinks and passed out. I woke up in hospital with an IV in my arm and my worried mother by my side. I didn't know how to explain that for weeks and in order to be skinny that night, everything I ate, Bulimia vomited.

I wanted to feel normal. I was very weak and exhausted, but Bulimia was young and confident. She never shut up, she would even eat raw polenta in spoonfuls and vomit it all, leaving me tired and confused lying in my bed. Her arrival was abrupt because Anorexia had already drilled holes in my head: they were different versions of the same thing and a pattern of destructive habits that infected everything. They turned my life into a living hell.

We vomited so much that we spent hours burying our heads in the toilet seat and we would only stop when we saw the first thing we had eaten leaving our body. We did it five, six times a day. We used every bathroom we set foot in. The ones at school, my friends' houses, restaurants, my grandmother's, my dad's. I developed arrhythmia and thought that Bulimia was going to get me killed. Some nights, while dreaming that I was violently bingeing, I would wake up desperate and ready to stick my fingers in my mouth until I realized that, that one time, the binge had been a dream. That feeling of “fake need to vomit” was the closest thing to peace I felt during those times.

Bulimia didn't want me around anyone. She made me think I was crazy and that I would never be able to be separated from her. I stayed away from my friends. I stopped having dinner with my family and we would lock ourselves up in my room. Mom would bring me trays of food that Bulimia kept in plastic bags. I once found a rotten chicken inside the closet. It was full of maggots. We were almost found out when my brother saw a glass of vomit in the bathroom that we had forgotten to flush down the toilet. He brought it to me and said, "Is this yours?" while retching. We nodded and took it away from him as if it had been a misplaced shoe.

I don't know how I managed to free myself from anorexia and bulimia, but for the last three years I have hardly felt their presence. Sometimes I wonder if I started traveling around the world to confuse them and leave them stranded in another part of the planet. Maybe they got bored of my criticism and couldn't stand my will to not share my body with them. One thing I’m sure of is that love played a major part. It was crucial to understand that I did not choose to live with them and that asking a person with compulsive thoughts to stop having them is like asking a paralytic to simply stand up and walk.

Anorexia and bulimia stole my time and energy. I gave them my will to live, my projects and motivations. In return, they gave me anxiety, panic attacks, depression and suicidal thoughts. They still whisper to me every now and then but I can ignore them. It’s not always easy. I don’t know, this coexistence has been very strange but they definitely don’t own me anymore. Looking for the reasons I developed this disorder is complex. I know that I was affected by the pressure I felt from a very young age to be perfect, the weirdness that arose in my family dynamics after the divorce and feeling that for society I was worth more as a woman the skinnier I was. The final trigger must have been a genetic predisposition and a bit of mystery: there is still a lot that science doesn't know about all this. Once my disease was established, it became a vicious, out-of-control cycle that was perpetuated by the worst evil of all: silence. I felt a deep shame, thought it was my fault and that, hence, I deserved what was happening to me. That made me sicker and I vowed to hide it, which was possible because these disorders are invisible: they lock themselves inside bodies of all types, gender, background, shape and turn them into slaves.

When I stopped vomiting and regained control of my hands, I wrote this. It feels weird. After seventeen years of being in a symbiotic relationship, there is something I still don't understand: if I am no longer a sick girl, then who am I?

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

pls scream about Leo a lil bit cause my love for that man is neverending and i live for you guys' blog,,, and ur comte love fuels me??? head empty except for those two pureblood clowns

HNGNGNG I hope that both you and everyone that reads my shenanigans knows how utterly understood I feel when I see anyone stan Comte, if not both of those idiot purebloods bc good lord...I live for two tired fossil men that just want DOMESTIC BLISS. Literally they have no brain cells beyond respect women and we love that for us, it’s spectacular!!

Under a cut bc I went off and is long:

That being said I’d be happy to yell abt Leo!! Where do I even begin, this man was the reason I got into Ikevamp in the first place, and I’ve read just about every single one of his events at this point. He just makes me so TENDER!!!!!! For whatever reason the first thing that came to mind was this one time he lies about being jealous and MC is lolol u a fool if you think I can’t tell when you lie to me. And he’s so fuckiNG SHOOK?????? It’s even funnier because she’s internally like [I’m not 100% sure but for a second there he almost looked mad...time to test this theory even if it’s just A GAME T H E O R Y] And he’s so fucking pikachu meme that shit sends me. I can’t handle the fact that he’s so used to people just assuming he’s fine, that he can handle himself. That he’s lived for so long without really anyone noticing at all. (Comte absolutely notices and will lightly roast him, but doesn’t really push him about it or wants to overstep). And so when MC just actively pays attention and is so gentle with him he’s just floored???

God I’m crying now, but I will just never forget the funeral scene in his fucking rt. This asshole, this absolute moron, straight up tries to come at us with “yOu GeT uSeD tO iT aFtEr HaLf A mIlLeNiUm, i’M nOt SaD”. Like are you serious. Come here and let me hold you before I throttle you. Absolute clown. He’s just always trying so hard to get by on his own and it breaks my heart. How long...how long has he lived just getting by, nursing his own wounds and dragging himself up all by himself. HE LEFT HOME AT LIKE 14 (whatever the fuCK SOME TOO YOUNG AGE) AND RAN STRAIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF PEOPLE THAT HATED HIM FOR HIS TALENT. HE REMEMBERS HIS MENTORS DESTROYING HIS UTENSILS WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE PARENTS THAT WHOLEHEARTEDLY REJECTED ANY EXPRESSION OF LOVE OR COMPASSION FOR HUMANITY THAT HE CHERISHED SO DEEPLY. I DON’T NEED SLEEP I NEED TO HUG HIM IMMEDIATELY FUCKING HELL.

Like.........there’s just........I don’t know how to explain it, but I once saw it explained so well in a post. It was basically talking about Castlevania, and how in that show Dracula sees humanity’s folly and develops so much hatred he just goes straight to murder rage. And while in some ways I understand that, I understand even more deeply Trevor’s response to humanity’s fear and violence. He says that he knows they’re short-sighted, that maybe we all just don’t deserve saving...but that he’s going to do it anyway. Leonardo just so much gives me that energy of knowing there’s so much pain in the world, but all we can do is keep walking--keep trying, even if we have to claw our way forward. Because if you only see the awfulness in front of you, you forget the way that strangers make silly faces at babies to make them laugh on the train, how a friend will put everything down to race over to someone and comfort them with some ice cream--do anything they can to distract them from the hurt. How the sight of a child crying will prompt careful cooing from a stranger as to their bravery, an offering of cool water, the gentle placement of a bandaid. How a pair of teenagers will spot a lost child in milliseconds and help them seek out their parents protectively. There is so much wretchedness, but also so much beauty in it all, and the older I get the more I see myself wanting to believe in the latter. I want to be hopeful, and easily impressed, and full of love. To be bitter and jaded accomplishes nothing, and only becomes a worsening self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you seek negativity, the more you will find it; and worse, create it.

I also scream a little bit bc like. I’ve gone on and on about how Comte is very obviously in love with MC all the time, and sure that may be true. But...I really don’t think Leo is exempt from that either if I’m honest lmfao. Only because what does Leonardo do when it isn’t his route? He almost never shows up. Once in a while he might appear for a split second in a scene, but he almost never converses with MC beyond those short moments. While Comte is the one to pine openly, I’d wager Leo is the opposite. He pines in absolute silence, because he knows that if he gets any closer--he’s going to fall. He’s going to enjoy it too much, going to keep seeking out more before he can stop himself. And losing another person he loves...he just can’t do it anymore. In his first meeting story he talks about seeing MC’s eyes and feeling like he’d known them all his life, and even in his MS he speaks to just being completely fascinated by and enamored of her. She doesn’t hesitate, always does her best, meets people head-on and without much hesitation. After a lifetime of people that are probably just immediately interested in him for his talents, or always seeking out his company for the novelty, this is someone that doesn’t give a single fuck if he’s Leonardo da Vinci. Sure she’s aware, and sure she’s impressed to some extent, but her respect--her attraction and admiration--is something that has to be earned. 

There’s something so refreshing about how their love was written. Sure it’s the whole fake marriage to a real relationship, but it’s also a kind of subtle enemies to lovers pulled off masterfully. MC is 100% minding her own business, just wants to do what she must in order to get home, tries to focus on her work to keep from thinking about how much she misses her old life. She doesn’t rely on anyone, doesn’t talk about how hard it is or how scary it is or how confusing. And even Leonardo forgets in his curiosity, is just chillin and also just trying to do the bare minimum to keep from getting too attached--figures he can admire her from a distance. And then he sees her staring at the hourglass. And suddenly, he can’t just watch her do that herself. Just wait for the hard times to pass, just sit with her own loneliness--that hollowing silence. There’s something so moving about it because he reaches out precisely because he knows that feeling to his fucking marrow, and literally just cannot watch somebody else do that to themselves. Sure he’s been dealing with it for three hundred years, BUT THIS GOOD BABIE CHILD DOES NOT DESERVE THIS. SHE WORKS HARD AND DESERVES NICE THINGS!!!!!!!! And so he drives her crazy as he races ahead of her, intercepting any attempt for her to preserve that silence and hide. She doesn’t see any pattern to it, and that’s just how he likes it--he doesn’t want her to worry about the how or why. 

Like I fully remembering playing in Japanese and being like oh my fucking god this is hilarious, this man is just a wild fucker and I love this. I was enjoying myself, mostly laughing and shaking my head. But then it just gets so, so serious. I was having so much fun that I, like a fool, forgot the anime effect. If you’re having fun, it’s going to come crashing down without mercy soon enough. And it does. He helps a little girl without any hope play her violin again, and maybe I’m just too English major but I was fucking FLOORED when I realized I didn’t see that that was straight foreshadowing. That little girl without hope? That was MC (and by extension depending on how you play, us). Though the metaphor isn’t quite so easily mapped without a physical space, the connection is clear when you think about it. With his careful social awareness, he makes a place for MC to exist in the mansion so naturally--as though she was meant to be there from the start, crafts a positive impression of her presence with each of the residents. And he does it with zero expectation of anything in return; he’s just happy to see her not stressing herself out anymore or trying to do everything alone. MC doesn’t fall in love with him despite their differences, she falls in love with him because they are the same in a singular and all-encompassing way that matters; they both care about other people so deeply, to the point where they will forego any personal needs in order to make that person’s life easier. Whether it be muting their own hardship, or working to involve another person in a new space (or opening up to the point of self-destruction to keep a person from feeling alone), they go above and beyond what anybody asks of them--perhaps strong to the point of their own detriment, in some cases. 

It’s why I always laugh when he says to Sebastian “That cara mia, she has a good heart.” Of course she does, Leonardo; it certainly takes one to know one. 

And because I literally have no brain cells beyond being in fucking love with Leonardo THE LAKE SCENE IS AN AFFRONT TO MY DIGNITY AND SELF-CONTROL. HOW DARE YOU, SIGNORE. HOW DARE YOU ASK ME TO SIT THERE AND WATCH YOU OPEN YOUR HEART TO ME AND NOT BAWL MY EYES OUT AND TRY TO KISS YOU ALL AT THE SAME TIME. SIGNORE “hAhA yOu’Re So SmAlL yOu LoOk LiKe YoU’rE DrOwNiNg In My CoAt.” I WOULD DROWN AND DIE HAPPY--BITCH I TELL YOU THAT.

Like. I can’t think of another route I’ve ever done where I spent a good amount of time like “lmfao this guy is so wild im gonna punch him” to just be in a whirlpool of my own tears, regretting my entire fucking LIFE days later. Like Leonardo’s cultural impact???? Fucking immeasurable, I wish every white man disaster I ever met had a hidden heart of gold in all of his boyish dumbassery, an ICONIC himbo of our time. 

Also because I remembered it before posting and I am Dying^TM. The event where MC was a pureblood and he was human. That entire fucking event. I literally can’t think about it without screaming and crying. Her just so flustered at his reaction to her like “oh look, free real estate” as he plops her in his lap, absolutely no fear, treating her like a princess because of her noble title despite NO NECESSITY BEYOND PLAYFULNESS BUT ALSO STILL MEANING IT IN AN EARNEST WAY, being charming to no END just to see her laugh or look away shyly. 

WHEN HE SAID. WHEN HE SAID “...Can’t leave you alone, or you might go off someplace I can’t follow.” I. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU STRIPPED DEVOTION DOWN TO ITS BARE ESSENTIALS!!!!!! GAH HOW MC HERSELF SAYS “I would tell him the truth but...he’s much too generous for a human. I know he would offer his life without a moment’s hesitation.” How Leo describes the aftermath of her biting him: “Lucky for you, I’m a true gentleman, Unlike my principessa, who took me like a storm” HELLO??????? H E L  L O ???????????????????????? ARE WE JUST GOING TO SLEEP ON THE FACT THAT HE LOST HIS ENTIRE SOUL WHEN SHE BIT HIM???? I--

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

(Also as much as I love him the cigarillos have got to go at some point, boy do you have any idea the shit secondhand smoke does good lordt)

[aspenforest732]

A few of you liked my other fanfic post so figured I'd share one I'm cooking up now. The Marle one is dead in the water, probably won't go back to it at least until I read Dawnshard.

Lemme know if you want more Phoenix lore. I didn't realize how much I had until I was scrolling back up through this post, and this is just on two of the 6 subraces

New one is going back to my Phoenix race, but this time it's a young Orator named Xava who climbed the ranks quickly in the Marvel universe, especially considering they lost their Listener companion I guess is the right word? Orators can only speak through the force/magic, and their speech is imbued with mind-type magics that allow them to convey meanings to groups or individuals beyond their actual words (like advanced subtext). They can also be understood by anyone and pick up languages quickly. Listeners can only hear through the force and can hear all the subtext in someone's words (yes, this is overwhelming at young ages). They can understand everyone and pick up languages quickly. Listner/Orator pairs comprise most of the operatives in a functional universe unit, usually taking an advisory role in some capacity or placing themselves in a seat of power that is deemed suitable by the Council. The pairs are bonded for life, and if one dies, the other usually retires to help the next generation due to skill gap and loss of their other half. They share a more intimate pseudo empathy/telepathy than Phoenix at large due to their bond and ability to pick up on each others' nonverbal cues.

Onto the actual story, Xava fought in a war with the TVA in one timeline, and their partner, Lexal died saving another group (only one could go and Lexal hid the underlying message that the one would die from Xava). Since they were so young, Xava decided to push forward with their career and use the skills Lexal taught them as well as supplemental training to do the work of a pair.

I originally started with a story in the aftermath of the Season finale of Loki, but then decided it would be more interesting to do one somewhat based on a fanfic I'm reading. We'll go chronologically.

Minor AU where Loki is able to harness the time stone to go back in time (haven't settled on the exact circumstances, but it's either on the statesman and Thanos has the mind stone instead of another or Loki is the one to kill him instead of Thor almost doing it in infinity war). Xava is sent due to the possibility of a new tertiary branch developing, and they go back to right after the failed coronation as Thor would be raging about going to Jotunheim.

BUT as they arrive, he's embracing Loki and Xava sees a pair who were supposed to be taking Thor to a branch 2 over. Enough moments have passed with such deviation that they've now skyrocketed away from the other branches, so sending him to the original would destabilize this one too much.

Now with a keystone pair, the three Phoenix have to work together, despite the other Orator's distaste for Xava's age and knowledge base due to their different fields of expertise (Avengers: Thor and House of Odin: Loki, respectively). The Listener is more or less a peacekeeper between the two as Xava tries to make things work smoothly but loses a lot of respect for the Orator when it's revealed he intentionally stayed in the dark about who saved his unit (Lexal).

There are a number of shenanigans I've thought up in that storyline, but it's still pretty new.

Fast forward about 5000 years, and the universe is stable enough to have endured 300 merges and is strong enough as a tertiary branch to not need representatives specifically for the keystone pair.

Xava is promoted to Ishvar (manager of timeline) and is transfered to the new trunk split (MCU, MCOU(comics), MFU(fanfiction), and now MMU(multi)) of Loki season finale. They will be working as both an Ishvar and a keystone representative due to their experience with Lokis and unusual circumstances.

Things are going pretty much according to plan with teams pouring into the universe to stabilize the trunk split while new branches rapidly form and collapse back into the trunk. This started before I watched What If?, so that would probably be considered a primary branch.

Loki returns to earth post endgame with a few must haves (AU before his appearance), forming a primary branch. Xava starts coordinating with the couple Phoenix already on earth, and things are still going pretty well, minus the mistrust sowed by their frequent consultation of a command sphere to direct movements (part of Ishvar, essentially giant collective mind database, call center, map, etc.). Then they get a Listener intern under 100 (age of puberty for phoenix). Which is the last thing they wanted right now, and they know they will royally screw up this kid if it's not sorted out.

Xava tries to figure out what's going on and reaches out to home world, only to be shortly cut off by a complete universe isolation message and every Listener screaming before falling unconscious. Homeworld is offline for the first time in Phoenix history (this is a result of my star wars fanfic tl;dr a Seer Phoenix lead a sith invasion of Homeworld, and the Council yeeted it into a different pocket dimension only taking the adults).

Now Xava can't send the kid back, who not only wasn't sent here by the Council since they would've sent a pair, but who is also linked to the SWU (Star wars). So they can hear but not understand any nonPhoenix is saying and struggle to use the magic here (enough to not be dying but not much more). They were born with the ability to hear everyone in the universe at all times (normally activated once they hit puberty), and while they have better control of it now, it's still a lot, especially before they got a translator chip.

That's pretty much where I left it since I wasn't sure where to go other than lots of meetings, a hidden message from Homeworld revealing their predictions for MMU, and discovering what the council had done. Of course, the delay in information caused the predictions to be largely useless as bringing Loki to the meeting prevented him from doing something that didn't seem vital at the time on earth.

[anothersillyfanblog]

The Caveway To Hell

Day 13: Door. I did- so with something like this, you either have to take it 100% serious or go crack fic. By “something like this” I mean a Sanders Sides/Devil May Cry crossover, I did a DMC crossover, you don’t need to understand it, I don’t understand it. ------------------

Remus had been dead for two-and-a-half-years. Until, unfortunately for museum curator Janus William, he wasn’t.

“Where is it?...” something may or not have whispered from the dark.

It was late into William’s shift, and the slight patter of footsteps he kept fooling himself weren’t his own wasn’t helping the night pass any quicker. He’d done this enough times, he thought, backing against one of the glass cases, there was no reason to be nervous. Then? Then the glass smashed behind him.

A figure, somehow stood in the container, holding a recently-procured-mace and clad in an emerald-green leather jacket. Janus tried to look past the large shards of glass stuck in his face and see who this was, maybe get a better description for the police, but he didn’t get the chance. This man, antique mace in hand, ran towards the museum curator- and swung.

-Four weeks later-

Posters up for ‘the man in green’. Lots of people wear green. Roman’s heart still jumped five feet, it’s not as if ‘lots of people’ steal antique maces. Hell, the young devil hadn’t even known his brother’s mace was in a museum! If he had, HE’D have been the one committing theft. Might’ve been a different antique mace? Might not have been “Harmsway”? Maybe?

Any information contact the police.

….

Or the museum, okay so that worked.

-

“He looked like you-” Roman rolled his eyes “Are you blind? He probably had a shitty moustache and dyed thingy up here!” “Blind?!” scoffed the man sat in front of him “well yes, I just had half of my fucking face smashed in with a mace, and I couldn’t really see him properly at the time so.” “Oh, well!” Roman laughed “No need to get antsy, just sayin’. Anyway, he should look a bit like me, if he’s who I think, he’s my twin brother.” He became a lot more sombre now “except he can’t be- or really shouldn’t.” “What do you mean?” Janus asked. “My brother, Remus, died nearly three years ago now. I saw him fall from Mikaw Mountain- and that mace, Harmsway, too. I ran to the bottom of the mountain, but... Do you know how many creatures are around there? How many demons? I mean, I’m me and I struggled to make it out of there… I really- I just-” Roman took a deep breath “Look, Janus, if he’s alive then I have to see it with my own eyes. Coz It could be any random guy (who looks like me) in green leather breaking into a museum to steal my brother’s mace back!” Janus nodded “Sure could…” he smiled “so how are you going to find him?” “Oh now that!” Roman began “might take a while.”

-

It was like one of those optical illusions, at least when Logan had questioned what they were doing there: the cave looked like a door to hell (when you squinted slightly), and the door to hell looked like a cave (you didn’t have to squint for that).

Either way, as long as they were getting closer to the goal, that was what mattered. And if this goal involved trusting a devil- or half-devil, either one- then whatever.

“Can you see it?” the man in front of him wielding the mace asked. “See what?” Logan replied. Remus tutted “That’s your humanity, you, can’t see what’s standing right! In! Front! Of! You!” he hit the snowy cliffside on each pause, to the protests of Logan (who astonishingly didn’t want to cause an avalanche), and the rocks split- revealing a dark passageway. “See?” Remus began to cackle. “You think you can handle the devil world? Get ready for a funky old time, my friend!”

-

So how were Janus and Roman going to find them? Ultimately, through one very anxious ex-lab-partner. This being of Logan’s, of course.

Virgil Dagon had woken to find the lab eerily quiet. Usually he could at least hear the breathing of his work partner, but not at this moment. Right then, he went to put his food in the fridge, then- like clockwork- walked over to check on the micro-samples.

It was then he found the note.

--To Virgil: I did not feel quite right leaving without writing something, though my, shall we say, new partner encouraged against it. I have found an extraordinary opportunity, the likes of which this world cannot provide me, and so I am leaving it. There are studies to be sought elsewhere and I will seek them for I can. I wish you all the best; Logan. –

His heart leapt. Well, actually it summersaulted, but he wasn’t getting caught up on the details. Well, he was. Logan was not the kind of guy to just leave, or to ‘just do’ anything, and it really wasn’t an over-reaction to find this suspicious. Unless it was? No, Logan was the kind of guy who would skip out on meeting with friends to study, but not the kind to actively abandon those friends. Especially not…

‘This world???’

So began these new sleepless nights- sifting through his friend’s emails, notes, even the lab’s security footage (indoor and out). By the end, he had more than a few ideas.

-

A cave. Or, so Janus was told, the doorway to hell (if you squint). And it was two guys, from the same lab, in fairly close succession, both quitting their jobs to get plane tickets to Mikaw Mountain that tipped off one of Roman’s many informants.

“He’ll have a head start” Roman stared at the split in the cliff face momentarily “and quite a big one, so!” he grinned, then sprinted into the darkness, leaving Janus calling behind. It’s not like a half-blind man could keep up in a cave full of demons- he’d just have to die or run, either of which didn’t sound like a Roman problem.

In fact, without that curator guy, he was having a grand old time. It had been a while since Roman had done any serious hunting, any REAL fighting, and it was good to be back at it! Hacking at the sorts of bloody creatures he hadn’t fought since he’d last seen his brother…

Just simple, caped, skeleton-like things, many of them were- nothing too difficult- and nothing that him and his blade (Starcrossed) didn’t handle well enough. He was just propelling himself off of the cavern wall, slicing through the necks of several creatures as he leapt across, when he heard the scream. From up ahead.

So not the curator (probably).

And either way, he had already gotten started. Better finish.

-

“Is it done?” Remus whinged, almost childlike, whilst attempting to balance Harmsway on his finger. Logan didn’t look at him, remaining focused on the device in his hands “Almost…” he tapped the screen “there.” Remus snatched it off him, grinning, before instantly frowning again and giving it back. “What does, so, what does it mean, then?” “It’s a map to the door.” “But the cave is the door-” Remus started, before a figure behind interrupted. “Not quite,” Janus pointed a cane at Remus “bitch.”

The two swivelled round immediately, with Logan looking at his new partner with confusion and that partner proceeding to break out into hysterics.

“You? You?” he cackled “I can hardly remember who the FUCK you’re supposed to BE, let alone why you would know shit about the doorway to hell!” “Really?” Janus stepped closer “you, uh- robbed my museum and did this to me with a fucking mace you psychopath.” He gestured to the still-bandaged half of his visage, smiling with absolute hatred. Logan coughed “I’m not sure you have a diagnosis of psychopathy-”   “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, HE SMASHED HALF MY FUCKING FACE IN.” he glared directly at Logan now, shouting, a tear pricking his eye. Remus tutted “Well, if you keep screaming at my friend, then I can do the other half- if you like?” he stepped forward, this time successfully balancing Harmsway on his finger. Janus turned slowly and lifted his cane- the end turning into spike after pressed a seemingly invisible button. “Or we could match- ‘if you like?’” he taunted.

Janus made very precise, delicate moves, attempting to finely swipe or jab at Remus’ figure. The latter was extremely different. He leapt dramatically out of the way of every move, then would charge back with astonishing speed- mace overhead.

They kept on like this for a while, evading and attacking, leaping and swiping, until Remus stayed still. He just stood there as his opponent dived in. And then, of course, he grabbed the cane- flinging Janus round and into the cave wall, who then let out a sharp cry.

Remus drove into him, winding him further with Harmsway, then quickly snatched his cane-arm and held it above his head. “If you want MY mace in your pussy-ass museum,” he snarled “then you can take it where it belongs.” “Thank you for the invitation but I think I’d rather, ooh, go to hell?” Roman stood, beaming, to their right.

“Hi again, Remus.” --------------------------------------------- Yeah so I haven’t finished this and, due to college, probably won’t for all of October. Also I don’t think anyone will like it so uh yeah no one will want me to continue. I had TOO much fun though!!!

[hcneysoaked]

💘 eli and seb c:

send me 💘 + A SHIP and i’ll tell you—

where they first met and how iconic meet cute !!!! next door apartment neighbors with seb Nicely asking eli to shut up and eli going “no <3” bc he loves being a menace 

how long their ‘flirting’ phase was before feelings got involved the back and forth went for a while, maybe a month or two which absolutely kills them once they realize its more than just messing around and playful flirting

who fell for who first ( if applicable ) seb……. I Think… bc he was the one making excuses to be around eli but eli definitely indulged it bc he was also very much interested. but like, i think seb was at least more conscious of it first??

where their first date was and what it was like mm first “sort of” date was seb picking eli up after class and taking him out to eat BUT they were still playing their little game so i dont think they count it gbdjkfg i think once they start Officially dating then they probably spend the day out doing that cute couple shit

who asks who out and how ( with a sign? spelled out on a cake? just a simple ‘will you go out with me’? ) officially ask out, probably seb again but mostly bc eli has already assumed they’re dating by that point so its more of a formality/clarification than anything else gkjgdfg

who proposes first seb!!!!! if this is like the Actual proposal and not that spontaneous vegas shit i think eli’s pretty content with not making it formal and all as long as they stay together 

if they keep / kept their relationship secret or let everyone know right away eli tells his friends like Right Away bc theyve probably been on his case abt seb for ages and im not sure seb has anyone he’d like want to tell right away?? It takes eli a while for him to figure out how to tell his siblings, but he definitely tells them way before his parents who probably just end up finding out on their own anyway gbdfkg

where the proposal happens and how ( kiss cam at a baseball game? on a hillside surrounded by ducks? at a disney park? ) honestl y im not sure bgfjkgd i feel like seb would put a Lot of thought into it and have a whole Plan but also i like the idea of it just kinda Happening :(( like has this plan and everything but maybe theyre just together one night and fuc k the plan

if they adopt any pets together im literally dying to give them a cat bgjkdfg partly just bc i know eli really wants one and he’d absolutely just show up one day with one in tow

who’s more dominant eli def has seb wrapped around his finger but we Know seb has big dom energy and is probably one of the few people that can keep eli under control

where their first kiss was and what it was like :((((( i mean they Like hook up before they really start dating some probably around then but like they have that little moment with the confession ™ and that kiss would be a soft lil contrast to how they’ve acted around each other up until then

if they have any matching couples stuff ( mugs? sweaters? pillowcases? ) probabl y bc they’re gross and cheesy kjdgfdgd but i like the matching sweater/clothes idea :(( eli definitely gets that for them bc he likes dressing seb up so much

how into pda they are very!!!! seb can Lie and say he doesn't like pda all he wants but he likes that eli’s all over him even in public we know how clingy eli is already

who holds the umbrella when it rains probably seb bc taller and eli’s a Brat bgjf

where their usual ‘date spot’ is ( if applicable ) mmmmm damn i kinda like the idea of them going to that first date-ish spot every so often, but i'm not sure how many actual dates they go on that would be super consistent? partly cause free time and also just bc eli loves spontaneity and surprises

who’s more protective I think seb seems more protective on a sort of surface level but they’d be super protective of each other? like they’d both be pretty quick to defend the other

how long it is before they sleep together ( can be as in ‘had sex’ or as in ‘shared a bed’ ) i feel like they might’ve fallen asleep together (at least accidentally) during one of those times eli hangs out at seb’s while he’s working but i dont think they really share a bed until they hook up and eli like purposefully stays the night, and that happens a while after their flirting

if they argue about anything oh definitely, especially at first i think. definitely about eli’s recklessness, about the whole parent situation, if eli feels seb’s being too protective, but they work through all of it <3

who leaves more marks ( lipstick, hickeys, scratchmarks etc. ) not 100% about seb but eli definitely likes marking him up gnjddgd he just likes the idea of seb going to work all cleaned up with hickeys and shit under his collar gkjgfdgf

who steals whose clothes and how often eli definitely steals clothes the most, he likes curling up in seb’s shirts and sweaters :(( i'm not sure that seb steals eli’s clothes so much as eli dresses him up in them gkdfgd just bc their styles are pretty different

how they cuddle ( spooning? facing each other? ) lots of spooning for sure, lots of eli sitting in seb’s lap while he works, also probably eli resting on him if they’re on the couch or in bed

what their favourite nonsexual activity is just hanging out together you know :((( like cuddling and resting together

how long they stay mad at each other I don’t think seb likes staying mad at him for too long, but eli definitely likes to hold grudges and all that, though I think he’d be a little more forgiving?? depends on the situation gkdfng but he’s also the type to just get up and leave when mad so I’m sure that doesn’t really help

what their usual coffee / tea orders are seb…. black coffee man, eli’s likes coffee but he likes it really sweet bgjkdgd

if they ever have any children together :(((( i think……. maybe….. at least one gbfdjkgdf especially after like more people around them start having kids?? 

if they have any special pet names for each other definitely the standard babe + baby :(( but aside from that… 

if they ever split up and / or get back together oo f i’m not sure if the family thing is enough to split them up for a bit, but it wouldn’t stay like that for long they’d definitely get back together pretty quickly, regardless of what it is

what their shared living space is like ( messy? clean? what kind of decor? ) they end up spending more time in seb’s apartment, probably gets a little more put together after eli movies in and he definitely tries to decorate it with anything he finds Neat so it's not the most coordinated gbdfkgd

what their first christmas / hanukkah / etc as a couple was like probably just as overboard as their first birthdays are together gkdfg or maybe more lowkey? they might spend the actual day with family but they’d exchange gifts and have a little thing together afterwards i think

what their names are in each other’s phones eli has him in as babe with little heart emojis and i think seb has him in as baby?? 

if they have any ‘couple traditions’ ( buying a new mug for their collection every year? baking every friday evening? ) mmmm i feel like they Absolutely would but i’m blanking now gbdfjkgd 

who falls asleep first and who wakes up first they’re both late sleepers so it’s just whoever passes out first I think but seb tends to wake up earlier bc Work and eli won’t leave bed unless he really has to 

who’s the big spoon / little spoon mmm seb’s probably the big spoon more maybe?? but also wakes up w eli clinging onto him

who hogs the bathroom probably eli?? bc again, Brat, but also i think he’d just take longer getting ready overall

who kills the spiders / takes them outside gbjdkfgd eli feels bad killing spiders so he definitely takes them outside if he comes across them and probably doesn't even mention it to seb

[twilighthooves]

The Dead Mask Caper

This is an RP-turned-story I did with @sandiegosquadrp​ as my blog @rymccrimmon10​. in it, an alternate version of Ryan is their Carmen’s Player.

"Heya Princess how's it going this morning?" Player shouted. Carmen jolted awake with a start.

“HUH?! WHAT?!” She looked around her hotel room and settled back down, grabbing her phone.

"Carmen, you didn't sleep in did you?" Player inquired.

“W... what are you talking about?” She mumbled, grabbing her phone. “Am I late for something?”

"No, but you'd probably like to know I just hacked into a security camera and saw a young woman with white hair. And we both know we know only one person like that." Carmen groaned.

“I don’t want to get out of bed for a stupid ass furry...” She complained.

"You will when I say she's heading for...The Portland Art Museum."

“Uuuuggghhhh...” Carmen whined. “Why?”

"Y'know, the place where art of the Day of The Dead is displayed? I only assume if she doesn't steal something from the showing on the Day of The Dead, it's something from one of the other exhibits. Sorry Red, no sleeping in today."

“I know, I know...” Carmen said. She groggily got up and began to get ready for the day. “Call Zach and Ivy and tell them to meet me here.”

"No prob." Player switched over to his line to Zach and Ivy. "Yo twins, Tigress is on the move. Carmen needs you at the hotel."

“Right-io! Ivy wake up!” Zach shouts into the receiver.

“Uuugghhh!!! I don’t wanna fight no dumb ass furry!!” Ivy complained.

”Carmen said the same thing, but it's the Portland Art Museum. She could be stealing something from the Day of The Dead showcase." A few minutes later, Carmen and the Twins met at the hotel.

“Aw!” Zach complains. “What about breakfast?”

"Typical." Player scoffed.

“No time for breakfast, Zach. But, I do know that I’m getting a bagel later. But, right now, we gotta move.” Carmen says.

"Focus Z, food's the least of your concerns right now." Player added. "It's Carmen and Ivy you should be worrying about."

“Aw, but my tummy hurts...” Zach says.

“Whatever, Zach-Attack! You heard the boss! Let’s get movin’!” Ivy barks. They all head out the door. It’s the middle of the day in Florida, and it’s HOT. Ivy and Zach are dying on the walk over. “Cahmeh, how ain’t you DYIN’ of heat stroke?!” Ivy said.

“I guess the heat makes me feel energized,” Carmen said, tipping her hat. “Now come on.”

"Careful Red." Player warned. "I know you're probably sick of me saying that but we all know how Tigress operates."

“Relax, I got it. Any clue where she is now?”

"Looking now.” Player told her. “Ngh, either the museum's gotten smart or she jammed the security cameras. either way, you're unfortunately stuck going in blind."

“Works for me. After I’m done kicking her ass, I’m getting a nap in,” Carmen boasts, smiling. Smiles are rare in her line of work.

“Uh... boss?” Ivy says.

“Si?” Carmen replied.

“We’ve got a Mime, 12:00 o clock.” Carmen glances upward.

“There he is.” She hissed. “The furry’s little errand boy.”

”I’ll work on the cameras while you take care of him." Player assured them. It looked like Mime Bomb went out of sight while they were talking.

“Twins, split up, get inside.” Carmen instructed. “Looks like our friends in there are going to try to work in plain sight.” The Twins nodded and went in opposite directions while Carmen walked into the museum.

"Got it." Player said as the camera feed blipped . "Looks like I could be right. She's going in the Day of The Dead showcase. But take it easy Red, I can't tell if she's just passing through to another exhibit."

“I can’t just attack her either. It’s crowded in here,” Carmen observed. There were people everywhere. “I wonder what she plan to-“ Carmen stops, having spotted Tigress. She was wearing a trench coat and seemed to be loitering around the back entrance. “What is she up to? Waiting for Mime Bomb or something?”

"SHITE!" Player hissed. "She's not stealing anything thing, it's Mime Bomb!" Carmen was surprised to hear her buddy swear, even if it wasn’t really a swearword.

“What do you mean?” She asks.

"She's just waiting for him to pass the....whatever! Maybe...I don't know. Better find out Red." Carmen realizes what he means.

“I think I got it. Give me a second, I’m going to swipe it when he comes by.” As if on cue, Mime Bomb approaches. He does a little bow to her, which looks a bit dorky. Carmen bites her lip. “What is he hiding?” Her question is answered when he gives her a mask. Carmen reaches for it from her hiding spot, but she misses. She can’t risk getting seen. Tigress takes it.

“Thank you. I’m sure you can get back to your post now?” Tigress says to Mime Bomb, who begins to make all sorts of miming motions. Tigress giggles.

“Hold on a minute are they flirting right now?” Carmen whispers, in awe.

"Gross." Player stated.

“Aww...” Carmen cooed. But then she snapped back to attention once she realized Tigress was leaving with the mask!

"Focus Carmen!" Player whisper-shouted. "She's heading towards an emergency exit!"

“I know I know!” She whisper shouted back. She darted frantically back to the outside. “Ugh! Where did she go?”

“Boss!” Ivy shouted, from somewhere to the side. “We’ve got company!”

Carmen turned and... oh shit! It was Virus!

“Hehe. You didn’t think we wouldn’t take extra precautions with you around, did you?” Virus said, and with a loud CRACK!! her electric arm activated.

“Nope! I just was hoping you wouldn’t be here!” Carmen said as she backflipped out of the way. On top of the building, she could see Tigress getting away.

"Damn it!" Player swore, hitting a fist against his table. "Carmen, you'd better think of something!"

"Wait a minute!" He snapped his fingers. "Any police copters around?"

"Or anything related to the police."

“Uh, kind of preoccupied!” Carmen said, trying and struggling to keep Virus’s claw away from her.

“Don’t worry, Boss!” The Twins shouted. They jumped on Virus and pulled her off of Carmen, allowing her to escape. She sprinted after Tigress.

“Doesn’t look like it, Player,” Carmen panted.

"Ngh, I was hoping to send a signal to warn them about Tigress to a police car, but the station itself will have to do." Player stated. "Keep her in your sights for as long as you can while I rig up a code for the message."

“Good. Great. Gun wielding air heads,” Carmen said grouchily.

"At least it's something to maybe throw her off!" Player retorted.

“Ugh fine!” She began to run over the roofs of buildings, chasing the Tiger girl.

“Hey! Betcha can’t catch me!” Tigress yelled.

“How much you wanna bet?!” Carmen screamed back. “I say 100 bucks! Cuz I’m gonna get you!” Player scrambled to get the code up and running. Carmen quickly tackled Tigress and they fought over the mask. Carmen won. She starts to sprint away until Zach and Ivy pulls up in a car.

“Get in!”

"Phew." Player sighed. "Thanks Z, didn't want to actually send the message if I could avoid it. You know how Carmen is with cops.” Carmen suddenly started breathing heavily and sweating.

“Oh god not now...” she whines, as the heat takes over her.

“Boss?!” Ivy and Zach said with worry.

"She's fainting!" Player assumed. "GUN IT ZACH!" He screamed. Ivy gives Carmen some water, or at least attempts to while Zach NYOOMS the car.

"I swear it's that coat." Player scoffs. Carmen fell asleep, as Player can hear from her steadied breathing. Soon, night falls, and they are out of Florida, skull mask in hand.

Later....

"Carmen!? Carmen, you okay?" Player was trying to get her to speak. Carmen slowly awoke. “Hm... You have a... lovely voice...” That threw everyone for a loop.

“She’s higher than a seagull!” Ivy exclaimed.

“Speaking of, Mime Bomb and Tigress were flirting before she took off." Player said in disgust.

“What? Why?” Zach said.

“Aw! That’s cute, but not what we’re worrying about here,” Ivy interjected.

"Carmen, focus!" Player cried.

“Wha... what happened?” Carmen said, groggily. “Ugh, my head hurts...”

“Give ‘er water, Zach!” Ivy said.

"And now!” Player added. Carmen practically downed the whole gallon of water when Zach gave it to her.

“Yikes." Player said, hearing it all.

“What happened? Did we get the mask?” Carmen asked.

“Yeah! It’s here!” Zach said.

"What was that?" Player asked. "I think you flirted with me."

“... What?” Carmen asked.

"You said I 'had a lovely voice'." Ivy snorted.

“It’s true, ya did!”

“What?!” Carmen said, a blush flying to her face. “I did not!”

"It's okay, you were delirious." Player said. "You probably heard Crackle or something, who knows."

“Yeah, probably...” Carmen said, shifting. The Twins glanced at each other.

“OH MY GOD YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT HIM!!!” Ivy screamed.

“N-no! I wasn’t! I would never think of Player that way!” Carmen says, now desperate to defend herself.

"What?" He shook his head. "Guys leave her alone." Ivy and Zach are laugh and cheer loudly as they leave the room. Carmen is now pouting. “I can’t believe them... thinking I was trying to flirt with you...” She grumbles.

"To be fair, it did seem that way.” Player noted. “I was trying to get you to think straight after all."

“Well, I don’t have any feelings for you. You’re like, what 16?”  She realized that was incorrect. It’s been 3 years since she first met him when he was 16. “Wait, you must be 18 now?”

“Yeah, I’m 18, why?" Then he thought-. “Oh my god Carmen, seriously!?””

I-I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT!!!” Carmen screamed.

"Oh, sorry." Carmen blushed deeply, her mind now racing with new possibilities. Possibilities and thoughts that disgust her.

"So....now what?” Player asked, mind still reeling. “Do we just let that go?" Carmen’s breathing was unnaturally slow.

“I... I’m uncomfortable...” She has always been so good at telling him how she was feeling. But, now it felt.... well, she didn’t know. Her face was burning and she wanted to cry, just a little.

"Should I clock out for the night?" Player inquired cautiously.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to...” Carmen says. Her voice sounds... shaky. Not like her. Player didn’t like it.

“I feel like you need to be left alone." He said.

”Do I...?” Carmen asked.

"You sound like it." Player noted.

“I’m… I’m sorry... I... didn’t mean to yell or any of those other things...”

"I know." Player stated. He looked at his map screen blankly, trying to think of something to change the topic to. "Hey, did you know blood isn't actually red? It's clear, it's just that the red cells make it look red." He knew it wasn't a good fact, but he was desperate to distract Carmen.

“Heh... did you know that red is my favorite color?” Carmen asked. Her stomach hurt. She hadn’t eaten all day.

"Huh, remind me to wear my red t-shirt if we ever have to meet in person." Player quipped. Realizing something, he spoke again. "For once Zach was right to complain about food. You should eat something."

“Actually, I’m tough so I don’t get hungry...” Her stomach rumbled. She wanted to curse herself for it.

"C'mon Carmen, we've known each other for a long time." Player stated. "I've kinda learned how to read you.”

“Have you...?” Carmen said, through grit teeth and rubbing her stomach. It suddenly hurt to move.

"CARMEN!?" Player yelled. “Something's wrong!" There is no answer for a few seconds. Then...

“I’m fine I’m fine!”

"ZACH, IVY, GET IN THERE! SOMETHING'S UP WITH CARMEN!" Player wasn't buying it. The Twins rush in and they’re trying to shovel food in their mouths.

“What?!” Zach screams with a mouthful of peanut butter. Carmen looked at the nice bagel Ivy was holding and her mouth watered.

“I’m... I’m fine! Don’t worry, guys.” She was a bad liar to her friends at the best of times, but especially now that Player had deducted what happened.

"Carmen hasn't eaten anything." Player said. "Force-feed her if you have to."

“Oh, really?” Ivy said, a mischievous look on her face. Carmen’s eyes went wide and she shot up.

“NO! That’s not happening again!” She screamed.

"Then eat!" Player insisted. Carmen looked like a kicked puppy.

“You heard the man, “Princess”,” Ivy teases, mocking Player’s voice.

"Hey, I thought we agreed only I get to call her that! Wait...Shut up!" Player realized too late how what he said could be taken out of context. Zach handed Carmen a plate and dumped food on it. Carmen was visibly grumpy. Ivy was snickering.

“Eat up, pretty Princess,” Ivy teased.

“Stop or I’ll chop out your tongue,” Carmen growled.

"Maybe for me Red?" Player asked. Ivy and Zach both laughed loudly as they left the room.

“If she calls me a “Pretty Princess” again, we’re going to have an issue,” Carmen said, before taking a bite out of a everything bagel.

"Yeah, only I get that right.” Player said defensively. “Wait...no...not like that." He flushed with embarassment Carmen finds herself grinning.

“You do. You have that right.”

"Stop it, I can't explain how I know, but you're grinning." Player grumbled.

“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re still here.”Carmen told him.

"Thanks?" Player didn't know how to respond. Carmen sighed and continued eating. She started to feel less pain in her stomach "Maybe I should've listened to Zach for once and let you eat.” Player said guiltily. “I feel like this is my fault for rushing you into the job. Well, you did, but I enforced it." Carmen felt herself flinch.

“No. It was my decision, Player. It wasn’t your fault. I’m glad, because if we hadn’t left at that time, Tigress would have gotten away. And who knows what Virus would have done to those poor people?”

”What about that new recruit?" Player asked abruptly.

“What new recruit?” Carmen asked.

"Biohazard, remember?" Player clarified. Carmen breathed a little awkwardly.

“Right. Biohazard...”

"You okay?" Player asked.

“Yeah... Yeah, I’m fine.” Carmen insisted.

"That's what you said about being hungry." Player teased.

“Christine Greater isn’t with VILE anymore, Player.” Carmen told him. “I think you know that.”

"Carmen, you do realize I meant the new recruit for us right? She helped us when you first met her in Austrailia?" Carmen’s eyes went wide.

“Oh... oh! I’m sorry, I... I’m not thinking straight tonight...” She muttered

"Clearly.”Player stated. "Okay, I'm gonna clock out. I'll let you and/or the twins know if something comes up."

“Wait! Player!” Carmen cried.

"Huh?" Player had just had just been about to turn his computer off when she’d shouted.

”C-can you... stay? Just until I go to sleep... please?”

"Huh. Never asked me to do that before." Player stated.

“Is it odd?” Carmen asked, uncharacteristically worried.

"No, just...unusual." Player mused.

“So... is that a yes?” Carmen asked tentatively.

"It's not a no." Player said. Carmen sighs and lays down in bed. She gets comfy under the covers.

"Need a lullaby?" Player joked, struggling not to laugh. "Sorry, I couldn't help it."

“Do you sing?” Carmen asks, after a few seconds of silence.

"Well, I made up a song, but I'm not sure I'm good." Player had answered without thinking. "Wait, what?" He realized what he said.

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Carmen giggles.

“All I have on hand is my ukulele." Player said. "My real guitar's in the other room. Do you mind? I think the ukulele's more soothing in this case anyway."

“Of course not,” Carmen says sleepily.

"In that case..." Player picked it up and started playing. "Well she sneaks around the world from Kiev to Carolina, she's a sticky-fingered filcher from Berlin down to Belize! She'll take you for a ride on a slow boat to China! Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? Steal their Seoul in South Korea, make Antarctica cry Uncle! From the Red Sea to Greenland they'll be singing the blues! Well they never Arkansas her steal the Mekong from the jungle Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? She go from Nashville to Norway, Bonaire to Zimbabwe, Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back! Well she'll ransack Pakistan and run a scam in Scandinavia, then she'll stick 'em up Down Under and go pick-pocket Perth! She put the Miss in misdemeanor when she stole the beans from Lima. Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? Oh tell me where in the world is, oh tell me where can she be? Ooh, Botswana to Thailand, Milan via Amsterdam Mali to Bali, Ohio, Oahu!” A pause, then-. “Well she glides around the globe and she'll flimflam every nation! She's a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery! Her itinerary's loaded up with moving violations! Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? Oh, tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" Player stopped. "That's the first time I've ever sang for anyone." Carmen was smiling like a dork and small tears fell down her face. “You... you should pitch that and make it big.”

"Only if you buy my albums...or steal them." The last part was a joke of course. Carmen smiled wider than she has in a while.

“You should sing more.” She insisted

"That was the only one I got.” Player admitted. “Anything already written you like?"

“Well... do you know “Pretty Lies” by Written By Wolves? I like that one.”

"I'll try. I don't mean to brag, but these fingers aren't just good on a keyboard." Carmen blushes, but she knows what he meant.

“G-go for it then...” Player did.

“I’ve been starting to accept that, maybe this is all there is and dreams that I've held in my head. Should be forgotten just forget…That you thought you were bound for greatness; rock and roll could be a savior. Keep that to yourself and just fit in. Don't stand out or they'll destroy you…Words are sharp and filed with poison. Every step that you take forward, they'll pull you back a thousand more. So give up your imagination. Take the pill it's just sedation. Be a member of society..That's not worth living for. I won't be afraid anymore. Like a thief in the night, armed with their pretty lies…they will haunt you, consume you. But you can't let them win, Let the fear be your friend. Let it guide you, fulfill you. Like a thief in the night, armed with their pretty lies…They will haunt you, consume you…But you can't let them win. Let the fear be your friend. Let it guide you…Fulfill you. You close your eyes and dreams start racing…Feels so real that you can taste it, See the crowd and all their faces. Hear them screaming out your name and wish this was more than a vision, you could break out of this prison! Taking back control defiantly. Feel the fear and let it guide you. Let the fire burn inside you. Think of all that they've denied you, Remember and use the drive you've always had but buried deeper. You give up they get what they want; Don't let them win. Like a thief in the night, armed with their pretty lies They will haunt you, Consume you. But you can't let them win. Let the fear be your friend; Let it guide you, Fulfill you. Like a thief in the night. Armed with their pretty lies. They will haunt you, Consume you…But you can't let them win. Let the fear be your friend. Let it guide you, Fulfill you…I’m sick of all their pretty lies, They sparkle like a blade. But I will make damn sure that I will not die wondering What could have been…I’ll take nothing to the grave! That's not worth living for…I won't be afraid anymore! Like a thief in the night, Armed with their pretty lies. They will haunt you..Consume you. But you can't let them win. Let the fear be your friend. Let it guide you, Fulfill you. Like a thief in the night. Armed with their pretty lies..They will haunt you..Consume you…But you can't let them win. Let the fear be your friend…Let it guide you…Fulfill you." Player smirked when he finished. "Of course you like it. It mentions a thief." Carmen was fast asleep. He can tell from her heart rate and breathing. "'Night Carmen." Player sighed, content. He put down his ukulele and went to get ready for bed.

END

[porchwood]

Hey friends,

I’ve been struggling to come up with a sufficient thank-you for all your help with the GoFundMe, but it seems every time I sit down to try to write a response, some new awful thing arises. And this past week was the worst yet (maybe the worst ever).

When last I spoke to you, I was getting over a bad cold and preparing to ease back into work after my injury. The PT office finally called me back and I went in for one session to make sure I was at a recovery point where it was okay for me to do massage again; the therapist did a quick assessment - no exercises demonstrated or recommended - kinesiotaped the knee and charged $100 that I had to pay then and there. (So a waste, and an expensive one, but I guess it could have been worse?) The next day I started back at work VERY part-time (one 60-90 min client a day) and it absolutely killed me. I was no longer wearing the brace and my knee actually did okay with the work (bending/crouching notwithstanding), but the rest of my body (esp core muscles) were just drop-kicked by the work. I went home exhausted and shaky every day and finally tried substantially increasing my protein intake, which felt a little ridiculous (we’re talking a 24g shake + an 11g bar for breakfast or two entrees at lunchtime), but it’s done a world of good, and that’s all thanks to you guys. (Protein of any kind isn’t cheap and your incredible donations made it possible for me to buy good food to rebuild my muscles.)

The end of my first week back at work, I fell hard on the ice outside my house. Miraculously, my left knee never even hit the ground, but I fell flat on my back and my left wrist - without any lasting injury, thankfully, but I was absolutely worthless for the next 24 hours and had several days (crucial returning-to-massage days) of varying degrees of pain in that wrist. In the meantime, I made a couple of other adjustments (raising my massage table to take the strain off my lower body, getting back on an ibuprofen schedule instead of just taking it after the fact, when I was hurting badly), all of which helped, but I’m still only about 85% back. My knee still hurts every morning when I wake up and gets stiff and sore whenever I have it bent for any length of time. My workplace has been surprisingly good about letting me work a slower schedule as I build back up (ex. 3 clients a day instead of 5), and last Friday I finally got a paycheck for the first time in over a month (!). 

Then, two weeks ago, I was wakened at 3am to Lucky (my little rat terrier) falling off the bed. This has happened before and is usually comical after the fact, but when I picked her up, she emptied her bladder all over me, and when I tried to set her down to check on her, her back legs had gone limp and wouldn’t support her. Terrified (I’ve heard enough end-of-life dog stories to know this isn’t good), I was about to take her to the emergency vet when she sat up like nothing had happened and began licking herself. I took her outside and she walked around a bit, completely sound on her feet, and pottied again - business as usual. Worried and mystified, I messaged my (LPN) mother who thought the urination sounded like a shock reaction to the fall, so I gave Lucky a bath and spent most of the day just cuddling with her.

For about two seconds, life seemed like it might finally be getting a little better. I was able to pick up two massages at a local inn (which pay substantially better than massages at the spa and provide some very helpful extra money). And then on Thursday, I came home to a slightly anxious Lucky (howling quietly on my bed), and when she got up to greet me, her back legs wouldn’t support her. I scooped her up immediately and her entire body went limp (seemingly lifeless), her head and neck lolling over my arm. As I ran through the house with her, her bladder emptied down the front of me and - still lifelessly limp - she gave the most horrifying howl I’ve ever heard. I was convinced she was dying in my arms.

As we tore down the road to the vet’s (thankfully, about a 5-minute drive from home), she sat up on my lap and by the time we’d reached the office, she was acting downright normal again. I was able to get us in with one of the vets about 10 mins later (a tech checked her out right away to triage her and make sure she was stable), and he wanted to get some data on her heart. She’s had a heart murmur for almost her entire life and, while I’ve asked repeatedly what we could do for that, the only advice I was ever given was hawthorn and ginkgo supplements (which she takes on a more or less daily basis), and at one point we tried a canine cardiac formula for a few months with no notable changes.

She had an EKG, chest x-rays, and a blood draw ($516, including the office call) and then that info was sent to a veterinary cardiologist in Portland. All they could tell me in the meantime was that her heart is enlarged and to just have her take it easy for the rest of the day; they would call me first thing the next morning with the cardiologist’s report. Lucky was sleepy but normal for the rest of the day and I passed an awful night of bad dreams (including one about rabid dogs) and waking every hour or so to make sure she was okay.

I was scheduled for my typical split on Friday but had only one client at the end of the day and was an emotional wreck, so I asked if I could just go home to be with Lucks and I found another therapist to cover my client. I still hadn’t heard from the vet by 10am, so I called to check in. He gave me a brief summary over the phone and asked if we could come in for some more tests, which was another hour and a half and $236. (I was able to put these two visits on my CareCredit card but for some reason the vet only gives a 6 month promotional period instead of the 12-18 months that other places do. If you’re not familiar, CareCredit is a great option IF you can pay off everything quickly. If you can’t, you’re clobbered with obscene interest on the entire sum at the end of the promotional period, even if you’ve paid off almost all of the principal.)

I’m still making sense of the cardiologist’s report because it’s quite in-depth and my knowledge of the heart isn’t quite that high, but here’s what I’ve been able to glean:

- “severely enlarged” heart - borderline tachycardia and occasional arrhythmia (her collapse was considered a syncopal episode, if that helps anyone) - some degree of mitral valve issue - at risk of developing congestive heart failure

She was put on two heart meds, pimobendan/Vetmedin (which is supposed to be very effective and is also very expensive) and enalapril (an ACE-inhibitor), and she has a kidney check-up in about a week to make sure she’s doing well on them and adjust the doses if necessary. The vet seemed to think the prognosis was pretty good (considering that at this point we’re talking about staving off heart failure :/) - he said small dogs with mitral valve issues tend to do well on these meds - and other than this insanity with her heart, Lucky seems to be in pretty good shape. Before Thursday she was extremely active and happy; there’s no sign of neurological issues, and her BP, thyroid, kidneys, etc are all looking good. So I’m trying to stay hopeful.

She’s been a little extra sleepy (understandably) the past few days, but this afternoon she seemed unusually “off,” so I’m trying to figure out whether it’s her tiny body adjusting to the meds (which she needs to stay on for the rest of her life) or if her heart is suddenly starting to get tired and this is the new normal. :( I called my mother earlier (a mistake) and got a lot of pessimism-in-the-guise-of-sympathy that left me feeling like Lucky is on hospice and I should start making end-of-life arrangements now. 

I’ve been crying for the better part of the last four days, and I don’t think I can articulate how painful this is for me. I didn’t think it was possible to donate a human heart to a canine but I looked it up just in case, because I would give her mine without hesitation. Lucky is my whole life - my soul running around in a little black-and-white body, and five years ago when my life systematically fell apart, she was the only thing misfortune didn’t touch - and I knew this, and I was waiting. Since then she developed sleeping bladder leaks (which, while frightening, were easily and effectively treated with estrogen), then severe separation anxiety (which I’ve been struggling to treat since 2016, and yes, I blame myself for the anxiety making her heart worse, even though I’ve done absolutely everything to help her overcome it). Lucky is absolutely the reason I didn’t try to end my life at various junctures over the past five years, and I don’t want to think about what will happen to me if she’s not here anymore.

And as ridiculous as this will sound: I was supposed to be married by now. When I got Lucks as a puppy, I knew the inevitable would one day come (unless Jesus comes back before then so Lucky and I can just go to heaven together, which I haven’t given up on), but I knew my life would be much different by then. I would have a home and a husband to help shoulder the financial and emotional burden. I was not supposed to be alone, sterile, and struggling just to make ends meet. I love my roommate dearly, but it’s not the same as having a spouse, nor should it be. She can give me hugs and listen to me cry, but at the end of the day it’s me in that dr’s office, holding my hurting baby and promising to pay for whatever they have to do, and me that has to hold everything together and keep going when the worst happens. 

Incidentally, last Sunday was my birthday. I’ve mentioned before that my birthday has some kind of perverse curse, and if this year didn’t prove it, I don’t know what will.

My father (living in Nebraska, and with whom I’ve had a strained relationship since my hysterectomy) has congestive heart failure, and my mother called me shortly before all of the Lucky stuff to tell me that he’s failing and to try to talk me into moving back to Nebraska to help keep an eye on him. Which is a subject for another time entirely, but over the past few days I’ve been wondering if I should think about going back (temporarily), if only to be around family myself. It would be a complicated situation (I’d still be on the Maine lease and paying for half of everything, Lord knows if I’d be able to keep my Maine job when I came back and I’d end up back at Massage Envy in Nebraska, not to mention I’d be scrambling to pay down my medical bills and Lucky’s), but maybe it’s something I should consider.

Anyway: that’s where I’ve been. :( And I’m sure I look like an ingrate for not saying thank you about the funds sooner, but between the fatigue and the heartbreak, it’s been hard to manage much of anything lately.

[weartirondad]

A/N: We did a thing for @parkrstark ‘s appreciation day. You are amazing and we’re sending all our love! xx

This is inspired by Chöre by Mark Forster (a German song, most translations suck but try this one) 

Even superheroes need someone to fight for them sometimes. ao3 I FF.net

I’ll Love You (When You Can’t Love Yourself)

“Mister Parker seems to in distress, boss. His vitals suggest that he has been getting steadily more agitated over the past ten minutes.”

“Wha- Ah- Fuck”, Tony cursed when he hit his head on the underbody of the car as he tried to crunch up before the roller board was completely out from underneath his 1949 Mercury Coupe. The car didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, which didn’t surprise him, but even his AI simply kept talking as if he hadn’t just almost split his nose open again.

“His heartrate has been well over 120 beats per minute for the past five minutes. His blood pressure is significantly elevated at 170 to 100.”

He was already halfway to the nearest suit when he realized he wasn’t even sure where Peter would be. What time was it anyway? Was school over already? Was it even a school day? Good thing his AI seemed to have psychic abilities where she was lacking basic human empathy and told him before he had to ask.

“The tracker that you installed in his watch suggests he’s still in school. Though according to his time table his last lesson ended fifteen minutes ago.”

“Is- Is he involved in a fight at school?”, Tony wanted to know, halting his movements with his hand still stretched out and with half of his armor already attached to his body. Did Peter get into fights at school? Was that bully giving him trouble again? He thought they had handled the Flash issue weeks ago... Then again, Peter was really determined about keeping him in the dark about important things like his wellbeing.

“I don’t think so, boss”, F.R.I.D.A.Y. unhelpfully supplied, “There doesn’t seem to be an imminent threat.”

“Oh-kay”, he turned around, dropping his arms to his side, thinking, “Tap into the voice recording of the watch, F.R.I.”

“I think that would be a violation of the privacy setting you have discussed with Mister Parker.”

“Well, the kid would feel a lot more violated if Ironman were to show up at his school without reason. God that sounded wrong. Just do what you���re told. He can have privacy when I’m dead.”

“Very well, boss.”

Not a second later the slightly metallic version of a teenager’s voice filtered through his lab and he frowned in confusion. That voice didn’t belong to either of the two nerds Peter usually hung out with and it didn’t belong to Flash. He hadn’t known that the kid talked to more than those three people. After just one sentence, however, it became clear what had caused Peter’s current distress.

“-posed internship all you want, maybe Stark Industries does a few things right but the truth is, that your dear Tony Stark’s fortune is built on blood and death. He’s not the hero he claims to be. He never stopped being the merchant of d-“

“No.”

Tony all but flinched at the kid’s cold and steady tone. Peter wasn’t ever supposed to sound so angry. He listened to the kid argue, still unsure whether or not to deploy the suit right away or to get rid of the armor again.

“You have no idea what he’s doing to keep all of us save. He flew a nuke into a wormhole, that our government sent, knowing it would essentially obliterate all of Midtown. He didn’t know if he would make it out alive. He sacrificed himself for all of us. And he did so without hesitation or thoughts to his own wellbeing. Don’t you dare call the person who saved your fucking life the merchant of death.”

That was also the first time that Tony had ever heard Peter curse but he let it slide in favor of concentrating on the jagged breathing coming through the speakers, worried the teenager would start hyperventilating and eventually pass out.

The other boy scoffed and the billionaire could do nothing but watch the red numbers, that were telling his kid’s blood pressure, continue to rise. And his mind was still battling about what to do. Was this really an argument that Ironman should interrupt? Where the hell was Ned anyway?

“Oh yeah, maybe he did that out of the goodness of his heart. Or maybe because he was still feeling guilty. And what about Sokovia? What about all the people that died so your supposed superheroes could have a little party? What about your dear Tony Stark’s Ultron? What about that German airport they destroyed because they couldn’t get their heads out of their asses? He somehow even got Spiderman to fight on his side. That guy would be better off without ties to Ironman. People actually-“

“Shut up!”, Peter yelled and the sound made Tony’s stomach curl in hatred for the person who had elicited such a furious response from the usually calm and happy kid. “You have no idea what you are talking about! He was fighting to keep us safe from their flaws. They’re heroes, they’re not perfect. He was one of the ones who actually signed the Accords, no matter how much they needed amending, because he believes that superheroes need to be held accountable, too. And Spiderman- Spiderman wouldn’t even be alive without Tony Stark you, you-“

Before Peter could actually find an insult to throw at the other’s head, another familiar voice sounded through the speakers in Tony’s lab and he thanked the gods for Peter’s best friend finally making his entry.

“Hey Peter”, Ned called, either oblivious to the tension that was palpable even through audio or actively choosing to ignore it, “Your ride is outside and he’s getting annoyed at the delay. Sorry, Matt, we gotta go.”

A short pause in which all Tony could hear was the metallic scratching and shuffling of fabric and then hushed voices. “Come on, dude. Let’s get outta here.”

Peter seemed to follow Ned’s lead because he heard slow footsteps echoing through a wide room. And thankfully the kid’s heart rate was slowly returning to normal. Even his blood pressure had gone down to 140 to 90 since Ned had gotten there and for the first time since getting the distress signal, Tony felt his own heartbeat calm down, too, and he let out a breath.

He logged out of the watch’s audio once Ned had successfully calmed Peter down and had dropped him off with Happy and he was sure they were both on their way to the Tower.

Suddenly he felt more tired and older than ever before, well, at least ever since almost dying. He couldn’t wrap his head around someone as pure and good as Peter defending him of all people. He had never seen himself as anything other than a major fuck up and he had credited the fact that Pepper, Rhodey and Happy had kept around at all, to them all having to atone for some thing or another they had done in a previous life. There was no way they were sticking around for anything else. No way could someone, who wasn’t as thoroughly fucked up as he was himself, ever even consider loving him.

And still here they were. With Peter wanting to hang out with him, wanting to be mentored by him and defending him in front of people in his school when he was already being bullied.

His heart felt too full and he couldn’t help but feel the weight of the trust the kid had in him, press down on his torso, suffocating him. It was all too much. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t figure out how to be this person that Peter saw in him and he couldn’t bear to disappoint him again. Not him.

Fuck. No. Not a panic attack. Not now. Nonononono.

Without his command, the part of the suit he was still wearing started flying him to the nearby couch, depositing him on it before slipping off of his body so he could curl into himself.

In. 3, 2, 1. Out. 3, 2, 1. In. 3, 2…

He managed to pull himself back from the edge, something he had gotten a lot better at recently, especially when the Spiderling was about to show is face. He was refusing to let the kid see him spiraling into a full blown panic attack. So far his thick head had gotten him farther than his improving mental health, though he suspected it did play a part.

Instead of going back to working on his car, he pulled up the Iron Spider Suit and started working on a few minor improvements and new safe keeping protocols – something that never failed to calm him down – and that was how he occupied himself until Peter got there. Trying not to think of how easy it would be for him to break something so precious that he deserved no part in.

He wouldn’t.

Not quite twenty minutes later the doors to his lab slid open and Tony felt the new presence in the room more than he actually heard the soft footsteps on the floor. He didn’t turn around and for a while Peter didn’t speak up either, simply plopping down on the couch Tony had occupied earlier and watching his mentor work in silence.

Then, really quietly, barely enough to reach the mechanic’s ears hadn’t he been waiting for the words, he heard, “Why do you do this? Why don’t you tell the world what you do to keep them safe every day? Why do you let them believe that you’re not really a hero?”

Tony almost choked on his own spit. So many replies were running through his mind then and he couldn’t bring himself to voice any of them because he didn’t have the heart to tell this kid, his kid, that he didn’t believe it himself. Instead he made up some bullshit excuse about people not needing to know and about them being better off not knowing but of course that wasn’t enough to convince Peter. He had the uncanny ability to see through his crap from still a mile out and he was currently not even five feet away.

The teenager was watching him with knowing eyes. Eyes that went right through his superficial Tony Stark persona and into his soul, dissecting every inch of it without judging. He hated being so see through to people, he hated that apart from his friends who had dealt with him for years, this boy had managed to walk past all his walls and really see him. He adverted his eyes, busying his shaky hands with some (useless) reprogramming of the suit.

Still, he didn’t turn his body away and that seemed to be all the incentive Peter needed to walk up to him and rest a hand on Tony’s shoulder. Of course he had picked up on Tony not being too fond of being touched and tried to avoid it especially when he knew Tony was on edge.

Although, that wasn’t entirely true. A fact he had only started to realize himself – Peter’s touch was okay. It would always be okay.

“You know you’re a hero, right?”

The kid’s voice sounded so self- assured and certain where it was usually rambling and timid, that he had to look up to meet his eyes. He said it like there was nothing that could convince him otherwise, and maybe there wasn’t, because he was stubborn, too.

Meeting the warm brown eyes of his mentee had been a mistake, though, because at seeing the unconditional loyalty (And love? Was that love?) in them, he felt the tears that had been threatening to spill ever since listening to him defending his honor actually fill his eyes and had to blink them away in favor of being able to see Peter’s face.

Also, he refused to cry in front of the teenager.

He didn’t deserve the look he was getting but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. Something in him wanted to make him see that he was not the man Peter believed him to be but as much as he believed it himself – he couldn’t, for the love of it, bring himself to dim the hope and trust in the kid’s eyes with his own self-loathing. He refused to be responsible for Peter ever having to see more darkness in the world than he absolutely had to. And even that he would fight tooth and nail.

Instead he stayed quiet, silently enjoying that the teenager didn’t move away but after a moment it felt as if their moment was over and before it could get weird, he started to turn back to his work. The small hand on his shoulder with the strong grip wouldn’t let him, though.

The billionaire didn’t tell him how the touch grounded him, just raised an questioning eyebrow and that seemed to embarrass the kid, making him get flustered but never actually releasing his grip or loosening the strength he still projected with his eyes. Right now he was being strong for both of them and he seemed to realize it.

Tony hated that he had to.

“You’re my hero”, Peter told him quietly, unwavering even as his cheeks were turning pink, “Not just because of Ironman but because of you. Tony Stark – genius, inventor, mentor – is my hero. You are a hero.”

The repetition sounded like a mantra and maybe it was and it was all Tony could do to stare up at him, still not quiet believing. Some 15 year old kid’s words couldn’t erase everything Tony had been told to believe his entire life but they were a start because he could already feel part of the armor around his heart melt.

It was obvious that Peter thought their moment was over then, that he was close to stepping over an undrawn line, so he started his usual nervous word vomit to, metaphorically, take a step back. “And uh. I know you’re not into hugs and... uh.. touching in general but I really wanted you to know that and I’m just- I’m gonna go n-“

The grip on his shoulder tightened shortly, then the hand lifted but before Peter could stumble backwards (and right into Dum-E) Tony’s Hand shot out, holding the boy back. And then he was standing (he didn’t remember giving his body the signal) and, after just a millisecond of hesitation, he pulled the kid into a hug.

It felt awkward at first, both their bodies surprised and rigid next to each other, and he wanted to slap himself and pull away immediately, thinking that this was a mistake. But when Peter’s arm snaked around his waist tentatively and the boy’s body started relaxing against his own, he could feel, with every fiber of his being that he had wanted that hug since forever but had been afraid to ask.

He should’ve known. Peter was big on touching but he would never try to pressure because Tony was known for being really big on not touching.

After a moment, Tony relaxed, too, and tightened his arms around this kid who had somehow managed to waltz past all the barriers and walls he had so painstakingly erected.

“Thank you, Underoos”, he said in his ear before he pulled away, “That means a lot to me.”

He had wanted to give a sarcastic retort of some sort but felt it get stuck in his throat somewhere on the way and he was glad because the smile he got in return was the brightest he had ever seen and he knew without a doubt that his answering smile was just as open and that this kid was one of maybe three people he let see that smile, his real one.

Tony coughed slightly, all the emotion suddenly getting stuck in his throat, and patted Peter’s back, “Let me show you the new feature I’m working on for Karen.”

It was like a switch had been turned in the kid when he started talking about everything and nothing all at once. Years – hell even months ago – Tony would’ve threatened anyone who dared to disrupt the silence in his lab with rambling but here he was, enjoying whatever the kid had to say just because he liked listening and knowing what was going on it his brain.

Tony turned back around to the screen, knowing that Peter would follow suit, and started working again. Without looking up again he said “Oh, and Peter? Don’t get into fights because of me, will you?”

“What’s gotten your panties in a twist?”

Peter barely had the energy to look up to see his aunt standing in the living room with her arms crossed. “Uh- oh. Hey Aunt May, didn’t know you’d be home already.” He trailed off with a deep sigh and went back to staring straight ahead at the dark TV screen.

A moment passed and he would’ve thought she had gone to her room to change into something more comfy like she usually did, hadn’t he been so acutely aware of her presence – her heartbeat and breathing pattern so uncannily familiar that it immediately calmed him down. He knew he worried her by sitting on the couch without moving a muscle, still in his Spidersuit minus the mask, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.

Another sigh, May’s this time, and he heard her drop her bag before starting to move towards him, her already soft footsteps muffled by the carpet. He still didn’t move but when she sat down next to him and put an arm around his shoulders he felt his muscles start to relax and he allowed her to pull his head onto her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

He shrugged even though he could already hear his aunt rolling her eyes at his ‘grumpy teenager antics’ as she liked to call them.

“Okay, let me rephrase that”, she said, her arm tightening around his body, pulling him a little closer still, “Are you physically hurt because of your superheroeing beyond something I can fix with my first aid kit?”

“No, Aunt May”, he answered truthfully, turning his head until his face was buried in the crook of her neck, “I’m fine.” His voice came out muffled but even he realized that he didn’t look or sound fine right now.

“Good.” She pressed a kiss to the top of his head like she had done ever since he was a little child and he felt tears spring to his eyes at the comfort it provided. “Emotionally hurt then?”

He shrugged. She sighed.

“Teenager angst? Did something happen at school?”

He shook his head but stopped once her hand came up to the base of his neck, rubbing soothing circles into his skin.

“Superhero angst?” Shrug. Sigh.

“Do you want me to call Tony?” He shook his head, then changed it to a shrug.

At this point he knew she was humoring him despite being actually concerned. It was part of their routine. It was what they had always done when he needed to talk but didn’t really know how to go about it. May, in her eternally patient way, simply asked him yes-no questions until the dam burst and he spilled whatever was weighing him down. The familiarity of it all made the corners of his lips turn up slightly.

“Is it about Tony? Do I need to have words with him?” Now she sounded protective and Peter loved her even more for her readiness to go toe to toe with a billionaire superhero just because he might’ve hurt his feelings.

“No”, he let out a deep breath and turned his head until he was facing forward again, while never moving out of his aunt’s embrace, “He didn’t really do anything. It’s just- He doesn’t- Ugh.”

“Sort your thoughts, Pete”, she told him gently, “Then tell me.”

The teenager nodded and for a bit he simply enjoyed the feeling of her fingers carding through his curls, trying to make sense of everything he had been feeling ever since he had gotten home. He had been so caught up in his feelings that he hadn’t really tried to wrap his head around it so far, he had simply let himself get stuck in the emotional component of it all.

“I told you how today was this meeting with the rogue Avengers and Secretary Ross about amending the Accords, right?” It was a rhetorical question – they had had a very long, very emotional conversation about why Spiderman had to partake in that meeting in the first place – but his aunt nodded anyway, though she seemed a little tense, prompting him to keep going.

“It went okay, I think.” It really had gone good. Better than Tony had expected it to which, considering his fatalistic attitude at times, wasn’t all that surprising, but not even Colonel Rhodes had believed it to go so smoothly. “There was a lot of talking, not much screaming. It was a very grown up conversation, you would’ve liked it. There are going to be a few more follow-up meetings until it’s all finalized but the cornerstones are already mapped out. So, the meeting ended with scheduling another meeting.”

“But that’s a good thing, right? Why are you so upset about it?”

Peter lifted his head from his aunt’s shoulder then and leaned away to really meet her eyes for the first time that evening. “They scheduled the next meeting for next Thursday.” Pause. “That’s May 29.”

He watched the confused frown slowly morph into understanding first and then she smiled at him, ruffling his hair again.

“He won’t be busy with the meeting all day, though, right? He’ll still have time to celebrate his birthday.”

“You know what he told me, when I asked him why he didn’t veto that date?”, he wanted to know, suddenly feeling his suppressed anger and smoldering discontent flare up in his chest bright and red. “He told me that ‘getting the world its heroes back is a lot more important than some birthday’”, he recounted, his voice laced with mock when he imitated his mentor, “especially his. And I feel like he doesn’t even realize that he is a hero, too! You know, he goes on and on about how America needs its Captain back when Captain America was the one who left him hurting alone in effing Siberia. He doesn’t care about what getting them pardoned means for him! He doesn’t care that he’ll be miserable once they’ve been put under his care and supervision. He’s going to have to see them every day, May! And he flinches whenever Steve Rogers just moves too fast. Yet whenever I try to tell him that he’s a hero, too, he deflects and I hate it. I hate how lowly he thinks of himself. I mean that’s my hero he’s badmouthing and he doesn’t even realize it. He- It makes me so angry!”

“Sorry”, Peter added, breathing heavily after his outburst. He hadn’t meant for it all to come out like that, he hadn’t meant to put all that on May’s shoulders because she had enough to worry about as it was. Hell, he hadn’t meant to get so angry at Tony, he hated being angry. But he couldn’t stop it. It was wired deep into his soul that he had to protect the people he cared about. He just hadn’t ever had to protect someone from themselves.

It wasn’t that he was a stranger to self- doubt. No, he’d been different all his life and he knew exactly what it felt like to feel out of place and unworthy and just plain wrong but he had always had May and Ben telling him off for thinking like that and he’d had Ned in his corner who was different, too, and who helped him embrace it. They never let him talk down on himself. There had always been someone there to catch him when his doubts pushed him over the edge.

In his eyes, Tony Stark was just what this world needed, what he needed. With all his imperfections and the mistakes he had made and continued to make, he never gave up and never stopped caring about random teenage kids he found swinging through Queens, even though the world had told him off far too often.  

“It’s okay, baby”, May whispered, giving him exactly the right amount of time to wallow in his thoughts before pulling him back up, “Sometimes it’s hard to see all the good you’re doing when everyone only ever shows you where you messed up. And it’s a hard habit to break someone out of. But Tony’s strong, too, and he’s got a lot of people in his corner. We all just need to keep telling him every once in a while.”

“I guess”, he sighed in agreement, suddenly feeling worn out now that his anger had run dry, “It’s very infuriating, though.”

“It is”, she nodded and opened up her arms for him to fall into which he did, enjoying how every hug felt like coming home. “But you’re pretty stubborn, I think if someone will get through his thick skull it’s gonna be you.”

Peter grinned, feeling lighter than he had ever since that meeting. “You bet. And I’m getting him to shift that meeting around. I don’t care if the other Avengers had some surprise birthday gift planned. I’m not letting him spend his birthday with people who hurt him. Not on my watch.”

“You’re invited to my surprise birthday party, too, I take it?”, Tony greeted May as she stepped out of the elevator. She didn’t even seem too shocked at the revelation that her nephew had effectively messed up the only thing making a surprise birthday party a surprise – not telling the person in question.

“You don’t have too many friends, Stark”, she gave back without missing a beat, though the playful twinkle in her eyes gave away that she was joking, “I’d be nice to the ones who actually like you.”

“So you do like me?”, he grinned, accepting her half hug graciously, “Now I’ll finally be able to sleep through the night again.”

May pulled back, now openly laughing, and found the billionaire looking equally relaxed. “You’re looking good”, she told him seriously as she took in his faded blue jeans and plain black t-shirt. He was in socks and the only accessory he was wearing was a leather bracelet with an engraved spider she knew Peter had gotten him as an alibi birthday present. There were no sunglasses hiding his eyes and no watch with built-in kill switch. Right now he wasn’t Ironman and he wasn’t even Tony Stark.

He was just Tony. Pepper’s fiancée, Rhodey’s and Happy’s best friend, Peter’s sorta-dad and her sorta- co-parent partner.

It had taken her a while to separate Tony from the masks he usually put on for the world to see but it had been worth it. She could see why his friends had stuck around for so long and why Peter had kept insisting that he was ‘one of the good guys’, why he kept looking up to the man even when he screwed up.

“Don’t tell Pep, she gets jealous.”

The smirk he shot her would’ve riled her up only a few months ago but she’s seen him with Pepper often enough to know that there was no way he would ever be unfaithful to her. He was like a lost puppy without her and he was smart enough to keep the only woman who could handle him and continuously challenged him. He didn’t even seem to realize that it worked the other way around, too, for Pepper.

“Why are you up here anyway? I thought you were all meeting downstairs to get the whole surprising going.”

May nodded, “But someone’s gotta get you to go downstairs without telling you what we’re doing, don’t we?”

“Yes, because you’ve all done such a good work keeping this party a secret from me”, Tony shook his head with a bemused smile, “What did you do to get singled out like that?”

There was that low key self- deprecating that had prompted Peter to throw the whole party in the first place but May took it in stride, knowing enough about Tony to know how to talk to him when he tried to talk down on himself. Honesty usually worked best because he never seemed to expect it.

“I volunteered”, she told him with a shrug, “Peter wanted to but we didn’t think he could get a single word out without spilling the beans and we wanted to give you the chance to act all surprised to make him happy.”

“That’s very thoughtful of-“

“Besides”, she interrupted him, watching his face closely for his reaction, “I wanted to give you your present before you meet the others so you can get those tears out of the way and don’t have to pretend you’re not crying.”

His expression was priceless, May decided, and it was a shame she didn’t get it on camera. She enjoyed every second of his micro expressions, though. How his mouth fell open, actually surprised, and he looked like he was about to protest the accusation once he had gotten over the initial shock before he decided to instead mock her, the skin around his eyes already crinkling before the – undoubtedly sarcastic – words could leave his mouth. Before he had formed a sentence, though, May pulled out his present and continued to watch.

He frowned in confusion when he took the book from her that had a small spider and two bigger ones on the cover. She had personalized the two adult spiders – one was wearing her glasses and the other had an arch reactor on its body. The little spider was ambitiously climbing up the water spout while the two bigger ones stood on the ground, looking up at the little one in concern and/ or fascination (it wasn’t that easy to interpret feelings into minimalistic drawn spiders). They looked eager to catch their little one when it would undoubtedly be washed out again.

Next to the drawing the nursery rhyme was written in artful calligraphy and after a stunned moment it was that detail that Tony decided to comment on.

“Itsy Bitsy Spider? Really?”, he asked amused, “I’m starting to think that your family has a very unhealthy obsession with arachnids.”

She ignored him and instead gestured to the book, “Open it. We’ve only got twenty minutes until we’ll be expected downstairs.”

The first page of the photo album was a picture of Peter, May and Tony at Peter’s last Science Fair. He was posing proudly with his cheap plastic trophy while May and Tony stood to either side of him, sharing a grin over the top of his head.

He met her eyes then and she had never seen him as uncertain and insecure as he was looking now. His gaze screamed Are you sure? at the same time as it begged Don’t take it away. Frankly, it broke her heart but it also made her proud that he was letting his walls down so completely with her, that he trusted her so much.

She poked him in the side, an invitation to keep going, and watched him flip to the second page, her eyes filling with tears as her own gaze fell on the slightly faded pictures of toddler Peter with his parents and slightly newer ones with Ben.

Tony didn’t say a word as he continued to go through the book, pausing ever so often on pictures of Peter he hadn’t seen before, but she watched him the whole time and she saw the two lone tears that trailed down his cheeks until they got lost in his goatee. He didn’t even seem to realize, too captured by the pictures she had chosen.

There were pictures of Peter on his own, dressed up, doing stunts, just grinning stupidly at the camera or caught off guard. There were pictures of him with his parents and with Ben and her – happy memories that had taken her a long time to revisit. Then came a time when there weren’t many pictures of him at all and were his smile seemed a little off.

Towards the end the images had him laughing more and his eyes shining brighter again. There were new pictures, just with May this time, and then came the first picture with Tony. It was a screenshot of the video message Peter had sent her from his ‘internship retreat’ in which Tony looked at Peter while the teenager grinned into the camera, obviously over the moon.

“May- I can’t-“

She shushed him and turned to the next page for him when his hand was shaking too much to grab the paper.

More pictures of Tony and Peter. Some in the lab, some in the park, some in a greasy diner or at Delmar’s. There were some with May and with Pepper and with Happy and Rhodey. In everyone, Peter was the center of everyone’s attention and his smile shone through the pages, making her smile through her own tears.

On the last page was a picture of Peter from just this week. He was in his Spiderman suit, the mask lying forgotten on the chair behind him, and he seemed oblivious to the picture being taken. He was on a video call with Ned and was hanging from the ladder of his bunk bed with only one arm and leg. The other arm held an Ironman figurine he was flying through the air, mouth open because he seemed to be commenting his adventures.

Underneath it, written in May’s chicken scratch – though she had tried her best – was a tiny paragraph.

 Dear Tony,

you never had to step up like you did but thank you for doing it anyway. Thank you for encouraging him, and for chastising him when it’s called for. Thank you for being a dad and a hero to our boy.

You’re family.

May

 She read her own writing over his shoulder and had to swallow past the lump in her throat once more. This was big. For both of them. It wasn’t that she was scared he would run because he’d had so many chances to run and had decided to stick around but still, she was nervously waiting for his reaction.

It took him a moment to fall out of his stupor but when he did, she was surprised that he hugged her. Not the half hug they had compromised on for greetings but a fully body hug, in which he held on to her like a life line.

“Thank you”, she heard his hoarse voice whisper again and again and again. “Thank you for letting me be a part of your family. Thank you for this. Thank you for everything, May. You’re one of the strongest women I know to have raised such a wonderful boy.”

For a while they stayed like that, wrapped around each other, until their tears had dried up and their voices weren’t as shaky anymore.

“I’d say it was a good call to give it to you up here, don’t you think?”, she joked once she got her bearings back.

“You’re a very smart woman, May Parker”, he gave back, finding his way back to his usual snarky self. “Shall we?”

“It is my distinct pleasure.”

They sauntered towards the elevator in companionable silence, hands brushing against each other as they walked as it happened with two people close to and comfortable with each other. The photo album had gone back into hiding in May’s bag but it felt lighter now that it had been put out there, like a subconscious weight she had carried with her until she had seen the honest tears and bright smile.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn’t need to be told where to go and so they started their descent without a word until suddenly Tony’s voice interrupted the silence.

“F.R.I. stop the elevator.”

“Wh- Tony?”, May asked, her heart beating faster in her chest when she saw the scared look in the billionaire’s eyes, “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, a fist coming up to press against his chest. His breathing was accelerating and she reached out on instinct when he stumbled forward a few steps in the tight space.

“I- I can’t do that”, he managed to get out through clenched teeth and suddenly his eyes were open again, looking wildly around the elevator until they settled on her, widening with panic.

A panic attack. Oh no.

“Relax”, she whispered, immediately going into mum-mode as Peter called it, and pulled him to the ground with her. “Breathe, Tony. It’s okay. You’re okay. We’ve got all these amazing people there to see you. We’re all with you. You’re safe.”

Tony shook his head though, fighting through his jagged breathing until he could get the words out. “I can’t- I’m not a parent, May. I’m not. I’m a mess. I-“, his voice broke and he tried to blink the tears away that threatened to take his sight, “A parent should be the one encouraging, helping. He- He shouldn’t have to throw me a party to tell me I’m alright. I shouldn’t be such a fucking mess. I can’t- I can’t, May. I can’t ruin him. Please. Please don’t let me.”

Her body worked on instinct again when she pulled his head into the crook of her neck, her hands finding his hair and soothingly carding through it like she would do for Peter.

“We’re all a mess sometimes, Tony”, she whispered, “Parents are allowed to be messes. God, you should’ve seen me after Ben’s death...”, she trailed off, voice breaking, “And I’m still here and so is Peter. We’ll get through anything, together, that’s what families do, right? You’re not going to mess him up. Just... just let him do this for you, try to listen to the people who love you more than to the ones who don’t. You can do that, right? Ignoring assholes is one of your specialties. Just ignore yourself sometimes.”

That actually earned her a wet laugh and she smiled into his hair when his arm snaked around her waist, stroking her back ever so slightly. Only then did she realize that she was crying, too.

“See, we’re all messes.” She sniveled. “Parenting is supposed to make you a mess and it’s supposed to scare you that you could mess your kid up. But you’re supposed to say ‘Screw you, doubt!’ and do it anyway. Because you’re a parent now. Parents are the strongest superheroes the world has ever seen. Nothing can come against us when it’s about our kid.”

“Sometimes part of our job is to let our kid reassure us, too. Sometimes he needs it as much as we do”, she added after a moment of silence that was only interrupted by both their heavy breathings, “This is not a one sided relationship. You get back, too, on occasions. You can’t and shouldn’t take their gratitude for granted but you should accept it when it comes.”

Tony nodded finally and pulled back, leaning back against the wall of the elevator, just as May did the same opposite of him. “Think we can get away with ten more minutes before we go in?”, he asked quietly, wiping at his eyes, and May nodded because there was no way she would go anywhere looking like this.

“Yeah, I mean they won’t start the party without their guest of honor.”

“SURPRISE!”

The doors to the elevator hadn’t even fully opened yet when he was met with the eardrum piercing yell from way up high on the ceiling and before Tony had the chance to blink, Peter was already sailing down and with him confetti started falling down from all over the place. As soon as the Spiderling had landed, he started singing – loudly, confidently and horribly off-key – and a heartbeat later everyone else had joined in, too.

Happy and Rhodey were standing in front of a huge “Happy Birthday Mr. Dad, uh, Tony” banner, grinning from ear to ear not even bothered by the purple party hats they were wearing that were complimenting their purple bowties. Each of them held a confetti gun in their hands, aimed directly at him.

Pepper stood a little to the side, rocking a dark blue glittery hat, with a champagne flute in her hand that he was about 97 percent sure was filled with apple juice. She was singing, too, almost as badly off-key as the kid and at least as happy about it, too.

When he turned around, he found that May had pulled out a green party hat, too and had joined the awful singing band, winking at him when his wide eyes met hers.

Tony had had a plan. Of course he had. He always needed plans for everything. And he needed plans in place should his plans fail. He needed so many fail saves that sometimes he ran out of letters in the alphabet to name them. Even though this had been supposed to be a surprise party, he had planned exactly how he wanted to act surprised and, as it usually happened, his plan flew right out of the window when he couldn’t even see through the thick confetti shower.

He squinted at his friends – his family – once the song had finished and was about to say something when both Happy and Rhodey made use of their weapons and added some more color to his already color-improved former black shirt. They caught him mid motion and he had to spit out a mouthful of confetti before he could start to chastise them.

“Mr. Stark! Happy birthday!”

Suddenly he remembered why this was supposed to be a happy moment – why he was supposed to be thrilled about being drowned in shards of colorful, glittery paper – just as Peter’s arms wrapped around him in the most physical hug they had shared as of yet. He let his body melt into the embrace and his hands found his curls of their own accord. The answering beam was worth the knowing smiles his friends shot him.

“Mr.Stark”, Peter giggled, still peering up at him, “You’ve got some confetti stuck in your frown.”

“Yeah, and who’s fault is that?”, he shot back with a smile even as he let Peter pick the offending piece of pink paper from his forehead.

“It’s kind of your fault for frowning on your birthday”, the Spiderling retorted and took a step back then.

He seemed a lot more self-conscious now that the adrenalin was wearing off and he was fidgeting with the sleeves of his hoodie until Tony’s hand covered his and he shot him a reassuring smile.

“You want me to throw the gang out for our heart to heart or-“

“No, no it’s fine”, Peter straightened up and finally met his eyes again, “They know why we’re here anyway. The only one who doesn’t get it yet is you. So I’m gonna need their support for this. You have to promise not to interrupt or disagree, though.”

The billionaire blinked at the teenager incomprehensively for half a minute before nodding. “Seems a little unfair seeing as this is my birthday but fine.”

“O-okay, so”, Peter started with a slight stutter before squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath, “The Cambridge dictionary defines a superhero as someone who has-“

“Wait!”, Tony interrupted, hand raised to stop the kid from talking, he imagined his eyes had to be comically wide but he couldn’t help but stare, “Did you actually prepare a speech? Like you wrote it down and practiced it and-“

“Mr. Stark!”, the teenager whined, glaring at him, “You couldn’t keep your promise for, what? A total of five seconds?”

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just, uh”, the billionaire looked around the room and, finding no support from his friends, “I’m just gonna take a seat right… uh, right here”, he finished a little lamely as he dropped down to the ground cross-legged, watching in amusement when all the adults followed his example until Peter was the only one standing. After a moment of hesitation, he sat down as well, situating himself opposite of Tony, his gaze open and earnest.

“As I was saying, The Cambridge dictionary defines a superhero as someone who has a special strength and uses it to do good things and help other people, as well as someone who has done something very brave to help someone else.”

Tony had to physically restrain his hands by sitting on them to not start fidgeting right away. He was also biting down on his lip so he wouldn’t interrupt the speech again, no matter how much every fiber of his being wanted to protest.

“I know you don’t think you have a special strength”, Peter continued, “I know you think that special strength means being physically strong or enhanced in some way or another but that’s not true. You have so many strengths that are so much more important than any of that. Some might say that your biggest strength is your brain. You’re really really smart, Mr… Tony.”

The boy smiled up shyly at him and Tony decided then and there that he would sit through actual torture again if only he kept smiling at him like that.

“I agree. Ever since I was a little kid, I looked up to you because of your intellect. I was in awe of someone who could build their own superhero suit in a cave out of nothing but scraps and determination. Uncle Ben told me that you were hurt, too, and that made you so much stronger in my eyes. You saved yourself when almost everyone had already given up on you and you didn’t need enhancement to do it, all you needed was yourself.”

I didn’t do it alone. He wanted to scream, his chest starting to ache in phantom pain when he thought back to Afghanistan and to Yinsen. But right now he had more important things to do than fall back into that hell and so he took a deep breath and tried to listen to Peter’s words. Somehow, miraculously, the kid’s voice managed to calm him down. (It really shouldn’t surprise him anymore.)

“Then when you came back, you broke with everything you thought was wrong without a thought about what it would mean for your company. You were a hero to many for that alone. And then you told the world that you are Iron Man. You were the first superhero who held himself accountable by giving away his identity.”

Tony wondered briefly, how Peter managed to overlook all of his mistakes and all the people that got hurt on his path to rediscovering himself. If it had been some other kid, he would’ve thought they simply didn’t get it but with this particular kid he knew that to be wrong. Peter was smart enough to know that the world wasn’t all black and white, he knew about Tony’s mistakes and he was a superhero himself, he knew that people got hurt sometimes. Yet here he was, calling Tony a hero.

“Iron Man is a hero”, Peter pulled him out of his thoughts again, “But Iron Man is only a hero because Tony Stark is. You’re brave and smart and selfless and those are all traits of a hero but what makes you our hero”, he glanced around the room, waving at the people sitting around them watching him, “What makes you my hero is your heart.”

“You care so much about everyone, even virtual strangers. You care about them so much that you would give your life for any one of them and you have proven that numerous times. You cared about me when you really didn’t have to.” His voice dropped a little, sounding much softer and vulnerable now when he met Tony’s eyes again.

“You put so much time and money into keeping me safe from the moment you first made me the suit. You could’ve stopped there and I would’ve been so grateful but you didn’t. You continued to protect me from my own mistakes, saving me when I screwed up and fixing the messes I made. Again, you could’ve stopped there and I wouldn’t have asked for more, because this was so much more than I expected but, again, you didn’t. You basically took me in – me, Peter Parker, not Spiderman – and you made time in your crazy schedule to hang out with me and to teach me. You never had to do that, no one would’ve expected you to. But you did it anyway because you care so much, even about some random kid from Queens who manages to get himself into trouble every other night.”

The billionaire superhero was already blinking away tears and through the veil he saw Peter doing the same thing, but he smiled through it – the love in his expression warming Tony’s heart like only Peter could. His eyes never left the kid’s. If they did, he would’ve seen that everyone was battling with their own emotions threatening to spill over.

“You never had to step up from being a fellow superhero to a mentor. You never had to step up from being a mentor to being more – to being a dad. And yet you did. That makes you the best superhero to me. And it’s okay if you won’t believe me – us - right away but we’ll just keep telling you. Because we love you.”

Tony swallowed. Tears were running down his cheeks freely now but he didn’t care enough to wipe them away.

All his life he would’ve brushed the emotional speech off, making a counterargument to every bullet point on the list just because he never had dealt well with compliments. Now, for the first time, he didn’t feel the need, though. He didn’t want to prove Peter wrong, instead he wanted to prove him right – wanted to become that man that he saw in him – and if that meant dealing with his low self-esteem and not talking back on compliments? Then he’d work his ass of getting better at those things.

So, instead of arguing, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Peter. It didn’t take the teenager more than five seconds to uncurl his legs and throw himself into the hug, making Tony almost topple over with the force. He let the tears run freely into Peter’s curls and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“I love you, Pete”, he whispered so softly only the enhanced Spiderling could pick up the words, before looking up and waving to the others with the one arm he didn’t necessarily need to keep his kid close to his chest.

“I love all of you. Come on into the hug. This is probably the first and final time I’m offering you all a group hug.”

It wouldn’t be. They all knew that. They came forward anyway.

May hugged Peter from behind, one hand patting Tony’s shoulder. Pepper came up behind Tony to wrap her arms around his waist and pressed a kiss to Peter’s hand. Happy and Rhodey gave their group hug its finishing touch by standing to either side of the bundle and acting as a cocoon around all of them.

This wouldn’t be the last time Tony couldn’t see his worth. It wouldn’t be the last time either of them doubted themselves. But that only meant the others would be there to convince them otherwise.

As a family did.

pic by @lieselfh

story by @josywbu (ao3 I FF.net)

[draayder]

I'm curious to see you answer all those OC asks for Kanemoto. Or as many as you can.

oh boy here we fucking go

What is your OC’s favorite color?Purple, but he generally likes anything in the cool range

Does your OC collect anything? What do they collect?He started collecting coins with his dad when he was a kid and while he’s not an avid collector he’ll still pick up a neat one if he finds it

What kind of things is your OC allergic to?he’s mildly allergic to dogs

What kind of clothing does your OC wear?he’s pretty much always dressed up, colored suits are about as flashy as it gets though

What is your OC’s first memory?He’s got flashes of a family breakfast when he was very young, though he can’t remember his mom’s face anymore. She left shortly after that

What’s your OC’s favorite animal? Least favorite?He likes cranes a lot, and thinks frogs and toads are gross

What element would your OC be?Water/Dark

What is your OC’s theme song? fuck dude I suck at these

Do you have a faceclaim / voiceclaim for your OC?nope I don’t ever do those

What deadly sin would best represent your OC?man that’s tricky for Kanemoto.... probably greed since he easily had enough money to just stop being a yakuza and still pay for all his dad’s treatment when his last like 3 families fell apart but he just keeps joining back up. He’s got this hangup about being absolutely sure he could cover ANYTHING that comes up 

What are your OC’s hobbies?He likes to read, historical fiction is a favorite because he is a big nerd. He also has a few pet beetles and when he’s busy he sends his boys around to take care of them

How patient is your OC? How hot-headed are they?he’s pretty damn patient, he knows he ain’t great in a fight so he doesn’t jump into them often which Saejima appreciates as a leadership quality

What is your OC’s gender / sexuality / race / species / etc.?Japanese Bisexual Cis Man

What foods does your OC like to eat? What are their least favorite foods?Surprisingly he likes pizza and has a fondness for mochi. He does not like ketchup which Akanishi takes great personal offense to

If your OC could have any pet, what would they choose? Why?He’s already got a few beetles which he considers ideal because they take up very little room, make very little noise, and he can buy beetle jelly at donki 

What does your OC smell like? he wears nice colognes most the time and favors citrus scents

How do they make a living? What kind of job do they want / not want? What is their dream job? What do they think of their current job?Kanemoto is yakuza babey. He got accepted to college and was on his way to becoming a lawyer but his dad’s medical issues forced him to drop out and the cost of everything pushed him into that line of work, so he kind of got stuck in a “being a yakuza is my job and my only option” mindset even after he had plenty of cash. He enjoys the business side of things and runs things fairly legit if you ignore the massive money laundering and tax evasion. He would rather die than work in fast food again

What are your OC’s greatest fears? Weaknesses? Strengths?He’s got this irrational fear that everything’s gonna fall apart financially. Outside of that he’s got the usual job fears of getting shot or knifed in his sleep, but he’s more scared of the pain than the dying part of it. His strength is that he’s got a rock solid grip on his composure

What kind of music do they listen to? Do they have a favorite song?he’s a whatever song’s on the radio kind of guy. He was so busy with school and then work and then yakuza that he feels like he kind of missed the bus on a lot of songs guys his age are really into, and he struggles to concentrate if music is playing so his musical knowledge is pretty limited

If they came from their world to ours (if not already in our’s) how would they react? What would they do?n/a

What personal problems/issues do they have? Pet peeves?puts up with stuff for too long, a big “lying for their own good” kind of guy, a little judgmental. he does not like these freshly recruited chinpira who won’t learn their damn manners and think since they’re yakuza they shouldn’t try to play by business etiquette when dealing with civilians 

What kind of student were they/would they be in high school?he was a stellar student and a total dweeb

What is a random fact about your OC? He and his ex-wife split amicably and she runs a lgbt bar now which he frequents

What is their outlook on life? What is their philosophy / what do they think in general about living?He thinks a lot about the meaning of it all and decided it’s about how you treat those you care about, so he’s gonna give it his all 

What inspired you to create them / how did you create them? Were they originally a fancharacter? What was their personality / design like when you first made them?honestly he was 100% someone to bounce Akanishi off of that no one could accuse me of making OOC when I did

Who is the most important person in their life? Why? Who is the least important to them (that still has an impact) and why?He’s got a couple, his dad was obviously a huge influence on him and he was proud to give him as long of a life as he did, Saejima’s his first boss after his father passed away and let him leapfrog a lot of the normal drudgery he’d have to do starting from the bottom, and Akanishi has become very important whether he wants him to be or not. The least important to him was probably Dojima who was his first boss but also died within a year of him joining up

What kind of childhood did your character have?His mom left when he was about 4 or 5, he’s not really sure where she went or what happened and he’s content enough not knowing. His dad was a great father and did amazing as a single parent, they didn’t have a ton of money but it was enough

What kind of nervous habits do they have? Do they stim? Do they have any kinds of addictions?tends to pull at his tie/collar when particularly nervous but he’s got a pretty strong grip on himself

If they could choose their epitaph for their grave, what would they choose?oh fuck that’s a hard one..... I think he’d go simple with like “Kanemoto Sho, loyal friend, devoted son”

Do they want to get married? Why or why not? Would they ever want kids? Do they have kids? Why?he’s been married and would definitely be open to it again but he hasn’t really pursued anyone, it doesn’t line up with his line of work and anyone in the yakuza tends not to be the marrying type. He’s too old for kids at this point and once again the line of work just doesn’t agree

What is their most traumatic memory/experience? What is their favorite memory?the first time he properly got his shit wrecked as a young yakuza in a street fight, he had to lie to his dad and say he got mugged and sent to the hospital. It kind of set him up to think he never wanted to be in a position where he had to fight. His fave memory is a fishing trip he took with his dad during high school

If they could have one thing in the world, what would it be?now you’d think the answer would be “his dad back” but he’s a pretty big believer that when it’s someone’s time that’s just how it is and that he provided the best life he could for him. If he could just snap his fingers and make it happen it’d definitely be getting strong enough to be a real contender in the yakuza realm. If that wasn’t possible, he’d like his scar and hearing fixed

Would they ever kill someone? What would someone have to do to push them to kill someone? If they would kill someone, why? he avoids it when possible, but he has shot a few people in very high stakes negotiations. He’s a good shot but prefers not to carry a gun due to the police risk

What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually?the Saejima family has drinking nights and occasional other excursions but they’re fairly laid back. However he gets dragged to most of the Majima family events by Akanishi and ends up playing baby sitter with Nishida when Minami is breathing fire and Akanishi is lighting sparklers off of it and oh fuck oh god Majima brought fireworks????

How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?He’s not super imaginative but is a worrier. Can’t really blame him with how many times the family he’s in has crumbled around him

What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?he does not need more money but he still spends a lot of time getting more, tho now it’s more for the family than taking much of a cut for himself. He’s willing to work his ass off for that

What’s something that your character does, that other people don’t normally do?So Kanemoto has a big complicated money laundering scheme that Saejima doesn’t fully understand but it gives the family a lot more clean money to use than anyone really expectsHe owns several real estate firms, and the employees are ‘encouraged’ to eat at the restaurants across the street that he also owns, and to spend time at the hostess clubs he owns. They’re given large bonuses to go out to these clubs via happy hours. They also are encouraged to spend time at the golf club that Kanemoto owns, and the hostesses are told to bring their dates to there as well. A cut of the profits of everything gets taken back in by the family as it’s now been successfully laundered and very very hard to trace 

What would your character do with a million dollars? what he’s currently doing with a million dollars, making it into more money

What is in your characters refrigerator right now? On their bedroom floor? Nightstand? Garbage can?he’s got an embarrassingly bachelor fridge with some leftovers and beer, he is not a good cook and spends most of his time out dining with business people or working late and ordering in. He keeps his room clean, his nightstand has whatever book he’s currently reading and a pair of readers that he isn’t thrilled with needing to wear. His garbage has a surprising amount of condoms

Your character is getting ready for a night out. Where are they going? What do they wear? Who will they be with?Akanishi is dragging him to a bar for karaoke and he doesn’t bother dressing up more than usual, but then Saejima is there and he regrets it

What does your character do when they’re angry? Why?it takes a lot to get him really angry but when it happens he is like incoherent rage and yelling (see here)

Does your character have any scars? Where did they get them from? he’s got some minor ones from a couple scuffles but the major one on his head is from a grenade that went off near him. He’s completely deaf in that ear and is annoyed that he’s lost his normal business man look and is more clearly a yakuza

What was the most offensive thing your character had ever said?this is more dumbass than offensive but he had very little experience with trans people before he got assigned kyoudai with Akanishi so he definitely said some stupid shit. He had a handle on MtF since he’d been around some trans women and other gnc individuals at his ex-wife’s Sachiko’s bar Oniyuri but didn’t put two and two together to figure out that FtM was also a thing, which lead to some major confusion when Akanishi said he was trans Akanishi, dropping his pants at the hot spring the first day they met: Oh yeah I’m trans that ain’t gonna be a problem, right?Kanemoto: so you’re... a woman?Akanishi: No!!!!Kanemoto: Oh sorry, so you’re a man...Akanishi: Yes!Kanemoto: ...who’s transitioning to female?Akanishi: NO!!!!! Literally the opposite get it together man!

How does your character react/ accept criticism?Depends on who it comes from, but he takes it pretty seriously. 

If your character was given a slice of pineapple pizza and they HAD to eat it (or something bad would happen), how would they react? Do they even LIKE pineapple pizza?he likea the taste

Your character is given a voodoo doll of themself. What do they do with it? Do they see if it actually works?yeah he’d try pinching it to see if he felt anything and then probably keep it around to scratch his own back (and hide it under as many locks as he can so Akanishi can’t get his hands on it)

Can your character draw? What do they like to draw? Do they doodle?he has no talent for art

What were their parents like? How has that affected how they are as an adult?as mentioned previously his mom left when he was young and his dad raised him as a single parent, his dad was hugely impactful on his life

Does your character like candy? Do they get sugar rushes? What are they like when they get a rush?he’s got a sweet tooth but never really got sugar rushes

If your character was presented with imminent and unavoidable death/fatality, how would they react? Would they try to avoid death anyways? Would they try to make their last days count? If he knew with certainty that he would die in 3 days he would spend every minute getting everything in as much order as he could to keep the Saejima family secure and just spending time with his closets friends. He’d rather leave a positive impact on them than try to avoid death, he’d consider doing so to be unforgivably selfishHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGH that was a lot

[middlewestcrisis]

This is a prologue type thing I wrote for a story idea I had last night at 4am. I’m throwing this out here cause i actually kinda like it and don’t want it dying in the recesses of my notes app. Feedback is welcome, you can tear this apart completely and tell me it’s garbage if you want! Enjoy!

The working title is

After-Life

MI10 is a customer service artificial unit, processing service requests at company that deals in “private artificials”, for household work or small businesses.

MI10 is a fantastic worker, following its programming and internal commands faster than most artificials of its make year and model.

The days are tracked on MI10’s visual interface , but measurements of time are nearly useless. After all why does a robot need to know what day it is?

The minutes are ticking by, twenty-three maintenance requests and sixteen orders had been placed through MI10 that morning, the neutral passing of time was continuing unnoticed. That is until a great commotion was heard from the other side of the door that separated MI10 from the dirty street outside. This part of the city was almost exclusively populated artificials on the job, and all business was done online so no human being had been seen there for weeks, storefronts and offices held only the hard metal of artificial skin, and the whirring of cooling fans and processors. Perhaps the lone Corporate ambassador would pass through every few months to check on their machines, make sure quotas we’re being met and all units were functioning at 100%.

“What have they done to me!”

It cried, the sound was grating and was highly unpleasant to MI10s audio processors, they were newer and far more sensitive than previous models.

MI10 rolled closer, wheels treading effortlessly over the debris underneath.

The artificial unit responsible was old, older possible than any unit MI10 had ever observed.

“LAYLA! I- AHH- RRRRCHHHH.. WHERE DID,,, TTHFFFZZYY, TA, VVVRRRRRKKKK KE YOU”

The phrases were choppy and drawn out now: full sentences devolving into sounds and screams. MI10 couldn’t process any meaning behind it. It stood still, trying desperately to interface with the malfunctioning model, reaching out over invisible code, trying to understand it. Malfunctioning units weren’t uncommon but a public outburst like this was.

Predictably MI10 heard the sound of an approaching security drone, the deep rumble of the engine soaring towards them. The drone settled in the sky above the old unit, lights flashing and reflecting off of every surface around them. The lights were disorienting and afterimages of the red and blue lights burned themselves onto MI10’s lenses, a deliberate dispersion tactic.

MI10 was not the only curious unit poking its head out of its workstation for a glimpse of the commotion, entertainment wasn’t a priority of their programming but, something about the event drew them in.

“Please return to designated work area,”

Came the deep metallic rumble of the security drone, the same message flashed across MI10’s interface. Programming kicked in and the robot obeyed, flashing its eyes green in compliance before retreating.

“Non compliance will be met with de activation.”

MI10 briefly activated its rear cameras, it didn’t know why, it just needed to see. The old unit was in… distress. Artificials should not be capable of distress. “Whatever bug, or virus was overtaking it was clearly a strong one,” MI10 thought.

But in the last second before the sliding door could shut soundly behind It, leaving all thoughts of distressed artificials behind, MI10 could swear it saw the security drone fire a single round at the old unit, tearing a sparking, jagged hole straight through its primary power bank. The last sight MI10 processed before returning the the tasks of the day was a smoking pile of metal, hissing out a final communication before shutting down permanently.

“I———- A—M”

“I am?”

A split second after that binary thought ran its course through MI10’s circuitry,

Deafening alarms began to sound in its head, and its visual interface slowly went black.

[apparentlyadam]

SIXTEEN

So um. I’m 16 years into life. What?

Yeah so November 17th was my birthday and my friend was at a funeral so that was great lmao. Just reflecting on my past is kinda crazy to how I evolved into current me!

Like how did I get to here? 2005, where it all started. My parents did what all parents do in order to create you (i wanna vomit omfg). Then November 17th 2005 at 23:28, I was pushed out my Mum’s Fahina and then that was me. I was originally supposed to be called Lincoln. Thank you dad for naming me Adam. ApparentlyLincoln does not work. No clue what my handle would be if I was named Lincoln. LittleLincoln. Naur. LateralFlowLincoln. I- anyways.

4 years later, I start school. 2009-2010 was the Academic year I believe (I’m not good with time to be honest). I don’t really remember much from that time. All I know is that I had a friend called Eva (or Ava I can’t remember) and she had a twin, I believe he was called Joseph. Their house was so nice. It was somewhat similar to this house. Emphasis on similar. I used to love going there, they were so nice. I was 100% closer to Eva though, main reason being I lived with 2 sisters at the time (12/13 year old sister and a 19/20 year old sister) and obviously my Mum (my parents split up when I was like 2).

Also to note, around these first few years of school, I had gone on my first holiday I could actually remember! It was 2 weeks at Disney Land (Florida) because my grandad was dying and he wanted to take us on a family trip and see us happy. Despite not being able to remember 100% of things, I can remember a few. 

I remember being on one of the rides and it got stuck. I remember it was like Orange and Blue or something? It had a small loop in it (I was like 5 or 6 so it was basic as fuck). I remember we stayed in this lovely house, it was amazing. It had a big black front door, lovely white tile flooring, I vaguely remember some of the paintings on the wall. I remember one time me and one of my cousins went for a midnight swim with my dad in the pool. Speaking of, I remember I used to jump in the pool or something near the stairs in the pool, and I scraped the backs of my feet. I remember my nan (who is still alive) and my grandad nursed the backs of my feet back to existence. I remember going to Applebee’s (I’m pretty sure it was across the road) and always ordering the Orange Juice and Spaghetti. Oh and cause the water from the pool would give me extreme ear ache, my dad would have to put my Calpol (paracetamol for kids) in my food or drink because I wouldn’t have it by itself. Lol Sorry for that massive memory dump. 

So my grandad sadly passed in February of 2012. When my mum told me, according to her I cried for hours. I still have a picture of him in my room, I hope he’s doing well chilling in the afterlife.

Anyways, fast forward a few months post-grandfather’s death, me, my mum, one of my sisters (the younger of the two), and my stepdad move 2 hours away to a county called Norfolk (for anyone who isn’t English, a county is basically like a state). Going from an extremely suburban area in my home county of Essex to the middle of nowhere in a place called Norfolk where people speak differently, there’s hardly any activity. Barely any moving cars. No real ‘life’ compared to Essex. I left all my old friends behind really. I only remained in contact with one friend, since her mum was a friend of my mum’s. Her name was Tilly. I wasn’t too fond of her (I’m sorry hun). But she was quite nice. Nonetheless, life does what life does and all I can remember post 2013 is nothing really. I remember that me and Tilly eventually lost contact, as did our mum’s.

Then the next full ‘event’ or whatever I can really remember was in around late 2015. PGL. Now if you’re not English, that is the shit. I- girl. It’s amazing. It’s like 3 days long and in those 3 days, you get to go to this canteen hall, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. There were tons of activities, Kayaking, Abseiling. You name it, they probably got it. Then there were like evening activities after dinner. Like tag or capture the flag. 

Then, we went the year after that, my school went again. Same thing really, we just different activities. 

Then I can’t really remember anything after that for about another 6 months, until the end of Year 6 (2017). I was 11. It was quite sad. I cried because I was gonna miss my teacher. Yup...actually happened although I hated the school. She was an artist so she did us portraits of us and out future jobs. Around this time I was extremely invested in computers and all that jazz, so everyone was adamant I was gonna be working in that general area. Welp, look where I am now.

Anyways, I go to secondary school and instantly I’m just hated by most people, and by most people about like 99.99% of the school. Then obviously, 2020, human rights movements and COVID came and dominated the world. (The way only one thing in 2020 shouldn’t of happened and it definitely was not human rights movements) Then sparked working from home, fear of the unknown, fear of mankind and masks, sweet masks.

I was so afraid to catch COVID, I think we all were to be honest, a fear of the unknown. In March 2020, UK Schools were shut down for “2 Weeks”. That 2 weeks turned into 6 months.

Did I do any of the work? No. Did I regret it? Yes. Did I then finish 3 months of work in 12 long agonising days without doing anything else? Yes.

My mental health was actually the best it had ever been in lockdown. I wasn’t in a toxic environment with people I hated 24/7. Just me, my room, my dog and life. I discovered my love for music. I found a sense of belonging or self to a degree? I felt like I found my purpose in life. Like this was my calling (I went to spiritual church when I was younger, can you tell?), it was like I had that fire and drive that you have for your wildest dream.

We then returned September 2020. 

However this year, I had a new English teacher, like actually a new one. She was new to the school. I then realised I love English and words. That kinda kick started my love for song writing as a form of therapy. So Miss, if one day I’m famous, I owe it to you. Literally this woman is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. She’s like 24-25 so she understands are humour and doesn’t speak down to us etc. She’s just all round. A BESTIE. LIKE SIS I WANNA BE YOUR FRIEND.

Anyways we went back into lockdown for 3 more months in January 2021. During those months I had retaught myself piano and I guess that’s where my ‘music producer’ journey if you will began. But once we returned to school, everyone was so behind on content, so relieved I wasn’t the only one. It was a mess. Literally, not figuratively.

So to present day; I’m predicted to fail Math amongst a few other non-core GCSE subjects, revising for exams, applied to two colleges (one is a specialised Music College and another a standard college but with the same course), burning Demo CDs and avoiding COVID.

How I’ve changed beyond recognition, I’d like to think that music will take me somewhere, and for someone reason I am certain it will. I just wanna enjoy life and grow old...then die obviously lmao.

Anyways lemme be crediting my new self to some of the people around me:

Josie - You’re literally like a twin to me (no like we’re in sync all the time it’s weird)

My English Teacher - You’re just so motivating, caring and understanding 

My Sister - For driving me to my college interview and also you’re just amazing

My Family - In general, they’ve been very supportive, regarding my passion to do music.

[remuscomms-blog]

         Jacob has only personally felt the unforgiving touch of death once before — pronounced as it was, the loss still reverberates inside lungs that ache with remembrance on cold Remus nights when frigid air burns with each inhale. Guilt for another’s untimely end is hard to shake, especially when that person had become entwined in daily routine, their demise shaking the very foundations of normality — even if that guilt is wholly misplaced.

          Myles was Jacob’s first friend when he joined the Eurasian military as an information analyst; a fellow new recruit, they traversed the unfamiliar territory together, bolstering each other’s motivation on the occasion when basic training felt unbeatable. Their first test of friendship came once Myles learnt of Jacob’s father — as a prominent member of the armed forces and subsequent politician, he was well known to those in that profession — however, instead of casting doubt on his acceptance being of his own merit, or praising his father’s work, Myles merely quipped ‘I don’t envy your childhood’ and continued eating, making Jacob feel more at ease than he’d felt since stepping on base.

         The two kept up communication even when differing specialities took them on opposite paths; daily voice messages were regular occurrences, updates on respective missions, which member of their squad had been given 100 push-ups for every minute they overslept etc. He’d never laughed as hard as he did when in Myles’ company, something that should have given away what was happening, but at the time he was clueless to.

         It was, ironically, when fate brought them together under the same command that everything fell apart. What was supposed to be a simple recon mission to ascertain whether or not the enemy was active in a particular region wound up uncovering something much larger — a plot by radicals to undermine the people’s faith in world governments by hijacking the filtration system of largely populated cities, exposing those within to lethal toxins.

         Or so it was believed. Invisible behind a two way mirror, Jacob was privy to the interrogation of key players captured by Eurasian forces. The methods his superiors used made him uncomfortable, but the words their captives didn’t speak even more so. He was picking up on non-verbal cues many would miss had they not had the training and natural understanding he did — what he witnessed and the gut feeling of something bad being imminent was enough for him to speak his mind, only to be dismissed as paranoid by his commanding officer, Langford. When he insisted he take him seriously, his CO threatened to punish him for insubordination.

         He let Myles in on his suspicions, and — ever loyal — the other man gave him the suggestion to take his concerns higher, confirming his belief in Jacob’s apprehension. When an opportunity arose for a scouting party to patrol the area outside base to ensure their safety, Myles volunteered so as to help divert Langford’s attention from Jacob and the task at hand.

         It took Jacob going above his superior to finally be taken seriously, for the first (and only) time using his father’s name as weight to be heard. A decoy is what he believed the information to be — falsified in a way that aims directly at the jugular of every soldier there: a threat to their home. After being granted his own solo interrogation where he simply asked questions their captives were only too happy to give (false) answers to, and studying their hidden meaning, clarification spawned an unpleasant theory. The home targeted wasn’t overseas — it was right here, their home base.

         Passing on this hypothesis lead to a controlled evacuation above ground while the structure was inspected. Standing in a sea of masked faces waiting for information was one of his lasting memories of that day — hoping to catch a glimpse of the returning patrol so as to ease the worry flooding his mind a little. But those soldiers would never walk through the gates to base again.

        Double crossed. In hindsight, Jacob should have seen Langford’s refusal to cooperate as suspicious, but his focus had been on the more imminent threat. While the base was being cleared, it transpired that the real reason for the patrol was for the CO to escape the bomb he’d planted within, and seek refuge with the enemy. He wasn’t betting on them gunning the group down as they reached their rendezvous point, the word ‘TRAITOR’ branded across white suit with his own blood.

         Once their headquarters had been given the all clear (a controlled explosion meant they only suffered the loss of one block within, closing emergency airlocks to divert the blast, forcing excess pressure harmlessly outward), Jacob put together a search party to look for the missing patrol ( ‘to inform them of the ongoing situation’ was his rationale — the deep crease between brow spoke otherwise ).

         By the time they got to the scene, it was too late. Myles had been exposed to Earth’s atmosphere thanks to two bullet holes that had torn his suit’s fabric, and was already exhibiting signs of severe carbon monoxide poisoning. He was barely conscious when Jacob arrived, the frantic bustle of fellow soldiers as they took in the situation fading into the background, ringing in his ears the only sound. Lifting Myles’ chest and propping him up against his was the most he could do — there was no denying he was dying, and the rational part of Jacob’s brain told him to make him as comfortable as possible (the irrational wanted to scream curses at the sky until his throat was raw).

         It took an hour for Myles to finally let go, his last choked breath giving way to an elongated sigh that petered out into nothing. Jacob had talked for most of that time, firstly with sluggish responses as his friend replied, progressing to Jacob talking about memories they’d shared just to fill the silence with something other than wracking coughs shaking both their frames.

         Myles’ last request had been a weakened grapple to remove his mask — a move which had startled Jacob at first until digits had closed around his own, eyes imploring through fogged suit to let him choose this. The look on Myles’ face as the mask was removed will forever stay with Jacob: it was an expression of pure exhilaration as the wind, strong enough to tug at the edges of his suit, whipped over exposed cheeks. That same look was etched onto features when he died not a minute later, not in agony but in peace.

         Similar explosives were found on 5 separate bases in the region — while there was heavy structural damage, Jacob’s warning had allowed for the timely evacuation of those within, (soldiers and civilians alike), so no major injuries were reported aside from minor wounds from flying debris. The media coverage painted him as a hero, skipping over the CO’s betrayal and the subsequent losses — Myles’ sacrifice was to go unheard, buried in the sand he died in.

         The guilt surfaced not long after Myles passed, once his brain had time to process the events of the day. Washing off the blood coating hands and watching the water stain red, all his emotions exploded outward; mirror cracked under the force of a thrown punch, skin on knuckles splitting an insignificant outcome — all his anger at himself, at Langford, at the terrorists spilled forth with no reservations.

         Three days later he was back in London with a broken right wrist, heavily bruised knuckles and medically assigned leave. It only took one hug from Ava for him to break down entirely, her resolute steadiness helping him grieve in a way he hadn’t been able to before (and never has since).

         To this day, Jacob blames himself for Myles’ death, despite numerous people telling him otherwise. It’s cause and effect: if he hadn’t confided in him about his suspicions, Myles never would have volunteered for the patrol. If he’d figured the plan out earlier, Myles would have been evacuated with the rest. If he’d never met Myles, he would still be alive today.

         Jacob struggles with expressing strong emotions, unless he’s around someone he’s incredibly close to (Ava being the perfect example). His grieving methods for Myles were a lot more visceral a lot faster — not to say he doesn’t feel as strongly for Nik’s death, but rather he’s learnt from his experience, and is attempting to control his emotions by throwing himself into his work as a distraction.

         He’s surprisingly closed off emotionally for someone as social — while he thrives under certain stressful work-related situations, when it comes to personal matters which are exacerbated by other factors (being unable to contact Earth, for example), things get too much and he shuts himself off, lashing out verbally if someone tries to get him to talk or open up.

         It’s a defence mechanism to drive people away — while he’s had to confront his guilt during training and the years since (as well as during psych sessions with Sienna), Nik’s death has opened old wounds, forcing him to confront familiar fears he’d rather not face. It’s no coincidence that the person he held the most respect for is dead, surely? Wouldn’t the rest be better off at a distance?

         (Jacob cares a lot about each of the crew, but he finds it almost impossible to express. Emotionally driven gestures are a foreign concept — a gift for example will be based more off a person’s needs than it would be sentiment. Nik’s passing has prompted him to start rebuilding the barriers he’d constructed after Myles; in his mind, he's a magnet for death, and they can’t afford any more losses. His sole focus now is the team’s survival and their mission’s success: first step, finding the communications tower. Grieving can come later.)

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Team Bonding

 I spent the last few days imagining this ridiculous Voltron Team Bonding scenario and finally sat down to type it up. Not sure if I'll ever turn it into a fic or not, but I wanted to share it.

  The whole thing starts with Lance (because who else would it be?)

“Okay, sure, but last time you made us do team bonding we got kidnapped by a giant blue lion who took us to the other side of the universe so we could find other giant robot lions and fight the big bad evil threatening the universe!” - Hunk, probably

Also most likely happens sometime during/after season 3, during a lull period where they're just traveling around helping planets. Everyone's back together and things are looking good, but they've been split up for a while so...

Lance loves his space-family and just really wants them to be happy, okay? This means team bonding.

Shiro, ever the supportive leader, thinks it's a great idea. With him backing Lance, the others agree to try.

Reluctantly.

Very reluctantly.

The first Team Bonding Activity (chosen by Lance), goes surprisingly well.

It's a “movie” night, but all they have are Coran's old tutorial videos. Naturally, they spend the night making fun of them and laughing themselves silly.

Everyone congratulates Lance on a good idea. In their own way.

Shiro's pick is next. He decides the theme will be “family game night”. Similar to their so-called movie night, all they have are old Altean board games with near incomprehensible rules, so they make up their own.

Somehow these rules are even more convoluted and ridiculous than the originals.

Keith and Lance spend most of the night arguing over said rules while Pidge and Hunk pick sides. Shiro mostly sits back and watches to make sure things don't get too out of hand.

It's agreed that Keith's pick is up next, but he passes it off to Hunk instead, citing that he needs more time to work on his.

The others are mildly worried about what he's planning.

Hunk gives cooking lessons.

As with most things involving Team Voltron and food, it ends up more on everything else than in their bellies.

A food fight totally happens.

Hunk starts it.

Pidge is up next and decides what they really need is something team based. Naturally, this means Battle Robots.

Pidge puts herself in charge of one team and assigns Hunk to lead the other. It comes as no surprise when Hunk picks Lance, but then Pidge's pick is Keith? And they agree Hunk gets Shiro?

Team names become a thing. (Team Forest Fire vs Team Space Landslide)

This is the activity that really alerts Allura and Coran to the fact that something unusual is happening in the castle. There's some concern about the possible destruction that could happen.

They decide to join in and build their own robot.

The mice help

They give themselves a time limit of one week to built their 'bots.

At last it's time for Keith to announce his activity. There is no small amount of worry when he tells them to meet in the training room

Pidge doesn't act the least bit concerned. In fact, she almost seems smug.

Lance is instantly on to that.

“There's something going on between you two, I know it!”

It's laser tag

Keith roped Pidge into helping him create their own laser tag

Earth style, non-deadly lasers

Because it's for fun and not a crazy, painful Altean training session, Allura and Coran.

It goes so well that Shiro actually considers putting it into their training schedule

Things only seem to get better from there, with only a few hiccups

They eventually get back to the Space Mall, where Lance drags everyone to the “earth” store to raid it for movies

Pidge does something creative with tech and makes it so they can actually watch said movies back at the Castle of Lions. (And also so she can finally play games again.)

They have to go in disguise because the Galran mall cop recognizes them.

The disguises are awful, but somehow they work?

After the last kitchen food fight, everyone comes to the general realization that Hunk's 100% serious about teaching them to cook. Without even talking to each other beforehand, the other four give him more respect the second time around

Hunk's both flattered and disturbed by the turnaround.

“You guys are acting weird. Is everything alright? Is someone dying? Someone's dying aren't they?! Who is it? Is it Lance? Is it me?”

“No one is dying, Hunk!”

Movie night hits a speed bump when Pidge and Keith continue their trend of making fun of every movie they watch

Lance snaps at them and then spends the rest of the night sulking

After which he demands they sit off on the other side of the room and whisper to each other if they want to keep it up

Who knew he'd take The Princess Bride so seriously?

Family game night only gets crazier

Especially on nights when Coran and Allura join them

Coran keeps trying to play by the original Altean rules

Allura actually catches on to their made-up rules quickly and gleefully adds new ones of her own

Shiro almost starts to regret picking something so competitive

Pidge decides she can't handle another round of watching her beloved robot wage battle against the clunky monstrosity lovingly built by Hunk, Lance, and Shiro, so it's time for some video games.

It's at this point that Lance regrets ever deciding they all needed to bond as a team

Pidge is terrifying when it comes to these games

No, seriously

Even Keith and Shiro are a little afraid

Coran and Allura wisely stay away – both citing work to do around the Castle

Lance wonders if he should have seen it coming after the way she demanded they buy it during their first trip to the Space Mall

“I should have known when she thought raiding the coin fountain was a good idea!”

Shiro bans all betting pools.

Over time, Team Bonding Night slows down a little. It becomes less everyone-picks-an-activity-for-each-week and more casual relaxed night-in one week, full group training exercise the next.

Movie nights continue. Hunk usually makes snacks and will drag a person of his choice to the kitchen to help him.

Allura helps devise a version of “the floor is lava” after a particularly heated discussion about useful Earth childhood games that can be adapted for training. The fake lava floor nearly sends the paladins running for safety the first time they see it.

It's surprisingly non-painful

After a castle-wide pillow fight ends in 17 pillows flying out of an airlock (nearly taking Coran with them), Allura has to request they keep all team bonding to one room at a time. Preferably far away from all airlocks.

Some nights are spent more quietly, with everyone together but working on their own little projects.

These are nights of whispered conversations and faint laughter; of shared smiles and playful nudges. Nights when Lance and Keith don't argue. Even Pidge tones back the sarcasm. Hunk sets up an array of snacks, but doesn't pester anyone about eating. Shiro takes the rare chance to actually relax.

[thecoroutfitters]

  The human body is amazingly adaptable, able to survive in a wide range of conditions, and through suffering a wide range of circumstances.

We’ve all heard of people who have survived being shot in the heart or even in the brain. While those are supposedly impossible situations to survive, some people do survive them. Likewise, people have survived the harshest climate that nature can throw at them, as well as the worst hell that mankind can create.

Many of us don’t know the limits of their body and how strong they are but your body can take a lot more than you think when pushing its limits to survival.

There are some limits to human survival which have been well mapped out. We all know the rule of 3, which defines how long we can live without some of our most basic survival needs. But even then, there are extreme cases where people have done the impossible and survived past those limits.

Then there are a wide range of challenges which are unknowns, as the limit has never been fully mapped out. How long can a person survive without sleep? The longest on record is 11 days, but while the test subject was little more coherent than a vegetable at the end of that time, they were in no risk of dying.

The same can be said for a wide range of athletic achievements. For a long time, it was believed that humans could not beat the four-minute-mile. Then Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3:59:4, back in 1954. Once he did that, others were able to break through that barrier, till today, the fastest mile on record is almost 17 seconds faster than Bannister’s record-breaking time.

This is not uncommon in athletics, as every record broken becomes a new challenge to other athletes. Today’s Olympic athletes can outperform those of a century ago by so far, as to make those in the past look like a bunch of bumbling fools. Yet in their day, each of them was a marvel of human accomplishment.

Every time a new record has been set, either by athletes or by people who survive seemingly impossible situations, scientists are forced to rethink their understanding of the human body’s abilities. Yet just because one person succeeds in surviving a specific situation, that doesn’t mean that all people can.

People fall off of buildings and survive, even buildings as tall as ten stories high. In most cases, falling 100 feet like that would result in death or at least extremely severe injury. But there are always those rare cases of people who survive such a fall, and seem to do so, without serious injury.

In some cases, that can be attributed to the individual being drunk. Drinking to excess causes the muscles to relax, amongst the other effects it has. It also makes the drunk person less aware of their surroundings and what is happening to them. Without that awareness, they can fall off a building and not tense their muscles in expectation to the sudden stop at the bottom. This can actually help them to survive, as a relaxed body will often suffer less injury than a tense one.

But that doesn’t mean that we should all walk around drunk, or that being drunk when falling off a building would ensure our survival. There are many factors in play in any such accident; such as the individual’s physical condition, their health, how they strike the ground, the surface they land on and how their body collapses upon impact.

Then there’s the many differences in individual bodies, as no two people are exactly the same.

Strong muscles not only provide the strength and endurance necessary to perform survival tasks, they also help prevent injury. Many bone and ligament injuries happen simply because of a lack of muscle strength. If muscles are strong enough, they protect the bones as well, acting as a cushion. Fat can’t do that.

All this affects our ability to survive much more than a fall. In any survival situation, these same factors come into play. One person might be able to withstand cold well, while another may do better in the heat. Some can eat foods that might be considered tainted, without suffering any harm, while others have systems which are easily affected by even the slightest thing wrong with their food.

While some of this is beyond our control, there are things which we can do, which will ultimately increase our ability to survive. If one is forced to bug out from their home on foot, both strength and endurance will come into play.

Strength will affect how much they are able to carry with them, while endurance will affect how far they can walk, before they have to stop and take a break. Each has its value, so to concentrate on one, to the exclusion of the other, is not the best training strategy.

3 Second SEAL Test Will Tell You If You’ll Survive A SHTF Situation

Explore Your Limits

Before you start training, you need to know where you are right now. What are your body’s limits? What can you withstand? Knowing the generalities of what “most people” can withstand isn’t enough, you need to know what works for you.

Knowing that people can survive living in a temperature range from 40°F to °F to 95°F won’t help you a bit, if you don’t know how your body reacts to heat and cold. So you need to put yourself into circumstances where you are forced to function for a prolonged period of time in those temperatures, and monitor how well you do.

Do you lose strength quickly when it’s hot? Does cold weather make your joints stiffen? How much do you sweat when it’s hot and how much does physical activity affect that?

Your ability to withstand extremes in temperature need to be evaluated over time, as your body will gradually adjust to those extremes.

Explorers who go to the Arctic or Antarctica spend time acclimating to the cold, before starting their explorations. Given time, their bodies adjust, making it possible for them to survive in circumstances where others couldn’t.

Establish Real Life Strength and Endurance Tests

You can test yourself for strength and endurance fairly easily. Just don’t do it at your local gym. While the gym might be great for physical fitness training, it’s an unrealistic environment. Just because you can lift X number of pounds for 20 repetitions, or even 200 repetitions, doesn’t mean that you can wield an axe for three hours, splitting firewood. The effort and movement may seem similar, but it’s not. Weight training really only prepares you for more weight training, it doesn’t prepare you for real-life survival tasks.

Nor can endurance be measured on a stationary bicycle or elliptical machine. While that might give you a comparative evaluation of how you are today, compared to how you were a year ago, it won’t tell you how far you can hike through rugged terrain, carrying a 50 pound pack.

You’ve got to establish realistic tests, based upon real-life survival tasks. If you want to know how well you’ll handle carrying that pack on a bug out, go backpacking in the type of terrain that you expect to pass through while bugging out.

Make your pack as heavy as it would be on that bug out, or even a touch heavier. Dress yourself in the same way, and make sure you have good hiking boots on. Then see how well you do.

The same sort of test can be done for every survival task that you envision having to do. Split a pile of firewood, so you can see how long it will take and how many breaks you’ll need to take before getting done. Check how well your hands survive as well, as you might find them covered with blisters.

Please note here that most people will quit, long before they reach their limits. We tend to stop when we get tired, saying that we’re about to collapse. But in fact, we are far from collapsing; we’re just tired. We just don’t want to do any more.

I remember a time in my military service, when I was at that point, but circumstances forced me to go on. You know something? I did. I went well beyond what I thought were my limits, yet still didn’t reach the point of collapsing.

With your real-life tests in the log book, you can then go to the gym and do comparable tests. Put yourself through a workout, trying to do exercises that simulate your real-life survival tasks.

Record the results of those as well, right alongside the other tests. You can then use your progress in the gym, as an indication of how you might do in the field. It won’t be a perfect comparison, but an improvement in the gym should roughly equal a similar improvement in the field.

Develop Your Training Regimen for Survival

Let’s be honest with ourselves. Most of us aren’t in good enough shape for survival. I know I’m not. Having to hike all day, carrying a heavy pack or needing to split a pile of firewood is probably more than I can do. I’m not as young as I once was and I spend way too much time sitting in front of my computer.

But that doesn’t mean I have to stay that way. Physical training is just training. As such, it’s something that just about anyone can do. All we need is to develop the right sort of training regimen, and then to have the discipline to follow through.

That’s the keyword – discipline. It is the lack of discipline which prevents most of us from exercising. We know we should, we even know how to… but we still don’t do it. We lack the discipline.

“Our limits are mostly mental limits, not physical limits. Once we accept them as such, we should be able to change them.”

You can discipline yourself by simply motivating yourself. What’s your reason to push the limits of your body? To be able to survive, right? That desire to survive should be all the motivation you need. With it, you should be able to push yourself beyond what you think are your limits, finding new limits that you never even knew existed.

A number of years ago, trainers for the Olympic bicycling team tried an experiment with their cyclists. They started out telling them to ride as fast as they can, “sprinting” on the bicycle, if you will. Then, they told them to “follow” a video of someone else riding and stay right with them. Even though the videos were one or two miles per hour faster than their supposed “fastest time,” they were able to keep up.

There’s a secret that we can all use. That is, our limits are mostly mental limits, not physical limits. Once we accept them as such, we should be able to change them, simply by deciding that we can. In other words, starting out at our limit and then adding just a little bit more. By incrementally increasing our limit in this way, we push our body’s ability and find the ability to do more.

Video first seen on Outside. 

Develop Toughness Too

Physical strength and endurance are important parts of survival. An individual who is in shape, is much more likely to accept and overcome the hardships of survival. Their body will rise to the challenge, putting for the necessary exertion to get through whatever survival problem.

But that body which is in condition will be able to withstand the rigors better, as well. They won’t just be able to do more, but they will suffer less in doing so. Part of that is the physical toughness that goes with being physically in shape.

Fighter of all kinds work to develop toughness, right alongside strength, endurance and agility. What do I mean by that physical toughness? It’s the ability to take the blows, without it affecting you. It’s pretty much impossible to have physical toughness, without physical conditioning. But it is possible to have that physical conditioning, without the toughness to go with it.

Physical toughness is developed by taking blows. Muscles which are hardened by exercise can take those blows, without it doing them harm. This is especially true when the muscles are flexed, hardening them.

If your abdominal muscles are relaxed and someone hits you in the belly, it will hurt. It might even tear some muscle or cause other damage. But if you are given the opportunity to tighten those muscles, before the blow, you will withstand the same blow, without harm. If your abdominal muscles are in shape, you’ll be able to take a much stronger blow, without harm.

But there’s another side of toughness, besides physical toughness, that’s mental toughness. Physical toughness is something that you can train your body to have, while mental toughness is something you must train your mind to have.

Put simply, mental toughness is the ability to push on through and not give up. As I mentioned before, most of us give up before we reach our limit. This doesn’t just apply to endurance, but to everything. Having mental toughness means that we won’t quit, no matter how tired we are, how much we hurt, or how impossible the situation looks.

Probably the greatest experts in mental toughness today are the Navy Seals. Seal training is reported to be the toughest military training there is. But they make it extremely easy to quit. A trainee can quit at any time, no questions asked. There’s a bell just outside the main office, where it can be seen by all, all the way through their training. All they have to do is trot over to that bell and ring it. One clang of the bell and you’re given a warm blanket, a cup of coffee, a donut and a fast trip out of Seal training.

They make it easy to quit, because the Seals are looking for people who aren’t quitters. One of the things that makes them so effective, is that the Seals are made of people who won’t quit, no matter what.

Seals are survivors. They’re people who don’t know how to quit. They’ve got the mental toughness to keep on trying, no matter what. Work on yourself to get yours!

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This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Canes Clinch, Pietrangelo, Pearson, Byfuglien, Friday Picks, and more… (Apr 5)

The interactive playoff draft list is ready for download now! Don’t wait until five minutes before your draft or deadline to purchase it. If you haven’t already preordered it, get yours today! If you have already purchased it, jump right in. It’s available in the Downloads section on the Dobber website (login required for the site, not the forum).

Once you purchase the draft list, please take a moment to get familiar with it before your draft. Read the Instructions tab before you begin using it. The Excel spreadsheet file is interactive (macro-enabled) and not just a “list.” The point total projections depend on which teams you set to advance, or you could go with Dobber’s picks if you’re really not sure. I’m not trying to make it sound super complicated or anything, but it’s better to be prepared. Hey, we just want you to win your league!

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Thursday was all about teams trying to clinch playoff spots and teams trying to jockey for position. This doesn’t matter to fantasy teams that happen to still be active (like me in my roto league), but it certainly matters to those who are preparing for playoff pools. Even though almost all of the playoff teams are set, hopefully you don’t have to commit to choosing players right now.

When you’re the Carolina Hurricanes, clinching a playoff spot is a momentous occasion.  

The last time the #Canes clinched a playoff berth was April 4th, 2009

Ten years ago to the day, WE'RE BACK

Read More » https://t.co/hmxKvfXOSB pic.twitter.com/V49Bk3w4gG

— x – Carolina Hurricanes (@NHLCanes) April 5, 2019

Yes, the “bunch of jerks” punched their 2019 playoff ticket with a 3-1 win over New Jersey. Even though the Canes won’t be providing any victory celebrations after any home playoff wins, I have a feeling that they’ll be a popular underdog to pull for.  

Petr Mrazek stopped 36 of 37 shots to earn the victory. Mrazek has had quite a run recently, posting an 11-2-0 record with a 1.68 GAA and a .944 SV% since mid-February. Both he and Curtis McElhinney will be UFAs at the end of the season. Since the Canes are a top-10 team in goaltending, I would have to believe they would bring back at least one of these goalies next season and maybe even both. If you need to pick a Canes’ goalie for your playoff pool, it’s probably Mrazek, although he and McElhinney have basically been splitting starts for the past few weeks.

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The Hurricanes’ victory combined with the Montreal Canadiens’ loss to Washington means that the Habs’ playoff hopes take a significant hit. The Canadiens have the same number of points as the Columbus Blue Jackets, but the Jackets have a game in hand. The Jackets’ last two games are against relatively beatable opponents in the Rangers and Senators, but nothing is guaranteed of course.   

The Habs had their chances (Max Domi and Artturi Lehkonen each took six shots), but Braden Holtby was up to the task in stopping 33 of 34 shots in the Capitals’ 2-1 win. Holtby has been getting it done for fantasy owners at the tail end of the season, reeling off five consecutive wins. Check out his splits this season (from his Frozen Pool profile):

Qtr         GP          W            L              OTL        GAA       SV%       QUAL    QUAL%

1              13           5              5              2              3.24        0.900     4              30.8

2              16           11           5              0              2.61        0.918     10           62.5

3              15           5              6              2              3.35        0.903     7              46.7

4              15           11           3              1              2.20        0.921     10           66.7

The defending Stanley Cup champions have now clinched the Metropolitan Division and should be considered the favorite to represent the division in the Eastern Conference Final.

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Whatever the opposite of a revenge game is this is it pic.twitter.com/WQNQox405t

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) April 5, 2019

All I can say is thank heaven I dropped Brian Elliott yesterday because I was about to run out of goaltending starts and still had plenty of forward starts. That was Elliott’s night, all in a span of less than seven minutes. Hopefully you didn’t fall victim though.

Alex Steen inflicted the most damage for the Blues in their 7-4 win over the Flyers, scoring two goals and adding an assist with a plus-3. You can’t be blamed if you completely ignored Steen, as he had been held without a point in his previous five games.  

Alex Pietrangelo recorded three assists for the Blues. The father of triplets has now reached the 40-point mark for the third consecutive season and fifth time in six seasons. Obviously this is a dip from last season, which Dobber (who is a father himself) warned you about before the season. Pietrangelo’s second-half production (27 points in in 42 games, 0.64 Pts/GP) has been noticeably better than his first-half production (13 points in 28 games, 0.46 Pts/GP), which may be related to the Blues’ remarkable second-half surge. Or maybe it’s because he’s adjusted to life as a busy dad.

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The Canucks might have nothing left to play for, but don’t tell Tanner Pearson. The recently acquired left winger scored another goal and added an assist, which gives him four goals in his past five games and eight goals in 18 games as a Canuck. The Canucks are dying for top-6 forwards that can play alongside their big three of Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Bo Horvat. Pearson might be proving that he can at least be that guy beside second-line center Horvat.

Just to get you excited for next season, Quinn Hughes assisted on both Canucks’ goals, giving him three points in four games as a Canuck. Between Cam Robinson and me, there’s a disproportionate amount of Canucks’ highlights on here. With that in mind, here’s one more of one of Hughes’ assists.  

Quinn Hughes — the real deal in Vancouver.

What a pass. pic.twitter.com/4kiesNKDQu

— NHL (@NHL) April 5, 2019

We’ll have all summer to debate whether he will start next season on the Canucks’ PP1. The Canucks use Alex Edler a ton, so I wouldn’t quite pencil Hughes in yet. But it’ll be a matter of time.

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Jaroslav Halak stopped all 26 shots he faced in the Bruins’ 3-0 win over Minnesota. That’s five shutouts this season for Halak, which is not bad for a backup goalie. Halak’s ratios (2.34 GAA, .922 SV%) are among the top 10 among goalies who played at least 30 games. Halak is signed for another season in Boston, which might be something to think about when valuing Tuukka Rask next season. Rask has won 27 games and played in just 45 games this season, which are his lowest totals in six seasons.

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The Colorado Avalanche were another team that clinched a playoff spot on Thursday, thanks to a 3-2 overtime win over Winnipeg. Philipp Grubauer stopped 34 of 36 shots he faced in the win, which gives him a 7-0-2 record over his last nine starts. He has posted a 1.63 GAA and a .953 SV% over that span, which should cement him as the Avs’ starting goalie to start the playoffs and into next season.

The Avs clinched a playoff spot in spite of missing Mikko Rantanen, who has missed the past seven games with an upper-body injury. Alex Kerfoot has been subbing for Rantanen on the Avs’ top line. Although Kerfoot was held without a point on Thursday, Kerfoot had been taking advantage of the situation with eight points in his last six games.

Dustin Byfuglien might have been angrier than you were that he didn’t receive much power-play time on Thursday.  

Dustin Byfuglien just slammed his stick in anger on the #NHLJets bench, breaking it, after not getting a second of power play time. Jacob Trouba stayed out for the entire 2-minute man-advantage. That's…not good. On several levels. #wfp

— Mike McIntyre (@mikemcintyrewpg) April 5, 2019

So once all was said and done, Jacob Trouba logged over five minutes of power-play time, while Byfuglien logged just 36 seconds. It’s not as if Big Buff was stapled to the bench in this one, as he took on over 25 minutes of overall icetime. Trouba is an RFA this offseason and rumors have constantly been swirling that the Jets will trade him. However, Trouba potentially sticking around and the presence of Josh Morrissey could result in a changing of the guard for Winnipeg’s PP1. By the way Big Buff has just two points in his last nine games, and that’s even with an assist on Thursday.

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Not that there should have been much doubt, but the Pittsburgh Penguins also clinched their playoff spot on Thursday. Phil Kessel and Sidney Crosby each recorded three points with each taking five shots on goal. Kessel has now reached 80 points for the second consecutive season, while Crosby has a chance to reach 100 points for the first time in five seasons if he can record two points on Saturday against the Rangers.

If you’re trying to plan playoff matchups in the Eastern Conference, this might help:  

Looks like Penguins vs Islanders in first round as long as Pens get home point vs Rangers Saturday. And of course Maple Leafs vs Bruins. Hurricanes will get Capitals or Lightning. I’m gonna say Tampa. Columbus vs Caps.

— Bucci Mane (@Buccigross) April 5, 2019

  With Nikita Kucherov's 40th goal of the season, the Lightning are the first team to boast three 40-goal scorers (also Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point) since the 1995-96 Penguins. 

Almost forgot to mention: Jake Gardiner returned to the Leafs' lineup on Thursday, although he was held without a point in just under 17 minutes of icetime. 

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Leon Draisaitl scored twice on Thursday, which gives him 49 goals on the season. These were his first goals in four games. The Battle of Alberta on Saturday night might be a mean-nothing game in the standings, but it will at least be worth watching to see if Draisaitl can become the second player to reach 50 goals, following Alex Ovechkin. The only other player with a snowball’s chance in hell at reaching 50 is John Tavares, who would need to record a hat trick on Saturday to reach that mark.

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Chances are that you’ll have more than enough options for Saturday, even with players potentially sitting out to get some extra rest before the playoffs. So Friday is the day to load up on players who will play on a light schedule (just three games). I mentioned both of the Strome brothers on Twitter, since the Rangers and Blackhawks are among the teams that play.

Some more players to consider (if you can still add them for Friday):

Oliver Bjorkstrand – Eight goals in his last eight games, also 30 shots in his last six games

Anton Khudobin – Confirmed starter on Friday (see Goalie Post for more goalie starts). Won three of his past four games, with the other game a shootout loss. Posted a 1.94 GAA and .943 SV% over that span.

Kevin Shattenkirk – No points in his last six games, but still receiving first-unit power-play time

Tony DeAngelo – If Shattenkirk isn’t available, or you could pick him over Shattenkirk outright

Alexandar Georgiev – Also a confirmed starter for Friday. He seems to alternate between good and bad starts, but the pressure is completely off as he and the Rangers get to play spoiler against the Blue Jackets.

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For more fantasy hockey information, or to reach out to me directly, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

  from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-canes-clinch-pietrangelo-pearson-byfuglien-friday-picks-and-more-apr-5/