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childofsardior · 3 months ago

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IT'S TIME FOR SOME MORTON HEADCANONS FROM MY PERSONAL HC/AU!

↓↓↓ Read it all below! ↓↓↓

General Info:

Full name: Morton Koopa Jr. He was called simply “Morton” before being adopted by Lord Bowser, at the age of 5. The Koopa King, who had only heard about his own father at the time, (“the Magnificent Emperor of all the Koopas”) recalled some rumors about him being conveniently affected by melanism and called Morton, just like his new son. So the King, who has always loved pretending that the kids were his own, put there the “Jr” in Morton’s ID to feign a continuity in the family, even if everyone always forgets about it. Too bad the Emperor’s actual name happens to be “Mortimer” (Bowser won’t be pleased when he’ll find out).

Gender and pronouns: He is probably a cis man. Pronouns are he/him, mostly because he’s used to them and fit him well. If he questioned himself a bit more than he does nowdays, he could even come up with the realization that “It/They” could work as secondary pronouns. But the truth is: he doesn’t really care. Feels good in his body and how other people see him? That’s enough.

Sexuality: Nobody knows for sure. Morton doesn’t think about it much - he never had a crush or some interests in other Koopas or people in general, but he’s totally chill with it. His siblings, though, are always theorizing about his tastes even if Morton literally doesn’t care at the moment. Iggy, for example, claims that Morton’s apparent lack of attraction to anyone is easily fitting under the aro/ace umbrella. Roy claims that Morton is probably just a het guy that still has to “wake up from his childhood”. Wendy thinks her brother is just a bit shy and will find out eventually. Lemmy tries to defend Morton, reminding everyone that it is none of their business to label their dark scaled brother.

Age: He’s currently 14 and a half (in “canonical” years). In Royal Koopa age, comparing their development to Humans and such, he’s like a 16-years-old. But Morton’s specific development is quite peculiar. Physically speaking, he is way bigger than the average Tarrasquin of his age - in fact, he’s slowly getting bigger than Roy himself; the castle doctors can’t understand why he is so big - yet healthy and all. Iggy theorizes about the fact that Morton is the only one that follows a perfectly balanced diet for a dragon-turtle, with vegetables and fruits along with meat, but Roy jokes that if it was only for the greens, Morton would look like a cauliflower by now. On the other hand, Morton seems to have some kind of development issue, specifically considering his unrefined speaking. Roy and Larry would occasionally call him “dumb guy” or even “stupid” when angry at him, but Morton is actually one of the wisest of the family, and both Iggy and Ludwig agree that Morton can prove everyone to be quite sharp and smart in many situations.

Species: Tarrasquin (also known as "Royal Koopas" or "Dragon-Turtles") - that happens to be a powerful and rare species related both to Koopas and Dragons. The lack of horns at a young age and the number of spikes on the shell may point to the subspecies known as Plains/Field Tarrasquin, while some other details could suggest a "mix" with the Vulcanic bloodline. In addition, all the Koopalings seem to share an innate inclination toward magic and some other unusual details never found before in Tarrasquins, such as tail feathers or natural armors protecting the limbs, along with peculiar tiny gem-like scales scattered around their bodies in different patterns.

Physical appearance: He suffers from a partial melanism that made his scales darker than usual. His head/shoulder skin is white, with some gray details - noticeably, a big star-shaped birthmark on his left eye. He shaves most of his head, leaving only some thin black hair on the top. His eyes are dark gray-blue, and he has got a “quartet-straight upper and lateral” Royal Fangs pattern at the moment. His shell is a deep gray-brown color, almost black, with spikes that are getting golden on the top as he grows up. On his body, some bigger and darker plaque-like scales cover his arm, legs and tail like natural armor; his crocodile-like tail is big and strong and can be used in battles to deflect attacks.

Personality: Morton looks and acts like he is not very smart. He tends to talk in third person, is usually very stoic with his facial expression and looking at him in the eyes may suggest that not a single thought is running in that big head. Most people that he meets will probably think about him like a rough and very simple Koopa. But in reality, Morton is just a chill dude that doesn't talk much, this partially because he can’t speak very well (the reason isn’t clear; the royal doctors ipothized during the years about some speech development issue or maybe some trauma-related consequence that could have happened when he was very young). In everyday life Morton is usually an obedient young brother and a (sort of) responsable big brother - he is very patient with Larry and Junior, and probably the only one that will happily volunteer to spend hours with the two, especially with the Prince, without going mad at the end of the day. During missions, though, his soldier side comes out and he becomes much more serious and aggressive, especially with the Crown's enemies. If he's working along with his siblings during a conquest, Morton's innate protective nature will mix with his on-duty mode creating a very dangerous opponent, especially if the enemies try to hurt Junior or Larry. Morton also got a very big heart under the shell, even if he rarely show emotions - but he does “have feelings too”, believe me. He is usually the one that gives the most useful gifts at birthdays, and the one that finds the most straightorward-yet-wise solutions when in trouble. In the end, Morton's indifference towards insults and such beats even Ludwig's deafness against other people's opinions and Iggy's total inability to acknowledge jokes about him. Morton will only listen to critiques from his superiors, as Junior or Bowser, and rarely from his other siblings, and only when he is convinced he actually did make some mistakes. Hobbies and passions: For a long time Morton’s siblings claimed he actually had no real passions nor hobbies - he would just come over and help the others whatever they were doing, if asked. But they were wrong. Sure, Morton does enjoy helping or playing with his sibs, and will probably never say “no” if one of them ask him for help or company, but he actually has some hobbies on his own. Since childhood, for example, Morton has been fascinated by rocks - cool rocks, shiny rocks, perfectly-shaped stones and so on - and he actually started a collection for fun when he was little. Growing older, Morton started to actually *learn* about the rocks he was collecting, finding an interest in geology and later in ancient architecture, too. He his fascinated by ancient buildings, especially from distant cultures, and this curiosity actually inspired him to learn some theory about building and construction on one hand - and his family knows about it, since Morton was chosen as a Royal guest to co-lead some of the Super Kart Games’ courses projects - and to learn ancient languages on the other hand - but almost nobody seems to know this. In recent years he also found out he likes to cook… or at least, he likes to try it. He’s still a bit insecure and his fear of burning himself with the grill or the oven will usually lead to a overcooked meal, but he is really trying his best to impress Junior most of all. Morton also likes ducks, a lot. He started buying duck-related accessories for his outfits, rubber ducks of all sizes and also some duck plushies since the day he saw real ducks for the first time during a mission - a duck mom with her ducklings swimming peacefully in a crystalline lake near the Rock-Candy Mines. He now wishes to have a pet duck someday.

Relationships:

With his siblings: Morton is protective by nature, and him being giant mixes well with it. Even since he was quite young, he has always tried to help taking care and watching over the others - even to the point of snitching on them if needed when they were doing dangerous stuff. He can now literally work as a walking wall and deflect powerful attacks with his own body, but also making company and - mostly silently - support to his sibs in a “I-am-here-if-you-need-but-won’t-talk-if-you-don’t-ask-me-first” kind of way.

Now, for each relationship with the siblings:

Ludwig: Ludwig likes to boss him around, knowing Morton will likely follow his orders. Morton does it, but only because he’s firmly convinced that Ludwig is a good leader for the bunch. The two don’t spend much time together otherwise, but Morton is the only one that volunteers to listen to Ludwig WIPs or rough pieces from time to time, even if Ludwig will spend the whole day trying and editing and re-trying the same piece.

Lemmy: Lemmy and Morton have a chill relationship. Lemmy knows that if he wants to hug someone for no reason, Morton will always be happy to be the target. When fighting together against some enemies, Lemmy tends to jump over Morton’s big shell when fighting melee, creating a funny duo of the biggest and the smallest of the family. Morton allows Lemmy to ride his shoulders too from time to time, when the latter is tired from his trainings and all.

Roy: Roy is sort of trying to maintain a sort of rivalry between the two… without much success. Roy knows he can play rough with Morton without hurting him, and they do often train together - but Morton is also the one defending the others from Roy’s occasional bullying or critiques, details that bothers the pink one a bit.

Iggy: Morton and Iggy spend quite a lot of time together, especially during hikings in the Dark Lands looking for plants, animals and minerals, or when Iggy needs a silent company while working on a project. Iggy is also the one taking notes on Morton’s progress with speech and grammar, usually offering his time to “teach big ol’ Morton some new conjunctions!”, and also noting all the smart ideas the dark-scaled brother comes up with, ready to use them to defend him in front of the others.

Wendy: The two don’t interact very much, but Wendy, like Ludwig, bosses him around from time to time, mostly for muscle work - especially if she wasn’t able to convince Roy. Morton is the one that usually carries all her luggages when traveling, the one that helps her while redecorating her bedroom with new furniture and that offers to carry her shopping bags - but he will do it without needing much effort. She will sometimes bring Morton with her during her beauty-days-out in return for all his favors.

Larry: Larry is one of the two brothers Morton feels like his own responsibility. He will watch over him during missions and will try to keep him safe - even if Larry is now capable of doing this himself. Larry often complains about Morton's “baby-sitting” thing claiming that there is only 1 year of difference between the two, but Morton won't listen. Larry is hyperactive, clumsy and most of all, younger than Morton? Then Morton will continue watching over him like a good big brother. They also often spend time together playing games, along with Junior and sometimes Iggy, too.

Bowser Junior: Morton and Junior are best pals. Junior considers the dark-scaled brother his “buddy” and will choose him over the others for everything they have to do together, from playing to go on missions to go on trips and so on. Morton will do his best to protect the little Prince during quests and to keep him happy in general - he even started to cook thinking about Junior's always-demanding belly. Morton is also the only one that can resist the Heir's brattiness at its full power, with an infinite patience that even Ludwig envies.

* * *

With King Bowser: Morton is the only one that calls Bowser “KING DAD” or “ROYAL DAD” in the family. He mostly treats Bowser as his superior rather than as a father, with a soldier-like attitude when reporting to him, but he actually acknowledges him as his adoptive parent. Bowser is aware of Morton’s loyalty and strength, and will likely send him in difficult missions knowing he won’t get hurt, even if he’s one of the youngest.

With his mother (OC): They had a good relationship. Morton was the most obedient and less chaotic kid of the whole bunch, and their mother was actually grateful for that. He always wanted to help and was the one that snitched on his siblings when they did things they should not, always angering them for this. With the Mario Bros., Princess Peach and Mushroom Kingdom: Morton can be soft as bread with his friends but dangerous as heck with his enemies. Since the Mario Bros. are enemies to the Dark Lands Crown, Morton will fight them with all his resources when on his way. During truces, though, Morton will mostly be neutral around them - for example, during the Super Kart official competitions in the Mushroom Kingdom. Morton is instead quite nice and kind - in his own way - with the Princess, never treating her badly and actively asking her to bake stuff together when she happens to be a “guest” at the castle. Least but not last, Morton will lead attacks to the Kingdom’s borders when ordered, but he normally doesn’t really care about it.

Peculiarities & co.

Left handed: Just like his youngest brother, Morton is naturally left handed. He trained himself to use his right hand as swell while fighting with melee weapons, to be as versatile as possible.

Speech: Morton seems to have a hard time talking. He often talks without conjunctions or with evident grammar errors, and refers to himself in third person. He is also very loud when he talks, usually scaring smaller creatures (Lemmy included) when he starts to speak out of the blue. His writing is very concise but usually more refined than his speech (even if he still uses the third person). Roy often jokes that Morton is just faking it and is only trying to build up a characteristic character for himself, while Larry thinks Morton’s a genius because he’s the one spending less energy talking like that. Oddly enough, if Morton is reading aloud an ancient poetry or translating an ancient language on the spot, he will talk perfectly and with the right intonation. Body quirks and special abilities: Partial melanism aside, Morton’s body is a mystery. He is way bigger than the average Royal Koopa of his age and gender, but also strong and resilient as a rock. He has darker plaque-like scales protecting his arms, legs and tail, which mixed with his Tarrasquin’s impenetrable shell makes Morton a sort of walking tank. He can resist most types of non-magical attacks and injuries, and he actually heals quite rapidly. His health is exceptional and the palace doctors don’t recall him having ever been ill. For some unknown reasons, his stomach seems capable of digesting almost anything, while being resistant to toxins and poison. Lethal doses for any other creature would leave Morton just sick for a while.

Random Facts:

He didn’t talk in caps-lock when he was a hatchling, probably because he was too tiny and his voice wasn’t strong enough.

Legends even say there was an ancient time in which Morton was very small and talked normally, and A LOT. Nobody knows if this is true.

He has a super refined handwriting. Ludwig envies it.

He’s actually the only one in the family, Bowser included, that follows an actual balanced diet for a Tarrasquin: he eats all the meat that the species normally need, but also a good amount of fruits and vegetables. He will eat fish and seafood in general, and any kind of sweet from time to time. He is the opposite of a picky eater.

His siblings often give him the food they don’t want. Most of it is veggies. Morton will eat it all without question.

Morton is the only one Junior will genuinely listen to: he’s concise and will just say what he has to say. Junior appreciates that.

Junior will often ask for Morton to play together with LEGO-Laz (or whatever LEGO-like brand they have in SM world lel) since Morton’s skill in creating whole scenes with it is unbeaten in the whole castle. He will sometimes spend an entire night fitting the pieces together. And if they need to dismantle some pieces, Morton will do with a single punch.

They say he can break a rock with a punch. They do not know he can also break rocks with headbutts.

In reality, the Super Kart organizators asked him for help during construction because of this - he could destroy small but hard rock with great precision and low effort. But then they actually discovered Morton’s passion about the whole building thing, and let him co-lead the constructions along with the demolitions.

To Bowser’s relief, Morton actually shares the name with a great-grandfather from the King’s bloodline. The “Jr” thing will still make sense… kind of.

When he’ll grow older, he’ll let grow a short sort-of-a-mullet of black hair. Nobody in the family will like that.

Once Morton is asleep, you *can't* really wake him up on purpose. You can try, of course, but legends says he won't wake up neither under a Bob-Omb shower - not until he is rested enough.

When he was in the egg, there was a white star-shaped mark on his egg as well. Same thing for Larry.

Both his egg and Larry's were from the same clutch, but for unknown reasons Morton hatched over 1 year before Larry. Dragon eggs behave strangely from time to time...

#koopalings #morton koopa jr #headcanon #personal hc/au #my art #bowser koopa #super mario #text #child of sardior

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simon-roy · 7 months ago

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The idea of logging on a colonized alien planet brings my mind back to the planet Lalonde from Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn books - a world that had very hard wood as its only meaningful export, and was also stuck developing its economy from agriculturalism (due to investment shortages, though).

All this is to say - Hey! What are some foundational inspirations for your sci fi verse? You gotta have some like recommendations of classic or older sci-fi for us, right? What are some of your suggestions of books and authors to read?

OK SO - My sci-fi tastes have sort of ended up in some very specific niches. Growing up, I was a Larry Niven +Jerry Pournelle man, in part because my dad amassed a huge collection of their books - then gave 90% of them away before i was old enough to read them. So one of my teenage missions was rebuilding that library, trash and all!

Stuff like Footfall, Ringworld, Gil "The Arm" Hamilton, Protector (yes i attempted to name a comic series similarly, and paid for it) "The Mote in God's Eye"... you name it, I read fuckloads of these books. And while they tend to land on a sort of human chauvinist "mankind will win based on his inherent adaptive human-ness, and the aliens will fail because of their rigid alien-ness", this shit was very foundational to me.

Their more collaborative series, The Man-Kzin Wars and War World, also loom large in my teenage mind. The Man-Kzin wars are super fun - humans meet a race of tiger-men, and go from being NWO peaceniks to roughneck cat-skinners in a generation! PEACE AND LOVE WONT DEFEAT TIGER MEN!

Similarly, war world (like lots of that 70s/80s military sci fi) was a sort of catch-all for western military nerds to play with their favorite factions - it was a planet where all the un-ruleable ethnic groups and nationalities had been deported by the authoritarian earth government, and left to rot... until a race of genetically engineered fascist super men land on the world, and start trying to rule the place. Pretty fun shit.

As I got older, I turned hard into William Gibson, and read the absolute shit out of both the Neuromancer trilogy and the Bridge trilogy, as well as his short stories. Bruce Sterling was part of that wave for me, too, and I religiously sought his old paperbacks out too. In terms of novels, "Distraction" is my favorite coherent Sterling Novel - though the short stories in the "Schismatrix" novel/collection of his remain my absolute favorite space opera pieces.

At this age, too, I found my top-top fave Sterling Stories - "Taklaman" and "Bicycle Repairman", both gritty pseudo-cyberpunk stories of the highest degree, in this collection:

This thousand-plus page collection of short stories and novellas was basically my bible for a few years - i put sticky notes on each story i loved and meant to return to, until the book was so festooned with sticky note bookmarks i abandoned the practice altogether. If you have the chance, just buy this book and chew on it for a few years.

As i got into my 20s, Charles Stross became my lode star - his books like Accelerando and Glasshouse were total game changers for me. They come with their own peculiarities, but I loved his transhuman/posthuman musings (or at least i was obsessed with his stuff for a good few years - the venn diagram of his obvious interests and my own overlapped enough that his books were great fodder for a growing sci-fi loving brain).

But since then, my main literary squeeze has been the great man, JACK VANCE. Working on Prophet, my friend @cmkosemen made a remark about how much the early issues of the series reminded him of a book series called "Planet of Adventure" or "the Tschai Cycle", by Jack Vance. The book has a beautifully simple setup - a man from an entirely undescribed spacefaring human civilization crash-lands onto a weird planet. But on that planet, he finds four separate civilizations, each who possess a population of enslaved humans, culturally and physically molded to the needs of their masters. And each book of this series covers our generic hero's interactions with each bizarre expoitative culture. I was extremely intrigued.

Soon thereafter, I found my current absolute favorite book - "THE DRAGON MASTERS". A book about an isolated medieval world... which gets visited, once every few generations, by a black pyramid starship, flown by a reptilian race known as the Greph. The greph capture humans to (surprise surprise) breed them into hyper specific slaves... who in turn become Greph-like in their thinking and demeanours. But the last time the BLACK PYRAMID landed, a bunch of angry medieval dudes stormed the thing, blew it up, and captured a bunch of greph... who became the breeding stock for a whole new human world of slave labour. By the time we meet this planet, the two rival lords of the human-populated regions have been breeding greph slave warriors, or "dragons", for generations, for combat against one another. But soon, the black pyramid will return...

I love this book I even spent a good few months during covid talking with the Vance Estate and several publishers about developing it into a graphic novel, but nobody could quite agree on how it could get made with old Simon getting a paycheque... so sadly it fell apart. There are concept drawings floating around my patreon and other corners of the internet. But one day I'll use 'em...

My other favorite books of his, to name a couple of the MANY books of his I love:

THE BLUE WORLD: A caste system of humans, descended from a crashed prison ship, live on floating settlements on an ocean planet, paying protection to a giant long-lived intelligent crustacean. But one man is tired of giving up all his crops to this tyrannical megafauna...

THE MIRACLE WORKERS: Rival lords on a planet descended to medieval tech (surprise surprise) fight using armies... and rival SORCERORS who employ the powers of suggestion to voodoo each others' warriors... but when facing non-human intelligences, these sorceror's skills fall short.

But there are heaps more, and I love most (thought not all) of the ones i've read. They're generally short, concise, and full of all sorts of bizarre bullshit.

THere are more books i've read and enjoyed in my life, of course, but these are the core ones that I think of when I think of my career as a sci-fi reader... let me know what your top recs are!

#sciencefiction #science fiction #book recommendations #jack vance #larry niven #jerry pournelle #simon roy #griz grobus #charles stross #dragon masters #william gibson #bruce sterling

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nyaagolor · 1 year ago

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Paldean Elite Four (+ Geeta) Headcanons

They've been on my mind recently bc of all the asks I got

Rika:

Rika is the office gossip QUEEN. She knows everything about everyone, so if you need or want to know something you ask her. She knows a guy. She also desperately wants to figure out what Larry and Geeta's Deal (tm) is. They bicker constantly, are insanely passive aggressive, but despite their opposing attitudes agree on most fundamental issues. They look like they hate each other, but Larry constantly takes on new responsibilities for the League and Geeta constantly showers him with raises and promotions. Rika has taken to snooping thru their emails and prodding Hassel for info, but he doesn't know anything either. It’s driving her nuts

Paldea had a Region’s Sexiest Man contest. Rika won. Women Want her. Despite this however she can only pick up women accidentally. If she actively tries to flirt she will fuck it up spectacularly. Just the in-universe version of this

Rika is actually on the payroll as the league receptionist and does that Elite Four thing as a side hustle for extra cash. She gets kind of embarrassed when you call her a receptionist during her Elite Four duties though because other regions often use her as an example of why the Paldean league is garbage (i.e. they're so understaffed even a receptionist can be on the E4. They must have grabbed the nearest person, etc etc). She puts on the vibe of someone chill but this in particular is a bit of a sore point for her

She hates dresses / skirts with a burning passion and refuses to wear them. If you give her a REALLY good reason it's a solid maybe, but good luck with that. She needs to stretch

Her Clodsire's name is Pancake :) I like to think all her pokemon are named after breakfast foods (which, btw, is her favorite meal of the day. She is easily bribed with good waffles)

She and Larry are drinking buddies. She does most of the drinking

Poppy:

Everyone in the league is very careful to alter their habits around Poppy. She’s small and cute and sweet and a little baby so the usual informal cursing (like Rika shouting that HR needs to “cut the bullshit”) or the smoke breaks on the roof (yes I think they all smoke) can’t happen when Poppy is around

The league spoils her rotten. Candy? Toys? Help with her kindergarten homework?? Anything for Poppy. Even Larry, who seems too strict or apathetic to care, has her drawings in his desk drawer and lets her decorate his ties. The toys in the lobby are also hers

Her parents are accountants who brought her to take your kid to work day and let her play with their Pokémon outside. Rika challenged her to a match as a joke because they had a cancellation and Geeta watched— but both were shocked that Poppy’s skill with her parents’ steel types and her own Tinkaton were unparalleled by anyone in the building. When another E4 member retired, the league decided to let Poppy battle under her parents’ names just to blow off some steam. Poppy gets to let out energy, her parents make extra money, and the elite 4 has a strong battler. Win win!

Poppy loves to braid and play with hair, so the other elite four members will often let her play with their hair and add clips while they work. Larry is Poppy’s favorite because he sits Very Very Still

If Poppy really likes the battle she had with you, she’ll give you a sticker. Geeta once walked into a meeting with a gold star directly on her forehead because Poppy stuck it there and she didn’t want to take it off where Poppy could see it, forgetting about it by the time she walked in. She later moved it to her jacket

She has nicknames for everyone except Rika, which drives Rika insane. Grandpa Hassel, Mister Larry, Miss Geeta (or Auntie sometimes) but Rika? It’s just Rika. It’s always Rika. When Hassel was babysitting her at his and Brassius’ home in Artazón, Poppy’s eyes went really wide and she asked if she had two grandpas now or if Brassius was just SUPER old. He found that insanely funny

Larry:

I saw a fic that had Larry naming his pokemon after Excel commands and I cannot stop thinking about it. It's canon in my heart. Btw if anyone knows this fic / the name pls lmk I can’t find it again but I remember his Flamigo was named COUNTIF

Larry is actually pretty wealthy, partially because he's raking in cash from his three jobs and partially because he doesn't spend money on anything but food and pokemon products. Considering that the Treasure Eatery feeds him for free and the pokemon products are provided or subsidized by the League, that leaves him with a LOT of extra income, which he uses to help out his friends or gym challengers with financial issues or simply buying them dinner

Someone added this on another post of mine but every single one of Larry’s passwords is some variation on “password”. He’s many things but creative is none of them. Also these tags are canon to me

In contrast to his outward grumpiness and seeming apathy, Larry is incredibly gentle with and good with kids. He is confident the future will be better because of them, and does what he can to encourage them. It's a big part of the reason Geeta picked him for the positions-- they have a pretty similar philosophy regarding children and the future

Geeta has been doing everything in her power to get him to quit his third job (which is not League-affiliated) because he does the best work of anyone around and his other boss is a complete and utter asshole. She's tried promoting him, telling him how valuable he is to the team, using raises, praise, and passive aggression, but nothing is working. At one point she even tried overloading him with hours so he'd be forced to quit something but that didn't work either. She's stumped. The man won't quit

That third job? I'm not actually sure what it is but I do have an AU where he's a hitman. Call that a business casuality ;)

Hassel:

He always keeps candy in his desk (and his coat pockets) because he's a teacher and wants to be prepared. It's the strawberry kind, yall know the ones. This came in handy when Poppy joined the league, so all the other members started doing it too

His family gets traditional tattoos all over, which Hassel likewise has. He'd never remove them, but still keeps them covered most of the time for modesty reasons. Brassius has filled in the gaps in the traditional dragon shapes with various flowers to show how Hassel has grown from but not forgotten his past. They look very cool and Rika is insanely jealous of that

This old man is way more fit than he appears. He's a sensitive sweetheart and prefers the arts to sports or battling, but he's still a dragon tamer and keeps up his workout regime quite meticulously. Peepaw’s fucking shredded

His favorite art medium is paint, and he loves it when the little kids have class so he can finger paint alongside them. His office in the League building is covered in art. Geeta thinks it's sweet how he remembers every piece and how emotional he gets talking about it

Hassel has a hard time turning off teacher mode, which makes his training sessions at the league insanely funny to watch. “Haxorus, we do not Guillotine our friends!”

He can, and frequently does, play classical Paldea guitar. Once his rock career fell flat, he started experimenting with the style of his new home region and fell in love. You can often find him giving impromptu concerts from his balcony in Artazon

Geeta:

As much as she micromanages others, she's more than willing to take any responsibilities herself if she can't find someone else to do them. Plumber cancelled and they need the sink fixed asap? Get her a hammer. Rika is out sick? She'll cover those emails. Part of the reason the league struggles to complain about her is that they know for all the work they're doing, she's doing double. This doesn’t necessarily mean she’s GOOD at it but she’s doing it

I’m not sure how I want to explain it backstory wise but a lot of her skin is crystalline just like the AI professors. She’s got a LOT of connections to Area Zero and her top priority is making sure nothing goes in and nothing gets out. The professor hates her. The feeling is mutual

No one has ever seen her blink

She’s incredible at traditional Paldean dances. When Hassel plays classical guitar, she’ll dance along, and it’s magical to watch

That whole thing about not being able to hold back during battles? It’s a PR thing to make kids feel better. She’s not very good at battling. Geeta is just like (gestures at her Avalugg) I just think they're neat

A huge point of contention between her and her employees is that she takes everything literally and is terrible at reading tone. Her gym leaders are scared of her and try to drop hints about things because they think they’ll be punished if they’re too forward, but all those hints go right over Geeta’s head. The gym leaders then think Geeta is ignoring them on purpose but she’s none the wiser. Everyone is losing.

#rika #poppy #larry #hassel #geeta #pokemon sv #mod vex #headcanons #I put this under a readmore but mobile is being weird I hope it sticks

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sai-lec · 1 month ago

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My god people are so miserable in your tags, trying to find a problem everywhere . And btw haven’t you guys wondered that the vibe was maybe just a bit “off” because Carlos was just probably disappointed that he didn’t win that’s it, no need to insult or blame Charles when he did nothing. He won his race beautifully, so no need to be bitter. Some Carlos fans are being really annoying lately sorry

im ngl i dont even think the vibe was weird charles went to celebrate w whoever was collecting the constructors trophy i can’t remember and both of them gave carlos a spray before carlos went to spray max and they chatted before they left the podium like it wasn’t weird to me

but the main thing is people are always going to be like this in fandom . it’s a form of parasocialism in believing that we as viewers can understand the inner workings of our idols from ‘knowing them’ through the screen and coming to ‘recognise’ what we see as behavioural markers . happens all the time that’s why we end up with prominent shipping and rpf cultures in a lot of fanbases bc of our interpretation of how people interact with one another .

it can become obsessive for people, the majority of fandoms i’ve been in have been centred around real people and the subject of ‘truthing’ comes up a lot- the strict determination of a trait or personality of a person based on a second hand perspective of them, where the f in rpf is made redundant and people start to genuinely believe their headcanons of a person are applicable to their real life person . larry stylinson is knocking at the door .

because of parasocial and truthing behaviours peoples perception of drivers becomes tilted on what will best fit the subconscious narrative they are building- lando for instance i believe doesn’t deserve the mass hatred of mischaracterising as an awful person he’s been getting this season. nothing has changed between this season and the last except for the number of wins under his belt .

last year people felt the same hostility towards max . a few years ago it was lewis . its the relationship to our drivers as a competitor that’s changed . and those that pose a bigger threat receive the harsher penalties to their character .

it’s not an issue with carlos fans . it’s not an issue with lando fans or max fans or charles fans or anyone . it’s an issue of parasocialism that’s prevalent in every fandom for every character ever . we see it more for these drivers because they are top 5 drivers and they have larger fan bases . none of us are the big bad .

sometimes it feels like us vs them and i’ll tell you first i felt that way at the start of the season because genuinely i was being flooded with carlos hate in my asks and people posting the most insane negatively parasocial conspiracy theories about carlos having paid out the media to talk about him as if he didn’t just win a grand prix 2 weeks after surgery and be one of the most valuable drivers on the market for 2025 (i still get heated about that bc it was just plain disrespectful) . and yeah it did feel like it was carlos fans vs the lecfosi . because sometimes we let it be .

we build these insanely negative parasocial relationships with drivers and it consumes us. i’ve had to block ferrari fans for constantly posting carlos negativity and no doubt charles fans have had to block some carlos fans for constant driver negativity. lando fans will have gotten death threats over a race result even though that’s an insane thing to do and so have oscar fans .

everyone is annoying all the time we all annoy each other with our parasocial truthing of drivers personalities and the only way it’s actually going to change is if

1) we all take a step back to analyse our own behaviours and how we engage with negative parasocial behaviour

2) we stop making call out posts of ‘x drivers fans are so annoying’ because all it’s doing is reinforcing the narrative we want to build

#formula 1 #f1 #carlos sainz #charles leclerc #ferrari #lando norris

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goatcheesecak3 · 6 months ago

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Lawrence Gordon red flags? 🥺

Red flag headcanons

Lawrence Gordon x gn!reader

Fic type: headcanons, whatever the opposite of fluff is

Warnings: anger issues, emotional manipulation

Context: this is post trap, but in an au where Lawrence doesn't become an apprentice, because I'm not too sure apprentice Lawrence would even be in a relationship lmao

A/n: thank you for your request!! I'm glad this red flag series has been so well recieved so far hehe <33

He almost never clears his schedule, so while the date nights you have are lavish and thoughtful, they almost never happen. He always seems to have time to go to fancy wine bars with his colleagues after work though...

Even before the trap Lawrence had occasional angry outbursts, but after the trap, the divorce and his lack of going therapy for any of it, he's got a much shorter temper. He rarely gets angry directly at you, but he's easily frustrated by minor inconveniences. He craves complete control and stability, so little things set him off, like the time the microwave broke and you found him yelling and smashing a plate on the floor in a fit of rage. It's not directed at you, but you still find it scary.

After his angry outbursts, he becomes overwhelmed with guilt and begins to sob and plead for your forgiveness. You understand why he acts like this, but it's frustrating that it seems he cares more about clearing his own conscience than comforting you.

You notice certain things about his relationship with his daughter that rub you the wrong way. He doesn't really show affection by being an active parent in her life, but by showing up out of the blue once in a while with exorbitant gifts and trips to disneyland. She's too young to be upset with him buying her love at the minute, right now she just sees her dad as this superhero who swoops down to rescue her from her strict mother and shower her with gifts, but you get the feeling that she'll end up resenting him in the long run. You've tried to talk to Larry about this before, feeling especially worried that someday she may think that you were the one keeping her dad away from her, but Larry brushes it off every time.

He works long hours, so you're apart for most of the day. Occasionally he comes home, sceptical that you might have had another man over while he was gone. You can't help but think, maybe he suspects you'd do that because that's exactly what he would do in your situation.

When you get invited to dinner parties with his rich friends, he often coaches you on what to wear, how to talk do as not to come off as abrasive, and general etiquette. It feels somewhat like he's looking down his nose at you for not having the same upper class upbringing as him.

Sometimes complains that he's "too tired" for cuddles after sex, which really hurts your feelings. Credit where it's due though, once he realised why that makes you feel so unloved, he very rarely does it.

He gets you expensive and fancy gifts, but none of them are really things that you like, moreso things that he'd want you to like, to seem more classy. Diamond earrings and silver bracelets are pretty, but you'd much prefer a box set from your favourite TV show, or a cool tshirt with a funny design. He has a hard time distinguishing displays of wealth from acts of love.

He can be quite patronising about your interests, you tried showing him your favourite series, thinking it would fun for the two of you to watch out together, but he burst into laughter and asked "do you honestly watch stuff like that?"

Early on in your relationship, he joked that it's a relief that you've never met his ex wife, since she wouldn't exactly give him a glowing review. The only problem is, it felt more like him telling on himself that a joke, and the thoughts of what he might have done wrong in his past relationship - and what he may yet do to you - eat away at you.

Bonus: Comes home smelling like axe body spray and cheap beer (his friend Adam's signature scent) suspiciously often 🤨🤨

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bookoftheironfist · 3 months ago

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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Marvel Premiere #19, featuring the first appearance of Colleen Wing! On this day in 1974, nineteen-year-old Danny Rand emerged from the Meachum office building, shaken and directionless. He has just spared the life of the man he has dreamed of killing for ten years, only to watch him die at the hands of someone else. And he has watched Joy Meachum, believing that Danny murdered her father, embark down the dark path of her own revenge quest (this issue also marks the first appearance of Joy's conniving uncle, Ward). Danny is stranded away from his beloved K'un-Lun, with nowhere to go and no idea what to do next. It's at this point, as he walks alone onto the rainy nighttime street, that a mysterious figure approaches him.

Marvel Premiere #19 by Doug Moench, Larry Hama, Jan Brunner, Dick Giordano, and Ray Holloway

With a screech of brakes that you can almost hear, the story shifts direction as the woman we will come to know as Colleen Wing grabs the wheel. She isn't interested in his revenge quest or the fact that he's just been framed for murder, and she does not take the time to explain anything-- she just tells Danny his outfit is ridiculous and then stops just short of physically dragging him into a cab. She's a woman on a mission, and it works: while Danny has no reason at all to trust her or follow her, he does, obviously stunned into silent compliance by the whole experience. It's a memorable introduction for a character who has made her own powerful sword-slash of a mark on the Marvel Universe in the half-century since this scene first hit stands.

This issue also introduces Colleen's father, and once in the taxi, Colleen takes a bit of a backseat as he becomes the focus of the story. Professor Lee Wing is an Indiana Jones-style archeologist with an interest in Asian folklore and the mystic city of K'un-Lun, and he has sent his daughter to fetch Danny because he knows who Danny is, knew where he would appear, and needs his help. Colleen herself remains a bit more of a mystery, and fades out of the narrative as Danny talks with Professor Wing and then goes off to try (unsuccessfully) to clear things up with Joy Meachum. Colleen shares very little about herself; she tells Danny that her profession is "irrelevant"-- the revelation of her combat prowess and heroes for hire business with Misty Knight, Nightwing Restorations, is saved for a future issue, and her samurai lineage will not be established for a little while yet. But this first issue marks only the start of her journey toward cementing her presence as an important character within the martial arts side of Marvel, and beyond.

#Happy Colleen Day!!!!#Marvel Premiere #Colleen Wing #Lee Wing #Iron Fist #Danny Rand #Colleen Wing 50th #ID in alt text

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leggerefiore · 2 years ago

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What would Larry be as a hybrid? Could we also get some hcs for it as well?

he's a staraptor harpy since he has one and it covers both of his typing specialisations.

cw: pokehybrid au, sfw

💼Staraptor Larry🏢

🍙 He wants to pretend he's average looking and no different from a human, but the giant grey wings spreading from his back say otherwise. The annoyance of his line of feathers that from his lower back, head, and neck continue to add on. Hybrids were viewed oddly in Paldea, but his skills in battling and being such a hard worker allowed him into his position with little issue. (Geeta begrudgingly signed off her approval.) People often described him as more human than harpy when talking about him. Well, a human who blankly stared into space when he stopped lost in his own thoughts. Which was actually a more bird-like trait when given more thought.

🍙 He's not the proudest of his bird instincts, but they do come out occasionally. He does stare at small mammalian pokemon for just a bit too long, or finds himself gazing at eggs in the grocery store with a strange feeling in his chest. Of course, he would admit the urge to preen himself is one of the worst and something reserved solely for his private time in his home. The need to fly also overcomes him, but he just doesn't have the energy (ever) after a full day of work.

🍙 Larry mostly ignored the building need to find a mate, like many of his other instincts. Being a bachelor made things easier, after all. His long hours of work and basic strategy to play the human made things like romance and mating rituals feel tiring and distant rather than in his reach. Which is why he ignored most romantic attempts on him. The nature of Staraptors was to be independent, too. He just was not at a place where having a mate seemed beneficial to him in any way.

🍙 You, however, decided to insert yourself into his life. Many visits to the Treasure Eatery to tease him and talk with him left Larry aware of you. You were clearly fascinated with him for some unknown reason. He did little acknowledge everything, yet you kept up with managing to meet him. It was not long until he found himself wondering why you were trying so hard. He was not the only Staraptor hybrid in Pladea if that was what interested you. He could only wonder when you took your usual seat beside him and asked about his battles. They were plain as always, naturally. It was rare that Larry found a challenger that made him feel anything too deeply.

🍙 Slowly, he found himself growing quite accustomed to your presence and preferring conversations with you over other patrons. He even gave you some of his time off work to meet up again with him for dinner. Your cheering during battles inspired a small piece of a long forgotten feeling in his chest as his Staraptor worked in sync with him. The bird seemed to give him a look as you ate with him after a battle one day. He was fully aware of what his fellow raptor wanted him to make a move.

🍙 A relationship with you soon followed, which led to some strange looks. You assumed at first it was because you were with a hybrid, but it turned out it was because you were with Larry specifically. His behaviour shifted slightly, he noticed. An urge to get you food in an attempt to prove himself worthy as a mate. It was also hard for him to miss how his blankets went from normally laying across his bed to bunched up in a familiar formation. He would fix it if he were to ever invite you to his house. Being that forward just was not in his nature.

🍙 The unexpected actions of him mindlessly combing and fixing your hair somehow go unnoticed by him but not by you. Giggles leave you as he softly pulls your strands into a more fitting position and makes sure they are untangled. They're also clearly the way his shoulders and wings relax when you are around, or they way he allows you to comb through his hair. Larry is also oddly demanding that he handles the tickets on your food. When you give him food, too, he is delighted. It is not shown, of course, but he enjoys the reciprocation of his feelings in a way more natural to his raptor brain. There are just subtle ways he gives into his nature as a Staraptor than he would like to admit. A failing of his facade.

🍙 If you pester him enough, he will take you for a flight with him. Just be aware his strength is not as great as you think it is, and his speed is quite astounding. The view of Medali from above is amazing, even if Larry remarks about how it is faster to just walk. It's quicker to silence him with a kiss. He does go silent and shift to solely on his flying. You are dropped off at your home by him. Another kiss is shared. Larry just lets out a weird trill on accident. Your laugh secretly mortifies him.

🍙 You do eventually spy his nest when you stay over one night. He silently tries to move the bedding back into a somewhat normal state. You stop him and curl up in the blankets with a giggle. Larry lets out a sigh and accepts that this is how it is. Then, he joins you in the mess to pass out and try to forget this happened. You stop him by cuddling into him. Another trill sound leaves him and makes you giggle more. The hybrid deeply dislikes how you bring out his more bird-like side. He does slowly grow to accept it. His arm lazily comes around you alongside a wing.

🍙 Overall, he's a bird man who rejects being a bird while still acting like one. His technique as a trainer is deeply obvious, yet somehow more so when using normal types over flying types (which he could easily communicate with). His romantic style is bland and direct, but he does truly care. You are offered endless food and given awkward flights, yet there's clearly something softer in his eyes in those moments and his trills, of course. He does ultimately come to enjoy having a mate, despite the mixed feelings it caused. Basically, awkward and distant yet loving bird.

#larry x reader #pokemon x reader #pokemon larry x reader #larry/reader #pokehybrid au

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dynared · 1 year ago

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New York Comic Con 2023 and the Energon Universe panel is in the books

And while the room wasn't COMPLETELY full, there was a big crowd for said Energon Universe panel. Daniel Warren Johnson, Robert Kirkman, Joshua Williamson, and others came to the panel to announce that their plan involved making all these disparate parts work together as a series, including Void Rivals, which Kirkman specifically said was aiming to feel like it could have been a sister line with the Joes and Transformers (and considering Hasbro owns the property, probably means if it is successful they'll get toys of their own).

Some highlights and spoilers -

Daniel Warren Johnson knows people are upset at Bumblebee dying and frankly, does not care. "I feed on your tears", was his quote, which got a big laugh. Specifically, he didn't want to draw Bumblebee, hence his death in Issue 1, a death that he and Kirkman have confirmed will stick and Hasbro was totally cool with. With Bee dead, the panel concluded that there's more freedom to work with other characters and a lot more tension about who will live and who will die, since plot armor due to Hasbro demands is not a thing in the Energon Universe.

There was a big focus on GI Joe and how it will connect with the Transformers since the idea is that the Transformers' appearance causes the world to shift in a major way. The Duke miniseries will focus on how a traumatized Duke deals with the fallout of his fight with Starscream in the upcoming Transformers #2, and how Joe is founded specifically to combat them. Rebranding the Joes as an anti-alien strike force/international crisis team also seems to be a way to deal with getting away from the "jingoistic army toys" stigma that hasn't played as well since the Reagan years (even if most Joe fiction like Larry Hama's comics condemn blind jingoism). Interestingly, the initial lineup includes the Baroness, who's traditionally a high-ranking Cobra member and romantically entangled with Destro.

3. Cobra meanwhile is shown to be what is specifically described as a horror comic about Cobra Commander using the discovery of the Cybertronians to fuel his plans for world domination, and how Cobra Commander brings together a lot of disparate elements that otherwise would never have worked together to join his quest for world domination. More fuel is thrown on the "Cobra Commander's Luger is actually Megatron" fire, but of course, nothing is confirmed.

Another surprise for the initial lineup is the big guy in the back is Mercer, a character introduced in the GI Joe movie as an ex-Cobra officer who had "seen the light". Whether he does this time is another matter.

4. Back to the Transformers. The running idea (besides a minor but notable undercurrent of "Screw IDW") was that this is using the cartoons as gospel rather than the comics, but it will eventually expand beyond that initial concept using other characters. Specifically, during a quick Q&A at the end, someone asked about the Japanese characters, and Kirkman said while he had no immediate plans for them, he was actually a big fan of Star Saber, while Johnson mentioned liking the Japanese openings. A far cry from IDW making them all villains and losers.

5. Johnson is a big fan of wrestling. Kirkman, not so much. This led to some funny banter on stage about Johnson's tendency to fill fight scenes from the initial script (which will often just say "Character A and Character B fight") with wrestling moves like Optimus Prime introducing himself to Starscream with a Rainmaker Lariat before giving him a German Suplex. Despite Kirkman not being a fan, everyone on stage and the crowd seemed to agree that it gave the fight scenes a dynamic look that is new to the Transformers.

6. Void Rivals has not been forgotten in all this. While after Issue #6 it will be taking a five-month break, the series will continue to serve as the backbone of what's going out outside of Earth.

Including the teased appearance of the Quintesson Judge. Kirkman also promised more backstory, like possibly getting to see the Skuxxoid's family and other species that are part of the cartoon lore as part of his efforts to build out the universe while still making Void Rivals its own thing that is engaging without the other series.

7 The main goal of everyone is that while all the various series are part of a big story that is the Energon Universe, the reader can read just one and get a full experience. That being said, it's clear that the ultimate goal is for them all to work together.

And those are the highlights of the panel. Fun times are ahead if you're a Transformers fan, and after years of mismanagement and neglect, it sounds like the GI Joe-related stuff will be very interesting to see. Still, the focus right now is the comics, so my pie-in-the-sky theory about this being a dry run for a big animated show in the vein of Invincible will have to wait for another year.

#transformers #tf skybound #megatron #optimus prime #bumblebee #cobra commander #cobra #gi joe #duke #spoilers #void rivals #skybound #transformers skybound #robert kirkman #energon universe

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blowflyfag · 7 months ago

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Wrestling World presents Wrestling Maniacs: JUNE 1999

UNDERSTANDING RAVEN

In his journey to find his inner peace, Raven must be allowed to expand. He must be as outrageous as he has to be. He must be extreme. And above all he must be accepted for who he is–a man plagued by personal demons who takes it out on his opponents!

By P.S. LaRue

RAVEN is extreme in thought and action. If allowed to, Raven could make the NWO look tame. But Raven is sinking into a depression so deep that he may not be able to come back.

“WCW doesn’t understand Raven,” said one ECW insider. “He doesn’t respond to rules and he hates any type of authority. He won’t fulfill his true potential anywhere but ECW where Raven can be as complex as he needs to be.”

Complexity is what Raven is all about. He has sides and angles that contradict; and this inner dispute governs him in a way that no organization (wrestling or otherwise) ever could.

Fans can remember Raven (Scotty Levy) from his other wrestling personalities: Scotty The Body, Scotty Flamingo, and Scott Anthony. As Raven, Scott has integrated his own life with a magnetism that has grown over years of adversity. Raven is Scotty’s most extreme personality.

Scotty Levy began his career in 1988 in the Pacific Northwest as Scotty THe Body. With his good looks and growing skill in the ring, Scotty hoped to be a headliner. He had worked hard to build a body that would get him noticed. Scotty was a hit. In only three years, Scotty had held all the major titles and he thought it was time to move on.

The career had given him the love and acceptance which he had not yet experienced in life, and Scotty wanted more.

Scotty Flamingo was born in the WCW. Scott Anthony, in the USWA. With his devotion to duty, his inner strength and his desire to learn, Scotty did his best to keep it all together. But he wasn’t feeling the warmth that he had in the beginning. Scotty needed more than he was getting and he had to move again.

Then came Johnny Polo. During the WWF days, Scotty tried his hand as a manager and (with exception to his choice of accessories) tried to imitate Jim Cornette. It didn’t work as well as planned but Scotty won some time in the production room. His education continued, but behind the scenes Scotty felt only coldness. It was time to reach out once more for what he needed.

[Raven’s sad, if not morbid, poetic messages are a mixture of his struggles and his delight in taking the unpopular side of an issue.]

But as Raven, Scott has pulled together a combination of fantasy and fact that could rival any of the great personalities of the past. His sad, if not morbid, poetic messages are a mixture of his struggles and his delight in taking the unpopular side of an issue. Not unlike a young Kevin Sullivan, those messages draw the fans into a world totally different from their own. Kevin apple of the devil. Raven speaks of personal demons. He speaks of an unhappy childhood and the pain of betrayal. Although many of us cannot relate to Raven’s words; we can relate to his pain. Larry Zbyszko claims Raven just blames everyone else for what has happened to him, that Raven points his finger in shame. But Raven is to all the neglected and abused children a type of anti-hero. He may not be a face (Good-guy in the ring) but he is still someone to look up to, someone who will speak out about the horrors of the past. That will make Raven the man of the masses. But we, the fans, have to understand where Raven has been and where he hopes to go. In his journey to find his inner peace, Raven must be allowed to expand. He must be as outrageous as he has to be. He must be extreme. And above all he must be accepted for who he is.

At his best, Raven has abundant physical vitality and he doesn’t hesitate to use it. He is forceful. He is hard-hitting. He can wear out his opponents with his tireless endurance. Raven simply overwhelms. His erratic and explosive independence can drive some people away; but when Raven has a vision of how things should be, he goes after that vision. Sometimes that vision is a tidal wave and goes over his head so Raven needs someone to keep him focused in reality. But not to clip his wings.

Having a sensitive side to him, Scotty can feel imposed on emotionally. Maybe this is why he tends to select underdogs as his friends. The Flock is a good example.

When Raven and Stevie Richards first showed up in WCW, Raven saw several young athletes who were being sacrificed as glorified jobbers. He sat ringside for weeks as he studied these men. As Raven constructed his plans to help others; the Flock took shape.

[Raven tends to select underdogs as his friends and The Flock was a perfect example.]

It was hard work to make WCW notice. The company had replaced Raven’s neglectful parents and he was determined to open WCW’s eyes before they created more disenchanted men like himself.

[Raven simply overwhelms and his erratic and explosive independence can drive some people away.]

Raven spoke his mind during his interview time. He poured out his tortured soul. But instead of listening and learning from his past, Zbyszko and other announcers accused him of whining. Raven then had to get brutal in defense of his idea.

Raven became an unforgiving father to the happy-go-lucky Richards. If Stevie doesn’t do his best in a match (through Raven’s eyes) then Stevie has to be punished. Raven would cross over the guard rail. He seemed intense and purposeful as he comes eye to eye with Stevie’s opponent. The crowd expected him to aid his fallen friend. Or at least they thought he would the first time it happened.

But Raven couldn’t handle Stevie’s loss. And the fans were horrified to see Raven Pull Stevie to his feet and dump him on his head in a painful DDT. Few People understood why Raven did this to someone who was supposed to be his closest friend in the organization; but Raven did it because Stevie is his friend. In psychology they call it “tough love.” Raven knows tough love better than any other type.

Raven feels that most people are unsympathetic. So love has become a sacrifice and Raven thinks that pain and suffering go hand in hand with love. Suspicion is the order of the day. But Raven needs love and he can be a very loyal and thoughtful man. The key to this complicated man in understanding. Whether you’re a fan or hoping to become a friend, you must take the time to really know Raven. This is also the advice I give to WCW.

First Stevie left. Raven understood, It didn’t hurt him too deeply since the Flock was frowning and Raven had other followers to watch over. But last fall when Saturn left the nest and started encouraging the others to strike out on their own, it hurt Raven profoundly.

Billy Kidman left and shortly afterward he became the Cruiserweight champion. Did he go back and thank Raven for opening the eyes of ECW? No. But would he have been given a shot at the title without being part of the Flock? It’s doubtful. Even his Shooting Star Press couldn’t get Kidman the recognition that he got when he joined the Flock.

[“What about me?” has been Raven’s motto since he has been abandoned by The Flock.]

“What about me?” has been Raven’s motto. And it’s understandable when Raven has lost all that was once his. Now he spirals downward in a bottomless pit of pain.

To say that Raven has a death wish isn’t far from the truth these days. Since being abandoned by the Flock, Raven sits in one corner of the ring. His eyes show a sadness; otherwise his face is void of expression. He lets his mind drift out of reality much as he did when he was a child.

Disassociating himself from the pain as his opponent kicks his legs or taunts him verbally, is his only way to survive. It seems that Raven loses himself for a while then out of nowhere comes a surprise move that floors his opponent. Then a chair is placed in the center of the ring. A drip toe hold lands Raven’s victim on the chair head first.

[When Raven had The Flock, he had the acceptance and the love he has always craved!]

In the beginning, this move was so awesome. Now Raven sometimes becomes the victim of his own move. It couldn’t have happened when Raven had the Flock. Not just because they could have come to his rescue. When Raven had his Flock, Raven had the acceptance and the love that he craves. He was backed by a feeling of approval. He was not only the leader but a part of the group. By adopting the Flock, Raven had found a home. Now Raven feels alone.

In his mind he regresses back to that painful childhood. Raven feels unwanted and neglected once again.

It is that the WCW, the fans, and everyone who has a heart to reach out to Raven. He is too sore from the years of abuse to pull himself up. He can’t do it alone.

[To say that Raven has a death wish isn’t far from the truth these days!]

“What about me?” Raven is asking for help in the only way he can. He may be pouting. He may be rebellious. He may be hurting himself. But Raven is asking for love and acceptance the only way that he knows how. He hasn’t forgotten the early days in the Pacific Northwest. He just can’t remember how to get that esteem back.

Raven wants to be loved for himself. But in that quest he has sunk so deep inside his pain that he no longer shows his lovable side. As he continues to sink he is letting go of all of his other abilities. It is up to the fans to toss Raven a lifesaver. It is time that someone saves Raven from himself. It is time that someone just tries to understand.

#Raven #I hate this gay boy #I hate this poser so much and I want him so badly #magazine scan #magazine transcript #tw blood #you dont understand raven. like this guys look into him is completely different than my take that in and i love it i love seeing everyone #elses take on a guy #Wrestling Maniacs #Wrestling Maniacs 1990s #1999 #1990s

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jlf23tumble · 15 days ago

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First off YES the full clips of the early years are even more “proofy” which is actually fucking crazy - no romantic music needed!

But larries continue to cut off their nose to spite their face with the MaRRiED shit - why can no one be cool not all uncool. Not only do they sound detached from reality and how people/relationships work they also trivialize imo very real issues like forced closeting which did seem to happen in early 1D.

Ofc Harry is not out here (lol) simulating gay sex on stage like Troye but is he chained up by Sony or just living his life and not sharing every sexual encounter he has with People? He could easily have 15 boy toys in Italy (along with his deuxmoi approved gf) but because he HAS to be with Louis he is a poor man with evil harpies around him using him for their personal gain (hard eye roll because if you think those gfs were some version of not 100% real HE was using them). Larries would be happier if they accept HL are no longer together (or are occasional fuck buddies with a past) and/or they don’t want to tell you anything about their sex life because it’s none of your business. There is no coding or secret messages that only other queer people can see. Harry wearing that pink Top shirt is just Harry wearing a shirt he likes (he’s such a troll).

Obvs this came in before #recentevents, and I haven't had energy to process jack shit, but I feel you! And I have so many thoughts about it because on one hand, I get the comfort of it--a cozy ao3 hallmark movie of a story "come to life"/"trapped in amber," our friends are all vibing, we're just out here living/laffing/loving/hating on women/supporting--but on the other, yeah, that's not totally realistic, and that's literally fine, they don't know you! It's wilde to me how many people take the 24/7 for 5 years more than 10 years ago as a) categoric proof then but also b) categoric proof NOW, because even though there was a constant barrage of "content" back in the day, it wasn't 100% the truthTM, shit was messy then (see 2015, eleanor b/u #1), and it's messy now! Even today, pinterest loves to show me unedited/uncropped pictures that take my breath away, fandom whomst! Anyway, I'm yelling into various voids that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things, enjoy what you wanna enjoy, revel in it being fictional even though these are real people, but also, let me just take this moment to say I'm pouring one out for the real ones, the ones feeling isolated in groupchats, the ones who fear they can't post even the tiniest bit of doubt because they'll lose people they've come to rely on for their own personal comfort online via these two (or eep, followers, come on, liveeeee in the cringe), the ones who follow goldstars because they're the loudest and most terminally online, so there's a constant stream of "content," yet they have to face the ever-present barrage that comes with it, cropped pictures, shitting on women, the lack of any kind of nuance all. I see you!

#i think one of the cruelest things i've seen actually #is people realizing that just by expressing other interests that don't involve sucking on this particular hosepipe 24/7 #or by expressing any kind of hey guys these two MIGHT fuck other people then/now/forever #or by simply not hating women #means they get dropped by people they thought were actual friends #fandom is a place to BUILD from #it's not an end stop #so what a tragedy to waste the gift of someone connecting with you on that front and ONLY seeing them in one box #so it's oops dunzo if they dare to express a different (non-threatening even!) opinion or end up getting obsessed with something else #i've heard it and seen it and i feel so bad about it because BOY you're missing out on lovely people just doing their own thing #hashtag harry gif sad

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 1 year ago

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Psycho Analysis: Yanni Yogi

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Case 1-4, “Turnabout Goodbyes,” is sort of the grand finale of the original Ace Attorney, and it ends the overarching story in a very satisfying way. We have the culmination of Phoenix and Edgeworth’s character arcs as well as elaboration on their shared history, we get some interesting developments about the past, and it features some of the most iconic moments in the entire series, from pointing out that it almost being Christmas means it wasn’t actually Christmas yet to cross-examining an actual parrot on the witness stand. Throw in the debut of charming hick photographer Lotta Hart and Larry Butz proving himself to be a bumbling asset, and you have one of the best and strongest cases the game has to offer (though in contrast with a lot of the rest of the series, it feels a bit easy).

Of course, a good case would be absolutely nothing without a good mystery leading into an impressive villain, and this case manages to have two! The first of them is without a doubt one of the single most sympathetic killers in the series, if not the most sympathetic: Yanni Yogi. Formerly a courtroom bailiff, being implicated in the DL-6 incident led to his entire life being ruined even if he was able to walk free. And in 1-4, he decides that enough is enough and he wants to get even. How exactly is this sympathetic? Well, that’s what this analysis is for.

Motivation/Goals: To put things extremely simply, Yogi’s goal is revenge. But nothing about 1-4 is simple, so let’s take the opportunity to do something that will be unique to some of these Ace Attorney analyses: Discuss the victim, Robert Hammond.

Hammond would likely have been worthy of a Psycho Analysis on his own if he wasn’t already dead; the man was a defense attorney who only cared about winning his cases, a very dark reminder that it isn’t just the prosecutors who are amoral in this series. Hammond took on Yogi after DL-6 and forced the poor guy to play the part of an insane man so that he could get out of the murder charges levied against him by Gregory Edgeworth’s ghost. And it worked! Yogi went free! There was just one teeny tiny little issue:

Yogi’s life was fucking destroyed.

Socially he ended up as an outcast, and things got to the point where his fiancee Polly committed suicide after dealing with the backlash. What’s more, Yogi was forced to continue living out his life as a deranged man, unable to really go back to normal. And keep in mind: All of this was done to free him from the consequences of a crime he didn’t commit, a crime he was only accused of because the victim’s spirit couldn’t possibly have known the real murderer was lurking outside the elevator.

It’s genuinely hard to blame Yogi for capping Hammond, because the dude was an utter asshole who demonstrably ruined Yogi’s life. Hammond absolutely deserved what was coming to him. Now, framing Miles Edgeworth, on the other hand… That’s a lot less forgivable. Edgeworth certainly never meant Yogi any harm, and he had just as poor an understanding of the situation as both his dead father and Yogi himself. No one involved here was on the same page, and all of them were being manipulated by the real murderer as part of his master plan to get his ultimate revenge.

Performance: In the live action movie, Yogi is portrayed by Fumiyo Kohinata, and to say he kills it in the role is an understatement. I think a lot of it comes from the movie showing rather than simply telling when it comes to Yogi’s horribly tragic backstory, with him getting to act out his reactions to Hammond’s cruelty towards him as well as stumbling across his wife’s body post-suicide, but he definitely ends up as one of the strongest aspects of an already stellar adaptation.

Breakdown: Yogi actually has one of the more lowkey breakdowns in the series when it comes to sympathetic killers, almost to the point that he doesn’t really have a breakdown. One minute he’s the teetering, goofy old man:

And then one avian cross-examination later, he gives up the goat and reveals his true self:

I actually think the lack of an extreme reaction gives Yogi a unique level of dignity and really highlights how utterly tragic his circumstances were, even if he really didn’t go about things in the best way.

Best Scene: The movie actually shows Yogi finding his wife’s body, and if it didn’t hit home how absolutely miserable and tragic this poor man’s life was before, well, here you go.

Final Thoughts & Score: More than any other sympathetic killer in the series, Yogi is the one who my heart goes out to most.

Yes, he’s not as friendly and charming as Acro, and he’s definitely not anywhere near as sexy as Geiru Toneido, but if you look at the facts this guy genuinely just didn’t deserve anything that happened to him. He didn’t kill Gregory Edgeworth, but no one believed him, not even his own lawyer; said lawyer forced him to pretend to be insane, which even if it got him free ruined his reputation and caused his beloved fiancee to kill herself; he ended up being stuck pretending to be a lunatic for years to keep suspicion off of himself even though, again, he was innocent; and then he ends up being used as a pawn in a convoluted revenge scheme. His only real crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time on that fateful day.

All of this really helps make Yogi the most pitiable villain out there. He is just a sad old man forced to live as something he’s not, and who lost literally everything. And after all that, the sole victory he managed to achieve was rendered completely hollow by the fact he ended up caught, being exposed in court, and then having the truth of DL-6 brought into the light, something that would have acted as his complete vindication had he not decided to kill. In the end, all he did was ensure his parrot was going to have to be taken in by someone else and perhaps even get himself the death penalty.

Yogi gets a 9/10 from me. A lot of this really comes from the movie more than anything, not because it’s better than the game version but because it expands upon and shows what the game already told us to great effect. He’s a fantastic sympathetic killer and one of the best tragic villains of the series, and the one all others should be measured against.

#Psycho Analysis #Yanni Yogi #Ace Attorney #Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

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fuckyeahmarkgatiss · 2 years ago

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The recent Times article on Mark & Ian

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mark-gatiss-and-ian-hallard-i-asked-him-to-marry-me-the-afternoon-we-met-339v55jw2

The article is behind a paywall but I still had some access so here you all are!

Mark Gatiss & Ian Hallard: ‘I proposed on the afternoon we met.’

The League of Gentleman star and his actor husband on dating at the dawn of the internet and coming out to their parents.

Mark

Ian and I met online back in 1999, long before Grindr, when online dating still had a certain stigma attached to it. “Poor you! You can’t find anyone in the real world, so you have to go scrabbling around on the internet.” I didn’t tell my family how we’d met for several years.

You also have to remember that gay men didn’t necessarily go on dates in search of eternal happiness. Dates were fun and exciting. So, when we met in the glamorous surroundings of Finsbury Park Tube station and went back to my flat, I didn’t think it was anything serious. But it was. Ian loves to tell people that I asked him to marry me that afternoon. With hindsight I think I was probably joking, but I certainly had high hopes: “Maybe he’s ‘the one’.”

Having said that, it did take a while to get used to the idea of being a couple. All my previous relationships had sort of … fizzled out. With Ian it was the opposite; we seemed to grow closer and closer. We’ve even collaborated on several projects and I’m directing his first play at the moment [the Abba-inspired The Way Old Friends Do, which Ian wrote and stars in], but there’s never been any sense of rivalry. We get asked if it’s difficult living and working together, but why would it be a problem to spend time with the person you love?

I grew up in a working-class town near Durham, my dad worked at the pit. Telling people you were gay in that situation wasn’t easy. I came out to my friends when I was 15 and there were a few comments at school, but I was never bullied. The real problem for me in the Seventies and early Eighties was that I had no idea what to do about being gay.

Apart from the occasional storyline in [the drama series] Play for Today, the only gay men on TV were John Inman and Larry Grayson. I play Larry in the new TV drama Nolly [about Noele Gordon, a star of the soap Crossroads] and understand why John and Larry were regarded as torchbearers. But some gay activists in the Seventies saw them as the enemy: screamingly gay, but at the same time a sort of neutered Saturday-night camp.

Somehow I managed to put off telling my parents to the point where my mam was the one who brought it up. I was home from university and she simply asked me. It was a huge relief. I said, “Hadn’t we better tell Dad?” Mam looked at me. “Oh no! It’ll kill him.” So we didn’t.

A couple of weeks later I was talking to Mam on the phone and she said, “I told your dad. Ooh, we had some snow overnight.” Initially I thought that had saved me from having to talk to him about it, but it had just been popped at the back of a drawer.

Dad struggled at first, but considering his background it could have been a lot worse. Although it was a bit awkward when he met Ian, we never had “issues”. Sadly we lost him in 2021. The weird thing is that as he got older he became much more tolerant. Even after he lost Mam — his loneliness seemed to soothe his prejudices. He understood that love is where it falls.

It sounds like a complete cliché to say, “We make each other laugh all the time,” but it’s absolutely true. Our shared sense of humour has become the glue that has bonded us. Ian’s definitely more together than me when it comes to admin, and I’m pretty sure he did most of the organising when we had our civil partnership in 2008. The main problem is that, left to our own devices, we can be as bad as each other. We make all these grand plans, then we decide to take Bob [the labrador] for a walk instead.

Ian and I did have a brief period of broodiness, then we quickly realised that neither of us was responsible enough, so we got a dog. The ideal scenario would be that a fully formed, well-educated, extremely polite grown-up knocks on our door and declares that they are the fruit of my overeager teenage loins. We get to be parents without the hard work!

The couple in 1999, the year they met

Ian

Remember when Stelios from easyJet started his internet cafés? Without Stelios I wouldn’t have met Mark. I didn’t have the internet at my flat in London, so I would go to a Stelios café every day to check emails and log on to gay.com. Back then online dating didn’t involve pictures; it was just messages and a phone call. When Mark and I finally clapped eyes on each other, there was that awful moment of tension, trying to decide if we fancied each other. If not, I guess we would have headed off on our separate ways.

Mark was only the second man I’d made contact with online and the first one I’d met. I did sort of recognise him because The League of Gentlemen had been on telly, but I hadn’t actually seen it. That was probably a good thing. Had I been a massive fan, I’m not sure things would have worked out.

Mark’s career has taken a different trajectory to mine. He has been involved in a lot of high-profile projects and around the time of Sherlock [Gatiss was co-creator, co-writer and appeared as Holmes’s brother, Mycroft] things did go a bit crazy. That one-sided success can cause havoc in a relationship, especially with actors — lots of arguments and jealousy. Some relationships seem to thrive on that constant drama. Not us! I’ve never seen Mark have an argument with anyone. He’s unfailingly polite to the point of diffidence.

I hit my teens when TV was full of adverts about Aids — huge icebergs, tombstones. My parents were your typical easy-going, middle-class Brummies. There was no hint of homophobia but, in that climate, you can see why they might be concerned about having a gay son. What kind of future did I have? I was either going to die of Aids or kill myself out of loneliness and depression.

When I eventually told them I’d met someone and talked about bringing him home to meet them, they were very happy. I told them he was in this fantastic programme called The League of Gentlemen and proudly told them it had won a Bafta. Unfortunately they decided to watch it. They saw this collection of psychopaths and monsters and thought, “What’s he got himself involved with? Is it a cult?” Mum rang me up and said, “Please tell me it’s not him who plays that weirdo Mickey.” I paused for a second and then said, “Yes, Mum, that’s the man I’m going to marry.”

The Way Old Friends Do, Lyceum, Sheffield, Tue-Sat; Park Theatre, London N4, Mar 15-Apr 15; and touring until Jun 10; thewayoldfriendsdo.com

Strange habits

Mark on Ian

He’s incapable of keeping his side of the bed tidy. I call his pile of dirty clothes “the Bedroom Monster”

Ian on Mark

He worries about us travelling in the same car in case something happens to us both and Bob becomes an orphan

#Mark Gatiss #Ian Hallard #adorable husbands #the way old friends do #recent article

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ryverbind · 1 year ago

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Faceless Fixation (Sal Fisher): Viper of Fear [16]

I'm crouched behind the one piece of protection I was able to find in this abyss of unspoken horrors. This battle ground of malice and revenge.

My heart pounds against my ribcage, a war drum thrumming within my own body. My chest is splattered with the lost hopes and dreams of my enemies. My veins are filled with the icy bite of fear-- fear that strikes with the accuracy of a viper.

This is a wasteland. What once was is nothing anymore. The ground beneath me held up opportunity mere minutes ago, all for it to be stripped away in a moments notice. And it's all my fault.

The surface beyond my safe space is riddled with the neon blood of my foe. Synthetic shotgun shells cover the floor, acting as hell's very own field of bones. The desert scene that earlier reflected a symbol of goals I never thought I'd achieve now mimics Vlad the Impaler's wet dream.

I take a shaky breath, adrenaline pumping through every millimeter of my being as I listen to the war waging behind me. I don't spare even a simple glance over the box I'm hiding behind. This box is the stone that Arthur's sword once resided in-- this bitch will never break as long as I believe in it.

My fingers flex around the weapon in my arms, my muscles tense and my mind alert. If I'm not on edge at all times right now, I'll get caught. And getting caught means death. All hell has broken loose amidst the cloud of contentment that blinded me just minutes ago. I should have know that karma and revenge go hand-in-hand. They're best friends. They are a repeated process and know each other good and well.

I acted on revenge, and karma was quick to collect my debt.

"You've been hit by..." my heart stops upon hearing that deep, sultry, amused voice. He's having the time of his life, relishing in the screams of his victims. "You've been struck by..." I hear the barrel of his gun snap, releasing a plague of venom upon the person at his mercy. And the sufferer bellows in agony, spreading their unfortunate and horrific fate to me. I sympathize, my heart skipping a beat. I'm trapped in the clutches of hesitance, of terror. I squeeze my eyes shut. "A smooooth Larry Johnson!"

I swallow thickly, a guilty grin quirking my lips. Everyone's fair game to Larry right now. We aren't his friends at the moment, we're pawns in his chaotic chess game.

I set my gun on my knee, wiping my clammy palm against my chest. My hand comes up sticky though, so I look down at it, grimacing at my neon orange skin. I chew on my bottom lip, contemplating the memory of how I became covered in paint.

The issue with my win against Sal earlier is that I expected him to silently fume over his loss. I wasn't prepared for him to throw paintballs into his mag and pelt me with three almost immediately. I was too confident. Overzealous. And... I guess I had it coming.

I can't wipe the image of that moment out of my head, when I finally looked up at Sal to see him stalking over to me with a fire in his pretty blue eyes. As soon as our gazes clashed, he launched into fighting position with his gun up, aimed at me, and at the ready. His finger slammed on the trigger with no regret, effectively slathering me in the ugliest colors I've ever seen. What's worse is that he came at me short-range, so my gut and chest are throbbing in pain. Probably have some bruising, but hey, that's game. This is war.

What I want to know is how the hell Sal and Larry know how to work a paint ball gun. I underestimated my enemies.

First rule of gaming and life: never, under any circumstances, underestimate the enemy. And for fucks sake, double tap! Don't be like me, apparently.

Larry very thankfully moves away from me, probably laying his mayhem upon Ash somewhere else in this tumultuous room.

No one has found me yet, and it's already been about a full five minutes since the metaphorical shit hit the fan. I guess physical shit too, seeing as we've completely wrecked this photoshoot set. I kind of feel bad for The Faces; no one's ever going to give them this opportunity again.

I hear Todd yelp somewhere in the distance and my body stiffens up automatically. I can't afford to feel false security in such a dangerous situation. This box of props isn't my savior, nor will it ever be. I have to be prepared no matter what.

I feel a brush against my leg, so I whip my head to the side half expecting a threat and half expecting me to just have been stupid and hit the wall. Preparation can work or it can backfire, but it's better than walking through the unknown.

But seeing Sal crouched beside me makes me want to bolt into the crossfire that Larry's creating.

And Sal hasn't noticed me yet either. He's simply hiding from Larry too, trying to escape the fiend his step-brother has become. His gun is propped on his knee, his finger hovering over the trigger in fear of being found. His sapphire colored hair is stringy from sweat, sticking to his neck and prosthetic. Dots of neon green and orange are littered along the long strands, his fringe much the same. He pants heavily, probably from bolting across the room as quickly as he could. His chest rises and falls quickly, the action attracting my gaze. And then his eyes that map out the battle ground behind the box we're both hidden behind-- his cerulean gaze that swallows me whole no matter when or how I get to see them. And those beautiful, veiny, bruised hands of his that handle the weapon in his arms like he has the strength and confidence of all the mightiest men in this world.

He glances down at his gun, using his hand to swipe a patch of neon green off of his black gun. But when he looks down, he also spots my boot.

I gulp, the viper of fear sinking its venomous fangs into my skin. It was only a matter of time-- I should have snuck away while he was still distracted. But as I said, karma and revenge work hand-in-hand.

Sal's head snaps up, shocked gaze meeting my own. As soon as he realizes who he's looking at, the emotion in his eyes flips completely, turning into a horrendous glare. And there's nothing I can really do but wait for him to probably shoot me again. It's better than risking an onslaught from Larry-- I'm actually scared of him. Kinda relieved that Ash and Todd have to face him instead of me.

"Bitch," Sal bites out quietly, trying to make sure that Larry doesn't find him. "Fuck you."

My lips quirk into some kind of sneer and grin. If this is all he'll do then maybe it's time to repeat the karma-revenge process. I'm about ready to get back at him for bruising my ribs earlier. "Yea," I whisper back harshly, "I bet you want to."

Sal's piercing eyes narrow and a wave of impending doom and ferocity carves away at my insides. I can feel the sting of murderous intent like flames licking at my skin. Maybe I need to reevaluate my life choices.

He doesn't say a word-- doesn't drone about how much he hates me or how I'm nothing compared to him. He just lifts one hand from his gun and slams it into my throat, his fingers gripping my skin tightly and robbing me of fresh air.

I choke on the sudden pressure on my airways, leaning forward to try and relieve myself even if just a bit, but Sal doesn't let up. He only yanks me closer to him. It's almost embarrassing that he knows what turns me into putty in his hands-- we've only been doing this for two days. But it seems that anger and aggression is his go-to when it comes to me, whether he truly feels it or he's just trying to wrap me around his finger.

I swallow, taking quick and raspy breaths as I look into his eyes that are mere centimeters away from mine. His bright blue irises hold so much intrigue, so much contempt. Every shade of blue, every fleck of golden stardust in his gaze resents me. I'm borderline obsessed with the way he hates me at this point. It's such a strong emotion, to be loathed so deeply by anyone at all. It isn't love, but I don't need love.

Maybe this is why I didn't move when I realized he was next to me. Because I craved to fall victim to the indignation that constantly radiates between us. He just hates me so good.

I wrap my hand around his wrist, tears starting to form in my eyes as I do my best to hold his gaze. I won't bend to him-- that would be too easy. Nothing about this is easy, and it shouldn't be. He and I both know it.

"You don't want to fuck me," he says condescendingly, raspy voice full of veiled fascination. He hides most of it with his anger, but I know he enjoys the way I react. It's painfully obvious. "You couldn't handle me."

I snort as best as I can with my airways blocked off, a little smile pulling at my lips. Is he really trying to scare me? He should know by now that trying to freak me out only makes me want to show him how wrong he is. "Wanna bet?" I challenge with a scratchy, barely audible voice.

His eyes glance over my face, soaking up the position he has me in appreciatively. "I'll rip you apart," he warns, pretty gaze snapping up to meet mine again.

"Wasn't that always the plan?"

Sal takes a slow, deep breath before cocking his head to the side in an admonishing way. Then he drops his hand and a rush of air abuses my lungs. I choke on the oxygen invading my body and scoot away from him as quickly as possible. He looks away from me, peeking over the top of the box. "If it wasn't the plan before, then it is now. Someone needs to set you straight."

Oh, that's nice. So when are we fucking? "I don't want to be set straight," I scoff, taking the opportunity to glance around the side of the box too. Larry's been pulled aside by the photographers. And holy fuck, it looks like a neon tornado tore up this entire room. We're in so much trouble. "I want to be reminded of why I want this to begin with."

"No," Sal bites out. "You just need to fucking go to therapy. Bratty bitch-- I'll scare you out of this stupid BDSM fantasy you have."

I turn my head to him, eyes wide. Did he really just blindly read me and guess correctly? "How fucking dare you?" I seethe quietly. "Who are you to tell me I need to go to therapy? What does that say about you, huh? Hypocritical cunt."

Sal looks down at me in return, gaze as wrathful and irritated as usual when it comes to me. "Only delusional people like you think they want to be tied up and fucked into stupidity. But since you won't stop lying to yourself like a dumbass, I'll just have to be a good Samaritan and show you, I fucking guess."

"Ah, yea," I hum, feigning disappointment while excitement rushes through me. "Such a shame that you have to go out of your way to fuck me hard enough that I lose the last few braincells I have left." Sal rolls his eyes, letting out an exasperated breath. "You're such a hypocrite. You're judging me for being a freak when you're one too," I continue.

"Because it fits me. I've been a freak from the start, why not make it into something I can actually utilize?" He counters, voice still laced with agitation that only continues to grow.

"So no one else can have the same desires that you do? Are you really gatekeeping your sexuality right now?" I hiss at him, adjusting my stance to face him-- anything to be more intimidating than I already am. He's such an asshole involving absolutely everything. Who does he think he is? The bouncer of BDSM? Be fucking for real.

"Only you would take a warning as gatekeeping." Sal runs his paint-covered hand over his prosthetic, realizing too late that his face is slathered in neon. This only fuels his obvious vexation. He grumbles quietly to himself before saying. "You're such a simpleminded moron. Think with your head instead of your pussy. I mean, really think."

Rage suffocates me like I'm swimming in a sea of way-too-fluffy bunnies. I might be attracted to him in a way that's so down horrendous it makes me question myself sometimes, but that does absolutely nothing to distract me from how awful his personality actually is. I've never wanted to punch someone the way I want to punch him. Every single second I spend with him-- sucking him off or arguing with him-- fills me with some of the most potent emotions I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing in my entire life.

"Sal," I say calmly, turning away from him to watch as Larry turns around and starts calling out all of us. His gun has been revoked. "I say this honestly, and for your own good," I tell the man beside me. I could pistol-whip his ass right now. I'm so pissed. "I think I'll be the one to rip you apart."

That makes him laugh humorlessly, but I don't dare look down to see it happen. If I see him right now, my boot is going to be somewhere on him and it's going to hurt. "I'd like to see you try," he rasps out.

I scrunch my face up, trying to control the anger that radiates off of me in toxic waves. I'm innocent in all of this. Someone needs to set him straight. Not me.

"Try to wipe my handprint off your neck," Sal mumbles, standing up and walking around the box. "If anyone gets any ideas, I'm blaming you."

Asshole. I sneer at his back as he walks over to Larry. I bend down, swiping at my neck and only being able to smear the paint since it's starting to dry. But whatever-- if someone thinks it's a handprint, I'll just pass it off as my own.

"Yea, man," Larry says as I finally start to make my way over to him and Sal. "They aren't pressing charges because they got good pics out of the whole mess, but they are kicking us out. So..." Larry says in a serious tone, one that I don't hear all too often. He almost seems a little timid. "Ash got to talk with them while they stripped me of my fun stick. Thank God she's the bargainer because I would've landed us in jail." Emo buff daddy snorts, trying to smoosh down a little smirk.

So we're given a good reprimanding. I hate this part of getting into trouble because I always feel bad. Mainly since I'm usually the one who was the bad influence and started everything. Some things just never change and Ash can attest to that.

So many times in my life, I've done things that have landed me in situations where I definitely could have gotten a juvenile record. I've just been lucky all this time-- I need to stay lucky because I don't qualify for juvie anymore.

There was one time my band buddies and I had the bright idea to carve out the batter head of a school-owned bass drum and trick this asshole kid into crawling into it. Duck-taped him to it in record time and also got caught immediately. We were going to roll him outside of the building. This paint-ball situation reminds me of that time. It's literally almost the same situation-- defacing property, basically.

I need to stop doing this to myself.

The Faces and I do the walk of shame out of The Venetian, catching a taxi over to Excalibur since they apparently have these giant sword-shaped daiquiris and we all need a drink after what just went down. The one downside is that we're all in tactical gear and covered in neon paint. But, whatever. It's Vegas.

We all stand in line at the daiquiri stand, waiting for our turn to order. It's pretty cool in here, set up like a castle with life size chess pieces lining the front walkway. Not to mention, male strippers are taking pictures with old ladies beside us and, holy hell, no matter the time or day that is just a glorious sight to behold.

Ash and I stand beside each other, giggling over the horny old ladies beside us when a group of people walk around the corner. They're all dressed in old, medieval clothing. All men. Kings, in fact. I think back to what Ash told me earlier about there being jousting tournaments in this casino. I didn't think they dressed up though-- they all look so cool.

But then there's a straggler-- a man dressed as some kind of dark, medieval knight. His hair is long and curly and he has face make-up on. Black around his eyes. He's hot as fuck and Ash and I both quiet down while he walks by, strutting like he owns the place. He's tall as hell too. Larry's height.

The group of actors crawl into line behind us. I lick my lips, trying to get a glimpse of the dark knight, but Sal's stupid head is in my way.

Ash leans over, whispering not-so-quietly to me. "Did you see that hunk of walking fucking sex? Damn," she says, voice starstruck and eyes filled with hearts. "Men don't affect me all that often but imagine if I could sneak him into bed."

I suck in a breath, standing on my tiptoes to look between Todd and Sal's heads. All I can see is the right side of the knight's face, but that alone is satisfying to me. "I'd sleep on the couch so long as at least one of us got to get with that. He's beautiful," I admit, sending Ash a sideways glance. She giggles, nodding her head in agreement.

"Who's got you two twitterpated?" Larry asks, winking at me when I look over. Good use of new vocabulary, Lar.

I nod to the men behind Larry. "If you look behind us, there's an actor dressed as an emo knight, so to speak. He's pretty hot," I tell him.

I could slap men. They live off of one singular, shared braincell. I'll even include Todd in this statement because all three guys turn so hard that anyone else would think they'd all snapped their necks. Keep in mind, all of these actors are just a couple feet behind us so the staring is painfully obvious.

Ash and I fold in on ourselves, turning to face the daiquiri stand and grumbling to each other about how stupid they all are. Oh, this is terrible. So bad, in fact, that I'm blushing profusely. Yuck.

Sal's the first to speak, shamelessly saying, "Fuck. He's hot as shit."

"I'm not into guys," Larry says, "But he is pretty."

Todd hums in agreement, deciding to stay quiet since he has a boyfriend, of course.

"Just pretty?" Sal hisses, clearly offended by Larry's response to the knight. "Ash is right. That's walking sex."

Apparently I have to compete with men now too for a fuck. I can't tell if that's a tad disappointing or fascinating.

"Then go get his number or something if you're so shocked by my taste in sex partners," Larry hums. "You're the eternal rizz master. You get any woman and man you set your eyes on. Might as well bag the dark knight."

"Stop it with the Batman references, Larry," Todd says, giggling shortly after.

Larry groans. "Come on! Stop hating on the game, Todd. That was a perfect opportunity."

I hope this line moves quicker. The longer they talk right in front of the topic of discussion, the more horrified I feel. Ash isn't any better either. She's chewing on her bottom lip, face red as a beet as she finally gets an opportunity to run up to the counter and order us all a daiquiri.

The five of us start walking past the group of actors with giant daiquiri swords hanging around our necks. It's almost comical having to do the walk of shame again, but I'm more terrified of the fact that this poor man probably knows that we were all fawning over him.

We're almost out of dodge but someone calls out to The Faces. We all simultaneously turn, quaking like leaves on dead tress because that definitely came from the group of actors.

And there's Mr. Emo Knight, walking toward us in all his glory with an excited little grin on his handsome face.

I'm going to vomit.

He walks up to Sal and Larry and shakes their hands, sharing quick introductions. Then the knight looks past them and at Ash, Todd, and me. My heart skips a beat in childlike elation when his gaze lingers on me.

"Oh, hey," he says in a surprised tone. "VioletViolence! I've seen pictures of you online for the past couple days. You're even prettier in person."

My entire body tenses up with excitement and I struggle to hold back the huge smile that wants to rip my face apart. This is phenomenal. Good job, y/n. I don't know what I did to deserve the compliment, but I'm glad I did it.

"Oh, thanks!" I tell him. In a stroke of confidence, I say, "You're pretty, too."

I want to rip up the floorboards and make a shrine for this guy when a light blush paints his cheeks. To think that I've done absolutely nothing but stand for a picture and he's already blushing over a compliment from me. That's incredibly encouraging.

"Thank you," he says bashfully, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Could I get a picture with all of you? If you don't mind, of course."

"We don't mind at all," Sal jumps in to say, already moving closer. "You look cool as hell, man."

I narrow my eyes at Sally Face. How do I read this play? Is he jealous or is he trying to steal this guy from me? I can't tell.

"Thanks," the knight says, scooting in beside Sal so we can all take a picture with him. One of the other actors does the honors, snapping a few quick photos.

We separate after a moment and Sal breaks the silence by saying, "We should grab a drink so you can tell me about those tournaments. I was thinking about trying out some new things and maybe horses are the way to go."

It's almost fool proof. So good that I choke on the sip of strawberry daiquiri that's halfway down my throat. Larry wasn't kidding. Obviously I'm unfortunate proof of it, but Sal really can pull anyone he wants.

"Ah, I wish I could," the knight says a bit awkwardly. "We have another tournament coming up in about fifteen minutes though."

Oh, that's a burn. I wince over the rejection simply because it's so obvious that the knight is lying. If they had another tournament, they wouldn't be buying heaps of alcohol.

I chew on the inside of my cheek as Ash's eyes go wide. Larry turns around to face Ash, Todd and I while trying to hold back a laugh, his face perfectly mimicking the red shade of his daiquiri. Todd wiggles his nose, sniffing quietly. That's funny to see-- he's trying to hold back his reaction too.

Sal's lucky he wears a prosthetic because it can hide anything he's feeling. That is, as long as he's able to keep his emotions out of his eyes.

"Yea, that's no problem!" Sal responds, shaking off the rejection like a pro. "You guys have a good night."

Larry's already snickering as we continue our walk out of Excalibur, and as soon as we cross the threshold of the front door, he and Todd burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"That was bad, bro," Larry cackles, ruffling Sal's hair. The bluenette shoves his step-brother away from him in response, sending him a pair of aggravated eyes.

"It was worth a try," Sal grumbles. "Hop off my dick. It's not the first time I've been shot down and it won't be the last. No pun intended."

I don't quite understand what the no-pun part is about, but the entire group gasps through giggles that they desperately try to squash down into the depths of their soul.

"The worst part about him rejecting you was that he would've absolutely gone out with Vi. He was so into her," Todd says after a moment, trying to deflect Sal's most recent comment.

"He only called her pretty. Doesn't mean he wants to dick her down or anything," Sal says in response. Poor guy, he's so jealous that I pulled the hot knight.

We're all walking side-by-side along the entrance to Excalibur, making our way down to the strip instead of catching another taxi. It's evening, fun city lights are on as the sky darkens, and we need to pick up dinner. Not to mention, we have loads of alcohol so why not make our trip back to Caesar's palace eventful?

I tip my head forward to get a glimpse of Sal-- more importantly, to meet his gaze so he can see my smug expression. I want nothing more than to bask in his rejection.

I see the side of his prosthetic instead-- the bottom half of it is lifted slightly as he sips from his transparent pink straw. It's likely stained from the strawberry daiquiri he has in his hands. His pale, scarred jaw and chin are visible to me, but dark from the shadow of night and his prosthetic. No matter how little I see, I still feel a fluttering in my chest because this is the most I've ever seen of his face. It gives me some kind of theoretical rush-- sets me into a daydream.

His lips are probably tinted red from his drink. His tongue must taste like an inebriating mix of vodka and artificial strawberries. And the shape of his lips, if his teeth are straight or crooked, what kind of nose he has, the curve of his eyebrows. What it would be like to taste him, to feel him in ways that I haven't yet. I could go on forever.

But I shouldn't go on because wanting more from a man who's only willing to give me the bare minimum is setting me up for disaster. He told me himself that I shouldn't expect anything from him. One thing he's failed to do is lie to me, so I'll take his word for it and consider Sal-centered expectations to be detrimental.

This entire time, I haven't wondered about what he looks like beneath his prosthetic-- not even once. It's like a delayed reaction; now I'm overcome with this horrifying yearning to rip the hunk of plaster off of his face and get a glimpse of the real thing. I was fine literally two hours ago, so what's changed? It's not because he's been kind to me because he hasn't shown any emotion that could resemble kindness at all.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm leaving Las Vegas tomorrow and my brain is just subconsciously reminding me of my dwindling time here.

"So anyway, since Sal's butt-hurt," Larry says, interrupting the silence that had overtaken the group. And it was never truly quiet, just felt like it. Cars were still zooming beneath the walkways under our feet, people were still bustling about, music still swelled in the air around us-- but we were all caught up in our own heads. "Let's play a game. Vi is the victim since we virtually still know nothing about her."

I swallow, leaning back so that Sal is out of my view before he can turn to look at me with those evil eyes of his. I don't need to be pining after him anyway-- this is just a nice agreement he and I have. That's all this will ever amount to and that's perfectly fine. No strings, no attachments. Just casual sex, hopefully. If we ever fucking get there.

I turn my attention to Larry. "There isn't much to know," I murmur. I have to be worried about this, not Sal. Larry's trying to quiz me because he thinks this is our first time meeting. I have to be careful. "What kind of game do you want to play?"

Larry slurps his daiquiri loudly, gaining the attention of a few people around us. "Got any weird kinks? Guilty pleasures? Fun scars? Creepy interests?"

My eyebrows raise of their own accord. I'm not sure if these questions are an opportunity for him to relate and feel better about his own odd interests, but I'm a little shocked. Where do I start and what do I keep to myself?

"Um, no weird kinks that I know of--" I start to say, but Ash holds a hand up to my face and slaps her palm against my mouth.

"Liar," she proudly yells. "You are such a degradee."

Heat envelops my entire body. Why did she have to say anything? Keep it in the fucking bag or something-- anything.

"Come on, Ash," Todd huffs. Oh, thank you, sweet angel. If anyone has my back, of course it would be Todd. "We already know Vi's into degradation."

My gaze snaps to Todd and my mouth falls open. So much for trust.

The situation is hilarious, honestly, but also mildly concerning. Am I so submissive that I wordlessly scream it to everyone? Since when have I become this people-pleasing monster?

I choke on an embarrassed laugh, staring at my feet as we walk. My cheeks are flaming and I really just want Thanos to snap his fucking fingers right now.

"Fuck all of you," I sniffle, eyeing my giggly friends. I can't be mad-- this is all in good fun. Still can't wait to get back to the hotel and disappear until I have to leave tomorrow though... "And Larry, the best I've got for you is that I got my finger stuck in the lock of my classroom door in fifth grade," I proclaim bashfully leaning over and holding up my hand.

Larry's eyes light up, much like a cat's pupils dilate when they're focused. He grabs my hand and exams it. "Which finger?" he asks, all focused and adorable as he takes a quick sip from his daiquiri.

"This one," I chirp, lifting my middle finger with no shame.

Larry's smile drops immediately. Then his eyes slowly lift to meet mine, absolute numbness in their chocolatey depths. The nonchalance in his pretty gaze makes a little shiver trickle down my spine. It's both scary and entrancing-- he's just... he's hot...

Larry pinches his lips together then yanks me toward him. My eyes mimic saucers when I trip over my own feet before stumbling into the behemoth of a man. My weight slamming into him pushes him into Sal who snaps at both of us, but I couldn't care less about him when I'm trying not to peel cement with my fucking teeth.

Larry stabilizes us, holding himself up with Sal-- who's still grumbling-- and grabbing onto my waist to keep me upright.

I take a breath, gripping onto Larry's thick biceps for dear life. And you know what? I hold onto the moment (his biceps) for a good couple seconds and appreciate it because at least I have an excuse to touch the build that this man has going on.

So after a second of squeezing this poor mans arms and pretending that I'm recovering instead of literally copping a feel, I furrow my brows and look up at emo buff daddy. He's grinning down at me nervously.

"I swear I just wanted to intimidate you a bit," he snickers, finally releasing me from his hold.

I say a silent, solemn farewell to Larry's arms then huff. "By throwing us into oncoming traffic?" I snort. "That's not intimidation. That's a literal trip to the pearly gates, my brother in Christ."

Larry looks off to the side, upside down smile on his faces as he hides his hands in his pockets. He knows he's guilty.

"But... do you actually have a cool scar then?" Larry asks after a moment, finally falling into step with the rest of us who walk the strip.

I purse my lips. "Not really. I have scars, just not cool ones," I admit. If I've ever gotten a cut or gash, it's always healed pretty quickly. Most of my childhood scars faded years ago and the ones that stayed have no interesting meaning. "Do you?" I ask, leaning forward to send him a smile. I'm able to see Sal again, but he looks aggravated now. Daiquiri dangling from his fingers as he looks out at the city.

I lick my lips before looking back up at Larry. Ignore the brooding little bitch, y/n.

"Um," Larry trails off, sucking on the straw of his daiquiri in an almost suggestive way. Even Todd looks over to raise an eyebrow. "Me and Sal have matching scars."

My eyebrows raise. That's interesting. "What, was it like a brothers pact?" I giggle.

Sal looks over now, his eyes meeting mine. He looks angry though, much angrier than he did just seconds ago. Something tells me this is a story that he never wanted out for prying ears. That makes it all the more intriguing.

"No, it was actually pretty stupid," Larry swipes at his nose and looks off to the side. "Sal hates this story so much because it landed both of us in the hospital."

Hm, hospital tales with The Faces. Sal's reaction was fishy up until Larry mentioned that it was just a stupid little thing in general. I'm a little desperate at this point-- I need to know more. "Tell me about it," I chirp, looking out at the city lights around us. We're walking up to The Venetian now. I have some strange feeling that we're all going to try to sneak past this building pretty quickly after what happened earlier-- especially since we're still in paint-covered tactical gear.

"Hold on," Ash jumps into the conversation, pointing at an Irish Pub a little further down the street. "We're grabbing dinner there. Take out. All the same order. No if's, and's, or but's. I'm ready to get home." She leans over and snatches Todd's wrist. "And fruit roll-up is coming with me."

I watch Larry turn his attention to Ash. "Just as long as you get me some kind of alcohol," he says, grinning all the while. He's going to get so slammed.

Larry is an odd specimen. Of course, we all know that, but he has this kind of aura about him that's so different from the rest of The Faces. He's such a welcoming person-- you look at him and want to trust him with everything. But it's also incredibly obvious that he's devious and chaotic to the core. He'll keep everyone's secrets safe, but he'd probably commit homicide too, I think.

Larry turns to me as Ash rushes ahead of us. There's this gleam in his eyes that screams excitement and focus.

"So I'm gonna spare you the confusing details because Nockfell is just... in a state of sin constantly. You'd be so lost if I told you why exactly this happened," the man waves me off, smacking his lips and looking off to the side. I look up at him with raised eyebrows, patiently waiting. If I'm being honest though, I want to know the confusing details. What was going on in Nockfell?

"Larry, can you not?" Sal bites out. "You tell this story constantly. Just give it a rest. Not everyone wants to talk about scars."

"Sir," Larry scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks down at Sal beside him, giving the blue-haired gremlin a 'try-me-bitch' look. "You can go and be insecure somewhere else because I fucking love telling this story. And Vi wants to hear about it, obviously." He turns to me and grins, showing off his sweet, little gap-toothed smile. "Look at that precious face. It's so eager." Larry grips onto my masked cheeks and drags me toward him.

My heart jumps into my throat when Mr. Metal-Head himself winks at me before dipping his head down to kiss the nose of mask. I can't feel his lips, but just the fact that he's so close to me and showing me this type of care through physical touch makes my cheeks heat up. Makes my fingers go numb. Makes my thoughts race out of my body, skittering along the pavement in excitement-- all with love hearts littered about them. If romantic love were a thing between him and I, things would be much different right now. But this feels more like... I'm a princess and he's my devoted, caring knight. Instead of kissing my hand, he brought his feelings to the very tip of my nose.

This is twitterpated.

Sal and Larry start bickering as soon as the little peck is done and over with. While they do their step-brother thing, I mull over Larry's small token of affection. That kiss meant so much even though our skin never touched. Did Sal feel the same way even though our lips were still separated by his prosthetic? Did he feel like he was cared for, loved? Was he high off the prospect of someone actually wanting to kiss him, innocently or lovingly, just like I am right now?

I almost feel bad. To have all of that mental opportunity ripped away from him the moment it was revealed that I was VioletViolence. Sal must have felt terrible. Maybe... maybe he's actually justified in hating me.

"So anyway," Larry grips my shoulder, making me flinch in surprise. I turn my gaze up to him, meeting Sal's frustrated, glaring blue eyes for just a moment in the process. I'm going to think about how bad I must have made him feel all the time now.

"Sal and I were running, right." Larry leans forward, swiping his hand horizontally before us. I follow his pretty hand that's littered with patchwork tattoos. "Midnight, pitch black outside." Larry tilts his head, pinches his lips to exemplify these points. I simply nod. "Nockfell has this giant forest that's super thick, 'kay, thicker than your juicy thighs, in fact." His eyes snap to me and I have to turn away while my mind runs rampant again. I can't stand Larry, but in the best way.

"Before you get to the forest though," he continues. "There's this old fence that's lined with barbed wire. My guess is to protect old farms from predators and whatever. But Sal and I were young and thought we could simultaneously clear this six foot fence like fuckin' track stars." Oh. I kind of get where this is going-- they were idiots, basically. This story also lines up perfectly well with what Sal told me earlier. I'm incredibly relieved to hear that his scar story was true. This also means that I have no unnecessary stress regarding him and his well-being. Not that I should worry about that to begin with.

"So next thing you know, Sal and I are hooked by our calfs and ankles on the top of this fence. Ripped us up. We couldn't get free, so we were just kinda hanging upside down on this fence for like thirty minutes until Henry came to pick us up." Larry breaks off into scattered giggles while trying to finish the story, meanwhile my stomach threatens to leap out of my body. I feel sick.

"Larry, shut up," Sal mumbles again. "You don't have to give so much detail."

He's so fucking guilty and it shows.

"Come on, bro," Larry chortles, giving Sal a light shove. "It was so stupid, I still laugh about it every time. Look," the man turns back to me and stops walking. He bends down and grabs the edge of his black cargo pants. He yanks them up over his knee and shows off this gnarly, jagged scar on the back of his calf. It's a couple inches long for sure-- must have been deep. "Sal's is on his ankle. We were actually pretty worried he might have sliced his tendon. I remember screaming and yelling at him about how he would never walk again," Larry snickers, pushing his pant leg back down.

I gulp, forcing a smile onto my face. I don't have it in me to laugh at the story. Not when I know that Sal lied to my face about the scars on his thigh earlier.

I'm battling myself. Sal and I aren't close-- he doesn't have to tell me at all if he wants. His mental health and his scars are his business, not mine. It's my fault for feeling so torn up about it. I feel like it's my job to save everyone, but I forget that not everyone wants saving. That, and I just can't save everyone in general.

I don't have a God complex, I just have this unbeatable savior complex that I'm still at war with to this day. I need to get over myself-- not everyone is going to trust me with their secrets. Not everyone needs me. Not everyone will like me. Literally, this tracks with Sal and I's timeline. And besides, if he's ever having mental struggles, I'm sure he trusts Larry, Todd, and Ash enough to seek them if he needs help. I don't have to worry.

I catch Ash rushing toward us with her arms full and Todd trailing behind her with a bag full of God knows what.

"That's a silly story," I finally speak up, smiling up at Larry who gives me this devious little grin. I really just need to ignore the conversation I had with Sal earlier. It was never my business in the first place. "I don't have any cool scars, but I did have something similar happen." I shrug, patting the side of my hip. "Got a fish hook stuck in my side. Pulled it out on my own because I was afraid to get in trouble."

I'll actually never forget the day I yoinked my dads fishing pole with the intention of developing my rad fishing skills all to accidentally yoink myself in the end. I'm just lucky the hook was unused prior to getting stabbed into me. The story is mainly to help me forget about Larry's right now though.

"Perfect timing," Larry whispers excitedly. He crosses over to stand in front of me and my brows furrow in confusion. "I can finally get on my knees for you."

"Nope," I spit out immediately, taking a step away. I'm too insecure and timid for that-- his sweet nose kiss was more than enough. This man needs to have mercy on my hopelessly romantic and decrepit soul.

Larry rolls his eyes. "Fine. But I do want to see. Plus, it's an excuse to finally see your tattoo."

I purse my lips. That's risky. I'll have to lift up the edge of my bra strap for that and I'm a little nervous about being so open.

Ash pops up beside me though. "I just bought, like, thirty jello shots. You fuckers better start throwing some back while I throw this ass back and get laid by a pretty bitch." These words come out in one breath and Ash never breaks her nonchalant facade as she holds a bag out to me.

"Can I be the pretty bitch?" I ask with a smile, sidetracked as I look into the bag to find a plethora of multi-colored plastic containers full of alcoholic jello.

"I thought that was the plan from the start, beautiful," Ash purrs, stealing my attention. I glance up at her, noting the playful little gleam in her bright green eyes and the smirk playing on her full, glossy lips.

I swallow thickly, frowning at how easily I end up falling into these traps that my friends set out. They're too attractive.

"Give me one of those," I murmur, fishing out a handful of shots from the bag to distract myself, and hopefully everyone else, from how shy I've suddenly gotten over a little bit of Ash's shameless and effective flirting.

"Yea, share-- but fuck off, Ash," Larry sneers. "Vi's mine. Stay away." He grabs both of my shoulders and walks me a step closer to his chest. I cannot be fucking doing this right now. I feel like I'm snorting coke just from being stuck between two of the hottest people I know-- and I've never even done drugs.

I open the top of an orange flavored jello shot then very quickly down the contents. Sal's hiding behind Larry right now, but I'm still able to see half of him. And he watches me go through all five stages of grief as soon as the flavor settles on my tongue.

I swallow quickly then choke on the leftovers, making the most disgusted face possible. It burns, and it tastes awful. So not worth it. That was a good reminder as to why I shouldn't consume alcohol in the first place.

"Ash," I splutter, traumatized and betrayed. "These are terrible. I'm sorry but... it's bad. Try one," I say, popping the lid off another and shoving it toward her. This one's green.

Ash doesn't say a word, just wraps her pretty fingers around the container and takes the shot like a pro. She doesn't even flinch. All she does is contemplate it for a moment then shrug at me "Tastes like alcohol."

I roll my eyes. At least she doesn't care all that much-- the shots won't go to waste.

I turn to Larry, intent on finally pulling up my shirt for him as we start preparing to walk again. But when he finally enters my field of vision, his arms having left my shoulders a few moments ago, I notice five empty containers stacked in his palm. If pregaming was a person, it would be Larry.

I blink at the man, then look up to see him quite literally tonguing a very clearly empty container. I don't know what more he's looking to get out of it, but at least he has some good work ethic.

Larry catches my eyes and pauses, tongue buried in the plastic like he's looking for water after going days without it. It's pretty comical.

He quickly pulls the plastic away from his face and swipes his hand along his mouth. I press my lips together to hold back giggles.

"Here," I say, lifting the edge of my shirt and bringing it up to right under my armpit before I can think harder about it. The one shot I had isn't even enough to give me a buzz, but assuming it'll have some kind of affect on me later gives me false confidence. I'll walk this fear off like a pro.

I lean over to look at my side, noting the small and uneven crescent shaped scar right under my ribs. Then I grab the very edge of my bra strap and move it, revealing the top half of my tattoo so everyone can get a good look at everything if they so wish.

Larry bends over, hands on his knees as he inspects my bare side. "Nice to know we officially aren't being catfished," he murmurs, eyes glancing over every inch of my skin. He's way too close.

I gape down at him. "Did you really think I was someone else all this time?" I ask, swallowing down that statement when I realize how much of a hypocrite I am. Because I am someone else.

Now that I'm leaving tomorrow, I just suddenly feel so guilty for tricking and deceiving everyone.

I run my tongue along the surface of my teeth, looking at anything but Larry as he lightly rubs his fingertips over the words engraved into my skin. His touch tickles, but I try not to pay any mind to it-- especially when Sal's eyes are glued to my waist from a couple feet away too. He watches me shamelessly, all while I fall apart on the inside.

"You're bruised here, Vi," Larry murmurs to himself, pressing on another part of my skin that makes me wince. It's sore, for sure. I try to see if Sal has some kind of reaction because we all know it's his fault.

His bright eyes look emotionless from over here. The splashes of neon orange and green on his black tactical gear brings out the cerulean color of his hair and the midnight blue of his irises. He's so pretty in such a unique way. Watching him look at me feels like I'm gazing at something forbidden, like I'm not supposed to catch him with his focus directed at me. It feels secretive.

But all of him feels like this one, giant secret that I'm not supposed to figure out. His prosthetic, his scars, his life story. I don't know any of it and I shouldn't. My brain is hardwired to understand things that confuse me, and Sal really confuses me. He also really pisses me off, but there has to be some kind of reason as to why he's so angry with me to begin with.

I have so much I want to figure out and so little time, so little trust. So little self-confidence. Things are fine right now-- Sally Face is silent, Todd is too. Larry is running his fingers over my skin and Ash is resting her chin on my shoulder, watching Larry. I should be enjoying my time. So why am I regretting my decisions and worrying about someone who couldn't care less about me?

_______

A/N::::::: HIIIIIII sorry it's been so long babies... college :(

i have soooo so much planned for this story right now. i've been writing a lot, i just have to write in short spurts because i also have so much school work to get done. i miss getting to write for hours soooo freaking much!!

fair warning, next chapter is smutty again >:) i'm excited. I'M ALWAYS EXCITED TO WRITE FOR YOU GUYS AHHHH

anyway, i love and miss everyone so much, so deeply!! have a wonderful morning/afternoon/evening/night <3333

p.s. emo casino knight is actually a real person but we're not gonna talk about that hehe....

#sal fisher #sally face #larry johnson #ash campbell #todd morrison #travis phelps #enemies to lovers #sally face fandom #sally face fanfiction #fanfic

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