#a whole bunch of people on all sides don't even care about the people they claim to be fighting for

[statisticalcats2]

My principles and way of life are just gonna keep being based on "caring about others" while a bunch of people on all sides rant and rave about that being the most infuriating and inexcusable thing they've ever heard of.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

UPDATE What's up, it's the proposal guy. You said you wanted to know how this turned out, so I figured I'd tell you. First some context though, because I'm mean and I wanna keep you in suspense longer.

1- I don't wanna doxx us so I'm not telling you where we live, but suffice to say, neither of us are American, and gay marriage has been legal here for less than five years. For both of us, this is the first relationship we've had where marriage was even an OPTION, and I think that's where we've been getting some of that whole 'this has to be a REAL proposal with EVERYTHING' idea.

2- I gotta figure out how to explain this properly. So, I'm pretty used to being the GUY guy in relationships? I was always the one who did the nice gestures, not the one they got done for. Before I met my dream guy, I didn't really notice or care that it was such a thing, I just assumed that's how shit worked. Also, I promised I wouldn't talk a lot about his stuff here, but his last boyfriend before me SUCKED. Anyway point here is, it turns out we both REALLY like feeling swept off our feet sometimes, and a big part of finding each other has been getting to feel special for once? That's a stupid sappy way of putting it the point here is I think all that's what morphed into "I need to be the one getting proposed to, also it has to be completely perfect", and then our Petty & Extra genes got involved.

So I'm sitting in bed thinking about all that up there, and watching all the comments coming in basically being like "Dude, you are BLOWING this" on repeat, and telling me to compromise, and I look up and see him flossing in the bathroom and making all these doofy faces at the mirror, and it's like a switch just flips in my brain, and I'm like "Oh, I'd rather he gets to have his perfect proposal than we both have an okay one". I'm gonna do it.

Morning rolls around, and while I'm 'out for my jog like normal' I hit up a pawn shop for a temp ring (the ring pop thing is cute but NOT HIM). I found one I was at least confident wouldn't get ruined the first time he got his hands greasy (he fixes old machines as a hobby it's hot as hell), got back home, and hid the box in the toe of my nasty ass workout shoes in the bedroom closet, since I figured he'd check there last.

He was still asleep, because he stays up late no matter what and then is SHOCKED he's tired the next day, so I called and booked a table at our usual anniversary spot. (Side note about the 'he picks bad restaurants' thing. This isn't an 'I like Greek, you like Chinese' situation, dude's just BAD at finding places. He either assumes pricey is tasty and I get to eat some overrated gourmet bullshit, or he'll try and find something hip and underground and risk giving us food poisoning again, and he REFUSES to give up and pick somewhere we've been before when it's his turn to plan date night. I'm obsessed with him <3.) Date was set, I'd propose on the 21st.

Some of you might have noticed this, but fun fact! It's currently the 16th.

Last night I'm doing dishes and he's been sent to our room for mug collection duty, and he's taking FOREVER, so I go check just in case he found the ring, because the man's a gift tracking BLOODHOUND. Turns out he hasn't, he's found my Angry Box.

I assume other people have an Angry Box? Basically, we had this huge messy fight right when we first moved in together, and I never wanna let it get that bad again, so I have this shoebox where I keep a bunch of our stuff I can look at if we're fighting and hopefully cool off. There's one of those photo booth roll things, letters we wrote when he moved back with his parents for COVID, the wine cork from our first date, shit like that. Anyway, he's just sitting on the floor staring at it, and I explain about the Angry Box, and then he! Proposes!!! Kind of.

He definitely didn't have anything prepared, because by 'propose' I mean 'ugly cried & rambled at me for several minutes before I figured out it WAS a proposal', but once I got on the same page it was amazing. I said yes, and he had to admit he didn't have a ring for me because he was CONVINCED he'd win and I'd do it, so I grabbed mine because, yeah, he was right. He was like "this is the ugliest ring I've ever seen" and I was like yeah well the plan is to replace it later and he went "No. You can pry this off my cold dead fingers. After I'm buried with it." So I guess it's not a temporary ring anymore.

I'm just gonna go ahead and skip to this morning. I pointed out we still have the reservation, and he said I should propose there anyway because "We can get a free dessert. They have those creme brulee shot glasses you like. And for love, or something" and I said ok deal, but that means you gotta get me a ring to keep it fair, and his eyes LIT UP. When I swung by his work for lunch he was still on the phone with a jeweler and he had a whole page of notes on three other ones. Pray for me.

OH PS: I was RIGHT that he'd been the one behind the cat biting me, but it wasn't about the proposal stuff, it's because I paid my baby sister three dollars to shout 'fuck you' every single time he enters a room she's in for (if you ask me, he should be madder at my sister for charging so little), and he did it by giving her a bunch of treats for biting his hands too, so now neither of us can pet our baby girl without oven mitts on. HOLY SHIT I love this man.

Oh my goddddddd I love everything about this <333 I awwww'd out loud on a voice call, like, six times while reading. You two are friggin perfect for each other and so obviously smitten with each other and I wish y'all all the happiness in the world

PS Are y'all planning to have a big wedding? If so oh boy I can't WAIT to get that one in the inbox

Original post

[ilydeku]

izuku loves to talk about you during interviews

- anything and every topic it will ALWAYS be about you

- the question won't even be remotely related to you and still izukus answer will revolve around "y/n, my wife!!" <3

- oh, the glint in his eyes, the peaking smile when he speaks about you, lover boyyy

- the media knows he LOVE LOVES you, they think it's funny for this big, confident, mighty hero to be reduced to sap when it comes to you

- it's like his whole is personality is HIS WIFE

- the journalists lowkey get so SICK of him for this, they don't want to invite him anymore 😭

- but they kinda have to, due to to his status as #1

"Good evening everyone and welcome Hero Talk! Tonight we'll be staring someone you all know and love, single handedly the greatest hero of all time, Deku! Alright, Deku how are you tonight?"

"Feeling pretty good! This is one of my wife's favorite shows, so I'm even more grateful to be here. And how are you?"

"Oh, same old. Really, just living. Now, we wanted to ask you some fun questions. Let's start with this one. Why did you want to become a hero?"

"Wow, haha! That really brings be back to my youth. When I was kid, my biggest influence was All Might, and he miraculously became my mentor. He was a good hero, and a good man. I wanted to be just like him: fearless, persevering, saving people with I smile. I would beg my mom everyday to watch this video on the computer of him saving a bunch a people. I was really swayed by All Might. I wanted to become a hero to make an impact in the world. I wanted to save people with a smile too."

"That sounds really endearing, Deku. I remember All Might's reign. He wasn't number one on the top charts all those years for nothing. So, did you ever think you'd be standing as Japan's top hero?"

"Well, it was never really my goal to become number one. That was Kacchan's- Dynamight's. My dream was, like I said, to become a hero and save others. But I have to say, it really is a blessing. I'd like to thank my Mom, All Might, my friends, and especially my wife for who I've become. My Mom has really done a lot for me growing up: protecting, encourage, and just always caring for me. All Might has kinda been that father figure for me when my Dad was away. My friends have shown me what it's like to work together and really be part of a heart. And my wife? Haha...I can't thank her enough for all the times she's been right by my side, even before we were together. Nothing I can say or do will ever be enough to express how much she means to me."

"Mm. Quite the supportive group. Your wife sounds like quite the lady!"

"She is. She's wonderful."

"Moving on to the next question, do you use social media often?"

"Occasionally, yes?? My wife uses it regularly, posting about us when we go out and stuff. It's mostly for her family to see how she's doing. She handles most of my official accounts. She says it's to be more appealing to the public, and I guess to show that there's more to heroes on the inside?? I'm not really sure, but I trust her process. Although, I'd rather be appealing to her alone."

"The public will always interested in a hero's private life! Now, Deku, what is your ideal setting of relaxation?"

"My wife doesn't like places that are too crowded or noisy, so maybe a cozy day at the beach?- but early in the morning or in the evening when the crowds calm down. Maybe a movie theatre, but days after the movie is released so it's just us together. Actually, a lazy day at home together is great too! Cooking meals and watching a movie on the couch? Really, any place is relaxing if my wife is with me."

(am i questioning Deku's wife or Deku!?) "How scenic! Those sound very fitting for you!! How about any restaurants?"

"Not really. My wife really knows how to cook, it's amazing! I love her home-cooked meals, so there's no way I'd go out of my way to a restaurant. But if my wife is feeling it, I'll be sure to make reservations."

"(sigh)"

"(smiling warmly)"

[johanna-swann]

I actually have sooo many issues with 911 lately that haven't even got much to do with any ships.

Like. They wrote out almost all of the side characters. Chris is gone, Linda and Sue are gone, Athena's kids are gone (even though Harry just moved in with her and Bobby again? Seriously, where is Harry?), Ravi is gone, Carla is gone. I know the GA maybe don't care that much, casual viewers might not even have noticed that this many characters have just vanished from the show, but in my opinion this is one of the things that give a show running as long as 911 life. Having a big cast is a good thing. Otherwise things are going to get very monotonous very soon.

Actually, that's my second point. They keep repeating storylines! Every season Hen and Karen have to fight a custody battle over one of their kids.

Every season Eddie ends up realising he has a lot of repressed trauma and issues which keep him from leading a healthy happy and free life.

Every season Bathena realise that they have communication issues and they fight about it, but then something traumatic happens and they forgive each other without ever really talking things out.

Every season we are reminded that Maddie's most prominent character trait is "traumatised", the writers just alternatingly bring up Doug again and sometimes the ppd arc.

Every season we see Buck being somewhat restless, looking and searching for something that will bring him true happiness and cycling through love interests that never stick around and each time when you think "oh, there it is, he's getting somewhere now" the writers go "BEEEP! WRONG!" and we start all over again. [This is not just about recent events aka Tommy, the break-up and Buck potentially going back to his 1.0 ways, this also happened in season 6 when he had his "it doesn't matter what other people see in me, I'm enough" revelation only to suddenly be like "omg, Natalia just sees me".]

And Chimney- he had his moment last season with the wedding episode, Kenneth Choi really ate that episode up, but his most prominent character trait is "Maddie's supportive husband". There's really not that much going on with him otherwise.

Another point I briefly touched upon above is consistency. Like Harry moving back in with Athena and Bobby and then just vanishing. Or Gerrard being more like a slightly unfriendly grandpa than an actual antagonist in season 8 when he was still spouting slurs in season 7.

And the timeline! We talked about this before ("last March", Mara's fostering to adoption timeline, Tommy tranferring to harbour "5 years ago"), but the newest "Tommy was actually Abby's Tommy" twist just adds to that. Tommy was with Abby for over 2 years. They were engaged. This was at a time when he was still at the 118. Tommy dated Abby presumably because he was in denial or maybe because he was hiding. In either case, wouldn't his team at least have heard about his fiancée, Abby the dispatcher? Wouldn't that have rung a bell when Buck eventually brought her around only a year or two later? Tommy did talk about his private life at least a little at work, even under Gerrard. It just doesn't make sense. (Not to mention this seems wildly out of character for Tommy who around the same time also said about himself "being single is easier".)

Then there's the pacing. This was a huge issue in season 7. They jumped from one personal soap opera drama to the next without taking any breathers, had almost no procedural in their drama the whole season, still somehow decided to spend one third of the entire season just on the opening disaster and also squeezed in a "Bobby begins for the third time now" episode. But okay, it was a shortened season, there were strikes, they switched networks, they were under a lot of pressure - I'll cut them some slack. At least they set up a bunch of interesting stuff for the following season.

But we're in season 8 now. The renewal was announced very early, they had a lot of time to plan this time. Also they have almost double the episodes they had last season, there's really no need to rush any of the major plots. I am done cutting them slack.

They wanna do a 3 part opening disaster again? Okay fine, you have the time now. I feel like they could've easily done it in 2 episodes (especially 8x02 felt a little "eh"), but okay. Better than the breakneck speed you were going at befo- Oh, what's that? 8x04 flying in with a steel chair. You resolved 70% percent of the plots you set up last season in one single episode with no build up, no emotional pay off and no lasting consequences? And you also squeezed in multiple unrelated calls at the same time? Damn, okay then. Good-bye potentially interesting storylines. Fuck me for being invested I guess. I thought there would at least maybe be some follow up in 8x05, but no.

Now that Halloween episode wasn't bad, it was actually the best episode of this season imo, but instead of following up on previously established conflicts and developments they just hit us with new Wilson family trauma and conflict that was also immediately fixed again. And now 8x06 has speedrun and dumped another storyline that had potential to go to deeper and interesting places. Not gonna talk too much about that though because this post is about the show as a whole, not ships.

And I am not yet convinced that there will be much more to come on the only thing that's left from last season: Eddie's deep dive into his trauma and repression. It's totally possible at this point that being told "you deserve nice things" by a random stranger actually solved all of his problems, it would be very in tone with 911's new style.

What are they even gonna do with the rest of this season? Revisiting the Hotshots set sounds fun, but ultimately inconsequential. You know what's great about a regular old procedural drama with ~20 episodes per season that comes on weekly? You have time. You can let the viewers sit with their emotions and thoughts for a week and keep them engaged by stretching things out a little.

But why should I bother getting emotionally invested in problems the characters are gonna solve within the same episode anyway? Or rather, even if I wanted to, how am I supposed to care if you don't give me the time to develop any feelings about anything that's happening? "Henren lost in court and are now completely forbidden from seeing Mara at all!" Damn, that must be so har- "JUST KIDDING! Ortiz is exposed and everything is perfect again now." Oh. Okay then, I guess.

Bottom line: The characters are all stuck in their own hamster wheels, they keep cutting side characters that could bring a breeze of fresh air (I'm honestly surprised they even kept Josh until now), they rush through all the storylines a such a ridiculous speed that I don't even have time to feel any sort of way about it, they don't even try to keep a consistency or sensible timeline going and they seem to strongly prioritise random funny bits that'll entertain the very casual viewers right now in this moment (tiger call, Billy Boils, Bee-nado, the 'Stache tm, "wait, it's the same Abby?", Gerrard being a fangirl at heart) instead of playing the long game and catering to people who actually pay a little attention to the show.

[On that last remark: I'm not talking about hardcore fans who analyse every single frame here, I mean casual fans who've watched the show on and off again for a while and who may not be involved in fandom but genuinely care about the show.]

I mean. What am I even still doing here? The show is treading water and I end up disappointed more often than not. I'm still holding out a little hope that they actually will do something interesting with Eddie and his sea-monkeys, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

[kathaynesart]

Frankly Sir, the whole procedure was a joke.  For all their power they’re just a bunch of undisciplined runts.  The leader was the only one halfway decent at lying to my face and he broke upon seeing the Key.  

Were you able to gather any further information in regards to the Key’s whereabouts?  

None yet.  However, it’s obvious that these mutants were involved somehow…

…Do you suspect they had a hand in acquiring the Key for the enemy?

I… can’t say for certain yet.  However, I doubt any sort of intentional collaboration occurred. 

And what of their origin?

Obviously falsified.  But to what degree I can’t say.  The DNA samples however have been far more enlightening. 

How so?

They’re different from other mutants, human or animal.  They’re completely free of the usual abnormalities.  It’s almost as if… they were designed to be what they are. Instead of just some freak accident.  

…Your final assessment, then?  Given the information you’ve gathered it appears they should be immobilized and transported for further testing.

With all due respect, Sir, I wouldn’t dare hand them over to the labs.  I’m not about to let those coats dissect the only edge we now have against the Krang.  Frankly I don’t care if they’re turtles or humans or even more aliens. They’re the best chance we have at winning this war.  Given the state of things I feel they will side with our cause.

…Then, so long as they prove useful, I shall defer to you, Agent Bishop. Keep in mind that it is EPF‘s job not only to protect the people of Earth from threats such as the Krang but from those within our own walls.  It will be your job to keep them under constant surveillance.  And should they step out of line in the slightest…

I understand, Sir.  

~~~

I wasn't going to post this, but I have been receiving a number of questions in regards to the interview / interrogation. While I don't think this scene is necessary reading material, it does shed some light on what to expect for the Holiday Special and the boys' place within the Central Park Colony. I have way too much stuff in my head that will never see the light of day, so here, have a snippet.

NOTE: also... I may have realized that I accidentally put the wrong colony name in the interview comic >_< It should be the CENTRAL PARK COLONY that's interviewing them, NOT the LIBERTY COLONY (which is the better, less racist one that they create years later). 5,000 likes and reblogs later and it has now been corrected, oops. Ehehe I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

[unearthly-doting]

Heyyyy could you possibly do

Finding their soulmate: creepypasta edition

any creepypasta characters you want (including Jeff the killer & Homicidal Liu pls 🙏)

finding their soulmate: creepypasta edition.

notes: crying i miss my colored text :( i got another two soulmate posts coming ur way soon guys bc that's in high demand it seems so!! also im on my tablet writing all of this and tumblr mobile sucks so if there's any mistakes blame them not me. anyways send requests for things if u want. love u all !

includes: jeff the killer, homicidal liu, eyeless jack, nina the killer, the bloody painter, and ticci toby.

warnings: not proofread and written while i was super tired so, yandere content, mdni, inconsistent length, reader injury in jeff and toby's parts, stalking, mild poly content in liu's part bc he and sully r a package deal here, kidnapping, breaking and entering, murder, this is all actually pretty tame, obsessive behavior, possessive behavior, overprotective behavior. i think that's all??

JEFF THE KILLER — didn't have a soulmate. He didn't have any soulmark, there was no name on his wrist or a string around his finger. The universe had destined him to be alone, it seems. When he was younger, this had been crushing. Why did his brother get to have a soulmate but he didn't? What was so different about him that he didn't deserve a destined love?

Though, after he became the man he is today, Jeff found that he didn't care about soulmates. He probably would've killed his soulmate, if he had one. If anything, he found himself developing a burning hatred at the very concept of soulmates.

Everyone had always played it out to be something wonderful, something people were lucky to have. But he's seen otherwise. He's killed soulmates who have turned on each other just to try and save their own life. It's all a bunch of romanticized bullshit.

And he thinks you're a dumbass for believing that your soulmate would be a good person. Jeff doesn't understand why he hasn't killed you yet, you're just some nobody that he for some reason enjoyed the company of. Maybe it's because you never try changing him. Or maybe it's boredom, who knows.

But he hates when you talk about your soulmate that you've yet to meet. You speak as if you're already in love, and it leaves this suffocating feeling in his chest each time. It didn't feel like anger or annoyance, but he was too prideful to label it as jealousy. Why would he be jealous?

Why do you want to meet your soulmate so badly anyway? You have him. He may not be your soulmate, but does it really matter? You better really hope this man never realizes he's in love with you because you're actually fucked if he does, like…

The moment he comes to terms with his feelings for you, you're never meeting your soulmate. He's crossing out their name on your wrist with his knife and replacing it with his own. You wanted to meet your soulmate so badly, so there. Now he's your soulmate. His name is forever carved on your skin, after all.

He may even force you to carve your name into his arm as well to further solidify the whole ‘soulmate’ thing you so desperately craved. You're stuck with him now, like it or not. No amount of screaming and crying will change what's happened.

Jeff doesn't understand why you're so upset. You wanted this. You were practically begging him for it, always telling him your dream life with the one you're destined with. Seriously, you should've expected this from him.

But it's okay, he'll be the soulmate that you've always wanted.

He'll stay by your side. He'll kill anyone who dares to even think about you. You said so yourself, you don't need anyone so long as you have your soulmate.

Really, he's just giving you what you want. Though he won't lie, he can't help but feel a sick and twisted pleasure at having you depend on him. He likes having you around, even if it's with your mouth taped shut to keep you quiet.

Maybe this soulmate thing isn't as bad as he thought it was.

HOMICIDAL LIU — had always dreamed of meeting his soulmate when he was younger. Something about soulmates always fascinated him, and he absolutely loved hearing stories of soulmates meeting and falling in love.

He learned from a pretty young age that whoever his soulmate was, he shared scars with them. This was something he discovered when he felt a stinging sensation on his arm one day and he could see the scar manifest on his skin. He had been so fascinated by it, and even excitedly showed it off to his parents and Jeff as if it were some sort of reward.

Though, after nearly dying at the hand of his little brother, Liu had become… terrified at the thought of meeting his soulmate. He knew that you shared his scars now. You probably got weird looks from people on the street because of them, right?

And it must've been a horrific experience, waking up in the middle of the night to blinding pain all over your face and neck and arms, unable to stop the scars from forming, not knowing what was happening. You probably hated him. He wouldn't blame you if he did.

But when Liu met you, there was no way he'd be able to let you go. At first, he had just seen you in passing, He knew you were his soulmate the moment he laid eyes on you because you weren't even trying to hide the scars you had. You wore them proudly. He had followed you home that night, just to make sure you were safe.

He felt bad about it, but he couldn't help but come back the next day. His mother must be yelling at him from her grave, scolding him for stalking his soulmate instead of just talking to them like a normal person. A simple mistake on his end (aka Sully literally forced the man in front of you) led to the two of you actually meeting.

You had been so concerned, asking him if he were okay. It had been years since he sustained these injuries, but you still asked. You had always wanted to ask, ever since that night. Your pain was dull in comparison to what he must've gone through, and Liu nearly cried experiencing your kindness because he simply did not deserve it.

Liu tries really hard to have a normal relationship with you, he really does, but he's so utterly paranoid about your safety almost constantly when he's away from you. It makes him sick to his stomach imagining the danger you could potentially find yourself in without him around to keep you safe.

It didn't help that Sully only amplified these thoughts and good lord, how would you react to meeting Sully? Liu had always been very careful making sure that he never fronted when you were around, but Sully was starting to become ansty, eager to meet you.

When Liu wasn't hunting Jeff, he was with you. Sometimes you knew, but most of the time, you didn't. Stalking you was second nature at this point, and he doubts it's something he'll ever stop doing. Besides, it's not like he's hurting anyone by stalking the person he loves. Is it completely wrong and a violation of privacy and respect? Yes. Does he feel guilty? Absolutely. Will he stop? No chance. This is for your safety, after all.

Sully thinks he's a fucking fool behaving this way all for one person just because you're his soulmate (which he also thinks is dumb, by the way.) but then he actually meets you for the first time. You had immediately clocked in on the fact that he wasn't Liu, even though Sully prides himself on mimicking the man fairly well. Looks like you have two soulmates now! Yay!

Unfortunately for you, Sully is a lot more direct than Liu. Liu keeps his possessive thoughts to himself whilst Sully makes it very clear that you belonged to them. Liu's affection was hesitant, scared that he may hurt you if he's too eager. Sully's affection was almost suffocating, the way he'd cling to you and refuse to let go.

And if you ever decide that being with them is too much, trust me when I say they will go to great lengths to keep you with them. Liu isn't above locking you away somewhere if it means keeping you safe, and Sully won't hesitate to kill someone just to keep you in check.

Liu just wants to keep you safe. You can't protect yourself, so let him do it for you.

EYELESS JACK — was confused by the blackened, withered string connected to his pinkie. He knew what soulmates were, though he's not sure why the remnant of one was still tied to him. After his… changes… he shouldn't have a soulmate at all, not even the remnants of one.

Even the smallest string around his finger meant the bond was still there. It made no sense, it defied nature itself just by existing. He didn't understand, but he couldn't deny that he was curious. Whoever was on the other side of this string was destined to be with him, how could he not be curious?

It took time, but Jack had plenty to spare. He followed the string as best he could. The poor thing was so fragile, the smallest tug could tear the bond apart. He's not sure what he'll do when he finds the one he has a fragile bond with, to be honest. Soulmates aren't really… useful, to him. His only driving force is survival. Food. Nothing else is important.

Yet this was, oddly enough. There was just something deep inside of him telling him that he needed to find his soulmate.

And when he found the end of his string, it was connected to you. Now, Jack has no memory of who he was before becoming a flesh-eating demon. He was human once, he thinks, so maybe that's why there's something so familiar about you. A long forgotten part of himself was craving you.

And you? You were utterly horrified to find someone that resembles your missing best friend in your home one night. This was Jack, and yet… he wasn't. You didn't know this man. You didn't want to know this man. But he didn't care. Jack was dead set on having you.

He wouldn't leave you alone. He showed up every single night just to watch you. It was unnerving. To you, it felt like he was waiting for the right time to strike. You were waiting for him to kill you, to devour your soul or whatever.

To him, he was protecting you.

You were his mate. That's what he recognized you as. And as your mate, it was his duty to protect you. He didn't see his behavior as odd. To him, he was just providing for you. He saw no harm in breaking into your home every night to make sure you were safe.

Jack may not understand fully why he's attached to you like this, but he can make an educated guess. It's clear that you knew him. Or, you did, at least. You look at him as if you're looking at a ghost. Clearly, you were someone he's always been attached to. Though, it seems his demonic traits have amplified that attachment.

He won't hesitate to hunt you down if you try running away.

There's nowhere you can go where he won't find you. He'll follow you to the ends of the earth, if he must.

Jack doesn't need you to love him back. Hell, he doesn't need you to like him. He just needs you, in any way he can have you. His entire being aches when he's not with you.

So here you are, stuck with the creature. You're haunted by him, really. And, to be honest, you're not sure if you wanted him to leave.

NINA THE KILLER — wrote literal fanfic on how she wanted her first meeting with her soulmate to go. All she ever wanted was for someone to love her, so when she learned that the inner voice that all of her thoughts was in belonged to her soulmate, she was utterly ecstatic!

This was the only thing in life that mattered to her. Nothing else was important. Everyone in her life thought she was strange, how obsessed she was over someone she hasn't even met.

But if they could hear your voice, they'd understand. Whenever she needed comfort, she would just think random thoughts so she could hear your voice.

And when she finally meets you, it's like something out of a fairytale. To her, at least. She had just broken into your home to kill you, but when you begged for your life, it was like everything clicked.

She looked at you as if you were everything she could ever need, and it made you feel sick to your stomach.

Nina had no plans of letting you go now that she finally had you. One moment, you're in your home, and then the next, you're waking up in a cabin deep in the forest, decorated to seem like a cozy home.

She acted as if she hadn't kidnapped you. In her mind, you two were pretty much married already. You're her soulmate, after all! That's better than marriage in her eyes. And if you don't play along with her, she won't hesitate to remind you just exactly what she could do to you.

Not that she would ever actually hurt you!

No, Nina could never do that. You're the only thing that has kept her sane all these years. Your voice is the only thing that keeps her going these days.

You just gotta understand that Nina can't live without you. She'd never hurt you, but she's not above scaring you into compliance if it means you'll play along with her fantasies.

But if you ignore the fact that she kidnapped you and is holding you hostage in a cabin so deep in the woods that your chance of escape is slim to none, she's actually probably the best soulmate you could ever ask for. When you actually play along with her, that is.

She doesn't force too much affection on you. If she wants to cuddle you, she will, like it or not. But she never takes it any further than that. She respects your boundaries in her own sick and twisted way.

There's no escaping her love now that she finally has you. She'll drown you in it until it's all you'll want.

THE BLOODY PAINTER — had no real interest in meeting his soulmate, even if it meant his world lacked color. The lack of color in his world didn't deter from his passion for art, and he didn't need to see color to create a masterpiece. If anything, the black and white world he lived in seemed to fit him perfectly.

Sure, he had a few passing thoughts on what his soulmate might be like, but it's nothing he ever really entertained. And if he ever met his soulmate, he sincerely doubts he'd want any real connection with them. Rather, he doubts they'd want anything to with him.

So imagine his surprise when he bumps into you one day and color suddenly bursts into his world. It's dizzying, for the both of you, but all Helen can focus on is the red you were wearing.

Red is a beautiful color on you.

It's an awkward start to your relationship, mostly because it was so sudden. Neither of you really knew what to do, and in the beginning, it honestly seemed as if you two just weren't meant to be. But somehow, it seemed to work out.

Helen really didn't want you finding out about his whole serial killer thing. He wanted a normal relationship with you. Something that would separate him from the whole ‘Bloody Painter’ title the media had given him.

He could spend hours just drawing you. You invade his every thought most days, and he can draw you from memory. He has numerous sketchbooks just filled to the brim with drawings of you. And almost all of them feature the color red in some way.

Art was his main way of expressing his love to you. His expression was always apathetic and his words never felt like enough to him, so what better way to show his love than by painting you masterpieces? Almost every piece of art he made these days were dedicated to you. Even his murders.

It was only a matter of time before you learned about his side hobby, unfortunately. You were smart, something he loved very dearly about you. He's not sure when you started to suspect him of being a killer, but he knew you were starting to become wary of him. Whenever the news talked about a recent murder, he could always feel the way your gaze drifted over to him, even if for a moment.

To be honest, he didn't see any reason to confirm nor deny your suspensions. He was curious to see whether you'd stay with him or if you'd try to leave the longer you suspected him. Not that he'd let you, of course. Helen couldn't lose you, you were his muse. If he lost you, how could he ever create art?

Helen would only do something if you tried telling someone about your suspicions. Maybe your friend or family member was a detective, but whoever you try telling is going to end up a bloodied corpse in front of you, your boyfriend standing over their corpse with a look of mild disgust.

Their blood smearing onto your skin when Helen gently cups your cheeks, telling you how careless you had been, how you left him with no choice but to kill that person. You were freaked out by the entire situation, but Helen wouldn't let you go.

Red truly is a beautiful color on you.

TICCI TOBY — genuinely had no idea he had a soulmate, simply because he couldn't feel pain. Truth be told, he didn't even know what soulmates were until he was already a proxy. Kate had been kind enough to explain it to him, when he questioned the mark on her neck.

It was a concept that he found interesting because the idea of meeting someone who would finally understand him was too good to pass up. At the same time, he couldn't help but think it to be bullshit. Toby had always been disillusioned to love, even if he couldn't quite remember why. It just seemed too good to be true.

He wasn't even sure if he had a soulmate, truth be told. He didn't have any marks on him as far as he could tell, and there were no words or names or anything like that. He just assumed he was one of the rare few that didn't have a soulmate.

But then he met you.

You, the newest proxy. Fresh meat, dazed and confused and in need of training. He was like you once, years ago. He trained himself, too stubborn to listen to anyone else. Because of that, Slender always made him train any new proxy it brought. It annoyed him beyond belief, but he didn't have much of a choice.

There was something strange about you. He's not quite sure what it was, but he found it strangely difficult to look away from you for too long. There was just… something drawing him to you. He only understood why when he cut himself on his hand when he retrieved one of his hatchets he had you throwing.

You had gasped. It was a pained one, so of course he had to check you for injuries. When he found the cut on your hand, you had pointed out the fact that he had a similar one on his own. It was… weird, truthfully. And maybe he was being dumb, or whatever, but Toby couldn't help but wonder if… were you his soulmate?

The very thought was enough to drag his hatchet across his arm, watching as the very same cut he had given himself tore into your skin as well. It had left him speechless, to say the least. He felt conflicted in so many ways, and to be honest, he avoided you in the beginning. He had nobody for the longest time, and now he suddenly has a soulmate? It was just a bit much for him, and he needed the space.

But trust that once he's accepted that he has someone in his life now, you're stuck with him. Toby isn't a physical person, so you don't have to worry about him actually sticking to you, but he always seems to be keeping an eye on you. For Toby, he's always been hyper aware of his surroundings because if he's not, he could get hurt without realizing it and then bleed out and die, so sad. But now he has to make sure you don't get hurt as well, already becoming increasingly protective over you.

Any missions tasked to you, Toby will always join you. Doesn't matter how simple the mission is, or if you or Slender try to argue with him, he's going.

He's so protective over you that it borders on possessive. He hates when you get close to anyone, and the moment you leave his line of sight, he's hunting you down. Friend or foe, Toby doesn't want you near them. You have to understand that everyone has bad intentions. Hell, Toby himself acknowledges his behavior to be bad as well, he's well aware of that fact. But to him, it's for your own good. You can trust him, but you can't trust anyone else.

And there's literally no chance that you'll be able to leave him if you tried. As a proxy of Slenderman, you're stuck with him. Slender doesn't care about your comfort, it only cares about you completing the missions it gives to you. Sure, it finds Toby's behavior strange and mildly annoying, but it's not causing you any physical harm, so it simply doesn't care.

But Toby would never, under any circumstances, hurt you. That's something he will vehemently refuse to do no matter what, so you could use that against him if need be.

Just… just let him have this. Let him have you.

[taiyaakii]

⋆. 𐙚 ˚ Busy schedule ! . . . ( 西村力 )

— pairing: 西村力 x reader — contains: angst, readers a lonely clingy loser, mean ki, fluff — now playing: 一子青葉

"She became a victim of my busy schedule though, and I know that it's not fair that don't mean that I don't care."

Riki was always busy. He had a bunch of extracurriculars he did for school on top of dance, so you never really got the chance to see him anymore.

He'd always apologize, saying he knew it sucked never getting any of his attention but in the end, nothing ever changed. He was still busy and you still rode the train home alone every day.

Riding the train by yourself wasn't a new concept, lonely yeah but you got used to it eventually.

People on the train were usually either elders coming home from work or students huddling in groups of themselves, and it sounds depressing but beyond Riki, you didn't really have friends, which was okay. Until Riki joined a bunch of extracurriculars beyond his daily dance practice, which left him no time for you.

And it's bad to think about but the thought eventually got a hold of you and you started wondering if Riki enjoyed not being around you as often. You were clingy so it was understandable wanting some space from you, it still made you upset to think about though.

This thought alone has caused you to distance yourself from Riki subconsciously, which despite how busy he is he noticed because you're still his girlfriend after all.

-

The train was often packed with teenagers on the way home, you'd think you'd bump into someone and make friends for once but not once has it happened. You've begun to lose hope in talking to people.

Sure you could strike up a conversation but that's terrifying so you choose not to, which is probably one of the reasons you don't have any friends. How you started knowing Riki on the other hand was a grace from god.

In middle school, Riki came up to you rather then the other way around and asked to be friend's.

Spacing out on the train, thinking to yourself made you realize just how lonely you were when he was he wasn't around. Considering he's been your only friend since you guys were 12, being 18 in high school now. You've become slightly dependent on him, and it's another thing you've added to the long list of your lonely life.

Long lost in thought you feel a head hit your shoulder, you jump slightly cause it startled you but when you look to your right its a boy. Probably fell asleep, why else would he put his head on a stranger's shoulder.

Your body tensed up a bit, it was kinda hard to not be tense with someone resting on you.

You wanted to wake him and ask him to move but disrupting him wasn't in your best interest so you left him alone. On the plus side his hair smelled really nice.

-

The train came to an abrupt stop which shook the boy awake

Realizing he had fallen asleep on a stranger, he stood up and started apologizing profusely like a scolded child.

You followed in his steps and stood up, letting out shaky reassurance and telling him not to worry about it. It was overwhelming with people around looking at the two of you but eventually, he calmed down and explained himself "I really didn't mean to fall asleep on you like that, let me make it up to you!"

He was enthusiastic and energetic, especially for someone who was just freaking out.

"Oh oh no need! Really it's not a big deal." Still shaky you tried to convince him he was blowing it out of proportion. He wasn't taking no for an answer and he even managed to get your number so he could apologize more properly later.

After that he said goodbye and ran off the train, leaving you dumbfounded. You kind of just spaced out the rest of the way home, the whole situation was so dumb it was kind of funny.

So funny you wanted to tell Riki which you planned to do when you guys called tonight, you guys always called sometime before bed.

It was a point he made. No matter how busy he was and how little time he had for you, he'd always call.

You laid in bed waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

12am and no call. You weren't mad at him, you understood he couldn't always be there but you thought some notice would've been nice, instead of just laying there for hours on your phone.

Time passed and you gave up on waiting for a call. You placed your phone on your nightstand and got in bed.

Your mind started to wander, what was he doing that was so important? All of his activities end before 5 so why couldn't he call you? Was he okay? Was it a family thing? Did you do something?

In the midst of thinking you fell asleep.

-

In English the next day, during break time. It was your 4th period and Riki had yet to even mutter a word to you. As time passed, it was getting more upsetting and even more nerve-wracking.

You scanned over everything that's happened the past few days and you couldn't think of anything you've done.

You looked back at Riki to see him sitting at his desk analyzing his work, but you turned back around when you got a text.

Some random number that you didn't have saved.

"You're in English rn right?" The text creeped you out a bit, so you pressed to know who it was "Oh shit sorry! Just realizing I never gave you my name yesterday! It's Akio from the train. I wanted to come say hi if you were in English :)" Knowing it was him made it sorta less creepy feeling, he was still technically a stranger though.

You hesitated on replying but gave in "Ohh right haha, yeah I'm in English"

He liked the message but didn't actually say anything back.

Eventually, he came swinging in loudly with a booming "HI" as soon as he opened the door. It shocked not only you but everyone.

Riki who was staring at the boy in confusion.

Riki's eyebrows furrowed even more as he saw the boy walk up to you and hug you like you'd known him forever, slightly glaring at the boy. He sit's down in the chair next to you "What class do you have next?" His voice still much too loud for the atmosphere, the girl next to us shushed him, in which he apologized quietly and turned back to you.

"Uh math." You said quietly, shaken up by the boys incredibly friendly demeanor.

The boy started rambling on about how that was his next class too and how it's surprising you guys hadn't become friends sooner, all while you look back at Riki to see him still eyeing the boy down.

Riki got easily jealous, and he was possessive, but this looked more like confusion and annoyance then anything.

While on the other hand luckily for you the boy tended to talk more then he listened which was good as you were still too nervous to talk to him like a normal person.

Once Riki realized you weren't all that invested in what the boy had to say he finally took his eyes off of the boy and returned to his work.

After what felt like forever of Akio rambling and you silently smiling and nodding, it was time for Math.

Besides Math and English, you and the boy didn't have any other classes together, so the rest of the day went as normal, besides the fact that Riki seemed busier than usual and wasn't talking to you.

But the way home from school was different.

On the train ride home, you were walking to sit where you usually do when a familiar voice started to yell for you, you turned around, and it was Akio.

He grabbed your wrist and pulled you to a seat, exclaiming that now you had someone to ride the train with. Before you could get a word in, he continued, once again going on about anything and everything.

He was a bit over the top for you, but you had to admit, he was nice, and the company was nice too.

-

The train came to a stop, and you said your goodbyes, he offered to walk you home, but you declined. You told him you lived a bit from the station, and he left it at that. Getting home you got into some comfy clothes and passed out.

Asleep for about an hour and a half, you were awoken by a text from Riki

All it read was "I'm coming over" Don't get me wrong you were excited he was coming over; this was the first time in a while, but you were still upset with him for not only not calling you but also ignoring you all day. So you just texted back a simple "ok" and started your homework while waiting for him to arrive.

He didn't live very far so it didn't take long, as soon as he got there, he plopped on your bed and gave you a look.

You asked him what it was for, and he stayed silent for a few seconds followed by a contemplating hum, "Who was he? The guy in English that was acting all buddy-buddy with you?" He said it so calmly as if he didn't care if he got an answer.

"Ohh I met him on the train" You turned back to the homework on your desk "He fell asleep on me and asked for my number so he could apologize later!" his brows furrowed and his eyes creased a bit, "Seriously?"

You nodded and he continued "He gave you his number so he could 'apologize later'?" You again nodded at his very sarcastic question.

His tongue played with the inside of his cheek "Has he apologized yet?" He sounded almost annoyed

You chuckled nervously, his gaze was strong and intimidating.

"No, not yet.." He let out a 'psh' sound, he was clearly annoyed but not with you. More so with the situation. "He gave you his number cause he thought you were cute. Not cause he wanted to apologize." His voice was deeper

You didn't believe it so you rebutted "That's not true ki, I'm sure he'll apologize soon!" He continued to look at you, almost like he was trying to analyze what you were thinking. "Block him" He sits up on your bed

"What??"

He repeats himself "Block him"

"Why Riki."

"Are you dumb? He clearly doesn't want to just apologize. Does he know you have a boyfriend?" He started to sound angry, almost a little sad sounding. "How do you know that? You've never met him."

"I've met guys like him and you didn't answer my question, does he know you have a boyfriend? Me? Does he know you have me?"

You opened your mouth but nothing came out for a second, "I don't know? I mean I didn't mention it" Before you can finish, he tsk's and looks away "But the only reason I didn't mention it was cause he didn't ask Riki. I really don't think he's trying to get with me."

He ignored you "What's so good about him anyway?" He was starting to get fed up "He's nice Riki. I mean he made time to see me in English today despite being busy himself." You emphasized the 'made time to see me' part which Riki took as a jab.

You didn't necessarily mean it as one but you were tired of never seeing your boyfriend and so it just kinda came out. "You know I try to make time for you." Instead of sounding annoyed, he sounded genuinely hurt and tired, he looked down a bit as he continued "And I know that you don't really have friends besides me but you shouldn't befriend the first person that talks to you." He gets off your bed and heads to the door, "It's stupid and pathetic." He finishes before he shuts the door, harder than he should have.

His voice was laced with venom, almost like the sadness from before completely desecrated. And it left you dumbfounded too.

You weren't one to cry, you didn't cry about anything.

Not that you couldn't, but you made a point not to. It's pathetic and embarrassing, but despite that, you felt your eyes well up. You wiped them before anything could come out and decided to head to bed early. Couldn't cry if you weren't awake!

Granted it took forever to get to sleep, but you kept replaying what Riki said non-stop. 'Stupid and pathetic' weren't new words to you, but when they came out of Riki's mouth they felt a million times worse.

-

Going to School was dreadful, more than before.

Riki was avoiding you and so you were avoiding him back. You continued to hang out with Akio, it probably wasn't the best idea but you rather hang out with someone Riki doesn't like than be lonely again.

A whole week of this pettiness has gone by, nightly phone calls have stopped, goodnight and good morning texts, walking you to and from school whenever he had the chance, all of it stopped.

You know you shouldn't totally blame Ki, it wasn't completely his fault. You said some mean stuff too, but you couldn't help but be so angry at him despite it all.

Of course, you guys have gotten into arguments, and of course, with those arguments came insults but he'd never said something so cruel to you, something you confided in him he used against you, which hurt the most.

Everything was too much to think about so you dove into your studies, more than you already were. Not only studies but other things too, anything to get your mind off of it. Throwing yourself into things isn't a new concept for you, you did it whenever you got overly anxious. It would cause you to eat less, go outside less, and socialize even less than you usually do. Now the difference between then and now is you'd usually have Riki to make you feel better, but you don't so sitting in your dark room all day will continue.

Riki on the other hand, doesn't know what he's feeling. Though he's noticed you not taking care of yourself properly which is making him feel crazy guilty, he knows it's because of him.

Riki's so mad at you for choosing some other guy but he feels so bad for the things he said.

He didn't mean it, he knew you knew that, at least he hoped.

He just wanted to apologize and make it all better but he couldn't. His pride mixed with not having a lot of time made it hard to talk to you so he just didn't bother. Plus he wanted to truly work out what he was going to say before he attempted to talk to you.

He'd catch your eyes in every class, in the lunchroom, in the auditorium, everywhere. He wanted to see your face, he wanted to see you and hold you but he just couldn't let himself be vulnerable and admit he misses you. He's hoping you'd do that but you were just as 'non-vulnerable' as he was, maybe even more.

Which meant he'd either have to make it up to you or lose you over some random boy you met a few weeks ago. Luckily for you, he's sickly in love with you whether he'd admit it or not so he chose the former.

-

It wasn't spontaneous, Riki thought it over.

He planned when it would happen, how it would happen, where it would happen, and what he thought the outcome would be. He wanted to start it all off by making sure to spend the whole day with you.

So he went to your house before school, he loved walking you to school but he rarely got to do it since he had to be at school so early. But the way you get all giddy when you see him at the door makes him happy so he canceled morning activities to walk you.

Seeing him at the door was a little surprising, especially cause he didn't knock, you opened it before he could and the walk to school was uneventful. Silent, but not awkward.

Riki didn't try to hold your hand. He didn't want to make you upset by acting like nothing was wrong, but when passing by a little shop he grabbed your wrist and pulled you inside.

At the rate you two were going you would've been early to school, and he saw something in the window he knows you've been eyeing so why not.

He didn't say anything as he pulled you through the shop up to where the display was.

A large stand with matching phone charms.

It was a niche interest you had, and you had tons of them at home but the thing about these ones is that they're matching.

Two long chains, decorated with beads that had small charms on the end. One with black beads and a white star on the end, the other with white beads and a black star on the end.

Riki knew you had been looking at them for a while, thinking it was cute considering his favorite color is black and yours is white.

He found matching things cute, he found it even cuter when you'd get a tint of rose on your cheeks and try to hide your smile as you showed him a new piece of matching items you bought for the two of you.

He thought about this as he walked to the register, making his own cheeks turn a slight shade of pink as he looked at you. You weren't looking at him but it didn't go unnoticed.

Walking out of the store, chains in hand, without letting go of your wrist Riki asks for your phone and puts the charm on.

He does the same for his phone and then holds them up together in his hand to show them off.

You tried to act non-cholent but your dumb little smile made its way onto your face and made Riki smile even harder as he handed you your phone back, and you guys continued walking.

You hated your smile. You felt it was too... cheeky. Too wide, and it made your cheeks all big.

But Riki adored it. The way your eyes would light up and close a little every time something made you happy, or how you'd cover your mouth if you felt you were smiling too much, just for him to pull your hand down and hold it in his. He loved your smile, he always looked for it everywhere he was, he especially loved it when it was he who was the one causing it.

He knew he couldn't always be the reason you were smiling but as long as you were happy it didn't matter to him.

He kept on glancing at you just to see you smiling and looking at the phone charm, you saw him doing it but didn't say anything. You thought it was cute how cheesy he acted when he thought no one was looking.

-

The rest of the school day was normal for the most part; the assigned seats of each class were fumbling with Riki's plans to be by your side all day, which he knew would happen.

Tables in your class were set in pairs of two, you were at the front of the class seated with a girl you barely knew and Riki was a few seats behind.

As break time started, Riki used his height to his advantage and threw a piece of paper above the guy in front of him and it landed perfectly on your desk. You looked back to see who it was, despite already knowing. You gave him a small smile which made him melt, and as you opened it you saw two stick figures holding hands in a flower field.

It was cheesy, yeah but it was cute. Cuter coming from Riki as he wasn't one for cutesy things.

He would write cute little notes and letters to stick in your locker but that was rare, so this act made you blush so bad you had to hide your face slightly.

You went to draw a cute photo back but before you could even get your pen out Akio spotted you and caught your attention.

Riki tried to ignore it, he didn't like the guy yeah but he also knew he was your first friend besides himself so he wanted to attempt to become friends with him for your sake.

Looking at Akio you saw Riki come up behind him. They had never stood side by side so you never realized how much taller Riki was in comparison and it shocked Akio too as he let out a child-like yelp when he turned around and saw Riki behind him.

You could tell Akio put his guard up a little.

-

During Riki and your petty silent treatment towards each other, you talked to Akio about how you were dating Riki and that you still wanted to be his friend but there needed to be a bit of distance.

He took it really well which was lucky for you as you had a hard time confronting people.

-

Akio backed up a little from Riki who was giving him a slightly annoyed-confused look, and bumped into your desk.

He wasn't scared of Riki per se, but Riki was intimidating. Tall, broad, cold stare, etc.

But in the moment of silence, Riki begrudgingly introduced himself.

Akio stood up a bit and introduced himself back, voice kinda shaky which made Riki chuckle. Akio, who has proved himself to make friends easily, quickly got comfortable with Riki and started talking about anything and everything.

As the conversation went on, Riki took the seat next to you as the girl had left a bit ago.

Riki grabbed your hand under the table, another thing he didn't often do as PDA wasn't something he enjoyed.

Eventually, the break was over, and it was time for the next class.

Akio said his goodbyes and ran off, Riki on the other hand wanted to walk you to your next class.

Walking to class, Riki had yet to let go of your hand, rubbing his thumb back and forth here and there.

And luckily the class was on the other side of the building which left you guys some time to talk, or more specifically some time for him to apologize.

He looked over at you almost nervously and squeezed your hand the tiniest bit before starting.

"I didn't mean it." He wasn't the greatest at starting apologies or apologizing in general, and although you were pretty sure you knew what he was talking about, you still asked. "Didn't mean what?"

He took a sharp breath in "When I said you were stupid and pathetic, just overall being a jerk..." he paused and looked at you before continuing.

"But that's not even all, I haven't been making any time for you, I was petty and ignored you, I got overly jealous and possessive, and I have just been a huge asshole." You were so focused on him apologizing that you hadn't even realized you guys weren't in the school building anymore, you were outside behind the school, in the small garden the school had created not too long ago.

"What are we doing out here?" You looked at him with confusion "I wanted to talk with you more privately."

"We're gonna get in trouble for skipping class, Ki."

"Don't worry about it, okay? I'll take all the blame." You looked at him, debating if you should stay out here or convince him to talk later but his eyes were almost pleading for you to stay out there, and so you listened. "Fine," you said with a slight smile.

He took a second to collect his thoughts and how he was going to go about this but eventually, he got it and started.

"I'm sorry I've left you alone so long. And I'm truly so sorry that I never made time for you, a busy schedule isn't an excuse to be distant, and I need to learn that."

"Rik-" You tried to cut him off and say it wasn't his fault but he didn't let you. "Wait just, wait okay." You shut up

"I care about you so much, you're truly the only one for me, and you mean the world to me. What I said during our fight was so fucked up, and I need you to know I didn't mean any of it. I want to be around you all the time, but I know I can't, and I'm glad you found someone you can be with when I'm not around.

I want you to know that I want to make all of this up to you. All the lost time, the phone calls I missed, the dates, just hanging out together, I want to make up for all of it. And I will, I promise.

I love you. A lot, and I'm gonna prove it this time. I'm going to be the best boyfriend you can ask for and I'm going to be your best friend again. Okay? I'm going to spend as much time as I possibly can with you. I love you so much. You don't have to forgive me now but I-"

"Riki." You successfully cut him off this time as he was starting to run out of breath and his cheeks were all pink.

He looks at you like a scolded puppy, catching his breath a little, Pure word vomit he thought.

"I love you too, so much. And I promise I'm not mad. It hurt never seeing you, yeah, and we definitely have distanced, ourselves as both a couple and friend but it's not your fault. You're busy and I understand okay?" He gave you an apologetic small smile before bringing you into a hug

It was warm and loving, just as all of Riki's hugs were.

He put his head into the crook of your neck, "I missed this so much" He mumbled, squeezing his arms around you tighter. "I'll do better. I promise." You smiled and softly caressed his hair. "I love you Ki."

"I love you too baby. So much."

-

Later throughout the day Riki walked you to every class, smiled at you whenever your eyes met, and was friendly with Akio whenever he came around.

After school, he came to your house and you guys just laid with each other. Something you hadn't done in ages, and although you knew he wouldn't be able to do this every day, you were just happy he was trying to make more time for you, and he was just happy to have his girlfriend back.

@ featki

Note: Sorry if the ending is bad or rushed, iv been working on this for like 2-3 weeks now and just wanted it out. But this is definitely my longest fic and I hope u guys like it :)) also I think I made Akio seem like a bigger character than he actually was... srry

[gh0stsp1d3r]

ℱ𝓊𝑔𝒾𝓉𝒾𝓋ℯ𝓈

req: for cowboy!jj, I imagined something like reader and him having to host john b for a while (fugitive perhaps?) and since then, they can't have a moment together (I don't know if you see what I mean) I find it amusing then bromance or romance? (Jj must make a choice)

req by @nemesyaaa

Warnings: Suggestive ending, jealousy :3

“Okay, warning, she is a little…” JJ started, standing in front of the door.

“Just say it.” John B sighed.

“Hesitant about this whole hostin’ thing.” He tilted his head to the side, and opened up the door.

“Y/n?” He called out, hanging his hat up on a rack, and motioning for John B to do the same. You came into his vision, eyes widening at what you saw.

The man that the police had put up posters of was in your living room. He was considered “armed and dangerous.” But he looked like neither. He peeked out from behind JJ, clearly hesitating to be inside your home.

“H- hi.” You gave him a little wave, JJ wrapped his arms around you, hugging you and giving you a kiss on the cheek.

“He’s fine, honey. He ain’t gonna do nothing.” He told you quietly, stepping away from you.

“I uh- fixed up a spare room.” You motioned to the room on the side.

“Thank you, ma’am.” John B nodded, following JJ to the room.

Now JJ had always been the best husband you could ask for. He supported you in your dreams and decisions, even when it went against a bunch of the towns norms, he was the sweetest, most caring man you could get.

His flaw? He was an outlaw, and tended to get into business with the wrong people.

JJ came back out the room, letting John B get settled in.

“How long did you say was he gonna be here again?” You asked JJ.

“However long it takes to get the sheriff off his back. But you don’t gotta worry about him, swear.”

After a few days, you got used to the man. He was kind, always thankful. You didn’t have to worry about him. At least not in the way you thought you would.

JJ had spent every living moment with John B. More than you, you felt like. Were you jealous? Nope. Absolutely not. Maybe a little…

You pretended to not care, acting like it was fine.

You both sat on the porch, finally getting a moment to yourselves. He sat with his head in your lap, your hands running through his hair, that was until the door opened and he jolted away, looking over to John B.

“Hey, dude!” JJ cheered, you huffed and just leaned back, watching them talk, John B sitting next to him. You played with the hem of your shirt, letting out quiet sighs, hoping JJ would pick up on your feelings. He didn’t.

It was that night in bed, when he said goodnight to John B and went under the covers, that you asked him.

“Are you in love with him or something?”

“What? No.” He laughed at you. “What’s this about, baby?”

“It’s just..” you huffed again. “I feel like since he’s been here, all you’ve been doing is talking with him. I don’t wanna be that jealous annoying wife but..”

He smiled, finding your jealousy amusing.

“He’s my best friend. Sorry if you feel like that, but I ain’t trying to ignore you.”

“It feels like you are.” You muttered, pulling the covers over you, turning away.

“Aw. C’mere, sweetheart.” He wrapped his arms around you, his front facing your back. “I love ya. You know that. No need to feel jealous.” He nuzzled his face into your neck, pressing a kiss onto your skin.

“I know.” You murmured. “Love you too.”

“You’re so cute. Gettin’ jealous over everything and anything. I like it. It’s hot.” He spoke against your skin, his talking muffled slightly.

“Oh, yeah?” You asked, turning to face him with a quirked brow.

“Hell yeah.” He smiled, both of you going underneath the covers.

[wirewitchviolet]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

[shadowmaat]

BoTh SiDeS

I think part of the problem I'm having is that I can't understand the antivoter mindset. Why is Palestine the ONLY issue that matters? Yes, genocide is bad, and yes, Palestinians have a right to live in peace, but so does everyone else.

There are other genocides taking place, too. There are devastating natural disasters around the world. There are outbreaks of disease. People starving. People being oppressed and killed. People here in the US are dying, too. From poverty. From police brutality. From food-borne illnesses brought about by lax regulations. Life here is so expensive that it's near-impossible for "average" people to live in any kind of comfort, and forget health care. Or housing. Education is a shambles and budgets keep getting cut back. The farmlands need help. Everyone needs help.

But the only issue that matters is Palestine. And since both candidates "support" Israel, then it's impossible for a morally pure and just person to vote for either of them. Because genocide. There's no "lesser evil" because both sides are equally bad.

Even if you accept that blatant fallacy, why is that the only thing that matters? Why doesn't it matter who is going to do more to protect Black people? Or queers? Why don't immigrant lives matter? Or education? Cost of living? I could go on and on, but apparently all of that is irrelevant because of Palestine.

And it doesn't matter that a lot of Palestinians didn't want Trump in charge. It doesn't matter that a lot of them don't care either way. All that matters is that the self-righteous left-left-leftists can feel better about their choices. Because genocide. But only Palestinian genocide. Those other ones are bad, too, but they aren't as important as Palestine. Because Palestine. In a conflict that has been going on for decades, this is the sole thing that matters. Let the whole world burn as long as people out there know that a bunch of left-left-leftists didn't vote for genocide supporters.

They just keep parroting the same line. And the more I hear it, the less I believe it. Because it obviously isn't just about Palestine. Or genocide in general. And I think they got the outcome they desperately wanted. Without having to sully their purity by voting.

Except, y'know, none of them are morally pure. Or good. Or just. And the rest of us know it.

[carolmunson]

okay, since some of you asked for it:

unpopular opinion but i don’t actually think eddie was a nice soft boy at all. dustin and mike are literally afraid to ask him to move hellfire. ‘he’s always revved up,’ implying that he’s always like this, always a little close to snapping. he’s not nice to them when he asks them to find a replacement. he also guilt trips them about 'taking them in like lost sheep' and shoves them off to find a replacement instead of keeping lucas included. which is why i don't understand the 'fierce protector of his friends' take because he's so quick to drop lucas just because he's 'moved to the dark side.' aka, throwing balls into laundry baskets.

which leads me to when he gets up on the table, people are not trying to fuck around with him. this is a common occurance, people are not surprised to see him up there and yelling. they aren't surprised that he's making a spectacle of himself. if eddie was soft and sweet, he would’ve gotten beat up. if eddie was soft and gentle, he'd probably be scared of jason. guys like jason in the 80s loved being macho and punching out losers — eddie just gave him the devil horns and called it a day. eddie’s absolutely gotten in fist fights before and won (his dad is a literal criminal!) otherwise someone would've thrown something or told him to shut the fuck up. people are scared of him, even his own friends! there’s more reasons than just playing DND and metal that make town certain that he’s a cult leader. you don't just assume someone is a murderer if they haven't shown any interest in violence before, especially considering his dad was likely a shitty dude. he even bullies erica when she first shows up to hellfire and only respects her when she bullies him back and bests him. he is someone you have to EARN respect from. he will never respect anyone outright or be understanding outright. he doesn't fully respect dustin or mike to start either, he views them as underlings.

even chrissy assumes he's going to be mean and scary, there's gotta be reason behind that. he's not nice or kind in school, which is likely a defense mechanism. he’s sweet with chrissy because he likes her, he has a crush on her. it’s very clear that he has since he was a kid, otherwise why would he bring up them hanging out in middle school? why would he even remember that if he hasn’t been pining for her this whole time? he admits too, albiet flirtily, that he thought SHE'D be mean and scary too, because he doesn't like people 'like that', people he assumes are 'on the dark side'. i’m sure he hoped they’d kiss a little when she went to his trailer. he's even a little sarcastic when she's there, again, defensive. 'the maid took the week off'. but ultimately, he's nice to her because he wants to kiss her and has a crush on her. i don't think it's because he's fully 'showing her who he really is'.

also he's a literal drug dealer????? like?????

he only becomes more gentle and open with dustin and co. when he gets pulled into the upside down/vecna stuff because he needs support. they grow a bond over shared trauma. and i do believe eddie had a big brother type relationship with dustin, but just like steve he loves him begrudgingly 'i love you, you little shit bag' kind of shit. i do believe he liked and cared for his friends but i also think he always had a big layer of mean kid armor on because he had a hard life growing up. how i percieved the character is 'mean bully whose secretly nice but is mean and boisterous and loud as a cover' trope. when he explains that his father taught him to hotwire, he seems bitter about it. of course he is, all the other kids were learning to play ball. but he obviously still retains this information and a whole bunch of other crime tricks from his dad. he's BEEN partaking in this shit. he KNOWS he's a shitty guy. you don't just get taught how to hotwire once and then suddenly know how to do it years later. he's done it before! multiple times! he has practice! he likely knows about warzone cause his daddy absoLUTELY had a gun or two. his dad probably took him there once. he was pulled left and right into bad shit growing up and that will HARDEN YOU. wayne says that murder 'ain't in his nature' and i'm sure it's not. i'm sure he's different with wayne, but idk, to me, it doesn't erase the fact that outwardly, i don't think eddie was nearly as sweet and gentle as people think he is canonically. i think he's a very hardened and tortured person and that even becomes clear with his reaction to chrissy's death and how he goes about things going forward. he was a weird kid with weird interests in a cookie cutter conservative town, had a criminal father, and an unconventional family situation in the 70s and 80s, that shit'll fuck you up and over -- look at boomers y'all! they are emotionally stunted! but, i could go on forever with this character analysis. so i'll stop here. but -- in the words of the real housewives reunion meme: that's MY OPINION!

[munsonsmixtapes]

Wanna Bet?

tattoo artist!Eddie x tattoo artist!reader

Summary: You don't like Eddie, but he's going to convince you that you do, even if it takes a bet to prove it.

This takes places in the year 2,000!

word count: 4k

This series is being discontinued until further notice, but feel free to continue reading if you'd like!

part two part three part four

You stared at the door in front of you, the hours that were painted onto it staring back at you. Maybe if you had stood there long enough, the place would’ve closed and you could just leave. You didn’t know why you were so nervous. You had more tattoos than anyone you knew so this one should’ve been a breeze. 

Maybe it was because it was a new place. There were new people you didn’t really know yet. The tattoo shop where you had worked had shut down because of a fire and you were still in shock because of it. So not only had you lost your job, but the appointment you had set up with Kip, the owner, had been canceled. He was the only one you trusted so you were hesitant when he had given you a referral. You didn’t care if it was a friend of his, you were still nervous as shit. 

Your hand rested on the door handle. You couldn’t get yourself to open it, bile climbing up your throat. You were terrified to say the least, anxiety coursing through you as you thought of every possible thing that could’ve gone wrong. 

You had your consultation with Gareth weeks ago and had called to reschedule because you had been scared, but now you were ready. It was just a small tattoo and Gareth had assured you that he’d go easy on you and you could take as many breaks as you wanted. You were looking forward to working with him despite your nervousness. 

You finally went inside and the whole place was very tidy despite the sketchy looking exterior. It definitely seemed like whoever owned the place knew exactly how to make people feel comfortable. There was a seating area by the front door with a large couch and a coffee table with a bunch of magazines spread out on it neatly. 

A coffee bar was sitting by the front desk, complete with a freshly brewed pot and an array of mugs that fit the aesthetic of the building. There were also different types of sweeteners and a small refrigerator that was filled with many different brands of bottled water as well as multiple different flavors of coffee creamer. 

The walls were covered in framed sketches and you wished you had the time to look at them all, fascinated by the details of each one. Rock music was playing loudly over the speakers and it was a song that you had recognized from the radio. 

You walked up to the reception desk and the same guy you had remembered from before was behind it typing away on the computer. He looked up at you and gave you a bright smile as if you were old friends. 

He was on the phone with who you assumed was a customer and it didn’t seem to be going well just from hearing his side of the conversation. 

“Yes, I am so sorry, Rebecca. Believe me, it won’t happen again. Yes, he knows all about it. Yes, I’ll tell him. You have my word. Alright. Buh-bye.” He hung up the phone and brought his attention to you, a bright smile on his face. 

“Hey, so sorry about that. Welcome in,” he greeted, his honey eyes shining bright from the sun shining through the window. “How can I help you?” 

“I have an appointment.” You gave him your first and last name and he typed some stuff into the computer before looking back up at you. You eyed him and couldn’t help but notice how out of place he looked there. He didn’t have a single tattoo on him and looked like he would’ve been scared to actually step foot into the building. 

“Alright, y/n,” his smile widened and you wondered if his cheeks ever hurt from doing that as often as he seemed to do. “If you’ll follow me, we can-“ His words were cut off by the front door opening. It was slammed shut so loudly that the frames on the wall rattled. Whoever had just entered had wanted to make an entrance and it clearly had worked since everyone had turned to see what all the commotion was about. Both you and the receptionist turned to see for yourselves to see the most beautiful man you had ever laid your eyes on. 

“I’m back, baby,” he announced, holding his arms out. Your eyes trailed down his body from his long curly hair to his black combat boots. He was so attractive and you wondered how you had never seen him before. You definitely would have remembered him if you had. The receptionist made a beeline for him as well as a few of the employees. It was clear that the man had been gone a while considering everyone’s reaction to him. He must have been pretty popular around there. 

“Steve, hug me, honey,” he pulled ‘Steve’ into his arms and pressed a kiss to his cheek only for Steve to rub it away in response. Despite his disgust, you could hear a little giggle fall from his mouth. Was this man God? He must have been because no one would react that way to a mediocre man, would they? At least, you hoped not. You hoped they all had higher standards than that. 

He took a drag of the cigarette he was holding and flashed you a smile before crossing the floor to the desk. The smoke passed through his lips and into the air and he titled his head down, his eyes locking onto yours. 

You knew his type just by looking at him. He was the life of the party. The kind of guy who thought that everyone was into him just because of his giant ego. And they were into him because of the way he carried himself. Like he didn’t give a damn about anything. And he didn’t. Not even the people who he claimed to be friends with. 

You could see him eyeing you when he stepped behind the desk, going through the envelopes that had been sitting on top of it. When most men checked you out, you’d pull your shirt down to show them a little cleavage, but for this guy, you just wrapped your cardigan around yourself, wanting to hide your body. He didn’t seem amused but wasn’t backing off. 

It was as if seeing the man had brought your confidence back. Like you were no longer the shy woman you had been just moments ago. Being around men who were full of themselves tended to do that to you. It was as if you felt the need to one up them, having more confidence than they did. You wanted to show that you had superiority. 

You turned your back to him, looking at the frames on the wall as you waited for your appointment to get straightened away. You didn’t have anywhere to be until you had to work later that night so you supposed that you could’ve waited just a bit longer. 

Your eyes locked onto one in particular. It was a sunflower and you normally wouldn’t have noticed it if it hadn’t stood out amongst all the other images that were far more dark subject matter. It was pretty and so realistic, like you could have reached out and plucked it from the painting. 

“Who’s the babe?” Eddie leaned over to Steve, whispering so he was the only one who could hear him. They both looked at you and you just avoided them, still looking at the frames. 

“She’s a client,” Steve replied, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He loved the guy, but sometimes he couldn’t help but think that Eddie was nothing but a pig. “Jesus, Eddie. You just got back home and already can’t keep your dick in your pants?” 

“I’m human,” Eddie smirked, his eyes moving down to your ass, admiring the shape of it before turning back to Steve. “Sue me. I mean, look at her man,” he referred to you with his hand. “Look at that ass.” He leaned closer to Steve, pulling his lip between his teeth as he turned back to you to get another glimpse. 

“Did you miss the word ‘client’ coming out of my mouth? I’m serious, Ed, you can’t keep sleeping with them. It not only makes you look bad, it also makes the company look bad.” 

The shop had gotten multiple phone calls that Steve had the unfortunate pleasure of being on the receiving end of because that had been the phone number he has given the people he had slept with because he hadn’t deemed them important enough to give them his home number. 

Not only that, but Steve had walked in on too many of Eddie’s “meetings” in his office and was sick of the guy making a habit of it. Could he have not slept with them in his car or at his house like a normal person? 

He was getting tired of the new persona Eddie had taken on as he had gotten more popular. It was fine when he had gotten the motorcycle and when he flirted a little with the clients to make them more comfortable, but he drew the line at him acting like the complete dickhead he had become, using people for their bodies just to throw them away when he was done. 

“I just want to-“

“You want to what?” Steve cut him off “Seduce her?”

“Maybe,” Eddie rounded the desk. “We’ll see where it goes.” Steve grabbed onto the back of his jacket and pulled him back, causing Eddie to let out a yelp. 

“Not so fast,” Steve shook his head. 

“I just want to say hi,” Eddie held his hands up in defense even though the both of them knew that he was lying. 

“Saying ‘hi’ leads to flirting which leads to seducing which leads to ‘your place or mine’ which leads to you saying you’ll call and then you never do. I’ve been keeping a tally of all the people who have called here because you were an ass.” Steve held up the notebook he had been writing it and Eddie’s eyes widened. 

“Five, ten, fifteen, twenty-“ Eddie counted of the tallies to himself, not even trying to hold back his smile.  

“Forty-five, Eddie,” Steve cut him off with a glare. 

“Forty-five,” Eddie repeated, a smirk kicking up at the corner of his rosy lips. 

“And this is just with clients,” he sighed, throwing the book down “Look, you can fuck whoever you want as long as they’re not seeking business from us.” 

“Steve-“

“No,” he pointed at his friend with the pencil he was holding. “If I find out that you did anything but greet her as the owner, I swear to god I will castrate you.” Eddie’s eyes widened at Steve’s threat but only for a second before his smirk took over again. 

“But what if-“

“No, this isn’t a challenge. I mean it, if you even so much as bat your eyelashes at her, I’m going to make sure that you can never use your dick again.”

“Are you coming on to me?” Eddie batted his eyelashes. That had only happened once and they both just decided that they were better off as friends. “Damn, Stevie. I didn’t know you felt that way about me.” Steve had felt that way about Eddie once upon a time, but not anymore. Especially not since Eddie started solely thinking with his dick. 

“You’re disgusting,” Steve glared before turning back to the computer. “Now leave me alone.” 

“Happy to.” Eddie rounded the desk and made a beeline to you. He had no intention of keeping Steve’s promise and seeing the look you gave him only made him want to flirt with you even more. He had to do what he could to get the sour look off of your face. 

Unbeknownst to Eddie, you had heard his entire conversation with Steve, neither of them quite knowing what an “inside voice” was. It didn’t surprise you that Eddie would fuck anyone who was human, and it especially didn’t surprise you that most of them were clients. If you hadn’t already gone through the consultation, you would have walked right out of there. 

Fat chance if he thought he was going to get with you, but you were going to have some fun with him first. You were going to knock him down a few pegs. It was what he deserved for having whoever he wanted just because he was famous in the tattoo industry. 

“Hi,” he propped himself against the wall and you had to hold back a laugh at his flirting attempt. How could that have worked on anyone? 

“Hi,” you nodded towards him then turned back to face the frames. 

“I’m Eddie,” he put his hand out to shake and you reluctantly took it, not wanting to be rude to owner of the establishment no matter how much you wanted to tell him to fuck off. 

“Y/n,” you replied and his smile got wider. You had to admit that it was really nice. You could see at least how that worked for him. 

“Y/n,” he nodded, saying it slowly, focusing on each syllable as they fell from his lips. “That’s pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you around here. And trust me, I’d remember someone as smokin’ as you.” That didn’t actually work on people, did it? That didn’t actually get him into people’s pants. 

“If anyone’s smokin’ here, it’s you,” you winked and wondered how you could have submitted your name to the Academy to be nominated for an Oscar for your performance. 

“So what brings you here, darlin’?” He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to the side like a curious puppy. He almost looked  adorable. Almost. 

“I have an appointment with Gareth.” Of fucking course. Eddie took a vacation and now Gareth was getting all the pretty girls. Sometimes, life just wasn’t fair. 

“Oh,” he nodded. “I can take you to him.” 

“Okay, Edwin.” You walked ahead of him to head to wherever Gareth could have possibly been and Eddie took another opportunity to stare at your ass. The way your jeans clung to it. The way it moved when you walked. He needed to feel it, skin against skin. He just knew that it would have been soft. He desperately wanted to give it a little slap, but even he knew that wouldn’t have been appropriate. Even for him 

“It’s Eddie,” he corrected and you didn’t bother to look back at him when you spoke. 

“Sure, Eduardo.” He wasn’t used to women acting this way and he’d have been lying if he said he didn’t like it. He actually thought it was kind of hot. 

He was right behind you when you stopped abruptly at Gareth’s station. Eddie had been so busy staring that ran right into you and had to grab onto your shoulders to stop the both of you from falling to the floor. 

He let out a chuckle but you just ignored him, keeping your attention on Gareth. His face lit up when he saw you and he couldn’t help but smile as well. You hadn’t forgotten your flirty consultation and the way he looked at you from across the desk. Like he had wanted to take you right there and you would have let him. 

You had imagined running your hands through his curly hair, pressing your lips to his roughly, sticking your tongue into his mouth. Hearing his moans when you touched him in just the right spots. 

Eddie looked between the two of you and he didn’t like what he saw. The way you were smiling at each other, the flirty glint in your eyes. Whatever was going on had to be nipped right in the bud. If he couldn’t have you, no could. Not even Gareth. Especially not Gareth. 

“Hey, cutie,” you greeted, resting your hands on his table and Gareth just blushed. He wasn’t used to getting attention from people, at least not romantically. And when you had showed up and openly flirted with him, he could have sworn it was a joke. But seeing you then, he realized that you hadn’t been joking at all. 

“Hey,” he responded, a small smile forming on his lips. “How are you?”

“I’m great. And you?”

“I’m fantastic. Especially now that you’re here.” You giggled at his words, causing his blush to get pinker. Eddie watched the two of you for a bit longer then looked around the room for a trash can he could throw up in. 

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” You leaned closer and Eddie quickly turned away. No way in hell he was subjecting himself to seeing the two of you kiss. 

“Well, I’m ready when you are,” Gareth smiled and sat down in his chair, rolling it closer to the bench. 

“I’m ready now,” you nodded, sitting on the bench and Eddie took that as a sign to actually do his tasks that he had been putting off for far too long. 

———

“Gareth,” you gasped as you looked at your fresh ink in the mirror. It was a Sting from Lord of the rings and it was exactly what you wanted. He was somehow able to get it exactly how you imagined it. “This is fucking amazing.” 

“Really? You like it?” He had a sheepish smile on his face that you could see perfectly in the reflection. He was just so cute. And sweet. The complete opposite of the other guys you had been with. The complete opposite of Eddie. 

“I love it.” You turned around to face him and before you could stop yourself, you were throwing yourself into his arms. They were quick to wrap around your waist tightly. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he smiled, making no move to let go of you. “I’m glad it was what you wanted.” 

“It’s perfect. Really.” Gareth had never gotten that kind of reaction from one of his clients. They usually just thanked him and paid before leaving. 

“I’m sorry,” you apologized, pulling away from him. “That was totally inappropriate.” 

“No,” he assured you. “It’s okay. I…liked it.” 

“Well, good.”

“C‘mon,” he nodded his head towards the front of the shop. “Let’s get your care instructions.”

You followed him to the front desk where Steve was still typing away on the computer. Eddie was beside him, going through some envelopes. He looked up at you and Gareth and didn’t miss your close proximity, your shoulders touching. He supposed that if you ended up with anyone, it should have been Gareth. He would have treated you right and wouldn’t have just wanted to fuck you like Eddie did. 

Eddie didn’t do relationships. He just liked to get laid and have no other connection to the people. That was the only way he could do it. Thinking about being romantic with someone made him feel gross. It made him want to laugh. He only had enough love in his life for his few friends and Wayne. 

You didn’t do relationships either, but you felt like if you played your cards right, you’d be able to start something with Gareth. He was sweet and he liked you and you didn’t get that weird feeling in your gut when you were around him. That feeling that always told you that the person was bad news. And it was always right. Maybe Gareth would end up being the right guy for you. Or maybe he wouldn’t, but you were willing to find out. 

“Well, let me see!” Steve exclaimed and you turned around, stepping closer to the desk. He leaned over it to get a better look, a wide smile spreading over his face. “That’s sick…what is it?”

“C’mon, Steve. It’s from Lord of the Rings,” Eddie replied. 

“That’s what it’s from?” Gareth asked, turning to you. “I thought it was just a dagger.”

“It’s Sting. It was an Elven short-sword made in Gondolin during the First Age,” you told them. 

“Bilbo discovered it in the year TA2941 in a Troll-hoard, and used it during the Quest of Erebor,” Eddie finished, a smirk forming on his lips. He had met many women who like Lord of the Rings and had even done a few tattoos, but he liked the fact that you were so passionate about it. 

“God, you guys are such fucking nerds,” Steve scoffed. “How do you know that from memory?”

“How do you not?” You and Eddie asked in unison, causing you both to laugh. 

“Alright,” Steve turned to you. “Your total is going to be-“

“Actually, it’s on the house, right Stevie?” Gareth asked and Steve just let out a sigh. 

“Sure, I uh, I guess it’s on the house.” With how many times Eddie had done the same thing, the company had surely lost a lot of money, but Steve supposed he could make an exception. Gareth had been shot down so many times that Steve thought he at least deserved to let one girl get her tattoo for free. 

“Oh, you don’t have to,” you shook your head vigorously. You always wanted to make sure that people were getting paid properly for their work. Especially tattoo artists because that kind of thing took a lot of time and patience. “I think Gareth should be compensated for his hard work.” 

“I can be compensated in other ways,” Gareth winked at you and Eddie feigned throwing up while Steve smiled. He was just happy that the guy was finally getting some attention. He always seemed to fade into the background when Eddie was around. People always seemed to care about him and Steve felt bad for Gareth. That he was always stuck in his best friend’s shadow. He hated it for him. 

“Sounds like a plan,” you winked back. “Maybe I could repay you tonight.” Gareth liked that idea. He liked that idea a lot.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Eddie put his hand over his mouth and disappeared behind the door that was behind him. 

“I’d like that,” Gareth nodded, stepping towards you, the two of you completely ignoring Eddie. He was just jealous that he wasn’t on the receiving end of the flirting this time. He was always a sore loser even though he frequently tried to deny it. He loved Gareth. Like a brother, even. But he couldn’t help but feel jealous that the guy was getting your attention. He didn’t know why, but the fact that you didn’t seem to be interested in him only made him want to try harder. He wanted to prove himself that he could get you into bed. 

You grabbed a blank piece of paper and pen from the desk and scribbled down your phone number and address before handing it to him. He took it from you and quickly took his cell phone out of his pocket, quickly typing in the numbers and saving it under a cutesy nickname. 

“So you’ll come over after you get done here?”

“I definitely will,” he nodded.

“Great,” you smiled and Gareth could have sworn that he was feeling his knees giving out. You then leaned closer to him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll see you tonight, Emerson.”

After you were all set, you pulled Gareth into a lingering hug then exited the shop, the man watching you through the glass as you headed down the street. He had only had a few conversations with you and was already down bad. Why did he have to always fall so easily? He knew that you’d drop him for Eddie with one bat of his lashes so he didn’t even know why he was trying. 

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe you really did like him. Maybe this wasn’t all just an elaborate plan for you to get to Eddie like he had thought. He couldn’t even keep track of how many times that had happened to him and he was sick of it. What was wrong with him? Cleary something since he was never anyone’s first choice. But for once, he was yours. He was your first choice and he couldn’t have been more elated about it. 

You got to your car and was shocked to find Eddie leaning against it. He was smoking a cigarette and you hated how you kind of found it hot. But only kind of. He was leaning against the driver’s seat door, preventing you from getting in it and he looked like he had no intention of leaving any time soon. He gave you his signature smile and you smiled back, not wanting to show just how much he was getting to you. 

“So,” he spoke, blowing the smoke from his mouth and it wafted right into your face, causing you to cough. “You and Emerson, huh?” He used his cigarette to point to the building. 

“Yes,” you nodded, waving the smoke away from your face. “But I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” You crossed your arms over your chest, wondering why he cared so much. He could have anyone he wanted from what you had heard so you weren’t sure why he was so set on hitting on an almost taken woman.

“It’s my business because Gareth is my best friend and I’ll be damned if anyone hurts him.” He pushed off of the car and stood directly in front of you, attempting to look intimidating, but fell flat. You weren’t scared of anything, especially not Eddie Munson. 

Eddie really didn’t care who Gareth spent his time with, especially not romantically, but you weren’t one of the soft, innocent looking girls that the guy usually went for. Eddie just wanted to make sure that you were good for him. And maybe the way of seeing whether or not that was true was sleeping with you, but that was going to take a lot more effort than usual. But Eddie always liked a challenge. 

Usually, showing a woman just what she was missing after the initial shut down wasn’t a problem. He turned on the charm and was as nice as possible until he got what he wanted. He didn’t know why you wouldn’t just give in. He was sure that he could make you feel much more than Gareth ever could and he’d do it so much better. Gareth was less experienced than him and was seriously lacking in flirting skills so stealing you away would have been a breeze. It wouldn’t be long before you were racing into his arms, telling him that you had been wrong all along. And he couldn’t wait. 

“If anyone’s hurting Gareth, it’s you,” you crossed your arms over your chest. Those words stung Eddie more than they should have, but he wasn’t going to show it. “You just can’t stand the fact that someone prefers him over you. Gareth is sweet and caring and guess what? He’s also much more of a man than you will ever be. So fuck off and go find someone else to screw with because it sure as hell won’t be me.” You pushed him out of the way and got into your car before pulling out of your parking space and heading down the road. 

Eddie watched in shock as you drove away. No one had even spoken to him like that and he’d have been lying if he said that if didn’t make his dick hard. What was wrong with him? He hadn’t always been a pig. Once upon a time, he was actually a nice guy, but then he got just a sliver of fame in the tattoo industry and thought he could treat everyone any way he wanted. He had quickly become the kind of guy that he had usually despised and didn’t even care that his friends were getting tired of him. 

It was like an addiction. He had slept with one person and then another and then another and it was like he couldn’t stop. Now he couldn’t go a couple weeks without having someone between his sheets. It was getting to the point that he didn’t even really enjoy it, but he was so desperate for attention that he’d take home anyone that he could just so he wouldn’t have to sleep by himself and be alone with his thoughts. 

Eddie hung his head and reluctantly headed back inside. Gareth was still at the front desk and Eddie gave him a glare before heading to his office for some much needed alone time. He couldn’t let Gareth know that he had gotten to him. That would have just been embarrassing. Eddie thought that he was better than him in every way and didn’t like that he had gotten the girl for once. He had lost and hated the way the rejection felt. It was like a stab to the heart and he finally knew how his best friend had felt watching him leave with all of those different people. It was torture, but that still didn’t mean that he was just going to let him have you. He still had a point to prove, no matter what it took.

[crabonfire]

sick mercs (1/3)

characters: offense class

warnings: none, fluff and crack (I think)

note: I hate making things into parts BUUTTT pyros ALONE ended up being super long, so I'm making them based off of class!! and...its 2 am so I should probably be asleep instead of writing anyway. Parts 2 and 3 will feature the other classes, and will be written tomorrow! Cause its late and I'm tired! okay love u

no but why did I make pyros so long 😭 it was a whole fic wtf

reposts and shares appreciated (u///u)<3

♡Scout♡

•When he's sick he's SUPPPERRR dramatic over it cause when he was a kid his ma was super doting and stuff, and since he was the youngest it made sense. But with you he tries to be all suave and tough, not wanting to admit the fever he has is absolutely killing him, oh the runny nose he has? That's just cause...he...ate something spicy. Not cause of a flu, no...

•He makes an effort to not talk or see the team at all today, and weirdly, he only ever gets sick on ceasefire days. It's like his body isn't used to not doing anything and that gives him a chance to do a bunch of stupid stuff, that, in the end, gets him sick.

•So he's stuck in his room. When you or anyone else knock on his door he pretends he's asleep, and sometimes, he really is. But, when you catch him in the kitchen stealing one of Heavy's sandwiches, he's sniffling, his face slightly red (redder than usual) his expression one like a kicked puppy.

•When you confront him about it, he just acts like he's not sick.

"I'm not sick, okay?"

But when you put your foot down, getting him back to bed and getting the right medicine from the medic, he has this certain look on his face. His cheeks are red, probably because of his fever, but, it might also be caused by you.

The moment your voice turns soft, or stern, depending on how kind you wanna be to his stubbornness, his lips curl into a grin, and immediately he whines and melts, acting like his sickness is the end of the world.

"Ah, my head...ohhhh my head. Hurts so bad. Maybe if ya kiss it...I'll feel better." He says, his voice weak as he closes his eyes, shifting in bed like some sort of damsel in distress.

• He'd be real obedient as you give him medicine and stuff, and stare up at you with bright eyes, as if the little fucker wasn't acting so brave about it before. The moment anyone walks in or sees him being doted, he'll push you away (maybe even physically, in panic) cause he's scared to ruin his reputation.

But when they're gone, he'll apologize and cling to you like a parasite. Muttering and mumbling incoherent things for your attention. He's an ass, but he loves you.

• He'd always tell you how much he appreciates you as you stay by his side, his very dizzy and sick brain making him slur his words, that cheeky grin still plastered on his face.

"You care about me...haha."

"You're so sweet, you love me, don't you?"

You know how some people get super weird and sorta high when they're super sick? Yeah that's scout with you.

♡Soldier♡

• Like Scout, absolutely DENIES that he's sick.

"SICKNESS AND DISEASE IS MERELY A HOAX! AN EXCUSE CREATED BY COMMUNISTS TO SPREAD THEIR LIES ABOUT AMERICAN- ACHOO-"

• Entire day there's a gigantic frown on his face, he cannot stop sneezing. He sneezed on Scout, and Scout was convinced that he was gonna die.

Engineer is the first to speak up after seeing the soldier violently sneeze without closing his nose. But, his stubbornness gets in the way and he merely brushes him off. Then, half the team begs you to talk to him. So you do.

"Hey Soldier, uh, you...you're looking a little pale."

"PALE? WELL, I GUESS MY SKIN HAS BEEN LOOKING GOOD TODAY!"

You chuckled, "No, pale in a bad way. And I notice you've been sneezing a bunch, are you feeling okay? Did you catch a cold?"

He frowns, and yet again, denies any accusation that he's sick. It doesn't take long, though, when you convince him to stay in his room (or yours, which he'd prefer) so you could "surprise" him. He takes that as an invitation for something else and was a little disappointed when he realized it was a trick to get him to rest.

"Wait...THIS IS A TRAP! YOU'VE TRAPPED ME! HELP-"

He starts to yell as you take his helmet off. You simply laugh, placing it nearby. "Yeah. I trapped you, and now, I order you to stay in bed while I go get some medicine. Am I clear?"

He scoffs at your command. "And what if I DON'T stay?" He remarked, you frowned. "Then you'll be disappointing all the...Americans that spent so much time curating and- crafting the very medication that keeps us healthy."

You made that shit up on the spot, but you knew whenever you spoke to him like a commander did, he'd always listen. He thought about it for a moment and grumbled in reply;

"Fine."

• He does as you ask, staying completely still in bed, staring up at the ceiling with a frown, occasionally muttering things to himself as if this very action is the worst thing in the world. When you come back, tray in hand with medicine and a glass of water, his expression softens slightly.

You sit down on the bed, he sits up, and as you hand him the medicine, something warm grows in his chest. He stays silent as he takes the medicine reluctantly, before he stares at you with an unreadable expression.

You smile ask what's wrong but he shakes his head. A big grin appears on his face as he realizes something and he chuckles, but he doesn't tell you what he's thinking about.

"Thanks, cupcake."

• You take care of him, keeping a watch on him for a while as you beg him to get some rest for his cold. He agrees but only if you stay with him, and you do. He holds you tightly as he braves through his cold, head nuzzled in your shoulder as your treated like a Teddy bear.

He felt happy. Someone cared for him, and he didn't know why, but that realization made his heart feel full. Not the type of full he'd usually feel after a hard victory, or the type of full he'd feel after messing around with demoman all day, but a type of full he could feel only with you. He really cared for you, and he was honored you cared for him just as much.

♡Pyro♡

• You could honestly never tell pyro was sick. Sometimes they'd spend days with you as normal, very much sick, but they'd never show it. That's also because they had a strong immune system, and only got sick every couple of years or so.

The one time they've ever gotten sick around you, was during the hottest day in Teufort. Everyone was sweating their asses off, so you could imagine how bad it was for them. Having to be around fire, wearing a heavy, thick, fire retardant suit all day? Oh, it was bad.

They sat at the locker room for longer after battle had ended, seemingly staring off into the distance. Everyone else had left, so did you. But when they didn't come out for an hour or so you checked in on them, visibly worried.

"Pi? You okay?"

You saw them, still sitting in the same bench, looking off into the ground. You walked over to them, placing a hand on their shoulder. They jolted, as if awoken from a deep sleep. They turned their head, their breathing was loud in the quiet room, but it was heavy and ragged. You frowned in worry.

"What's wrong?"

• They muffled something even you couldn't understand, their voice was quiet, before they shook their head and got up. They almost stumbled, but you kept their balance. They leaned their head on your shoulder, and you could feel the heavy breaths they exhaled through their mask. You turned to them, placing a hand on their shoulder.

"It's a hot day, huh? Can't be feeling too good especially in that suit of yours."

They mumbled in reply, and you took that as a sign that they must've been real affected by the heat today. "Lets get you to your room, I'll get you a nice cold glass of water, okay?"

• You headed back to their room, allowing them to sit for a bit as you went and got some ice cold water. You sat by, the door locked as they lifted off their mask to take a sip. You could feel the heat they radiated, even from a short distance.

"Pi, I think you might have a fever."

They chugged down the water, before turning to you, lifting their mask back down. They went quiet for a moment before they nodded. You frowned, "Why didn't you say anything?" They shrugged, shaking their head. "Mmh mmhf mmh mmh mmhf mmhf mm mmhf." (I didn't think I was sick at first.)

You sighed, before humming. "I'll go get some medicine, you should probably lie down- maybe take the suit off first. I won't look if it'll make you uncomfortable." You stared at them, waiting for their response. They paused hesitantly, before nodding.

• When you got back, they were in bed, gas mask still on, but now in their tank top and unicorn themed shorts. They didn't show their body often, as they felt insecure of the scars they had. When they saw you, they pulled the blanket up to their chest, which you didn't comment on.

You walked over with a large bottle of water and some medicine, placing it on a nearby table.

"Medic said you just need some rest and a lot of water, so...don't forget to drink."

You didn't quite know what to do with the pyro. They were quiet, which, to you wasn't that unusual. But you could feel the nervousness, and you felt worried, as they didn't seem too good. They murmured a "thank you," staring up at you as you sit by them.

"Do you want me to leave?"

In truth, you didn't want to, and they didn't want you to either. But you didn't want to make them uncomfortable, as the only other times they've showed their body to you were in intimate situations. You didn't want to overwhelm them, but you wanted to take care of them. They shook their head, before mumbling;

"Mm mmhn mmhf mm mmhh mmhf mm mmhn mmhnf mmh." (You don't have to stay if you don't want to.)

"I'll stay for a bit. You need your rest and.. I wanna make sure you're okay."

That sentence could make them melt if the heat wasn't already doing that to them. They let out a hoarse giggle. You always made them swoon, even if the things you said weren't overly romantic. It always meant a lot to them, as they never really had someone who cared.

That noise always made you smile, as you stared down at them. It was silent for a while as you two looked at each other. Even under the mask you could tell they had a smile. You've only ever seen that smile once, and the thought of it makes your heart race. You soon broke the silence, slowly getting up.

"Drink your meds and get some sleep, okay?

• As you left, they couldn't help but smile. They got up to lock the door, before taking off their mask and flopping into bed. Not forgetting to do as you said, they fall fast asleep with you on their mind.

Even in their dreams your their, and even with this small, common gesture of caring for them, they cant help but feel a bit weak in the knees when they think of you. They thought the engineer was sweet, but you? They should call you sugar.

It was the first time they had someone worry so much, the way you frowned at them made their chest tighten, and weirdly, in a reaffirming way. In a way that made them realize they weren't so bad, and they were capable of being cared for.

Maybe they were getting too into it, but they didn't care.

♡♡♡♡

I did not expect pyros to be long. Like I was writing and suddenly as I was looking back I realized how much I was yapping. Shit. Anyway, defense and support classes will be written by tomorrow, probably the one or both. Yay!

[chaifootsteps]

that post about triangulation gave me the chills

because that's what the show has become basically since s2 started. any time a third party is brought in to judge they always come down in Stolas' favor

Loona talks to Via in Seeing Stars? she should cut her dad some slack for a repeat pattern of behavior

Blitzo has a heart to heart with Fizz in Oops about how Stolas looks down on him? Fizz immediately takes up for Stolas and even pulls the total BS 'if you judge royalty you're as bad as them' liberal line of thinking on Striker

Blitzo reads Stolas for filth? he gets an invite to Verosika's party where she nonstop empathizes with him despite Stolas talking trash about her and everyone there behind her back

and the thing is ever single time it happens the deck is blatantly stacked so Stolas can come out looking better. it's either stuff being left out or everyone involved being OOC.

Loona has no reason to think anything of Stolas outside of 'man my adoptive father is forced to sleep with so we can pay rent', yet she gives Via this speech full of platitudes about why Stolas is trying is enough (and then doesn't cut Blitzo any slack, so it's not like she's saying this because she's learnt anything about her own relationship with her father - it's just here to benefit Stolas)

When talking to Fizz Blitzo rightly notes it's a fetish to Stolas - but the writers also make him bring up a bunch of phone calls that happened totally offscreen to make Stolas look better. there's plenty of things he could tell Fizz but he's never allowed to just so the writers can make him look cynical for doubting Stolas

Verosika is the straightest example of triangulation. she's biased against Blitzo to the point she'll believe when anyone says anything about him, but the writers never allow her to find out Stolas was never 'dating' Blitzo but coercing him into sex instead. her projecting all her baggage onto Stolas is barely even mentioned in the episode as being a problem when she inserts herself into the scenario - the viewers are supposed to side with her 'it starts with saying good for him' line despite how little sense that makes. it contradicts the episode's whole thesis that it's OK for her to be mad at Blitzo for awhile - but Blitzo can't be mad Stolas went and made out with someone else right in front of him the night after he told Blitzo he supposedly cared very deeply for him

that's why this isn't just garbage but infruriating. the whole universe is distorted to favor Stolas and everyone's characterization suffers as a result because they all have to take a bunch of stupid pills in every scenario instead of talking plainly about all the shit Stolas has pulled. Loona and Fizz especially should show some care for Blitzo over Stolas, but they don't. and Blitzo is never allowed to tell anyone else just how badly Stolas screwed him over so they can keep gaslighting him that he's the problem

it's probably also why more of the audience is turning on Stolas. most people can't relate to having a hitman called on them or any of the cartoonish things Stella does

but most people sure can relate to having had an argument with an ex partner or friend and feeling like they want to scream because said partner/friend manipulates everyone around them into taking their side or pressuring them to 'own up' and 'apologize', likely in just the same ways that Stolas does

what the show is putting Blitzo through is just dehumanizing and depressing. his feelings don't matter, how he's been treated doesn't matter. because we're just supposed to accept that he's dirt not worth scraping of Stolas' bird claws, whereas Stolas is pure and good and has only made transgressions so minor they don't even warrant mentioning. and the only way the show will treat him as worthy of anything is if he gives Stolas unconditional love while getting nothing in return

You know what? I have nothing to add to this. You took every last word right out of my mouth.

[evilkitten3]

i have a theory about shinji, gin, and aizen, but i'm not really sure how to word it.

we never really see shinji and gin interact all that much, which makes sense bc both of them have significantly more important relationships with aizen, but at the same time it's a little odd how much there isn't.

like. gin cut hiyori in half. shinji is understandably pissed about that, but he aims that anger at aizen - and this seems to be one of the very few things in the bleach world that honestly isn't on him bc he never told gin to do that, he never even implied it. hiyori was never a threat to him. hell, we don't even know if she was charging in the right direction; if anything, attacking her implies that she was which is a really stupid thing to do when you're surrounded by a bunch of people who super want you dead and would kill you if they could be sure you weren't tricking them into stabbing each other (ofc it could also be a fakeout but still)

but i don't remember shinji's beef ever really being with gin, even tho he didn't seem to anticipate that gin was working with aizen the whole time during tbtp. so like does he feel responsibility there? cuz gin went straight from academy to 3rd seat and shinji could plausibly feel like that sent him right to aizen bc he doesn't know that gin was always aiming for that. did he blame himself? does he feel like he should've seen it coming? does he still see him as some weird genius kid? does he just view gin as an extension of aizen, which is both dehumanizing to an extent but also entirely fair bc gin did that to himself?

the thing is, since we never really see them interact much, it's kind of only interesting on shinji's side of things, bc gin doesn't really care about much outside of whatever the fuck he thought he was doing and the version of rangiku that he has in his head who needs back something that the real one doesn't ever seem to have realized she lost to begin with. gin's so disconnected with basically everybody that most of the time you can usually assume his thoughts are just "lol. lmao" and there's no reason to think that doesn't extend to shinji as well (gin has deep thoughts on: aizen, ichigo, and matsumoto (massive asterisk on that one ofc) and i think everyone else is kinda set dressing to him lmao the guy is Fucked Up)

anyway i think it's interesting to toy around with that relationship as it was in reality as well as how it might've been perceived, but also in the sense of both of them being sort of opposite ends of the manchild spectrum - shinji leans into his childish side but still has a fairly adult worldview, and gin is able to pull off maturity to an extent but was never able to escape a deeply childish mindset

[enjoyertrying]

One thing I love about Lois Lane from Maws is that she is a female character who actually has her own personality. She could make mistakes, she could get mad about something, and the way Maws team portrays her is treated her as the main character.

Some people on the twitter argue that Maws Lois has many romantic stories, and she definitely lacks her character, but that kind of argument proves that they don’t even watch this show carefully. In Maws, we can see Lois Lane as the main character, just like Superman. She is not some kind of girl who is only Superman’s girlfriend. She has her own issues, she has her own background story, and the Maws team literally let her be the one who could be involved in Superman’s adventure, she is not just a side character. I know that Lois Lane is always the main character in DC comics and many Superman adaptations but in Maws S01E07, the whole league of Lois Lane? Well I literally see some people be pissed off by those plot because they think Lois Lane is just A FEMALE NEED TO BE RESCUED. Some people literally just get mad because Lois as a main character.

In STAS, we sure see that Lois Lane is an intelligent, stubborn, and beautiful lady, but in STAS, it is more like a Superman solo show. Superman is the main character, and all the other characters are side characters. Although STAS Lois is pretty good, in my opinion, the STAS team does not give her full attention. I love STAS, too; I don't particularly appreciate how they try to portray Lois Lane. Something like Lois only falls in love with Bruce but not Batman; she only loves Superman but not Clark Kent. It is kind of misogyny: it is like in man’s view, females only love strong men.

But in Maws, we can see Lois Lane is a female character who has her own arc, you can see her grow. She makes a bunch of mistakes, she tries to fix things, she is stubborn, and always full of anxiety because of her father…she never thinks that Clark Kent is just a dorky softy Smallville that do not deserves her attention, she actually loves those characters from Clark. The reason why she cares about Superman is because he is Clark Kent, the man she loves. Some people always use the plot about her trying to jump off the roof to prove Superman’s identity to accuse her, but seriously? The reason why she doing this is obviously in that episode. She saw Clark get hurt, she does not like people lying to her because her dad is asshole, she care about Clark…and some people call her as toxic character. Unbelievable. People sometimes just don't accept that female character can gets flaw. People all know that Lois Lane is Superman’s girlfriend, and in many Superman adaptation, they clearly does not have enough time to protrary Lois Lane as a character who has feelings and tempers. In most of the Superman adaptation, Lois is just a girl who admires Superman so much that she even could not notice Clark Kent.

But in Maws, the situation has changed. Lois has her own life, and her own path and her flaws make her a really independent character. She loves Clark Kent because of his kind heart, even his dorky side; she pursues her career with her heart, bravely solving problems, stubborn and cute.

In my opinion, Maws Lois Lane is the best Lois Lane in my heart. Can’t wait to see the third season, to get more story about her.